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An emotional musical narrative, a a choreography of cymatic movements of visualised sounds. Material Sound: The Dark Hours of the Sun features data recorded directly from the sun itself and sonified by NASA, together with an original composition by Nathaniel Mann. Encompassing the beginning and the end, light and dark, anxiety and meditation, the vast and the infinite. Watch the video.
Video © Óscar Parasiego for Factum Arte
Starting with the 18th-century experiments of Ernst Chladni and merging them with the work of Margaret Watts Hughes in the 1890s and Hans Jenny in the 1960s, Factum's research has focused on the synaesthetic nature of digital data. The brass plates which make up Material Sound - Chladni Plates vibrate according to the resonant frequencies of the plates themselves when excited by sound. Watch the video
An emerging and changing artwork by: Jorge Cano, Adam Lowe, Nathaniel Mann, Charlotte Skene Catling
With the support of: Enrique Esteban, Francesco Cicognetti, Francisco Regalado, Miguel Hernando, Guillem Bayo, Matt Button, Albert Munté and Victor Camilleri
Video © Óscar Parasiego for Factum Arte
Factum Arte has been working with Shirazeh Houshiary since 2015 on a number of projects ranging from Murano glass to aluminium sculptures. In this new video, Shirazeh explains how the dynamic collaboration with Factum Arte brings new possibilities by redefining the nature of the creative process in the making of a work of art.
Watch the video on our Vimeo
Learn more about Factum's collaboration with Shirazeh Houshiary
Clark Winter has been exploring photography and videography for many years as a creative and observational consequence of his travels around the world as much as his fine arts background. His new works, Yokes and Stones, have been the main feature of Factum Arte's ARCO 2020 event, presented on February 28th.
The exhibition, titled The Hard Work of Art presented the series of sculptures and photographic prints centred around the idea of works of art as labour: staying somewhere in between Duchamp’s concept of the ready-made and Brancusi’s sculptural questioning of essence. Boris Savelev's Chernovitz Portfolio and Factum Arte's very own work of art, Material Sound, were on show as well.
The Equilibrium series, Jose Dávila's first project with Factum Arte, continues a thread which has long been present in Dávila's work, constructing seemingly barely-possible physical relationships between objects and asking the viewer to engage with the strength and frailty, tension and repose inherent in a composition.
The first work of this new series was on show at ARCO 2020 for Travesia Cuatro.
Learn more about the process behind this work
Factum Arte's first collaboration with Chilean sculptor Fernando Casasempere was on show at Casa de America, Madrid, as part of the solo exhibition 'Terra' from February 12th to March 28th. The Sphere of Things to Come is made up of small white ceramic forms recalling bleached vertebrae, applied to the surface of a sphere. The ceramic forms were made and supplied by Fernando Casasempere, and have appeared in many of his recent works; he sees them as signifiers or artefacts of the changing climate and its effects on the surface of the earth.
The 4,50 m tall bronze sculpture was commissioned by the French bank Societe Generale as part of its wider arts patronage programme to support emerging artists in the UK. As part of this initiative, The Stranger is now on permanent show in the lobby of their new headquarters at One Bank Street, London.
Fabio Dartizio began exploring the theme of lightning in late 2016. The idea to capture lightning’s intangible essence in sculpture led him to contact Factum Arte in order to bring The Stranger to reality.
Find out more about the artist and the process bringing The Stranger to life
Factum Foundation is delighted to announce that, as part of the celebrations surrounding the 500th Anniversary of Raphael's death, the major exhibition Raffaello at Scuderie del Quirinale (5th March - 2nd June 2020) will feature a re-materialisation of the painter's tomb.
We thank Scuderie del Quirinale and Ales for the opportunity to carry out the recordings last December, through the use of close range photogrammetry, LiDAR scanning and panoramic photography - with the collaboration of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage.
Over the past 6 months, Factum Arte's craftsmen have been working on the production of an exact facsimile of the Risco Caído cave, which will be set up in January and will be on permanent view at the new Risco Caído Interpretation Centre in the town of Artenara, Gran Canaria. The facsimile of the cave has been installed inside a space adjacent to the Interpretation Centre, which was itself purposefully carved into the mountain.
Following the success of Larissa Sansour's Monument for Lost Time, at the 58th International Biennale di Venezia's Danish Pavillion, the monumental sculpture was on show at Copenhagen Contemporary. A team from Factum Arte took care of the installation ahead of the artist's exhibition Heirloom (13th December 2019 – 10th May 2020), which focused on Sansour's collaboration with the writer and artist Søren Lind.
Find out more about this work of art
Factum’s flatbed printer is unique in that it enables the operator to precisely over-print in perfect registration. This means that a printed image can be built up in layers of ink of varying opacity and therefore that the tonal range of Factum's system is much greater than that of commercially available printers.
The printer can print an area of 1.6 x 4.5 meters. The substrate can be re-positioned to provide a continuous surface with total control over the printed joint; it is thus possible to print an image that is 4 meters high and, in theory, any length.
The development has taken over a year and has been primarily carried out by Quinner Baird, with support from Dwight Perry, Jorge Cano and Enrique Esteban. Factum's ability to develop both hardware and software is a key part of the experimental workshop mentality that underpins our work.
A new edition of Factum Arte’s 2017 collaboration with Syrian artist Hrair Sarkissian was showcased at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, as part of the exhibition centered on his most famous projects, from January 24, 2020 to March 15, 2020.
Final Flight is a collection of seven facsimiles of Northern bald ibis skulls: considered one of the rarest birds in the world, it was regarded as extinct until a colony of seven was found in Palmyra in 2002. The birds have disappeared yet again between 2011 and 2014 following the political situation in Syria, nullifying the conservation efforts that were protecting their annual winter migration to Ethiopia.
The skull of an Andalusian specimen preserved in and generously lent by the Zoo of Jerez de la Frontera in Southern Spain was digitized at Factum Arte in Madrid using high-resolution photogrammetry and processed into a 3D model that could be 3D printed, moulded and then cast in a mix of calcium and resin, which best resembles the appearance of bones. The skulls were subsequently hand painted and each of the finalized seven facsimiles hangs on 30 cm metal rod attached to a stone base.
Hrair Sarkissian uses these seven migrating ibises that were lost or never returned to create an elegant metaphor for the current displacement and migration of Syrians.
On December 10th two 6kg bells were cast at UCL’s Here East facility by Peter Scully, technical director at the Bartlett, and a team of four students. The event employed the ceramic shell investment process, one of the methods which would be used by a restored church bell foundry at Whitechapel, and demonstrated that the casting of bells in London is safe, practical, and environmentally viable.
In an introductory talk, Scully spoke about the lack of meaningful apprenticeships available in the creative industries, and emphasised the importance of universities like UCL retaining creative and industrial links to local communities at a time when many facilities like this one are moving out of central London. He also assuaged fears about the possible environmental impact of a foundry in Whitechapel: the filtered air which emerges following a casting process like this one is far cleaner than that of its surrounding environment.
In a separate event on December 17th, independent mayoral candidate Rory Stewart affirmed his support for the campaign to save the bell foundry. Stewart’s support is part of a wider swell of interest in the foundry at the highest political level and from both left and right, demonstrating its importance to Londoners of all political stripes.
To find out more about the ongoing campaign to save the church bell foundry at Whitechapel, click here
Last week, amid rumours that it will soon be removed, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Factum Foundation decided, in the light of all the recent flooding, to demonstrate that high-resolution recording in colour and 3D must be done before the object is lost or damaged. Banksy’s graffiti has now been digitised at a resolution that will allow for the production of an exact facsimile if the artist ever desires for this to happen.
The exact facsimile of Veronese’s vast painting The Wedding at Cana can be seen in the refectory on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the facsimile of Salviati’s ceiling can be seen in Palazzo Grimani. The recording is part of the work being carried out by ARCHiVe (Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Venice), funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust.
Hot on the heels of an exhibition at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo (MUAC) in Mexico City, Jan Hendrix’s Yagul tapestry series is travelling to Europe. The tapestries will be shown as part of an overview of the artist’s work at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht (Tierra Firme, 26th November 2019 – 26th April 2020).
These vast graphic images are drawn by Hendrix before being converted in Factum Arte’s digital tapestry studio into files suitable for weaving. Threads are chosen, colours adjusted, and weaving techniques decided on before the files can be sent to Flanders Tapestries, where they are woven on electronic Jacquard looms. In the case of the Yagul tapestries, different types of thread – some silk, some wool – were used for the different colours, and a new weave was developed especially for the series.
Jan Hendrix has been making work at Factum Arte since 2006, when he started using laser-cut steel and water-cut aluminium to create large-scale immersive artworks. As monumental as his installation pieces, the subtle weave of these tapestries transforms the represented landscapes yet again, inviting new encounters with these complex rock formations and tree canopies.
The planning meeting to decide the future of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry will take place on 14th November. This historic institution, London’s oldest continuous manufacturing business, is threatened with conversion into a luxury hotel. While the property developer, Raycliff Whitechapel LLP, claims that bell casting will continue at the site, this will be merely in a token capacity, with no capacity for any serious casting projects.
The UKHBPT and Factum Foundation have put forward a proposal to restore the building and re-equip it as a technologically advanced bell foundry. This would include a centre for the study of historic casting methods run by Andrew Lacey, a historic casting specialist advising the V&A and British Museum, and the continuation of sand and loam casting of bells led by the foundry’s former tower bell manager Nigel Lacey. There would also be a team dedicated to 3D scanning, and recording the acoustics of, bells around the country - information which would be used to create an open-access archive. The entire space would be used for foundry and foundry-related work, including educational and training facilities. The result would be a space dedicated both to preservation and to new fabrication, providing an extraordinary resource with global reach for the district of Whitechapel.
The UKHBPT/Factum Foundation proposal is supported by the local community, the East London Mosque, Jeremy Corbyn, the local MP John McDonnell, the V&A, the Bartlett, local heritage bodies, the blog Spitalfields Life, many musicians and artists (including Michael Nyman, Antony Gormley, and Grayson Perry), and the majority of the Tower Hamlets councillors.
Sign the petition now and write to the council to voice your opposition to the planning proposal.
A new exhibition at Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo (until 8th December) celebrates ‘The Return of the Lost Paintings’: seven paintings, all lost, destroyed, or stolen over the course of the 20th century, which were recreated by Factum Arte for a 2018 Sky Arts series made by Ballandi Multimedia, Rome. The exhibition allows these paintings to have a new lease of life - raising questions about their complex histories. Digital restoration and rematerialisation are fast-growing parts of Factum Arte’s work.
Palazzo Abatellis is just a short walk away from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo, where Factum Arte’s recreation of Caravaggio’s Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence is permanently installed in the frame once occupied by the original, which was stolen 50 years ago this month.
Find out more about the Lost Paintings
Shezad Dawood has worked with Factum Arte since 2014 in a variety of media, on projects which complicate and reimagine received historical narratives and imagery. In this new profile, filmed in Factum Arte's Madrid workshops, he talks about the ideas and ideals which drive his work, and how the collaborative studio environment of Factum Arte helps to bring them to life.
Find out more about Shezad Dawood's projects with Factum Arte
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