David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton

David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton have been collaborating since 2005, creating marvelous mini epic installations and sculptures that play with the familiar, yet draw on old cinematic traditions and crafts. It’s a bit like seeing pop culture through the eyes of a shadow puppet (if the play was written by Philip K Dick). Currently in Liverpool for Abandon Normal Devices – a festival of new cinema and digital culture –  the duo are exhibiting a work called The Sound Before You Make It, that recreates a sample from Michael Jackson's Thriller dance in an awesome three-dimensional stroboscopic animation.

DD: What inspires you about “new cinema & digital culture”.
David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton: The endless possibilities and the way technology allows people to be creative in new and different ways.

DD: Let’s talk about Runway magazine, does being editors work in symbiosis with being artists?
David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton: Certainly, as artists we have learned a huge amount from working with Runway and it continues to inspire us. We consider our involvement with the magazine as a parallel project that feeds into our identity as artists.

DD: How’s Sydney going for you right now?
David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton: It's all good, we love living in Sydney. There is a really vibrant artist-run community and always lots of exciting projects going on. For instance there is a project by Sydney artist Michaela Gleave at MOP Projects at the moment, where she has created a snowdrift within the gallery, its a really simple but beautiful and successful work.

DD: Do you have a list of current favourite materials?
David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton: We have been working a lot with wool felt lately to create layered scenes, we love the texture and the vibrant, luminous colours available, but our current favourite material is hot melt glue! It has so many uses and sticks to practically anything.

DD: Love that your work marries craft with tradition with technologies and innovative, yet lost and found art... does that make sense?
David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton: Totally. We sometimes describe our work in terms of remix culture and it is very much about merging these different references and sources to create something new.

The Sound Before You Make It by David Lawrey & Jaki Middleton is part of Abandon Normal Devices festival and will be installed at FACT, Liverpool from September 23 November 29, 2009.