First in residence with manufacturer Spiroflow in 2019 where she created The Optical Mechanical, Wilson went on to undertake her second Art in Manufacturing residency with industry-leading technologists, CNC Robotics.
Regular trips to the factory from the artist’s base in Kent allowed her to work within the factory’s making schedule, utilising the robotics to carve, extrude and mould sculptures. Forms of fossils, horses legs and the rudder of a canal boat became artefacts to experience alongside video work and new audio combining factory sounds and the artist’s voice.
Within the Wake was an ensemble of sound, sculpture and video exploring time, technology and motion. Drawing on the proximity of CNC Robotics in relation to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, the installation immersed you in a voyage of re-animated industrial artefacts, transitional objects and ethereal sounds. Shifting the viewer from the present and bringing them closer to the journey itself, the work propelled through the passing landscape of technology.
Recalibrated machines synchronised with mechanised voices and robotic sounds, reverberating conversations between the past and present.
I am fascinated by the rhythm and gravitas that machines generate, with the human as the mediator or facilitator of production. Many of these machines that once held a rhythm have become petrified statues, inert and lifeless. It is through these unresponsive relationships that I have become fascinated by the transportation of the industrial object from the actual to the virtual and the resulting recalibrations of the real.
The Artist
Liz Wilson’s multimedia work encompasses visuals, whether static or moving, as well as explorations into sound. A graduate from the Royal College of Art, her practice explores the relationships between industrialisation, technologies and print. In recent months she was awarded seven-month residency at Coachworks, Ashford (co-commissioned by Turner Works & Ashford Borough Council) where she developed a body of work in partnership Hitachi Rail Ltd. Recent exhibitions include Taoxichuan Museum of Art, China; OGA, Rome; Parc de la Villette, Paris
The Manufacturer
Owned by a husband and wife team – Jason and Madina Barker, Liverpool based manufacturer, CNC Robotics offers the security of a global company and the innovation of an independent one. Designing solutions for efficient, precision manufacturing production lines incorporating CNC turning, milling and 3D printing that demonstrate an exciting array of automated technologies that are at play behind the doors of our factories. Quality products, services and unrivalled support infrastructure are at the core of the companies values.
Photography by Danny Allison, Jules Lister and Robin Zahler
