Chris Meigh-Andrews is a video artist, writer and curator from Essex, England, whose work often includes elements of renewable energy technology in tandem with moving image and sound. He is currently Professor Emeritus in Electronic & Digital Art at the University of Central Lancashire and Visiting Professor at the Centre for Moving image Research at the University of the West of England.
Education and early career
Born in Essex, England on 30 July 1952, Meigh-Andrews lived in Montreal, Canada from 1957-75. Upon his return to England, he studied photography, film & video at the London College of Printing. His first art exhibition was part of the group photography show New British Image at Newcastle's Side Gallery in 1977. Beginning in 1978, Meigh-Andrews began producing art using video as a medium, creating solo and collaborative exhibitions that expanded into sculptural installations. From 1981-1983, he attended Goldsmiths, earning an MA in Fine Art. In 2001, he was awarded a PhD from the Royal College of Art.
The theme of renewable energy
Many of the artist's more recent works have featured renewable energy sources intended to power the works and interact with the gallery space. 1994's Perpetual Motion featured a video monitor powered by a wind turbine, with the wind being supplied by a fan plugged into the gallery's power. Mothlight and Mothlight II featured solar-powered video screens powered by halogen lights. His 2002 installation 2002, For William Henry Fox Talbot consisted of a solar-powered video camera at Lacock Abbey, reproducing a live image ofWilliam Henry Fox Talbot's 1835 photograph of a latticed window at the abbey, then transmitted to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. 2004's Interwoven Motion was an outdoor video installation in Grizedale Forest, Cumbria, made up of a wind- and solar-powered camera and screen, it produced video images displayed on a weatherproof LCD display. 2005's Resurrection featured a series of solar panels mounted on a dead tree, powering a video display of the tree in its living form. And his 2011 installation Sunbeam used solar panels to power the projection of images of the sun from NASA’ s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Other recent works
In 2009, Meigh-Andrews launched The Monument Project. A digital video installation that ran online for three years, it consisted of a digital video camera mounted on the Monument in the City of London. The installation streamed 360-degree panoramic time lapse sequences of the city online, with displays modified by a computer in response to changes in weather. His 2012 solo project, In Darwin's Garden, was a web-based installation exhibited by the online journal Leonardo Electronic Almanac. Recorded in the grounds of the Down House in Kent, England, the exhibition focused on an old mulberry tree growing behind the house. In 2013, the artist created "Aeolian Processes", an outdoor solar powered sound installation for "Art In Your Park" in Highfields Park, Nottingham, which reflected once again his underlying impulse to explore “the role of machine and its impact on human perception.” Likewise, participating in the project "La Lune: Energy Producing Art" at Long Reef in Sydney, Australia, he installed "Aeolian Processes II". Meigh-Andrews is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Central Lancashire, directing the Electronic and Digital Art Unit. He taught at the university from 1986-2012, first as the head of Time Based Media, then as a reader in Electronic and Digital Art, as the founder of the EDAU in 2004, and as a full professor in 2007.
Awards and fellowships
Meigh-Andrews was Arts Council of England International Artist Fellow in Kraków from 2003-2004. He won a research endowment from the National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts in 2004. He has received British Council Travel Awards to visit Amsterdam, Poland and Malta. In 2010, he was awarded the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Award, a travel grant to visit Tokyo, Kyoto and Nagoya to research into early artists' video in Japan.
Solo exhibitions
Sculpting with Light & Time: Video and Installations 1978-2014, The Minories Galleries, November, 2014
In Darwin’s Garden, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, August, 2012
The Monument Project , Project Launch, Nunnery Gallery, London, March 2009* The Basement, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1982
Wawel z Mostu Debnickiego, Galeria Sztuki Wspólczesnej, Kraków, 2004
Digital Aesthetic, a collaborative exhibition between the University of Central Lancashire and the Harris Museum & Art Gallery.
Yes Snow Show, an exhibition of work by filmmaker Michael Snow, co-curated with Elisabetta Fabrizzi, British Film Institute, London.
Analogue: Pioneering Video from the UK, Canada and Poland: 1968-88, a touring exhibition co-curated with Catherine Elwes, Tate Britain & Tate Modern, London, Foundation for Art & Creative Technology, Liverpool, The Norwich Gallery, The Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta, MOCCA Toronto, Arsenal Cinema, Berlin ; Ontario, Canada: Ottawa, Peterborough, Sarnia, Waterloo and Windsor.
