Technological anxieties and joys. A project and exhibition by Paul Granjon with a group of participants
31st March – 3rd June 2014, Watermans
Workshop sessions:

Every Tuesday from 1 April – 13 May, 1pm to 4pm

Do you ever feel that you can’t keep up with technological progress? Could you live without your smartphone? Have you ever taken a consumer electronics item apart? What would you do if electricity stopped? Does digital stimulation make your brain better or worse? Do you prefer people or machines?

The work of artist Paul Granjon repeatedly raises questions about our relation to technology or, in his own words, about the co-evolution of humans and machines. He makes robots and other electro-mechanical-digital devices that home-in on current trends of gadgetry and techno-social aspects of our daily lives. The machines are presented in performances, installations, or participative events where visitors are invited to contribute, learn, make and share. Granjon’s current interests are in creative technology approaches to low-impact living, electronic-waste upcycling, social dynamics for alternative futures and artificial creatures.

Taking place within London’s Anxiety Arts Festival*, Is technology eating my brain? is a platform for reflection, dialogue and construction. Granjon’s seven weeks residency/exhibition at Watermans will combine regular sessions with a group of local participants and an ongoing deployment of new work in the gallery space. The participants will bring personal stories about their technological anxieties and joys and will be given the opportunity to creatively deconstruct a selection of obsolete technological items. Stories and machine parts will be the starting point for artworks and other creative responses to the theme of technological anxieties and joys. The collective work will be presented as part of the Paul Granjon exhibition at the Watermans Gallery.

Granjon will create new work onliste that will tap into creative upcycling, automated environments, cyber-botanic symbiosis, artificial creatures and a general sense of science fiction happening.

Born in Lyon, France, in 1965 with a BA Fine-art in Marseille, France in 1990, he teaches at the Cardiff School of Art and Design.

He moved to the UK in 1995 where his focus gradually shifted to performance and robotics. Since 1999 he has developed and showed internationally live performances and exhibitions with hand-made robots and songs as well as workshops and other collaborations.

He was awarded a Nesta (National endowment for science technology and the arts) Fellowship (2004-2007) and was one of the artists representing Wales in the Venice Biennale 2005, where he exhibited aRobotarium. Recent work often includes home-manufacturing technologies, recycling and participation.

Exhibitions and performances since 2009 include Winzavod Arts Centre (Moscow, Russia), AD and A gallery (Osaka Japan), Chelsea Theatre (London, UK), DePlayer (Rotterdam, Holland), Brut Theatre (Vienna, Austria), MUDAM Luxemburg, Oriel Davies (Newtown, UK), Campbelltown Arts Centre (NSW, Australia), International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA, Sydney Australia), Haus für elektronische Künste (Basel, Switzerland).

His work features in the collections of the Arts Council of England and MUDAM Luxemburg.

More info about Paul Granjon’s work at www.zprod.org

Anxiety 2014 is a new London-wide arts festival, curated by the Mental Health Foundation and taking place in June 2014. It explores anxiety through the arts, looking at its causes, how it affects all of our lives, and how it can act as an exciting, motivating force.

The festival brings together leading and emerging artists to address both positive and negative aspects of anxiety, through a dynamic, city-wide programme of visual arts, film, music, theatre, dance and talks. Performances and exhibitions are set for venues across the capital, from world-renowned arts centres to institutions and community centres.

To book tickets for Anxiety 2014 and for further information, please visit:anxiety2014.org