SoPG: Yamanote

Back in 2006 I spent 4 intensive days walking around Tokyo. Rather than using my Lonely Planet Guide, I used a map cut from a postcard advertising an exhibition. With all the labels cut off.

Appropriated map and Yamanote train

You can read more about the project here; suffice to say that it was something of a pivotal moment in my practice and is what kicked off the whole genzaichi identity/ethos.

Where will you go and what will you see there?

The pack available at the CiB shop will give you both the appropriated map and the genzaichi/you are here symbol from the Yamanote railway line in badge form. You are invited to use them to instigate a random walk from a railway station (or alternative) of your choosing.

Use them to go somewhere you wouldn’t have otherwise have considered going to and then take some time to get to know that place. See if you can find what the point of special interest is.

Perfect for the latent psychogeographer in all of us!

Counsel for the Artist

At the end of my time at art school, I gathered together all the notes I had made from lectures, conferences, seminars and the such and searched through them picking out phrases that resonated. I found quite a few.

From these I selected the 8 really pertinent ones that I wanted to keep at the forefront of my mind when making work in the years following graduation. These became Counsel for the Artist and they are still cornerstones of my practice nearly 4 years later:

• Make exchanges with spaces
• Strive to achieve modest connections
• Set your own agenda
• Add to a culture of learning and experimentation
• Get the message across
• Meet a new network
• Resist the ascribed role of witness
• Circumnavigate predictability

You may have noticed these statements on my CV, in the tags I use for my blog posts and also about my person in various forms.

Buttons

The thing with these though, is I quickly found that people from other professions were finding the statements resonated strongly with them too. Hence I’m using “artist” in its broadest of terms: “A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice”.

Is that you?

You can get a selection of 4 statements to wear on your sleeve (or other location).

Counsel for the Artist badges

Postcards and more

The Yamanote and Counsel for the Artist badge collections are very limited availability, but fear not if you are quick enough to get one before they sell out.

The genzaichi and map designs are available on T-shirts from my online shop, and there are Counsel for the Artist postcards available at CiB and online. Buying some is as simple as getting in touch.

Uncertain Eastside in the CiB shop

You can read more about the Created in Birmingham shop on their blog, although obviously it goes without saying that you should go and visit if you can. It’s a nice example of creative communities making use of what would otherwise be an empty retail unit.

Location: Bullring, Level 3 Upper Mall West
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 10am to 8pm. Sun 11am to 5pm

Hopefully this will shed a little light on the “what is locative media?” question for some of you!

Uncertain Eastside at the West Midlands Open

Follow up to an earlier post. Verdict on the presentation: just the right amount of wonkiness.

The exhibition runs from 6th March to 2nd May and is at the Gas Hall. Entrance is free.

Chocolate brownies, jammie dodgers, humidity sensor LED candle.

fizzPOP (so named as a reference to the Lunar Society) came into being just as I returned form a residency at the Banff New Media Institute and was pondering how on earth I was going to develop my skills and practice in a city with an apparent lack of peer group.

I’ve been heavily involved in the organisation of the hackspace (working with Antonio Roberts and others) since the early days and seen it grow from laptop-orientated meetings in pubs through to regular practical sessions held at The Edge. I’m happy to be able to report that I’ve learned loads and am constantly meeting new people who provide skills and ideas that feed into my work (and play!).

There are big plans for our second year – look out for more in the way of events and workshops, as well as continuing to develop the hacksessions that form the core of what fizzPOP is about.

Cake.

LED matrix: GB contemplates colour mixing, simple graphics and very small numbers.

I was shocked when this lady ran into the room & said COME INTO THE HALL NOW- THIS IS TOP SECRET. We suddenly found out that our teachers were all agents named Agent squirrel, Agent pants, Agent ants & Agent elliephants. I enjoyed learning this misson it was interesting to see all our teachers undercover. I learnt how to break codes in the afternoon & we got two clues that tell us what is the answer to this mission & it carries on going and going until we find the last clue. I am excited but i am little bit nervous because we only have 3 days.

Agent CB

In the morning when Miss Yates had just taken the register agent N came in and she said EMERGENCY!!! COME TO THE HALL QUICK I was really excited but when we were walking in the corridors we had to make sure that we were undercover so we had to act normal and when we had got to the hall agent N told us that we were on a mission to find some clues to solve the mission.Then we had to go back to are classrooms and we had to solve some clues and we got some clues just in the time of 15 minutes and the first clue was , near a mans whos’s insides you could clearly see and we had to find a map and each class had part of the map and if we put it together it would make the whole map. Today I have learned that if we all work together as a team the mission would be done quicker because we only have 2 days left.

Agent AW

I have realy enjoyed day 1 of (Sssshhhhhh) code breaking I can not I repeat (can not) wait until tomorrow.
And I cant wait to see the map again because it realy I repeat (realy) looks like fun also I thought what we might have to do with the map cause it looks allot like a treasure map.So we might have to find another clue or something.

cant wait for tomorrow
see you, yours greatfully
L (byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Agent LJ

(All these examples were added to a forum on the school’s Virtual Learning Environment after school had finished.)

Constructing a map of the school grounds.

The plan is to solve a series of puzzles to incrementally build up a massive dot-to-dot overlaid on the school grounds, so I’ve just spent a couple of hours working from satellite imagery to construct an outline map over which we can place…

…well, that would be telling…

My Uncertain Eastside drawing generated from 6 circuits of the Eastside Regeneration Zone in Birmingham has been selected for exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s Gas Hall as part of their biennial collaboration between with Wolverhampton Art Gallery to celebrate the work of artists in the region.

My letter tells me there were over 1200 entries to the Open, from which 146 were selected for the exhibition …so that’s something nice I can tell my Mum!

West Midlands Open, 2010

Expect more details closer to the exhibition’s opening in March…

I struggle with this idea, I think for two main reasons.

The first is that I’ve never been to a performance that even remotely indicates to me what a circuit-bent Furby gig might be like. What might a circuit-bent Furby gig be like?

The second is that, as Danny started to get close to with his questioning of how I relate to the Furby as I’m messing with its circuits, the interesting thing about this kind of object for me is how people interact with it.

'Furby & Thingamagoop' by Katchooo on Flickr

Fiona asked me to bring the Furby along to her recent birthday party. Brilliant! A chance to see how other people play with it!

It was great to just sit back and watch as different people responded to the thing in different ways. Also good was how people responded when the Furby failed to respond …and the different ways in which frustration, anger and dominance were expressed! This is the stage where I start to find out what it is that I have made. Up until then, it’s just been a learning project as I try and improve my electronics skills. It starts to come alive only once I put it into the hands of other people.

So, the idea of a performance and therefore of an audience is quite an alien one for me. I’m more interested in participants; in audiences of one.

Here’s Pete figuring out Furby-Thingamagoop interaction:

Performance for Furby and Thingamagoop from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

well-funky furby

It looks like Funky Furbies (like the one above, video here) are going on ebay for about £20, so let’s say that after they’ve been circuit-bent and had extra components put in etc etc you’re looking of a starting price of around £50.

furbile from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

It might be possible to get a smaller one, like the above, on ebay for less, maybe even £5, but that depends on how the auctions play out…

Anyway, if you’re interested in commissioning your own unique little ear-wiggling bleepy thing please contact me and we can arrange a design brief and a budget to work to.