Meet a Maker: Andrew Salomone

We're working with PLY to deliver Andrew Salomone's Ravenous Apparitions exhibition which opens on Thursday 9th July. As part of the launch, Andrew will be running an animation workshop, where he will teach you how to create moving images using a few simple materials and then on pizza's fresh out of PLY's oven.  Andrew is an experimental artist living and working in New York. His work crosses over between traditional crafts, technology and DIY culture, responding to social and environmental issues within our everyday lives. We caught up with Andrew Salomone ahead of his exhibition to find out a little more about him.

What can people expect from your Ravenous Apparitions Animation Workshop? The workshop is going to a demonstration of the way that an animated GIF can be turned into an edible animation on a pizza. W

hy did you choose Pizza’s to produce animations on? I was thinking about memes and animated gifs that are shared on the internet, and I'd noticed how imagery from the internet was turning up in our everyday lives in the way that we talk and express ideas. I knew about zoetrope animations, which were about the same length as most GIF animations, and I knew that record players could be used to view zoetropes. So, when I realized that the average frozen pizza was the exact same size as an LP, I thought that making an animation on a pizza was a nice way to bring all these pieces of our everyday lives together in a compelling way.

What materials do you use in your practice? I use everyday household materials primarily, as well as traditional craft materials, like yarn and clay.

Your work crosses between traditional crafts and technology, what is it about these two seemingly opposed disciplines interests you? Well, in a lot of cases, traditional craft processes are the cutting edge technology of the past, but what I'm really interested in is the way that new technologies change the way we look at traditional craft processes. To give you an example of this, textile patterns have always used grids to create their images, but now when we look at those old patterns we can't help but see a pixelated image even though they've existed long before the advent of digital imagery.

What work will feature in the Ravenous Apparitions exhibitions? For the exhibition, I'll be making two zoetropes for display, a sculpture of a pizzoetrope, and a zoetrope made from found record covers. They'll both be versions of a vintage animation of unknown origin from The Richard Balzer Collection.

Where do you produce most of your work? At home, which incidentally, is where my studio is.

Do you have any advice for people interest in exploring a maker practice? It's often a lot easier to make things than it might seem.

What are you currently working on? I'd describe my current work as home decor for the end of the world.

What have you got lined up for after the Ravenous Apparitions exhibition? I'll be making a work for The International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. and collaborating with a local theatre company.

And finally what is your favourite pizza? Usually just cheese, but I like a "bee sting" when I can get it: pepperoni, mozzarella, chili flakes and honey.