Artist Statement for IASPIS
Using my background knowledge from working as a graphic designer, I employ a rational, logical and pragmatic approach when making work. I have an ongoing interest to proposing and finding solutions to problems, often problems that cannot be formulated before they have been solved, the shaping of the question is part of the answer. I look for things to fix or improve, working like a tinkerer/inventor, I propose alternatives to existing models, preferring to find ways around doing things properly, bypassing the struggle. I use self referentiality as an objective guide to reduce the extraneous and subjective, and strive for a conceptual logic. The idea is paramount and the material form secondary. My website is a tool where I both create works, and index and exhibit projects chronologically. I propose systems, templates, invitations and opportunities for collaboration, creating social networks where contributers shape the outcome and participate in the building of works. I embrace contradictions, and dilemmas. I like gray areas, oxymorons and the feeling of falling backwards. My favorite colour is the purple found in a soap bubble. I prefer to swap and exchange things rather than use money. I seek alignments, paradoxes, chance circumstance, loops, impossibilities and wit encountered in everyday life. I often change my mind, go full circle, and arrive at the beginning.
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London-based artist Daniel Eatock (born 1975) has a practice shaped by discovery, invention, and an alert sensitivity to coincidence and contradiction. Projects such as a set of dances to accompany car alarms, an open call for snapshots depicting camera straps that resemble photo accidents, and a wiki that invites participants to add the lengths of their favorite vertical structures to a mile-long website scroll, all employ wry humor and reductive, serial logic to reorient our methods for making sense of the world.
A graduate of London’s Royal College of Art, Eatock served on the design staff of the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota) before returning to England to work with clients that include Channel Four Television and the Serpentine Gallery. His early regard for conceptual art (cultivated, in part, by his reading of Lucy Lippard’s 1973 classic Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object) has consistently biased his solutions toward the objective, the essential, and the critical without sacrificing the wit that characterizes some of the best examples within this tradition.
Eatock’s hybrid practice is unified by a generous abundance of examples and its openness to collaboration, both of which are demonstrated by the number and variety of projects posted on his website. Driven by ideas and the fluidity of language and its categories, the works are equally invested in a curiosity about the physical properties of objects and materials and the range of circumstances in which we might encounter them. Unforeseen solutions to familiar challenges (domestic storage and display, stationery, website design) join an expanding roster of more idiosyncratic, client-less efforts, such as Eatock’s ongoing attempts to draw a perfect freehand circle, sustain a helium balloon at a constant height, or carry carry a glass of seawater from the ocean to his bedside. These and other projects offer contingent forms of value and meaning amidst the chaos of the everyday.
In 2008 Princeton Architectural Press published Eatock’s monograph Imprint. This 224-page book, the first to survey Eatock’s practice to date, features nearly 1000 images from over one hundred projects from 1994 to the present. Entirely authored and designed by Eatock, the book is distinguished not only by its (deceptive) lack of apparent order but also by the fact that each individual copy in the run of 4,000 is unique. In addition to inking his own thumbprint onto the spine of every book, Eatock arranged for one of his freehand circle drawings (inscribed on a sheet of yellow A4 paper) to be inserted into the binding of each copy at random locations throughout the entire edition. Richard Torchia is Director of Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, Philadelphia, and Curator of Daniel Eatock: Extra Medium
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Manifesto
Begin with ideas
Embrace chance
Celebrate coincidence
Ad-lib and make things up
Eliminate superfluous elements
Subvert expectation
Make something difficult look easy
Be first or last
Believe complex ideas can produce simple things
Trust the process
Allow concepts to determine form
Reduce material and production to their essence
Sustain the integrity of an idea
Propose honesty as a solution
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Daniel Eatock
7 Minerva Street
London
E2 9EH
United Kingdom
daniel (at) eatock (dot) com
© 2009 Daniel Eatock. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted. No part of these pages, either text or images may be used for any purpose other than personal use, unless explicit authorisation is given. Therefore reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system or retransmission, in any form or by any means - electronic, mechanical or otherwise, for reasons other than personal use, is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.
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Bio Collection
Bio. 2010
Born 1975, Bolton, UK. Currently lives and works between London, São Paulo and Venice. An accomplished graphic designer, Eatock applies his former vocations skills to art-making. Embracing his design roots, his practice subverts strategies of communications, rational problem solving and formal design/un-designed methodologies. He uses invitations, opportunities and chance circumstance, actively seeking, embracing and responding to the coincidences and contradictions encountered in everyday life.
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Daniel Eatock is a London based artist who is interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing.
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Bio. AIGA
Born 1975, Bolton, UK. Lives E2 9EH. Attempts to draw a perfect circle everyday. Likes the color purple found in a flame, soap bubble or oil resting on the surface of water. Eats healthy, buys organic when possible, likes humble restaurants and rice and beans. Rarely drinks alcohol, makes fruit smoothies everyday. Listens to Camper Van Beethoven and Anthology of American Folk Music edited by Harry Smith. Has hay fever in spring, is allergic to milk. Cooks, cycles, walks everyday. Carefully chooses things that last. Photographs moments, alignments, coincidence and small things that go unnoticed. Likes the feeling of falling backwards. Tries to save time, resources and economizes when possible.
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Bio. On Purpose: Design Concepts
Daniel Eatock is a London-based artist known for his conceptual approach to solving traditional client design problems, as well as those of his own choosing. He is fascinated in the connections between image and language, titles, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing. Eatock employs a reductive logic to his practice, toying with the paradoxes of function and non-function.
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Bio. Princeton Architectural Press
Imagine the work of a young designer for whom concept and humor are more important than the glossy aesthetics of mainstream periodicals and design annuals and for whom the message trumps the media and you begin to get an idea of the refreshingly smart and thought-provoking work of Daniel Eatock. Rejecting the widely held opinion that work made without a client is “art” and work for hire is “design” Eatock challenges both categories by purposely blurring the distinction. Whether he is solving client problems or those of his own choosing Eatock’s work responds to personal fascinations and the desire to invent discover and present.
His commissioned works for clients include an exhibition catalog featuring sound chips a flip book handwritten notes and a cover wrapped in the upholstery fabric used on London transit seating as well as the graphic identity of the UK’s Big Brother reality-TV series among many others. Eatock’s idea of “entrepreneurial authorship” has resulted in numerous self-published limited-edition works such as an edition of prints made using every color of Pantone’s felt-tip pens and his Untitled Beatles Poster which includes the lyrics from every Beatles song. Eatock's most personal self-initiated artworks share an unabashed enthusiasm for punch lines miscommunication and seriality: there's the search for a stone that weighs exactly one stone; a perfectly hand-drawn circle the world's largest signed and numbered limited-edition artwork utilitarian greeting cards price label wrapping paper car alarm dances and a fruit bowl stickered with fruit labels.
The first monograph on this unconventional practitioner Daniel Eatock Imprint is as unconventional as the artist himself. While utilizing and embracing the expectations of a traditional monograph the London-based designer also challenges and subverts them presenting works based on connections and associations through color, composition, titles, material, and format rather than in chronological or hierarchical order. Constantly oscillating between art and graphic design, this book is full of Eatock’s astute observations and eccentric obsessions.
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Bio. Misc.
Eatock is interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing.
He employs reductive logic, and strives for objective and rational solutions to form concluded works. I am especially interested in the connection of the start and end points of a hand drawn circle.
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Bio. AIGA / NY
Daniel Eatock’s interests lie in the connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery, and inventing (as well as other small things that usually go unnoticed). A young British designer and artist, he is described by Steven Heller as “an obsessive design documentarian.” A graduate of Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication and the Royal College of Art, his independent art and design studio Eatock Ltd. focuses on both self-initiated art projects and commissioned design work. These range from simply collecting his own fingernail clippings to the 2005 creation of the no-frills “Indexhibit,” a free downloadable content management system.
His first monograph, Daniel Eatock Imprint, has just been published by Princeton Architectural Press. Constantly oscillating between art and graphic design, each copy individually marked with his own thumbprint, this book is full of Eatock’s astute observations and eccentric obsessions.
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Born 1975, UK
Lives and works in London
The English artist and designer Daniel Eatock (b. 1975) studied at London’s Royal College of Art. He worked as a designer at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota) after which he returned to England to undertake contracts with Channel 4 television and the Serpentine Gallery, amongst others. The pictorial and linguistic techniques, the norms and procedures belonging to the milieu of graphic design, thus form a habitat in which his work can unfold. In contrast to his colleagues, Daniel allows new images to emerge by shifting their context or linguistic definition. Their new context is a new form of observation, of perception.
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Bio. by Steven Heller
Daniel Eatock, a London-based artist and graphic designer, is an obsessive design documentarian and a champion of democratizing information architecture systems. His basic design methodology is rooted in a reductive logic that strives for objective and rational website designs. In 2005, Eatock co-created, with Jeffrey Vaska, a free, down-loadable content management system called Indexhibit that enables people to build simple websites that bring content to the fore. Indexhibit’s no-frills approach is evident on Eatock’s own site, eatock.com, an extensive repository for objects, prints, and photographs (his own and others’) that reveal his intense fascination with the art of observation and the pleasure of unexpected connections. A 1998 graduate of the Royal College of Art, Eatock interned at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis before returning to England in 1999 to launch the design firm Foundation 33, which he later merged with the creative agency Boymeetsgirl. In 2003, he started Eatock Ltd., through which he builds and main-tains his database of photographic projects and completes work for a range of entertainment and cultural clients, including Samsung and Channel 4. The art world has also embraced him, and various galleries have exhibited his con-ceptual art. For a 2007 show at London’s M+R Gallery, he stuck his collection of tape rolls to a beam and let them slowly unwind to the floor. Eatock refers to his process as “entrepreneurial authorship,” which includes numerous limited-edition works such as Untitled Beatles Poster, a printed piece bearing the lyrics to every Beatles song.
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Bio. Icograda
Born 1975 Bolton, UK.
Lives and works in London, UK
I am interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing. I employ reductive logic, and strive for objective and rational solutions to form concluded works.
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Bio. Corraini
Born 1975 in Bolton, UK. Lives and works in London, UK.
Daniel Eatock is interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing. Makes conceptual things that are resolved in a reductive, logical and objective way, and is especially interested in the connection of the start and end points of a hand drawn circle.
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Bio. Walker Art Center
Daniel Eatock is a London-based designer known for his conceptual approach to solving traditional client problems as well as those of his own choosing. Eatock graduated from the Royal College of Art and worked as a designer at the Walker Art Center before returning to England to create Foundation 33 and most recently Eatock Ltd. His work has consistently employed a systematic but not necessarily dogmatic rigor that privileges the elemental over the extraneous—a philosophy neatly embodied in his motto: “Say YES to fun & function & NO to seductive imagery & colour!” His work for entertainment and cultural clients ranges from such projects as the graphic identity and promotion for the British television hit Big Brother to a street exhibition of Warhol billboards for Channel 4 to a collaboration with artists Oliver Payne and Nick Relph for an exhibition catalogue with sound chips, a flip book, handwritten notes, and a cover wrapped in the upholstery fabric used on London transit seating. Eatock’s idea of “entrepreneurial authorship” has led to the creation of numerous self-published limited-edition works such as Untitled Beatles Poster, which includes the lyrics from every Beatles song, and the 10.2 Multi-Ply Coffee Table, fabricated from an entire single sheet of plywood.
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Bio. One Friday
Daniel Eatock is a graduate of Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication and the Royal College of Art. He worked as an intern at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis before establishing Foundation 33, a multidisciplinary practice that later merged with creative agency boymeetsgirl.
He recently formed Eatock Ltd, an independent art and design studio where his inventive entrepreneurial approach to authorship and his adherence to the integrity of ideas are applied to commercial design work and contemporary art projects.
His varied portfolio includes the creation of the world’s largest signed and numbered limited edition artwork and the ongoing design and development of the Big Brother identity for Channel 4 television.
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Bio. Misc.
Daniel Eatock is a graduate of Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication and the Royal College of Art. He worked as an intern at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis before establishing Foundation 33, a multidisciplinary practice that later merged with creative agency boymeetsgirl. He recently formed Eatock Ltd., an independent art and design studio where his inventive entrepreneurial approach to authorship and his adherence to the integrity of ideas are applied to commercial design work and contemporary art projects. His varied portfolio includes the creation of the world’s largest signed and numbered limited edition artwork and the ongoing design and development of the Big Brother identity for Channel 4 television.