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To celebrate the Ball reaching the letter 'J', I sent Barrowclough and Jem pages from the encyclopaedia about Japanese art, Jesus and jewellery. Jem designed a logo for Japanese Jesus Jewellery and Barrowclough wrote and performed a rap jingle to accompany it. When I heard Barrowclough's rap I immediately saw an animation of the Ball jiving to it, and I had no ability to resist making that animation!
Music produced by Eliot Best.
To celebrate the Ball reaching the letter 'I', I asked Ioana if she would respond to an illustration of iris flowers from the encyclopaedia. She responded to the vivid colours by using transparent ink to invert the warm and cool colours. She describes the result as like a palimpsest. As Ioana's practice often includes Japanese calligraphy, she added the Japanese kanji character for 'iris' - ayame.
Collaboration with Heather Gregg, 2023. To celebrate the Ball reaching the letter 'H', I also asked Heather to collaborate with me. She produced an animation with her son Ben, titled Encyclopedia Becomes Air, responding to the sound of the letter 'H'. I projected Heather's animation onto the Ball and refilmed it
Watch Heather's original animation on YouTube
To celebrate the Ball reaching the letter 'H', I sent illustrator Harriet Russell a page from the encyclopaedia with pictures of headdresses from around the world. She made a series of drawings/collages using the images on the page, which I animated and projected onto the Ball.
Read more about my collaboration with Harriet Russell on my blog.
See more of Harriet's work on her website
To mourn the deaths of our two pet chickens, Arabella and Bravery, who were killed by a fox, I carried out the action Chicken Run Rolling, rolling the Ball to the site of the former chicken run. The Ball happened to be at the article on head hunting: I added two chicken feathers to the article.
Read more about Chicken Run Rolling on my blog
Uli is a German artist who lives in the UK. I sent Uli two pages from the encyclopaedia article on Germany and she made collages with them which incorporated pieces of contemporary German ephemera.
Read more about my collaboration with Uli Jaeger on my blog.
See more of Uli Jaeger's work on her website
To celebrate the Ball reaching the letter 'H', my family and I rolled the Ball across Hob Moor in York. Our destination was the Hob Stone, a medieval stone carving of a knight, and the plague stone which is beside it.
To celebrate the ball reaching the letter 'G', I took it to Glasgow and rolled it from Glasgow School of Art (where I studied) to Kelvingrove Park, aided by Glasgow artist duo Gardner and Gardner and friends the Craig family. The rolling ended with a picnic in the park.
Read more about the Glasgow Rolling on my blog.
See more of Gardner and Gardner's work on their website.
Fumio is an illustrator and comic artist and friend of mine from Glasgow School of Art. I sent Fumio the title page of the encyclopaedia volume which contains the 'F' section and he drew a fantastic surreal drawing of monsters and coral-like vegetation on it. I disassembled Fumio's drawing and made it romp across the ball, interacting with images which were already there.
Read more about my collaboration with Fumio Obata on my blog.
