If you are near the north of England, you might want to check out this interesting symposium on 26th June in Edinburgh called inter_multi_trans_actions.
“This one day symposium will bring together a number of leading practitioners from the fields of art, architecture and design who each share a common desire to exploit the latest computing technologies […]

We are pleased to announce This happened #4. Presentations include Sony Bravia advertising from Semitransparent Design, a Howies Instorematic (from Henry, Matt and Russell), iPhone game development from Simon Oliver, and engineering thrill from Brendan Walker.
Taking place on Tues 3rd June 2008 at Roxy Bar & Screen in London, and its still FREE to […]

Its that time of year again when all the organisers decide to put their festivals and conferences within the same month. Here are a few of interest…
Futuresonic, 1-5 May, Manchester
www.futuresonic.com

Futuresonic this year is focussed on social technologies, with a two day conference, exhibitions, live music and many other events distrbuted across the city.
Icon Experiment, 3-11 […]

Last week had the third in the event series This happened at the Roxy Bar & Screen in London. We are really pleased with the way it went and the direction that things are going in the future. Until the full video documentation is online, I thought it would be good to post […]

We are pleased to announce This happened #3, with presentations from Jussi Ängeslevä, Schulze & Webb, Kenichi Okada and Snug & Outdoor.
Taking place on Tues 4th March 2008 at Roxy Bar & Screen in London, and its still FREE to attend. Capacity is limited to 110 people on a first come first registered basis. For […]

Tinker.it have just announced an openFrameworks workshop in London on 1st & 2nd March:
“This is the first ever UK workshop on openFrameworks, a cross-platform C++ library for creative coding, and an opportunity to experiment with building new systems for interaction that move away from the screen and into physical space.
This workshop is designed for artists, […]

If you around London, its worth getting yourself down to the Royal College of Art interim show, on until 7th Feb. Lots of interesting work, although too crowded as usual on the opening night to get a good look.
Above: Animal Superpowers by Kenichi Okada and Chris Woebken on Design Interactions.
Below: Work on new radio […]

Last night we had our 2nd This happened event, inviting speakers to present the process of an interaction design based project for 10 minutes, followed by Q&A. A full report on both events and video documentation will be online soon, but for now here are the photos.
We had presentations from Crispin Jones, Rory Hamilton, […]

We are pleased to announce the 2nd in our series of events, This happened.
Taking place on Tuesday 2nd October at Rich Mix in Bethnal Green London, a bigger venue than last time (capacity 100). Thanks to the kind sponsorship of Tinker.it we are able to keep it free to the audience again.
There will be exciting […]

I’ll be going to this and thought I’d post it if anyone else was interested…
Softspace: Contemporary Interactive Environments
Saturday 8 September 2007, 14.00–18.00
Tate Modern, £18 (£12 concessions), booking info.
“The physically permanent identity of architecture has helped to define society for centuries. Now some practitioners have disengaged from tectonics as we traditionally understand it and are taking […]

So its that time of year again, far far too many graduate shows in London. Last weekend I went to a few around Brick Lane, photos here. I will write about some of that work later.
Tonight is the opening of the RCA show 2007, titled The Great Exhibition. Each year there is always something […]

Friday 25 May 2007 at 7pm, Institute of Contemporary Arts
BD4D returns to the ICA with an outstanding line up of presenters. A number of Three Minute Madness sessions are scheduled to take place on the night. Three Minute madness presents creatives with the opportunity to showcase their latest work and ideas to the rest of […]

[update - video now online]
One of three digital commissions for Picture House at Belsay hall, this piece curated by Juha Huuskonen (Pixelache) for Dott07. Read about the rest of Picture House here.
Responding to the old Estate Office space within the 19th century hall, United Visual Artists created Hereafter, a history mirror. Using a hidden […]

I have just returned from Belsay Hall (near Newcastle) for the launch of Picture House, which “sees the magnificent empty and austere nineteenth century Hall, fourteenth century castle and grade one listed gardens transformed by film directors, sound and music producers, performers, artists and fashion designers”.
Picture House is curated for English Heritage by Judith King […]

I am very pleased to be able to announce This happened, a series of events focusing on the stories behind interaction design. Having ideas is easier than making them happen. We delve into projects that exist today, how their concepts and production process can help inform future work.
Interaction design companies are often too closed off […]

[update] Here is a video by Gaz Cobain showing some of the works. Show open until 5th May 2007.
I’ve been a regular visitor to the Kinetica Museum in London since it’s opening. One of the things I always really liked were the automata donation boxes. For this reason I attended the Cabaret Mechnical Theatre […]

(click above to enlarge flyer)
Even though I am on a blogging break, there are a couple of things coming up I need to mention before they pass me by.
Cybersonica 2007 is kicking off now, although I’m not involved in the exhibition curating this year, I shall be attending in some form.
This Friday 6th April 6-10pm […]

If you are in London on March 1st, I’d recommend coming to the Future of Sound tour at Goldsmiths University 7pm. Tickets are free, and the 250 available have nearly gone already. To book a place, email Zehra Arabadji, details on this page. Set in the Great Hall (shown above & this […]

Yesterday I went to the Luminaries and Visionaries exhibition at Kinetica Museum in London, open until 11th March. Here are my photos.
Of the work on display, my favorite was the 3d zoetrope by Gregory Barsamian, and the Ambiguous Icons led works of Jim Campbell. Artists also include Sam Buxton, Rob & Nick Carter, […]

Have you ever seen a piece of work and wish that you’d done it? Are there projects that you know about that make you want to weep at their brilliance? Well that was the topic of tonights Christmas Lecture, organised by Cybersalon and New Media Knowledge.
Tonight I wore my blogger hat, something I don’t […]

[Update] here are some photos of the first event.

I am off to Liverpool to take part in the first event in the Future of Sound tour. Owen LLoyd and myself are collaborating on an interactive spatial soundscape, and today I will show the first stage prototype of this. More details about this project in […]

[updated] here is a video

(photos above by John Adrian)
On Friday night I went to the opening of Volume at the V&A Museum, part of the Playstation Season of Culture. Here are my photos.
Created by United Visual Artists and one point six (production company set up by Robert Del Naja [alias 3D] of Massive Attack and […]

The start of the Future Cinema tour back in June was one of the most interesting and unique nights I had been to for a while. Run by Future Shorts, the main focus of the event is short film, animation and motion graphics. Over 150 short films and videos were shown, along with […]

Last night was the opening of Digital Well Being. Here are some photos. Digital Wellbeing was set-up by Alexander Grunsteidl (ex-IDEO, Apple) and Priya Prakash (BBC New Media).
“The Digital Wellbeing Showroom is the first of a new kind of retail environment for digital lifestyle products. The showroom presents a selection of exclusive digital […]

On sale for the first time at the Ars Electronica Electrolobby workshops, the Arduino mini is a much smaller version of its older brother. Ideal for plugging straight into breadboards & for projects with limited space, the Arduino mini also has twice as much memory for your code. Saving space by using a […]

Most of my time at Ars Electronica was spent in the Electrolobby, taking part in the OpenFrameWorks workshop, run by Zach Lieberman & Henrik Wrangel.
“OpenFrameWorks, is a new open source, cross platform, c++ library, which was designed by Zachary Lieberman (US) to make programming in c++ for students accessible and easy. In it, the developers […]

Christian Giordano, Seulki Kang, Lewis & myself are off to Ars Electronica at the end of the month. Anyone readers from London going? Get in touch.
Christian has made this very useful Google Map of Ars:

>> Ars Electronica Google Map

Commissioned for the Cybersonica 06 Sonic Art Exhibition.

Freq2, by Squidsoup, uses your whole body to control the precise nature of a sound - a form of musical instrument. The mechanism used is to trace the outline of a person’s shadow, using a webcam, and transform this line into an audible sound. Any sound […]

[update1 - Jimmi got in touch and has posted his video on YouTube in five parts -> one, two, three, four, five]

I’ve had the pleasure and honor of seeing Toshio Iwai do the keynote lecture at Futuresonic 2006. As an inspiration for many years, having only read about his previous work and seen static images, […]

In the morning I will be leaving London for Manchester for Futuresonic 2006, the urban festival of electronic music and arts.
I’ll be documenting the festival through Pixelsumo [tags/events/futuresonic] and on Flickr (tagged futuresonic).
If anyone is going, let me know and say hello.

There are 4 great free workshops running during this years Futuresonic festival. If anyone is going to Futuresonic let me know, as I’ll be up there attending workshop 1 and reporting on the festival.

WORKSHOP #1 : Game modification - games as audiovisual tools
BY: Tom Betts & Alison Mealey
WHEN: 17 - 18 - 19 July
Through this […]

[update - a video]
Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

Availabot by Jack Schulze (Interaction Design) plugs into your computer by USB, stands to attention when your chat buddy comes online, and falls down when they go away. It’s a presence-aware, peripheral-vision USB toy and because the puppets are made […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

The Sprochs from Daniel Goddemeyer (Interaction Design) are a family of characters that allow you to record a single voice message, then pass it on to someone else. Upon recording your message, you can set the level of effort and care from […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

Progress Bar from Eyal Burstein (Interaction Design) are objects that visualise periods between one week and one hundred years, and are used to review the progress of goals, aims, ambitions or any other long-term interest, which might get left behind because of every […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

One of the best projects to come out of Interaction Design this year is Chatsum, the brainchild of George Grinsted in collaboration with Lee Parry.
Putting it simply, Chatsum is a web service that allows you to chat to other people who are […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

I had previously written about Plable from Yumiko Tanaka, so I was pleased to see a working prototype at the Interaction Design show.
Yumiko’s other projects include Fripon (connect kitchen appliances and furniture wirelessly to control childrens toys) and Spyrod (a small video camera […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.
Daniel Goddemeyer from Interaction Design has created these three dolls for children with a purpose.

Smoke is a doll whose physical breathing behaviour is depending on the parents smoking habits and how much the doll is exposed to passive smoke at home. Smoke’s […]

Reporting on the Royal College of Art Show 2006. Read more on Pixelsumo.

Daniel Kupfer from Interaction Design presented Memory Mirror:
“Imagine your body could leave a trace of your heat, a trace of your libido, a trace of your soul. What would you say with it? The Memory Mirror is an invitation to a form of […]

Tonight was the private view for the Royal College of Art show. I highly recommend you get to see this. Opening times and information. Show 2 participants include Animation, Architecture, Communication Art & Design, Conservation, Curating Contemporary Art, Design Products, Fashion, History of Design, Industrial Design, Engineering, Interaction Design, Textiles and Vehicle Design.
Of course […]

More turntable research.

Datasound from Troika offers an alternative and more sensual interpretation of electronic data by exploring their musical potential. Datasound is a fully functional musical instrument that enables you to hear, mix, scratch and perform digital data signals, from a picture, an old program floppy, a computer virus, a love letter, or a drawing.
On […]

For the Cybersonica conference, we had Josh Randall, Creative Director of Harmonix Music over to do the keynote lecture ‘Interactive Music for the Masses’.
About the talk.

The video documentation is now online thanks to Playstation.com and Cybersonica.tv, highly recommended viewing.
Watch:
Lecture on Playstation.com
Josh gets interviewed by Playstation.com
Also check out this months Edge Magazine (UK) for a run […]

A project in a similar concept to RGB Player is spinCycle from Spencer Kiser (an NYU ITP student).
As the turntable rotates, a camera reads the fluorescent tinted plexiglass (red, yellow and blue). The camera acts as the input detection, picking up the colours and positions of the pucks, but also as the visual feedback […]

For anyone who doesn’t know what Tenori-On from Toshio Iwai is, first read about it on wmmna (then on CDM, Musicthing and Siggraph).
Then watch this video & see some photos. This is a great physical soundtoy and I am pleased that Yamaha got on board with this one.
Following the Nime conference, more details have […]

Commissioned for the Cybersonica 06 Sonic Art Exhibition.

Death Before Disko, by Herwig Weiser, is a beautifully crafted object, tube like in shape with speakers at each end. In the centre is a mirrorball-like sphere containing magnets. Stuck to this on the outside is ferrofluid, resembling a rotating liquid which is sculpturally dynamic. […]

Commissioned for the Cybersonica 06 exhibition. Created by London based collective Someth;ng.

An electro-kinetic sound installation, Tape uses simple analogue playback to allow users an arena in which to play with self-recorded sound and explore the effects of playback and sound synthesis. Housed in a transparent acrylic panel, Tape allows its user not only to view […]

Continuing coverage of Cybersonica 06 exhibition.

m3 Virtual Music Gate by Michael Markert is a virtual music gate, that sensors body movements in a space between two illuminated columns and processes the data in realtime to harmonic and rhythmic music. The art arises with the interaction of its users and their different and unique behavior […]

Shown at the Cybersonica 06 Sonic Art Exhibition.

Mind Your Head by Philip Marston is a simple and playful installed object which the viewer/participator (by wearing the headphones and walking under and around the suspended light) can audibly experience the invisible electromagnetic frequencies which leak and radiate out of an ordinary fluorescent tube light.
The headphones, with […]

Commissioned for the Cybersonica 06 Sonic Art Exhibition.
In Schizoporotica, Troika uniquely reinvent the music box over a century after its conception. Users are invited to tear their tickets and, by feeding them into the machine, create their own shredded melody.
Analysis of the resulting pattern then pitches the melody with endless possibilities, the torn pattern becomes […]

Oh yes, the excellent Strandbeest from Theo Jansen is coming to London.

24th of June- 27th The Animaris Percipiere Excelsus will walk on Trafelgar Square on an artificial beach between the fountains (11am - 9pm daily).
They will be in the ICA Theatre from 4 - 16 July, from 12noon - 7.30pm daily.
More information

Showing at the Cybersonica 06 Sonic Art Exhibition.
Created by Wojceich Kosma, Interchange is an audiovisual piece controlled by the Playstation Portable gaming device. The player performs some composed graph score consisting of 98 boxes. Each box represents a note and a shape. The number inside the box is a pitch/length of loop. The player is […]