Carl Durban

Carl Durban was chosen as one of the group’s licentiate members after the NUA Gradfest degree showcase in the summer of 2022.

Carl has been recently exploring coding, methods of communication, in particular non-verbal communication; semaphore, sign language, smoke signals, Morse Code and Braille. The idea of being muted, unable to communicate, struggling to connect and the internal thought process of watching and being watched. His experiments into Braille have led to 3D work including plaster, bronze casting and aluminium punched with messages. He has also created a proposal for a land art Braille piece that can only be read from the air.

For his degree show piece he used a set of five eyes blinking different Morse Code messages about viewing, being viewed, being muted and disrupted communication. This was exhibited with the eyes embedded in a wall, blinking individual messages at the eye height of the person blinking. This work was re-iterated as three plinths that can ‘talk’ to each other across a room or as a group.

Carl is also a founder and active member of the 2Faulty collective who have a practice that is playful and open to chance, seeking to create new meanings from everyday materials. They allow for ‘happy accidents’, and continually refresh our practices through joyful play.

Carl’s background is in Advertising and has run his own business for over 20 years. He is currently studying an MA in fine art at NUA and is starting to explore the disruption to codes in advertising and brands, looking to reframe the messaging and potentially undermine the intention. This is in the early stages, and as a practitioner of ‘not knowing’ and the ‘unknown’ it remains to be seen how this direction will go and what work will be output.

Website/blog: carldurban.wixsite.com/website
Instagram: www.instagram.com/carldurban/
Twitter: twitter.com/ArtByCarlDurban