Press release September 2011

In Oriel Factory, Granjon presents a radical new take on production lines. Using yesterday’s electronic kit – defunct computers, CD / DVD players, radios and speakers – as the raw material, Granjon has commandeered an army of volunteers – the ‘Oriel Factory workers’ – to help him break apart these mountains of ‘dead tech’. These are then redesigned and re-constructed as programmed artefacts for the gallery, with the help of futuristic tools such as a 3D printer (which reads computer-generated drawings and renders them as solid objects in space).

The Gallery is transformed into a busy hive of industry, where disembowelled computers and printers are reborn as the robotic prototypes of tomorrow. In the midst of this feverish activity a family of robots roams the galleries: a home robot, the Big Bootlaoder and several smaller Thingy robots trundle backwards and forwards, stopping only when their energy reserves run down. Their power supply is a ‘forest’ of battery feeding stations connected to renewable energy sources – solar panels on the Gallery’s roof and old bicycles recycled as human-powered dynamos.

Preparation slide show    •    Opening slide show



Oriel Factory opened on 17th Sptember 2011 in Oriel Davies, Newtown, Powys, UK. The exhibition runs until November 15th.
All practical info here