Street Talk is the record of a project by conceptual artist Stephen Willats in which he filmed (unbeknownst to them) passers-by walking down two streets in Amsterdam. The captioned film stills in Street Talk document both the endless streams of interactions that inform ‘daily life’ and the fleeting connections with friends or strangers that interrupt these streams. As Willats writes, ‘the act of walking together, side by side, is fundamental to acts of sociability; it introduces fluidity and transience in the coding of language in a relationship when perceived by an external observer.’ Between documentary observation and poetic essay, Street Talk provides an effective introduction to Willats’ recent work, where urban spaces are deconstructed in order to expose underlying ‘bandwidths’ of visual, textual and aural information. This edition comes with a foldout map of Amsterdam.
Stephen Willats has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the 1960s. His work has involved interdisciplinary processes and theory from sociology, systems analysis, cybernetics, semiotics and philosophy. This manifests in wall installations, project works, films & computer simulations, drawings & diagrams, bookworks and texts.
Published by Raven Row, London, this publication was produced alongside the first survey of his work from the 1960’s. Introduced to art as a teenage gallery assistant in 1958, by 1962 he was producing advanced artwork, embracing the transdisciplinarity of the time, while juggling the roles of social scientist, engineer, designer and artist. With texts by Antony Hudek, Emily Pethick, Christabel Stewart and Andrew Wilson. Designed by John Morgan Studio.
Stephen Willats has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the 1960s. His work has involved interdisciplinary processes and theory from sociology, systems analysis, cybernetics, semiotics and philosophy. This manifests in wall installations, project works, films & computer simulations, drawings & diagrams, bookworks and texts.
Published on the occasion of the exhibitions Building and People at Berlinsiche Galerie, Berlin and Goethe Institute, London, 1993.