Mr Mike Lawson-Smith

Lecturer in Fine Art, marketing and admissions tutor

Qualifications

MPhil; University of Plymouth, Exeter (including a two year studentship award 93 to 95), 1993-1996

 

BA (Hons) Fine Art, Exeter College of Art & Design, 1982-85

 

Exhibition Design & one year Foundation, Hastings College of Art & Technology,

1980-82 

Teaching interests

Mike Lawson-Smith is a lecturer on the Fine Art program with a broad teaching experience within the university at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Over the years here at the university, he has taught in Digital Art & Design,  Media Arts and Digital Art & Technology. He is primarily concerned with studio-based and seminar/lecture teaching, the conceptual development of student’s ideas and how this is informed, developed and formulated into art works/projects.

Creative practice & artistic projects

Mike Lawson-Smith's research and arts practice derives from him being a digital video artist and new media arts project organiser concerned with, and engaged in, the ongoing cultural and social ‘re-positioning’ of the ‘image'.

He has carried out a number of site-specific digital projections and public interventions and has worked collaboratively with other artists and scientists as well as carrying out community based projects.

His current project is 'LAKE' (working title). ‘LAKE’ takes as its key point of ‘physical’ reference the 70 sub-glacial lakes, discovered over the last 40 years, in Antarctica. These lakes have been capped by 4km deep ice sheets, sealing them off from the rest of the world for millions of years. Scientists are planning to drill through these sheets, to take samples to explore the life underneath them. The project has two aims: to draw together online network conversations speculating on what could be in the lakes; and, to produce a simulated, lake-like environment, in a gallery space, using immersive augmented reality technology, that makes these conversations ‘visible’.

Residencies:

 

‘casting-out’ public project working with the people of Newlyn town exploring the future of Newlyn and its fishing industry, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, December 2001 – December 2002

Sea Change Selected, environmental project exploring economic issues in relation to the sea, Spacex Gallery, Exeter, September 2001

 

Collaborative Projects:

 

Motion Plymouth Festival Noogy Project, Plymouth, November 2006

 

STAR Radio and National Welch Museum ‘Working Steel’, radio programme, (Lead artist Anya Lewin) Cardiff, Wales, Summer 2005

 

‘casting-out’ Lead artist for public project working with the people of  Newlyn town exploring the future of Newlyn and its fishing industry, Newlyn Art Gallery, December 2001 – December 2002

 

VIII Festival Mundial Do Minutoe 'Progress', internet video work, (with Geoff Cox, Chris Owens, Adrian Ward), Cotia, Brazil, October 2000

 

Intermission City Screen Cinemas LTD, Exeter Picture House, March 1999

 

 

Solo Projects:

 

Vanishing Points of View interactive digital video projection on University of Plymouth Art and Design building, 1996

 

Film Screenings:

 

Voices III Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival, Plymouth, February 2008

 

(Inter-)facing: Theory and Practice Symposium, University of Exeter, April 2005

 

Selected Group Exhibitions:

 

Root Index Selected Commission for Plymouth Arts Centre 60th Anniversary ‘Reciting the City’, Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth July- September 2009

 

A Sense of Place Selected, Quatair, Den Haag, Holland, August 2002

Sea Change Selected, environmental project exploring economic issues in relation to the sea, Spacex Gallery, Exeter, September 2001

 

Littoral Selected, site-based project investigating creative research relating to the coast, Stade, Germany, March 2001

 

Peninsula Selected, exhibition relating to the South West peninsula of England, Plymouth Arts Centre, June 2000

 

Littoral Selected, site-based project investigating creative research relating to the coast, Art Haven, Exeter, October 1999 

Vanishing Points of View (Sheffield) interactive digital video projection commission for Hyper Tribes, Photo 98 March/April 1998

The Meeting (site specific installation) The Meeting House, Exeter, 1996

In The Mind's Eye, open selected, work by dyslexic artists. The Mall Galleries, London, 1994

 

Sound & Vision Festival Den Haag, Holland, 1989

E.A.T. Plymouth Arts Centre, 1989

 

EXPO 88 Riverside Studios, London, 1988

 

A.V.E. Festival 88, Arnhem, Holland, 1988

 

E.A.T.  Spacex, Exeter, 1988

Key publications

Exhibitions

Root Index, Selected Commission for Plymouth Arts Centre 60th Anniversary ‘Reciting the City’. Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth, Devon 05/07/20091 project

casting-out. Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall. 01/12/20013

Other Publications

Lawson-Smith MG LAKE (Working Title).