HeHe
Founded in Paris by Helen Evans (GB 1972) and Heiko Hansen (DE 1970), both graduates of the Royal College of Art in computer related design (1999), HeHe is an artists duo whose works aims to rethink the existing technological systems that surround us, to give them a new social and critical usage.
With humour, HeHe reinvent our ongoing technological adventures; from the transformation of energy, emissions, intoxication, rail infrastructures to electronically mediated systems of control. In developing poetic interventions about the limits and meaning of our technologically conditioned world, their practice reconciles the individual with the reality of their immediate urban environment. Their concept of reverse cultural engineering and the idea of aesthetising emission clouds in real time provides a theoretical framework for their installations on transportation (Train Project) and pollution (Nuage Vert, Champs d’Ozone).
Working independently, HeHe bring theatre, engineering and design to their art practice and collaborate with individuals from a diverse range of disciplines and interests. Their work has been exhibited at Lyon Biennale (2009); Centre Georges Pompidou (2004, 2006, Air de Paris 2007); International Design biennial in St-Etienne (2006, 2010); Media Art Triennale at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing (2011); They have been commissioned to make site-specific work in the public realm by Hou Hanru for the Luxembourg European Capital of Culture (2007); The Arts Catalyst (2012), SKOR Amsterdam (2012). Nuage Vert was awarded several international prizes including the Golden Nica in Hybrid Art at Ars Electronica, Linz (2008).
Website: www.hehe.org.free.fr
Alec Finlay
Artist and poet Alec Finlay is internationally recognised for his work in a variety of forms and media. He conceived some of the UK’s first renewable art projects, installing texts on windmill turbines and producing skying, a multimedia artist blog surveying creative approaches to renewable energy. Recent projects include ebban an’ flowan (2015), a primer for marine renewable energy and, specifically, the EMEC test centre (Orkney), exploring the lexicon of the sea and tides, exploring the mythic and technical vocabulary that is evolving alongside marine energy, and how fisherman’s lore might relate to the lore of the ‘wave-wright’.
Rob La Frenais (curator)
Dr Rob La Frenais is an independent contemporary art curator, working internationally and creatively with artists entirely on original commissions. He believes in being directly engaged with the artist’s working process as far as possible, while actively widening the context within which the artist can work. His last project before being a guest professor at Srishti Institute, Bangalore (see picture) in November 2015 with artist Tomás Saraceno, with the University of Texas at El Paso, can be seen here.
Website: http://roblafrenais.info/
Mette M. High (organiser)
Dr Mette M. High is a social anthropologist at the University of St Andrews whose research has focused on natural resource economies in different parts of the world. Funded by the European Research Council, she is currently carrying out a 5-year research project entitled “The Ethics of Oil: Finance Moralities and Environmental Politics in the Global Oil Economy”. In her teaching and publications, she encourages reflection on critical issues in contemporary life and invites us specifically to consider the ethics of energy production, distribution and consumption.
Website: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/anthropology/staff_profiles/dr-mette-high/