Joe King is an award-winning artist filmmaker living and working in the UK. He is also a tutor on the Animation programme at the Royal College of Art. He has worked in arts education for more than twenty years supervising at master’s and research levels.
Joe has been a guest lecturer at a number of international colleges, spoken at international education conferences and has been awarded a visiting professorship at Jilin University China. He has been an external examiner for a number of universities and has been a member of several validation boards in both the UK and internationally.
Originally working in animation his work now spills over into multi-media works that operate in tandem with or as an adjunct to moving image, playing freely with and between the spaces of site, screen and gallery.
Joe uses a variety of techniques and animation to combine and manipulate photography, film and sound. His work moves between single screen and multimedia gallery installations. He is a is also a founding member of folk-projects often working in collaboration with co-founder and fellow artist Rosie Pedlow.
Before concentrating on his own practice Joe was a director for Slinky pictures, directing commercial work including advertising, music videos as well as producing visuals for live performance. Originally working in animation his work now spills over into multi-media works and uses a variety of techniques. Joe’s work is exhibited internationally with his films and winning won several awards.
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Practice
Joe’s work moves between single screen and multimedia gallery installations. His work has been screened and exhibited around the world, broadcast internationally and have won awards both at home and abroad. Joe works between digital and more traditional technologies using formats ranging from 35mm to digital video and still photography. Landscape, architecture and place have informed much of his work, which is often a response to a specific place – its use and history – as well as studies in movement and time. He is interested in using the conventions of traditional filmmaking to produce nonconventional narratives and works with both live action and animation. Another area of interest is the engagement with processes/techniques as intrinsic to an artist’s work or production, including sound design and editing.
Present projects include curating and developing visuals for Sting and Peter Gabriel’s live US tour and The Waiting Room project in collaboration with The Tindersticks and Clermont Ferrand film festival. Other work includes Parkwood Avenue, a moving image piece in response to a specific location that was supported by the Arts Council and Resonance, a two-screen projection and on screen text for a new performance piece in the form of an operatic cycle, with a particular focus on interconnections between sight, sound, touch and words. This was part of the cultural Olympiad unlimited programme. Other recent exhibited work includes Strange Lights 2 (two-screen video installation) and Bivouac digital slides and sculptural form.
Research
Joe’s practice-led research, is in the field of moving image, photography, and installation – in various forms and combinations – it is an on-going investigation into spatiality and notions of place, temporality and the everyday, with a focus on his fascination with places on the margins of town and country. His curiosity with liminal places is mirrored within his practice by an interest in the perceived gap or space between the still and moving photographic image, blurring the boundaries between the still and moving image.
Filmography
- It dissolves by the rain from the sky (2023)
- Project H (RCA research project animation installation outcome) 2019
- Slow-burn, swansong, shroud (2018)
- Hey Lucinda (2016)
- 2013: Parkwood Avenue
- 2010: Strange lights Commissioned by Arts council England
- 2008: city speaks (I Am Not You) BBC, Film London Arts Council
- 2006: Sea Change Commissioned by Film London
- 2005: Chatterbox Commissioned by Royal Opera House
- 2002: Survey commissioned by S4C, release date
- 1999: Mobius Strip
- 1999: Time and Tide… commissioned by S4C, release date
- 1996: Metronome
- 1993: Chaos
Funding and awards
Joe's personal films and videos have received funding from Film London's Artists Film and Video Awards, S4C and Sgrin, Film London Artists Moving Image Network, BBC Radio 4, and Wellcome Trust.
He has been nominated for, and won prizes including Jerwood Moving Image Award 2008, SXSW Film Festival (USA 2006), Ann Arbour Film Festival (USA 2006), Hull International Film Festival (UK, 2006) Festival du Nouvea Cinema, Montreal (Canada, 2006), 25fps (Croatia, 2006). He also works in collaboration with fellow artist Rosie Pedlow with whom he co-founded Folk///projects.
Other areas of his practice include sound design and editing.
External collaborations
In 2005 Joe King, along with fellow artist Rosie Pedlow, formed Folk///projects to facilitate collaborative projects producing work such as Sea Change and Strange Lights. Other collaborations have included research with Norwich School of Art and Design and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals into medical diagnostic imagery and its possible applications within an artistic environment.
Joe has been an external examiner for a number of universities and has been a member of validation boards in both the UK and internationally. As well as being invited as guest lecturer to a number of international courses he has spoken at international education conferences in China, and in 2006 was awarded a Visiting Professorship at Jilin University China.
