I first visited Lighthouse in the October of 2010. I was speaking at dConstruct, and to accompany the conference Lighthouse was showing a small exhibition of digital work entitled “Suspending Disbelief“. Among the works on show was Caleb Larson’s “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter“, which I’d read about but had never seen, didn’t expect to see, certainly not here, by the sea, on a sunny day, by accident. “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” is a sculpture which, when connected to the network, continuously tries to sell itself on eBay, with each owner required to pass itself on to the next. A work which explicitly questions the notion of value in art, and uses the digital sphere not as a gimmick, but as a valid and necessary part of that questioning.
Two years later, I’m honoured to be taking part in the Happenstance residency at Lighthouse. For the last couple of years, I’ve had the odd experience of approaching and being approached by the art world while knowing little about it. A lot of the work I like doesn’t work in galleries, but I love visiting them. My work has appeared in art galleries but I have a troublesome relationship with the term “artist”. I’m interested in how galleries and arts organisations in general “do” digital because I believe in curatorial and editorial values and want to see them extended through the network. I am here to learn, and if I can help Lighthouse do more of what it does already, I’m here to do that too.