- a-n The Artists Information Company

I’m thrilled to be one of five artists commisioned by In Certain Places to make a piece of work that will be shown during Preston Guild 2012. I met all the other artists in December 2011 where we had a chance to talk about our work and any ideas we had for this project. We are all at different stages of development and there are a wide range of ideas and approaches, it should be a really fascinating and inspiring journey.

I’m going to be making work based upon research into the Transit of Venus (when we can observe the planet Venus moving across the face of the sun) which occurs June 5th/6th 2012. Currently the transits occur twice in every approximately 113 years, with the two transits separated by 8 years. The most recent being 2004

It is of specific significance to Preston as the first recorded observation happened in Much Hoole (just outside Preston) by Jeremiah Horrocks in 1639. The Astrophysics department at the University of Central Lancashire is named after him (The Jeremiah Horrocks institute) and until recently they used an observatory on Preston’s Moor park.

The Transit of Venus was used to calculate the Astronomical unit, which is the distance from the earth to the sun – all other distances in the Universe depend upon it. In the 18th Century this was seen as the last great problem in astronomy and was deemed so important that countries who were technically at war collaborated in this international scientific experiment. Captain Cook was sent on his first voyage to the Pacific by the Royal Society to observe the Transit from the island of Tahiti. Other astronomers travelled to Africa and throughout Europe to time the exact instant of transit.

I’ll be using this blog to document my research and progress of the project.

For further information about In Certain Places, the Guild, and our fellow artists follow the links below…

http://incertainplaces.org/home (Twitter: @incertainplaces)

www.a-n.co.uk/p/1839388 Hannah Elizabeth Allan and Jeni McConnell

www.a-n.co.uk/p/1839493/ Lisa Wigham

www.a-n.co.uk/p/1838157 Ian Broadley

david henckel

David Henckel is a contemporary audio-visual artist, experienced in leading complex public art projects, which involve multiple partners. He works with emerging & established artists, local communities, commercial organisations and civic institutions to produce immersive installations and experiences.

He has a multi-disciplinary practice often creating work that fuses Science, politics of space, the nature of sound, community engagement and the audience as players within the work. The installation Venus in Sole Visa, brought together artists, physicists, musicians, a visiting composer, NASA and a village Community during the 2012 Transit of Venus.

In 2012 he was awarded Axis Webs MA Stars and appointed as Artist in Residence at The University of Central Lancashire, where he developed The Sun at Night – a dynamic public art installation, which allows audiences to experience a year in the life of the Sun utilising images from NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory. It was shown in Preston’s covered market in 2013 seen on the BBC’s Stargazing Live 2014 and formed the lead commission for Light Night Leeds in 2015.

He exhibited with 0point3recurring (an artistic collective) at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, as part of Portfolio North West and was one of five Lancashire-based artists commissioned by In Certain Places to develop new temporary public artwork, which was presented during the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012.

In 2018 / 2019 David is working on a residency with the Norwegian Institute of Recorded Sound – part of the NATUR project run by Curated Place and hosted by ELEFANT in Stavanger, Norway.

He is currently exploring collaborative and experimental work in an ongoing project with Victoria Johnson as part of ‘The Window People” – who seek to uncover new relationships between cooking, eating, playing and listening.

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In Certain Places – David Henckel

david henckel