Stephen Pippin Lecture

Steven Pippin is probably best known for his work that was nominated for the Turner Prize; Laundromat-Locomotive where he converted 12 industrial washing machines (in a laundromat) into cameras and by using a series of trip wires rode a horse past them, referencing Muybridge's The Horse in Motion pictures (1878).
He is interested how photography is used in the most unimaginative way and this work, along with his other pinhole camera experiments were his attempt at really pushing the boundaries of photography.

The other element to his work are mechanical structures - although seemingly quite different to the photographic/pinhole camera work it all bears the same conceptual theory. His idea of the perfect artwork is one of the work making itself, and then becoming invisible. This concept of working cancelling itself out and art becoming a kind of looped strategy really interested me.

Fax 69 (1998/1999)

In this image you can see Fax 1 (male) loaded with the original document (plain sheet of paper), it rings Fax 2 (female) and transfers the document which prints out of the female machine. As it comes out it feeds back into the male machine, becoming the original document and creates a continuous loop. This continues until the paper runs out.

I am interested in this concept of duality, and how his work aims to become pointless. It makes me consider why we make art-what is it adding to? His creation and then deletion of work makes it seem more finished and complete, and therefore, very good.