We have just made a new work called Here for The Mini Museum -an itinerant institution set up by Domenico Quaranta that will be travelling from artist to artist over the next two years or so.  Here is a site-specific photographic work that shows you how far the museum is from 'here' whenever it is placed on a North - South axis. You can find out more about Here and The Mini Museum by following this link

Our new work, The distance traveled through our solar system this year and all the barrels of oil remaining is launching next week as part of Current at Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston, Lancashire.

There's an interview with us on Imperica that relates to the exhibition and you can read that here. The exhibition is an experiment in collecting digital art and also includes work by boredomresearch, Michael Szpakowski, James Coupe and Harwood, Wright, Yokokoji.  The private view is on Friday 25th March and the exhibition runs from 26th March to 4th June 2011 at the Harris Museum.  More information on Current here.  Do come along if you can!!

We're delighted to announce that we've won one of this year's Vital Spark awards! Last year we were nominated, but we only found out today, which means we will be able to complete our Flat Earth Trilogy -the final desktop documentary called Belief (following on from Flat Earth & A short film about War. We'll be making it in collaboration with Steve Rusthton, John Cobban and Matt Jarvis, but it won't be completed until 2012, so we won't say 'watch this space' but rather let you know when it's done closer to the time.

More on Vital Sparks here...

Well here we all are in 2011 and we've got a few things coming up in the next few weeks (see below).  As ever, if you're nearby any of them, please do come along.

----------------------
+ SEVERAL INTERRUPTIONS
North Lodge, Gower Street, University College London

A sequence of exhibitions celebrating 15 Years of the Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art in 2011 with Martin John Callanan (24 – 30 January), Tim Head (15 – 20 February), Simon Faithfull (22 February – 6 March), Brighid Lowe (8 – 13 March), Melanie Jackson (15 – 20 March), Susan Collins (23 March – 17 April)

Our slot is from 2nd - 13th February and we will be show our recent work, 'The Time Machine in alphabetical order'
More about the work here
More about the show here: scemfa.org/15

----------------------
+ ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Lantaren Venster, Rotterdam

Our second desktop documentary 'A short film about war' has been shortlisted for a Tiger Award at this year's Rotterdam Film Festival, screening on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th, with the award ceremony taking place at 10pm on Monday 31st at the VPRO Late Night Talk Show on Monday evening January 31.

More info on the festival here
More about 'A short film about war' here

----------------------
+ CLOUD SOUNDS
Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam

An exhibition to coincide with the 5 Days Off festival with Harm van den Berg, Jonas Bohatsch, Stijn Demeulenaere, Anthony Hall o.v., Aaron Koblin, LoVid, Decker/Offenhuber produced by Ushi Reiter/servus.at, Yuri Suzuki o.v, Roel Wouters & Jonathan Puckey.  We're excited to be re-staging our installation, 'Unprepared Piano' for this exhibition

19th February - 29th April 2011, Opening Friday 18th February at 6pm
More info here: nimk.nl/eng/calendar/cloud-sounds
More about 'Unprepared Piano' here

We just found out that A short film about War has been nominated for the Tiger Awards at Rotterdam Film Festival.  The Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 2011 comprises twenty-eight films, ranging in length from six to fifty-two minutes. Five short films will see their world premieres in Rotterdam.

For the Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films’ Jury the IFFR welcomes Fiona Tan, an artist known for her audiovisual installations, films and photographic works (The Netherlands), Anocha Suwichakornpong, filmmaker and Tiger Award winner for MUNDANE HISTORY and Thom Andersen, filmmaker, film critic and lecturer (USA). The Jury will hand out the three equal Tiger Awards for Short Film (3,000 Euros) to the winning filmmakers during the VPRO Late Night Talk Show on Monday evening January 31.

More information here: http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/en/iffr-2011/news/selection-tiger-awards-for-short-films/

We're excited that A short film about War has been invited to be screened at this years International Film Festival Rotterdam.  A short film about War is the latest episode in our Flat Earth Trilogy (the first episode is called Flat Earth) and although it's usually shown as a two screen gallery installation, this time it will be screened in one of the short film programmes in Rotterdam as a specially authored single screen composite.  Watch this space for screening times and venue when it is published...

More information on A short film about War here
More information on Flat Earth here

Sarah Cook talks about our desktop documentary Flat Earth in her article called On Access just published as part of the Guggenheim's biennial exhibition of creative video called YouTube Play.

You can read Sarah's article here: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/interact/participate/youtube-play/the-take/moving-images/3793-on-access

You can watch Flat Earth here: http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/flat_earth.html

You can check out YouTube Play here: http://www.youtube.com/play

We have a new artwork called, 'Seventeen Messages' in this lovely book, which is being launched in London next week.  Here's the blurb:

Artwords Press is delighted to announce the publication of Transmission Annual. Hospitality and invites you to the London launch party on Thursday 11th November from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. at Artwords Bookshop, 20–22 Broadway Market, Hackney, London E8 9QJ, UK

Transmission is the act of passing something on, via a channel. One might make a list of ways of transmission, including wisdom, enlightenment, education, messages sent over a distance through electrical or electronic means, and disease (which has both locus and route). In transmission, there is a move from one to another, and each may be changed in the move, in the encounter. Transmission Annual has followed a theme, that of hospitality, and as a theme it has no rules other than those of hospitality (to honour the guest, the stranger and the friend). Transmission Annual draws on broad horizons, wide paths, and diverse fields.

Contributors to the pilot issue:
Graham Allen, Kristen Alvanson, Amanda Beech, Jerome Carroll, Clegg & Guttmann, Kris Cohen, Clare Connors, Nigel Cooke, Michael Corris, Eileen Costa, Juan Cruz, Meritxell Duran, Tim Etchells, Marcia Farquhar, Rachel Garfield, Charlie Gere, Judith Goddard, Laura Heit, Vit Hopley, Nancy Hwang, Alfredo Jaar, Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Ahuvia Kahane, Sharon Kivland, Esther Leslie, Yve Lomax, Juliet Flower MacCannell, Robin Mackay, Marko Mäetamm, Victor Mazin, Penny McCarthy, E. Elias Merhige, Forbes Morlock, Reza Negarestani, Hayley Newman, Dany Nobus, Haralampi G. Oroschakoff, John W.P. Phillip, Cesare Pietroiusti, Jeanne Randolph, Antonio Santos, Javier Santos, Naomi Segal, Roy Sellars, Blake Stimson, Thomson & Craighead, Irene De Vico Fallani, Rodrigo Villas, Nina Wakeford, Sarah Wood

Edited by Michael Corris, Jaspar Joseph-Lester, Sharon Kivland
ISBN: 978-1-906441-24-1
£16.50, £15 at the book launch
Artwords Press
65a Rivington Street
London EC2A 3QQ, United Kingdom

www.artwords.co.uk
www.transmission.uk.com

Keep an eye out for a five minute extract taken from our feature length video work, The Time Machine in alphabetical order. It's going to be playing in the guest curated slots on Resovision hosted by Resonance FM at Frieze Art Fair.

More about Resovision: http://resonancefm.com/tv
Watch Resovision: http://www.livestream.com/resovision
More about The Time Machine in alphabetical order: http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/thetimemachine.html

We've uploaded documentation of new and recent work to our archive website (http://www.thomson-craighead.net) including a video extract of The Time Machine in alphabetical order.  We'll be publishing more images from London Wall later on in the Autumn but in the meantime take a look at the following links when you have a moment.

The Time Machine in alphabetical order:

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/thetimemachine.html

The End: http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/theend.html

London Wall: http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/londonwall.html

Flipped_Clock: http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/flippedclock.html

Charlotte Frost has written a short piece about our summer shows for this month's Artists Newsletter.  Here's the piece below.  You might have to click on the pic to read it properly.  Oh and by the way, our installation in the foyer of Museum of London has been extended into October 2010.

Our solo show currently on in Scotland gets a mention in this great article on the Highland Institute of Contemporary Art (HICA) in this weeks Review section of Scotland on Sunday.  The little feature is written by Moira Jeffrey and gives a bit of useful context on how the space is run and what shows have been on there and what's coming up!  Click on the image below to see it larger, zoomable and legible.

We've joined the artists lottery syndicate, launched last night in London. It's a forty-strong collective of UK based artists who are joining forces to play The National Lottery over the course of a year, with the hope of hitting the jackpot. 

Described by organising artist Ellie Harrison as, 'a reaction to the recession and its knock-on effect on arts funding, the Artists' Lottery Syndicate is a speculative new scheme for acquiring funds for artists. By utilising the element of 'luck', which plays such a central role in an artist's career, the Syndicate aims to explore the prevalent 'winner-takes-all' market of the arts, described by Hans Abbing in his book Why Are Artists Poor?'

Find out more here: http://www.artistslotterysyndicate.co.uk

Both of us are really excited that our solo exhibition opens at the Highland Institute of Contemporary Art this Sunday 20th June at 2pm where we'll be presenting a selection of new and recent works about time and place.  It's not so often that we get a chance to connect a group of works together in this (hopefully multi-layered and site-specific) way and in such an inspiring location set in the middle of a nature reserve in the highlands of Scotland.

Later in the year, HICA will be publishing a book about this and the other three exhibitions at the gallery from 2010 and art historian and theorist Alistair Rider has been commissioned to write about our exhibition.  We will also post documentation on this blog and our website, but if you are in the area between 20th June and 25th July, then do make the time to visit the gallery and enjoy this beautiful area above Dores at the northern tip of Loch Ness.

More about HICA and all their exhibitions here: http://www.h-i-c-a.org/
The works we will be showing in this exhibition are:

The End. 2010
Vinyl lettering on glass

Flipped Clock. 2009
Live digital animation

Horizon. 2009
Digital archival print

Nearby: within five miles. 2010
Four A3 fly-posters

The Time Machine in alphabetical order. 2010
Re-edited DVD (1hr 38m 26s)

Two exhibitions including our work opened last night in London and Oldenberg.  First off was the second leg of the MyWar exhibition now moved from FACT in Liverpool to Oldenberg in Germany at the Edith Russ Media Space.  We are showing, 'A short film about war' as part of this group show as a two screen cinematic gallery installation.

Second up is the exhibition, 'How we became Metadata' curated by Marq Smith, which launched a new foyer space for art at the newly restored and revamped Regent Street building for the University of Westminster in London.  This show includes a complete set of our Google tea-towels framed up and hanging in the cafe gallery space at the side of the main foyer.

More about 'A short film about war':

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/warfilm.html

More about our Google tea-towels:

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/towels.html

More on MyWar exhibition at Edith Russ Site:

http://www.edith-russ-haus.de/index.php/Programm/Programm

More on 'How we became Metadata':

http://instituteformodern.co.uk/2010/8th-june-private-view-how-we-became-metadata

We're talking about our new commission at Museum of London in context with other work and will be screening (we hope)  our very recent work, 'A short film about war' this Saturday in the Museum's lecture theatre.  The event is free.  Here's the blurb and contact the museum itself if you need more info.  Do come along if you can.

Dates: 5 June 2010

Times: 05 Jun 2010 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Venue: Museum of London

Curator Francis Marshall is in conversation with contemporary art duo Thomson & Craighead about their new work 'London Wall' on display from late May in the Museum foyer.

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/londonwall.html

We were interviewed by Robert Elms yesterday live from the Museum of London, where we are currently in the process of making our new installation London Wall.  You can find out more about the work and listen to the five minute interview here:

http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/londonwall.html

As part of the relaunch of the Museum of London, we are making a new work for the entrance hall called London Wall.  The work is a physical manifestation of the invisible city all around us; a poetic snapshot of social networking traffic from within a three-mile radius of the museum itself.  Over a ten-day period, publicly available status updates from popular websites like twitter and facebook will be selected then published as a vast array of posters revealing the idle mutterings of ourselves to ourselves as a form of concrete poetry.

The new displays open this Friday; from 28th May 2010, and we will be building the commission over the space of a week ending June 6th, so come along and see us there.  Works by The Singh Twins and Keith Coventry will also be on display.  Some more info here:

28 May -  5 September 2010

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/ThomsonAndCraighead.htm

This group exhibition opens at 6pm on Thursday at Image Music Text Gallery in Bethnal Green, London.  Come along!  We'll be showing a new sound work called, 'Ghosts', where visitors are invited to recover a series of telephone calls made in the surrounding area during the late 1990's by listening to the gallery wall with a stethoscope.  The radio scanner that originally captured these calls acts as a kind of cut up device in this instance, as it locks onto, then loses each signal in turn.  Ghosts is a reworking of our 1998 installation, 'Speaking in Tongues' and has been made especially with Burroughs work in mind.


Other artists in the exhibition: Alma/Joe Ambrose, Steve Aylett, Alex Baker & Kit Poulson, Lawrence English, The Human Separation, Riccardo Iacono,Anthony Joseph, Cathy Lane, Eduardo Navas, Negativland, o.blaat, Aki Onda, Jörg Piringer, Plastique Fantastique, Simon Reuben White, Giorgio Sadotti, Scanner, Terre Thaemlitz, Laureana Toledoand Ultra-red, with performances by Ascsoms and Solina Hi-Fi.

28 May - 18 July 2010
Opening 27th May 6 - 9pmhttp://www.imagemusictext.com/

A bit of a list of stuff here taking us into those summer months.  Do please pop along to anything in your vicinity.  The first few items relate to new and recent work, and the rest of the list is 'and in other news..'  You can also hear us interviewed on Resonance FM here: http://www.furtherfield.org/resonancefm.php  Anyway remember, Summer is a state of mind!  OK.. Deep breath. Here's the new work bit:

----------------------
+ LONDON WALL.  Museum of London
As part of the relaunch of the Museum of London, we are making a new work for the entrance hall.  The new displays open from 28th May 2010, and we will be building the commission over the space of a week ending June 6th, so come along and see there.  Works by The Singh Twins and Keith Coventry will also be on display.  Some more info here:

28 May -  5 September 2010
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/ThomsonAndCraighead.htm

----------------------
+ THE END. Solo Exhibition, Highland institute of Contemporary Art
This exhibition will include two brand new works, 'The End' and 'The Time Machine in alphabetical order', so if you're holidaying in the highlands this summer and are near Loch Ness, then do pop along because it will be on well into July and H-I-C-A is a great project in only its second year...

20 June - 25 July 2010
Opening: 20 June, 2 - 5 pm
http://www.h-i-c-a.org

----------------------
+ A SHORT FILM ABOUT WAR.  Edith Russ Site, Oldenberg
Our recent installation is moving with the rest of the MyWar touring exhibition to Edith Russ Site in Oldenberg in June.  Other participating artists in MyWar are Phil Collins, JosephDeLappe, Dunne & Raby, Harun Farocki, Harroll Fletcher, Knowbotic Research, Oliver Laric, Renzo Martens, SWAMB, Thomson & Craighead, Milica Tomic, Sarah Vanagt).

You can also read a recent article on, A short film about War in the french newspaper Liberation : 
http://www.liberation.fr/medias/0101621681-la-guerre-en-eclats-tout-net

10 June – 29 August 2010
Opening: 9 June, 8 pm
http://www.edith-russ-haus.de/

----------------------
+ GHOSTS.  IMT Gallery, London
We are showing this reworking of our 1998 installation, 'Speaking in Tongues' as part of Dead Fingers Talk: Experiments of William S. Burroughs.  Other artists; Alma/Joe Ambrose, Steve Aylett, Alex Baker & Kit Poulson, Lawrence English, The Human Separation, Riccardo Iacono,Anthony Joseph, Cathy Lane, Eduardo Navas, Negativland, o.blaat, Aki Onda, Jörg Piringer, Plastique Fantastique, Simon Reuben White, Giorgio Sadotti, Scanner, Terre Thaemlitz, Laureana Toledoand Ultra-red, with performances by Ascsoms and Solina Hi-Fi.

28 May - 18 July 2010
Opening 27th May 6 - 9pm
http://www.imagemusictext.com/


And now, in OTHER NEWS:
----------------------
+ GOOGLE TEA TOWELS. Data Poetics, Google headquarters in Chelsea, New York
Our Google Tea towels will be part of this exhibition launching a new art thread at the Google Offices in New York (that made us smile!).  Other artists in this exhibition are  John F. Simon, Jr., Marek Walczak, Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas, Aaron Koblin, Brad Paley, Lincoln Schatz, Scott Draves, Luke Dubois.

11 June - 1st September 2010
http://www.thomson-craighead.net/docs/towels.html

----------------------
+ GOOGLE TEA TOWELS. How we became metadata, 309 Regent St, London.
Our Google Tea towels will also be part of this exhibition launching a new art thread coming out of the Institute for Modern Contemporary Culture at University of Westminster.  Other artists; Martin John Callanan, Corby & Baily, Enju Han, Eduardo Kac, Susan pui san lok, Ruth Mclennon & Uriel Orlow.

09 June - 5th September 2010
Opening 8 June 6.30 - 8.30pm
http://instituteformodern.co.uk/2010/8th-june-private-view-how-we-became-metadata

----------------------
+ SEVERAL INTERRUPTIONS, Urban Video Project, Syracuse, New York.
OK, in our last bulletin we said this was on right now!! But it's **not** and has been delayed to June, where a reformatted version of Several Interruptions will be thrown onto the side of a building in downtown Syracuse, New York.

1 June - 20 June 2010
http://www.urbanvideoproject.com/news/id/03_23_10.html

----------------------
+ FLAT EARTH.  Subjective Projections, Bielefelder Kunstverein
This is part of the series of solo presentations curated by Thomas Thiel, director of the Bielefelder Kunstverein.  It has an accompanying text commission and written by Sabine Himmelsbach both of which can be seen simultaneously in the gallery and online at:

7 May – 03 June 2010
http://www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de/ausstellungen/subjektive-projektionen/thomson-craighead.html

----------------------
+ FLAT EARTH.  Stills Gallery, Edinburgh
will also be screening as part of the inaugural Film Lounge program, 'City & Stars' at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh alongside works by Jeanne Liotta, Daren Banks and Karen Russo.

18 Jun 2010 - 18 Jul 2010
Launch event 18th June
http://www.stills.org/exhibition/film-lounge/city-and-stars-programme


----------------------
+ BEACON. We do things differently here. Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
We are showing the projected version of BEACON for this group exhibition organised by graduating students on the MA Contemporary Art Theory course, Edinburgh College of Art.

5 June - 19 June
Opening: 4th June 6 - 8pm
http://www.eca.ac.uk/theydothingsdifferentlythere/

----------------------
+ THE FRIEND.  Transmission Annual publication.
We have contributed an artwork for this publication as part of a chain of 'friends' starting with an article by Dr Charlie Gere, followed by us and then on to writer, Kris Cohen, artist Laura Heit, and artist/writer Nina Wakeford. Transmission annual will be launched in July 2010: 
http://www.transmission.uk.com