Decorative Newsfeeds

’Decorative Newsfeeds’ is a web-linked artwork, fusing new technology with news information in a permanent electronic sculpture by leading UK artists Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead.
The work uses a live web feed to generate up-to-the-minute headline news from around the world. This unfurls endlessly, ‘ticker tape’ style, passing through three colourful curving tracks of ultra bright LED’s. Seen up close, passers-by can read the interweaving news content, while from a distance, and particularly at night, it just seems to be a pleasant, light filled and decorative animation.
Thomson and Craighead specialise in using new technology and communication systems in their work. Working with Jayex Technology, on a bespoke screen, connected permanently to the internet, this is the first time that LED text has followed tight and overlapping curves.
Thomson said of their work: ‘We follow on from the artistic traditions of manipulation and appropriation while exploring the myriad ways in which new technologies and electronic global communications networks are changing the way we perceive the world around us.’
Craighead added that: ‘Our interest in this commission is due to a recent trend in our work to make sculptural screen-based installations that utilise live network data sources like weather data, blogs, and headline news feeds.’