Simon Faithfull
Work
Simon Faithfull’s work is both a film and an object. Housed in a shipping container, the film depicts the Sisyphean efforts of a silver-suited commuter to board and fly in a monstrous rendition of a 1990s jet. The steel container is made of the same materials as the unreal vehicle: misshapen, blackened by fire and missing a wing, the craft will not fly, but the traveller continues his ritual of boarding and waiting for take off amid the flames.
The film presents an endless ‘pre-enactment’ of a future culture that mimics the spirit of air travel without the memory of why (or how) we once flew.
Biography
Simon Faithfull is a contemporary artist whose work has been exhibited extensively around the world. Recent projects include a video-work recording the journey of a domestic chair as it is carried to the edge of space (commissioned by Arts Catalyst), a drawing project sending back live digital-drawings from a two month journey to Antarctica (an Arts Council International Fellowship with British Antarctic Survey) and an animated film developed from drawings made on a mundane walk out of London along the A13 trunk road (a Channel 4 TV commission with Arts Council England). Recent exhibitions have included solo shows at the British Film Institute, London; Harris Museum, Preston; Galerie Polaris, Paris; Parker’s Box, New York; Stills, Edinburgh and Cell, London.
Faithfull was born in Oxfordshire, UK, studied at Central St Martins and then Reading University. His practice takes a variety of forms – ranging from video, to digital drawing, installation work and writing. Faithfull is also a lecturer at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London.
11 November: Limbo at Manchester Airport
On Friday 11 November, Simon Faithfull will spend the day in the no-mans land of international 'airside' space and record what he sees there as a series of simple drawings dispatched out to the world through his live drawing project Limbo - an expanding Atlas of Subjectivity.Limbo is a web-based artwork and iPhone App which presents and delivers live digital drawings by the artist Simon Faithfull.
To receive drawings as they are made, download the or follow on and