John Lundberg
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
artist and documentary filmmaker. In the early 1990s he founded circlemakers, a UK based arts collective famous for covertly creating hundreds of the world's largest and most elaborate crop circles.
He was born in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and studied fine art and interactive design at Middlesex University
Middlesex University
Middlesex University is a university in north London, England. It is located in the historic county boundaries of Middlesex from which it takes its name. It is one of the post-1992 universities and is a member of Million+ working group...
(1988–1991), the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...
(1991–1992) and the University of Westminster
University of Westminster
The University of Westminster is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. Its origins go back to the foundation of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in 1838, and it was awarded university status in 1992.The university's headquarters and original campus are based on Regent...
(1996–1997) during which time he also worked with the Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
nominated artists Langlands and Bell
Langlands and Bell
Langlands & Bell, are two fine artists who work collaboratively as a duo; the two, Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell , began collaborating in 1978, while studying Fine Art at Middlesex Polytechnic in North London, from 1977 to 1980.-Artistic practice and career:Their artistic practice ranges from...
. Before abandoning exhibiting in galleries to work out in the fields he exhibited his artworks in several galleries including a one person show called Infinity Focus at the Max Wigram gallery in London which was curated by Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
one of the Young British Artists
Young British Artists
Young British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
(YBAs) and in the group shows A Fete Worse than Death and The Hanging Picnic alongside Tracey Emin
Tracey Emin
Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing OBE RA is an English conceptual artist, one of the YBAs, and winner of the annual British fine arts award, The Turner Prize, in 1997. On 11 December 2007, Wearing was elected as lifetime member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London....
, Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
, Gilbert & George, Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas
Sarah Lucas is an English artist. She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s...
and Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
at Joshua Compston
Joshua Compston
Joshua Richard Compston was a London gallerist whose space, Factual Nonsense, was closely associated with the emergence of the Young British Artists . Compston graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1992...
's Hoxton gallery Factual Nonsense. In 1993 after he had stopped exhibiting in galleries the art collector Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
offered to buy one of his anonymously created crop circles and exhibit it at the Saatchi Gallery in London. His offer was declined on the basis that to function correctly as artworks the crop circles need to remain authorless.
In 1995 Lundberg created the circlemakers.org website to document his group's activities. The site which averages one million page views a month is the only site of its kind on the Internet, and consists of over 250 pages of information about crop circle making. The site has received several awards, including The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
Site of the Year and a Yell UK Web award, as well as numerous favorable reviews in the media.
The circles he and his collaborators - including Rod Dickinson
Rod Dickinson
Rod Dickinson is a British artist specialising in re-creations of historical incidents or events. He first gained notoriety in the 1990s for his work involving the creation of crop circles in the UK...
, Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk
Gavin Turk is a British artist and one of the Young British Artists . He often uses his own image in life-size sculptures of famous people.-Life and work:...
, Simon Bill
Simon Bill
Simon Bill is a contemporary British visual artist who lives and works in Sheffield, England, United Kingdom. He studied art at the St. Martin's School of Art in London from 1977–1980 and at The Royal College of Art, also in London, from 1982-1985...
, Wil Russell and Rob Irving - crafted anonymously gained notoriety and created headlines around the world. Eventually Lundberg began to be approached by companies asking him if they could create crop circles to be used in TV shows, music videos, movies, adverts and PR stunts. Clients to date have included, Korn
Korn
Korn is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993. The current band line up includes four members: Jonathan Davis, James "Munky" Shaffer, Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu, and Ray Luzier. The band was formed as an expansion of L.A.P.D.The band released their first demo album,...
, QI
QI
QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...
, Hovis
Hovis
Hovis is a UK brand of flour and bread, owned by Premier Foods. The brand, which began in 1886, ended up as part of Rank Hovis McDougall in 1962 after a succession of mergers. RHM, whose bread making division has been known as British Bakeries since 1955, also owns the Mother's Pride and Nimble...
, British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
, Nippon TV, Disney, Bacardi
Bacardi
Bacardi is a family-controlled spirits company, best known as a producer of rums, including Bacardi Superior and Bacardi 151. The company sells in excess of 200 million bottles per year in nearly 100 countries...
, BP
BP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
, Scope
Scope (British charity)
Scope is a London-based charity, which operates in England and Wales, focusing on people with cerebral palsy particularly, and disabled people in general. Its aim is that disabled people achieve equality....
, Royal Bank of Scotland
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...
, National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
, Red Bull
Red Bull
Red Bull is an energy drink sold by the Austrian Red Bull GmbH, created in 1987 by the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz. In terms of market share, Red Bull is the most popular energy drink in the world, with 3 billion cans sold each year. Dietrich Mateschitz was inspired by an already...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
, Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
, AMD, Shredded Wheat
Shredded Wheat
Shredded wheat is a breakfast cereal made from whole wheat. As of January 2010, it was available in three sizes: bite sized , miniature , and full size, which may be broken into small pieces before milk is added .Both sizes are available in a...
, Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty
is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio, first designed by Yuko Shimizu. She is portrayed as a female white Japanese bobtail cat with a red bow. The character's first appearance on an item, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in Japan in 1974 and brought to the United States...
, Pepsi
Pepsi
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
, Weetabix
Weetabix
Weetabix is a whole grain wheat breakfast cereal produced by Weetabix Limited of the United Kingdom. It comes in the form of palm-sized biscuits. Variants include organic and Weetabix Minis versions. The UK cereal is manufactured in Burton Latimer, Kettering, United Kingdom and in Canada and...
, BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
, Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi
The Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...
, O2, Big Brother
Big Brother (TV series)
Big Brother is a television show in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras. Each series lasts for around three months, and there are usually fewer than 15 participants. The housemates try to win a cash...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, Orange Mobile, History Channel and the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
.
He has been accused of being involved in the creation of the notorious alien autopsy
Alien autopsy
An alien autopsy refers to a medical examination and dissection of the dead body of an extraterrestrial being. Such a procedure would more accurately be called an "alien necropsy", since an "autopsy" is, by definition, performed on a subject who is the same species as the examiner...
video released in 1995 by businessman Ray Santilli
Ray Santilli
Ray Santilli is a British musician, record, and film producer, best known for his exploitation in 1995 of the controversial "alien autopsy" footage, subject of the Ant & Dec film Alien Autopsy.-Life and career:...
which purported to show the autopsy of an alien creature that was recovered from a crashed flying saucer that landed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1948.
There's a chapter about Lundberg and his collaborators in Iain Aitch
Iain Aitch
Iain Aitch is an English writer and journalist who was born in Margate and who now lives in London. He is the author of the travel book A Fete Worse Than Death, which is a humorous first person journey through an English summer. He is also author of We're British, Innit, which is a humorous lexicon...
's book A Fete Worse Than Death
A Fete Worse Than Death
A Fête Worse Than Death: A Journey through an English Summer is a travel book by Iain Aitch. It was written in the summer of 2002 when the author took a trip around England to see what made the English act so strangely in the summer....
ISBN 0-7553-1191-4. 2006 saw the publication of the book The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making ISBN 0-9548054-2-9 which was co-written with circlemaker Rob Irving. Henry Hemming's book In Search of the English Eccentric ISBN 0719522129 was published in 2008 and includes a chapter about Lundberg and his crop circle making cohorts.
He graduated from the documentary directing MA at the National Film and Television School
National Film and Television School
The National Film and Television School was established in 1971 and is based at Beaconsfield Studios in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, and it is located close to Pinewood Studios.-History:...
in 2004 and his award winning short film The Mythologist about a latter-day Walter Mitty
Walter Mitty
Walter Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in the New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and in book form in My World and Welcome to It in 1942...
character was broadcast on the BBC the same year. He is currently making his first feature length documentary Mirage Men, about US military disinformation. Mark Pilkington
Mark Pilkington (writer)
Mark Pilkington is a writer, publisher, curator and musician with particular interest in the fringes of knowledge, culture and belief....
's book about the project - also called Mirage Men ISBN 1845298578 - was published in July 2010, by Constable & Robinson
Constable & Robinson
Constable & Robinson Ltd. is an independent British book publisher of fiction and non-fiction works. Founded in Edinburgh in 1795 by Archibald Constable as Constable & Co. it is probably the oldest independent publisher in the English-speaking world still operating under the name of its...
. Lundberg was featured in the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
's series Monster Garage
Monster Garage
Monster Garage is a television show for the Discovery Channel hosted by Jesse G. James. Each episode is an hour in length and was conceived and produced by Thom Beers.The show aired the series finale on June 12, 2006. Jesse G...
as a part of a build team slated with the task of creating a mechanical crop-circle maker out of a tractor.
See also
- Alien autopsyAlien autopsyAn alien autopsy refers to a medical examination and dissection of the dead body of an extraterrestrial being. Such a procedure would more accurately be called an "alien necropsy", since an "autopsy" is, by definition, performed on a subject who is the same species as the examiner...
- Crop circleCrop circleA crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...
- Documentary filmDocumentary filmDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
- HoaxHoaxA hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
- TricksterTricksterIn mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...
- Young British ArtistsYoung British ArtistsYoung British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
External links
- circlemakers.org Circlemakers arts collective website.