I was commissioned by Dezeen and Shaftesbury Seven Dials to create a sculpture to be suspended across Neal street in the Seven Dials area of London. My research of the area revealed that in 1879 Charles Dickens Jnr described Seven Dials in his book ‘Dicken’s Dictionary of London’ as a place where many bird shops and bird cage makers could be found. “Every variety of pigeon, fowl, and rabbit can be found here, together with rare birds, such as hawks and owls… Here and there are shops fi lled with cages.”
I decided to make an arch of ghost like birdcages to reference the memory of the birds and the shops of that time. Each cage is left open in remembrance of the birds long departed from the area.
Building it in the workshop…
I have put together over one hundred of my odd yet strangely logical invention drawings into a little book. You can see some of the ideas below. They all come from a room inside my head that I like to go to every now and again. A signed book can be bought for the bargain amount of £8 on my web shop here. I’ve had 1000 printed and they seem to be selling fast.
‘Dominic Wilcox’s drawings aren’t just witty and beautifully drawn, they are serious challenges to the real world to keep looking at itself with innocent eyes, wondering what else is possible.’
Thomas Heatherwick, (designer of the London Olympic cauldron amongst other innovative work.)
In addition to the book I made a little animation by connecting some of the book’s ideas into a mini story. Hope you enjoy.
Also if you are in London come down to KK Outlet where I have an exhibition on.
Filed under: Drawings
I was commissioned by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire, a place famous for shoe making, to create some shoes. I decided to make a pair of shoes that can navigate you wherever you wished, no matter where you are in the world. I thought about the Wizard of Oz and how Dorothy could click her shoes together to go home. After uploading your required destination to the shoes via a piece of custom made mapping software and a USB cable, the GPS, which is embedded in the heel, is activated by a heel click. It then communicates to the wearer via a ring of LED lights to point in the required direction. The shoe with the GPS wirelessly communicates with the right shoe that has a progress bar of lights to show how close you are to the destination.
The Shoe is connected to a laptop with the mapping software. The user plots their destination on a map and uploads it to the shoe. The USB connection also charges the battery in each shoe.
The progress bar starts with one red light at the beginning of the journey and ends on the green light when you arrive. The correct direction to walk is shown by the illumination of one of the LED’s on the circle.
I made an illustration that was etched onto the soles. The red leather and stitcing is a little reference to Dorothy’s red ruby shoes.
For more pictures and information visit www.dominicwilcox.com/gpsshoes.htm
Filed under: Drawings
I have an exhibition of my work on at KK Outlet gallery, London, running until the 26th of September. I’ve got new work never seen before on show as well as recent and past work and all my videos. I’ve even launched a book of my invention drawings and an animation. So it’s been very busy recently.
The show is open all through the London Design Festival and should be mentioned in the guides.
7th – 26th September
9 – 6pm Monday Friday, 12 – 5pm Saturday.
Dominic Wilcox – Variations on Normal
KK Outlet
42 Hoxton Square
London
N1 6PB
UK
One of the things I’m showing is a personal collection of oddities that I own. For example on the left is this WW2 Japanese Airforce ceramic fire extinguisher. Designed to be filled with sand and thrown out of an airplane on to fires caused by bombing below. I was told by the previous owner that the technique wasn’t very effective.
Next to it is a wedgewood teapot that can lean back to use its internal tea leaf strainer.
I also have a pair of shoes that can guide you home to post about soon and an animation and book.
With thanks to Richard Shed Studio who designed the layout, graphics and design of the exhibition.
Filed under: Drawings | Tags: john hegley, sounds of making in east london, terry de havilland
My Sounds of Making in East London vinyl record is getting some nice coverage, BBC radio 4′s Beth Mcleod did a lovely feature on it for the Today programme, you can hear it here…
It also made it onto J-Wave radio in Tokyo…
You can buy the record (with included digital download) here. For more pictures and details about the makers I visited go to wwww.soundsofmaking.com
Filed under: Drawings
Sounds of Making in East London, 10″ vinyl record, 2012
Sound recordings of twenty-one East London makers at work
A project conceived, recorded and illustrated by Dominic Wilcox
Listen to a sample here…
£15 available here (inc digital download)
www.soundsofmaking.com
I was commissioned by CREATE 2012 to make an ‘alternative’ souvenir for East London. They wanted to commission ‘a collection that aims to be a desirable antidote to the overly-commercial, tacky souvenirs on sale across London this summer.’
I decided to focus on what makes East London unique, the large amount of skilled, creative and historical makers that live and work there. I visited 21 makers in East London and recorded the sounds of them at work. Examples included the clatter of lyric poet John Hegley’s typewriter, the chopping of garlic in a Michelin star restaurant, the tap of rock ‘n’ roll cobbler Terry de Havilland’s hammer and the sound of a bell being tuned in Britains oldest manufacturer.
I then found a vinyl record company in Hackney who cut and manufactured the record. Then I drew some of the tools and the makers for the record sleeve and added the track descriptions on the back. The record is now available to buy for £15 and includes an mp3 download code.
When I visited the makers I also took photos and I did 10 interviews. I decided to create a website that would document all of the project. www.soundsofmaking.com I hope you enjoy visiting it. Now I sleep.
Filed under: Drawings
After my triumphant victory over the 3D Printer in Milan I returned to home turf to compete against a new printer at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London during their monthly Friday Late event. This time I competed against a machine from A1 Technologies. I decided that we should both make a model of St Paul’s Cathedral. In Milan I used clay to make the Duomo but this time I thought I would try marzipan just to make it more difficult for myself and get closer to potential public humiliation.
I was a little surprised at the size of the crowd as I came out from behind the curtain after we were introduced.
Curator extraordinaire Beatrice Galilee gave running commentary on the event, highlighting such dramas as the fact I seemed to be struggling to get into the marzipan packet.
The maripan got softer as the heat rose so it was a bit of a challenge to make a Cathedral.
The vote was put to the crowd and they thought I had won (most likely out of sympathy).
After my victory in Milan the 3D Printer sent me this bad loser message…
