Giles Walker is an interesting guy. During his youth he was a full time member of the Mutoid Waste Company; a guerrilla art group who created amazing things out of waste and scrap. They also threw some pretty epic parties, one of which was voted party of the decade by ID magazine.
After being told to leave London by the police the group went on the road, traveling from country to country in a convoy of the mutated vehicles that they had created. Giles travelled all over Europe with the group, creating art and throwing parties where ever they found themselves.
These days Giles has developed the skills he first used with the Mutoids into working with still and kinetic sculpture. The ‘dysfunctional’ robots that he creates often show the darker side of society. Prostitutes, drunks, homeless robots, Giles is able to bring them all to life with an incredibly human movement using nothing more than the materials that he can salvage from scrapyards. He had brought a couple of his creations with him, pole dancing robots that had been standing quietly on each side of the stage. When he switched them on it was a real wow moment, the movement is so real and life-like.
Possibly Giles best known piece is ‘The Last Supper’, a 20 foot long installation of fully operational robots that explore some of his own views about religion. For Giles the most challenging bit was writing the scripts. He’s a lot happier building stuff, his process is all about trying things out and learning along the way.
