Keith Tyson

b. 1969, Ulverston, UK. Lives and works in Brighton

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Keith Tyson
Keith Tyson, A Universal Cooling with the Everyday Photographic Array, 2000-1, installation view, Pete and Repeat, 2009 at Zabludowicz Collection, London. Photo: Thierry Bal

About

Systems of knowledge form the foundation of Keith Tyson's examinations of the world. He approaches art as a means of investigating expansive concepts such as the laws of the nature and the properties of time and space, but does so with an apprciationof the limitations of understanding. Experimentation is integral to his practice, both with material properties such as chemical reactions, and mechanisms such as chance. Artmachine Iteration: Angelmaker Part I: 15 seconds prior to apocalypse, 100 views, (1996-98) is a 25 minute film of 15 second clips seemingly randomly selected and edited, produced as a result of the instructions from the Artmachine: a computer made by the artist to remove himself from the decision making process. Talking about the Artmachine Tyson has said: "The paradox is: I have created something that asks me to create things that I do not necessarily want to make, yet I desperately want to make the Artmachine manifest through its work."

At first glance, the two sides of A Universal Cooling within the Everyday Photographic Array appear identical. However, the temperature of each element on the left side of this 'expanded repeater' varies from its corresponding element on the right side by one degree Celsius. The work achieves what might seem to be impossible: it documents temperature, in itself an invisible, abstract and elusive thing.