Engine/House by Guy Begbie and Lawrence Upton

Engine/House is in effect an artists’ book that becomes a paper sculpture. The poetic fragments are handwritten and appear as if photocopied and enlarged, covering the ‘ground’ surface, reading as gestural and almost graffiti-like words that are suggestive but illegible. The constructed assemblage folds in and out, propped open in places with holes and windows to look through. Its strategy is one of chaotic form, fractured planes and perforated surfaces. Postmodern architecture meets urban decay. Its energy and flamboyance seem to evoke the qualities of urban life in implications of filmic glimpses, framed through the cut ‘windows’. This kind of work defies any straightforward reading; text is incoherent, a muffled voice in a noisy environment.

Guy Begbie is an established book artist and printmaker. He has been teaching in UK Universities since 1995. As a multi-disciplinary artist he makes works that extend parameters regarding concept and production approaches to the book form. His current book arts practice concerns paper engineering, and the transition from the two to a sculptural three dimensional as a means of interpretation of non-linear & sequential narrative.

Lawrence Upton (born London 1949, of Cornish origins) is a poet, graphic artist and sound artist, currently directing Writers Forum. Upton is remarkable for the range of his genres and forms. He is a performer, continuing and expanding the performance tradition of, amongst others, Bob Cobbing. He spent much of the first decade of this century in Cornwall; he is now a Fellow of Goldsmiths, University of London.