London fieldworks : syzygy/polaria

Initiated by artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson, the UK artist group London Fieldworks sets out to fuse experiences of the real and re-presented, combining presence, memory and artifice.

Their "Syzygy" and "Polaria" projects are poetic investigations into human consciousness and physiology in relation to the external phenomena of weather and light.

This book captures an account of both projects. "Syzygy" took place on the remote and uninhabited Scottish island of Sanda in summer 1999.

A team of artists, writers, musicians, kite flyers and a computer programmer spent a week on the island, taking with them a range of computer, communication, atmospheric diagnostic and biofeedback technologies in an attempt to corner their notoriously elusive quarries - consciousness and weather.

For their "Polaria" project, Gilchrist and Joelson travelled to North East Greenland in August 2001 to conduct fieldwork on Arctic light and human physiology.