Abstract

WV1723 is a multi-form artwork consisting of a limited edition Artist Book, 506 Indian ink drawings on paper and a 30 minute animation with 10 different soundtracks.
From hundreds of possibilities of choice within the lace archive, Andrew Bracey has focused on just one page of a technical ledger. He has liberated the precise information recorded on the ledger to ensure that the correct materials, quantities and price were used in the mechanical manufacture of lace. Over five hundred individual drawings have been made of details of the ledger page, with different degrees of magnification, abstractionand decipherability. The drawings have been collated in an artist’s book and have been further transformed into an animation that recalls, in its repetition of movement, the machines used in the factories to manufacture lace.Musicians and composers have collaborated with Braceytocreate ten different soundtracks. This individuality within repetition reflects the human quality that drew Bracey initially to the calligraphic distinctiveness in the ledgers.Soundtracks were made by Andrew Bracey, Shaun Bracey, Ellen Brady and Nathan Baxter, Stewart Collinson, Rob Dean and Lorin Halsall, Harry Freestone, David McSherry, Annie Morrad, Ross Oliver and Robert Steadman