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Exhibition of ‘Texturisr’ at “Sense Detectives” » read article

I have a piece of ‘net.art’ called ‘Texturisr’ in an exhibition at Watermans. London, between 17th March – 1st April 2007.

I’ll post some further details of the work here soon. But for now:

I completed ‘Texturisr’ in 2005 as a nod to the then booming obsession with ‘Web 2.0′ and took advantage of the Flickr API. Flickr was then not owned by Yahoo. I was also interested in the public display of personal images. I have added a few other aspects to the project for this exhibition included a small element of natural language processing - my take on the ’sense detecting’ of the exhibition title.
Sense Detectives is Watermans’ latest collaboration with Thames Valley University’s Digital Arts department to explore sensor and search technologies through an innovative and participative working practice. Sense Detectives combines four different exhibits that will be on show at Watermans in late 2006 and early 2007.

Charlie Gere, author, historian of digital art and academic, has written the catalogue introduction for the Sense Detectives Exhibition: http://mercury.tvu.ac.uk/~richardc/kwomodo/sensedetectives3.php

Paul B Davis, of the BEIGE ensemble/collective, says of ‘Texturisr’:

“While Web 2.0 is a bit of a technical buzzword, as it’s underlying delivery technologies are no different than whatever you’d want to call what existed before, to me it represents a conceptual shift in thinking about network-based information. As pieces like texturisr demonstrate, the semantic web really takes shape when we stop thinking about the network as a broadcast medium and instead think of it as a medium for user-guided information interchange. Collaboration, communication, remixability…these are the operative words which describe our Web 2.0 interactions. These interactions are a sort of meta-level complement to current information infrastructure, and they have the potential to be equally comfortable at home, in public space or a gallery.”

Sense Detectives is Watermans’ latest collaboration with Thames Valley University’s Digital Arts department to explore sensor and search technologies through an innovative and participative working practice. Sense Detectives combines four different exhibits that will be on show at Watermans in late 2006 and early 2007.

digital imaging: sporeprint » read article

sporeprint: a visual exploration of urban fungi with microscopic photography, macro-photography, digital scans, 3d simulation, holography and x-ray imaging. currently, there is a mini exhibition of prints.

i seek to develop the project through collaboration in the style of a sci-art project - like those supported by the wellcome trust. i wish to explore links with kew gardens - particulary the british mycology society and biologists working at imperial, who have great experience at visualising really small things.

“Science is no longer locked up in laboratories; art is no longer restricted to galleries. In answer to a widespread frustration with traditional disciplinary confines, sciart aims to encourage creative and experimental collaborations between scientists and artists, which further enhance the public engagement with both science and art. ” source www.sciart.org/site/

performances at the old vic, london » read article

ongoing performances at the pit bar, old vic theatre, waterloo, london. performances range from piano/guitar/vocal sets drawn from an eclectic range of retro and original material.

installation: scatbot - algorhythmic vocal jazz improvisation » read article

an audio installation exploring algorithmic musical improvisation and machine voices. inspired by the vocal improvisation of jazz singer mel tormé, scatbot was an experiment using dynamically generated midi files and sound triggered animation to explore the principles of vocal jazz improvisation - also known as scat.

online: seaside towns with curious - performance and media » read article

placelessness.com commissioned by south east arts. words by helen paris, photography by leslie hill, web design, qtvr and flash by ian grant. as a collaborator with curious, i designed an episodic online narrative located along the south east coastline of the uk. Using quicktime virtual reality (qtvr), flash and other web technologies, we created an innovative interactive episodic narrative.

in pre-blog times, curious developed a groundbreaking style of web art that was location specific, temporal, that bridged virtual and visceral space and explored textual and visual narrative. see route 66 and left bank cafe for other earlier examples of curious’ work in a similar form.

writing: “finding the wooden voice” » read article

i published an essay (jan 2001) on world puppetry and performer training. research was drawn from research and participation at the henson international puppetry festival, new york (2000) and a symposium at the victoria & albert theatre museum, london (2000).

download and read: towards the wooden voice (unedited) - download pdf
download and read: towards the wooden voice (edited) - download pdf

“It is logical to assert that voice is a primary tool for the puppeteer when bestowing the impression of life on dead things”

“Giving voice to objects, along with movement, is a principle tool of the animator when intimating the ‘presence’ of a soul.”

“As soon as a puppet speaks, it is cultured, it has a past - it is not only living, it has lived”

“No matter how much some performers, scholars and trainers dislike puppets speaking, puppets and objects will be given and will find their voices.”