Kinetica Artfair
Giles Walker
Giles Walker
Giles Walker has been working as a sculptor for the last 20 years. As a full time member of the guerilla-art group, THE MUTOID WASTE COMPANY, he started building kinetic sculptures and robots from materials he found in various scrapyards around the world. He has collaborated with many different artists such as: legendary musician, IAN DURY, on a project RUBY THROAT that combined performance, music and a radio controlled, robotic, lead vocalist; fashion designer, MICHIKO KOSHINO, who commissioned a eight piece robotic band; and production creatives, RED 14, in Japan, where he built a robotic DJ. Last year, he exhibited his work: in Ladbroke Grove at the Mutate Britain Exhibition, One Foot in the Grove and also, in Shoreditch, at the Black Rat Press Gallery, where he will be having a solo show later this year.
ABOUT THIS WORK: OUTSIDE THE BOX
The irony is obvious, no one listens to homeless people on the street but they will listen to a homeless robot.
This is an on-going project and these interactive figures will be placed in public spaces around the country. Giles Walker spent the last six months visiting homeless people around London and recording the conversations he had with them. It is these voices that have been programmed into the interactive figures in the hope that observers are challenged by the existence of lives that they might prefer to ignore and, at the same time, be enriched by this unique perspective of an environment that we all share but use in completely different ways.
This project has been supported by:
The Arts Council England.
Single Homeless Project, a London-based charity working with people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
