After spending so long deliberating what direction to take kenmc.com in, I figure a complete change is as good as the rest.

Happy New Year to all.

While my blogging continues primarily over at AnyGivenFood.com, I’ve been keeping myself busy in the past few weeks with the above – bash:latterday plays by The Devious Theatre Company. It’s been a good year for me so far in terms of theatre, producing three shows with DTC, working with Watergate Productions, bringing shows to festivals in Dublin and Cork and now, moving on to my fifth and final theatrical production of the year.

This year also marked five years on the go for The Devious Theatre Company and has been a massive transition year for us. We spent the first six months of the year working as artists in residence with Kilkenny County Council’s Arts Office on our In The Future When All’s Well residency and having recently gone through the company formation process, we’ve secured a physical home for the theatre for the foreseeable future, allowing us to spend more time developing work and planning and plotting our 2012 and 2013 calendars.

bash, for me, presents a theatrical homecoming of sorts as it’s our first major production to stage in the intimate surrounds of Cleere’s Theatre in Kilkenny since we revisited Heart Shaped Vinyl in 2007 for an updated run of our debut production in 2006. It is, as they say, where the magic happened for us in the first place and we’ll be looking to recreate that from October 17th to 22nd.

What is this ‘bash’ you speak of?

bash was first performed in 1999. It became quickly renowned for its shocking and unflinching portrayals of everyday evil with the New York Times calling it ‘insistently brutal’. Like much of LaBute’s work, it exposes the dark and sinister undercurrents of clean cut middle American life. The play was considered so shocking at the time that LaBute was disfellowshipped by the Church Of Latter Day Saints, of whom the characters in bash are members.

The play consists of 3 stories with a loose basis on Greek mythology, transposed to modern America. Delivered in monologues that are conversational, breezy, natural and ultimately gutwrenching, bash examines the horrific lengths that human beings go to in order to stay in control of their lives.

In iphigenia in orem a young utah businessman recounts a particularly chilling confession to a stranger in a Las Vegas hotel room. It will be performed by John Morton and directed by myself.

a gaggle of saints sees a young couple document the violent events of a romantic weekend away in New York. It will be performed by Amy Dunne and myself and directed by Annette O’Shea.

In medea redux a young woman tells the ultimately tragic tale about a romance with her high school teacher when she was a teenager. It will be performed by Annette O’Shea and directed by John Morton.

Neil LaBute’s plays include The Shape Of Things, The Mercy Seat, Fat Pig, Wrecks and reasons to be pretty. His film work includes In The Company Of Men, Your Friends And Neighbours, Nurse Betty and Possession.

Neil LaBute’s bash: latterday plays runs in Cleere’s Theatre, Kilkenny from October 17th – 22nd at 8pm nightly. Bookings can be made on 056 – 7762573. Tickets are €12 and are available to buy online now (subject to booking fee).

THE ARTS, with theatre in particular, is quite close to my heart. One of the most enjoyable things I’ve done in years finished recently when I wrapped up a six month artist residency at 76 John Street, Kilkennny with The Devious Theatre Company. The purpose of the residency was to allow the company time to develop, plan, plot, grow professionaly and stage some new work. Three new productions, two festivals and a partridge in a pear tree later, I find myself having kick-started a new blog, Love Arts Culture. This due largely in part to reading anything and everything the arts office has had to offer over the past six months and using the residency as a catalyst to get a focus for a new blog.

Love Arts Culture gives me a home for arts related musings, photographs and theatre coverage, with a spillover of content from DTC and other arts-related projects I’m involved in.

The idea of kenmc.com as a technology blog, for the past 12-18 months, has certainly faded with more of my attention heading towards the arts and groups that I’m involved with both personall and professionally, so parking it all under the one banner makes a lot more sense.

It’s in the infancy stages for the moment but I’ll be giving it some good development time over the next few weeks and we’ll see what comes of it. Whoever says blogging is dead must be having a laugh. As for the content here on kenmc.com, it has certainly changed direction over the past six years or so (or it must be close to six years anyway). This blog itself will be subject to some revision in the coming weeks but for now, you’ll find more of my ramblings over at LoveArtsCulture.com, AnyGivenFood.com and with some photos in the mix, documenting the 29th year, over at 365.kenmc.com.

Do stop by and check out the blog. You’ll also find @LoveArtsCulture on Twitter and Facebook here.

The fourth theatrical production I’ve worked on (and third that I’ve produced) for this year opens this Sunday night at the Kilkenny Arts Office, 76 John Street Kilkenny. The show opened last week at Solstice in Cork as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. Here’s the blurb…

Smitten is a play that wants to be a musical.

It marks the third part of Devious Theatre’s ‘In The Future When All’s Well’ residency in Kilkenny Arts Office following on from the success of Scratcher and Shifting. Written by John Morton, it’s a romantic comedy about rain, recession and why dance sequences are harder in real life.

Claire used to be a nurse but then she emigrated. Now she’s returned home from South America with her tail between her legs only to discover that finding her feet on home soil is proving harder than she expected. Especially when everyone else is shaking off their brollies and getting ready to head for greener pastures. As Claire tries to enthuse herself about settling in Ireland, she realises that life is not the Technicolor fantasy that she projected as a teenager and no amount of song or dance is going to help that. If the musicals have taught us one thing, it’s that there’s no place like home. But why does it have to be so black and white?

Smitten opened in Cork on June 16th at Solstice as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival. It then marks the conclusion of Devious Theatre’s Kilkenny Arts Office residency when it plays No. 76 John Street from June 26th – July 2nd.

The cast includes Amy Dunne, Ken McGuire, Kevin Mooney, Lynsey Moran, John Morton, Maria Murray, Suzanne O’Brien, Jack O’Leary, Annette O’Shea and David Thompson. The play is written and directed by John Morton.

Tickets for Kilkenny are €12 can be booked at tickets.devioustheatre.com (tickets booked online carry an additional booking fee), purchased at Kilkenny Arts Office, No. 76 John Street and reserved on 056 – 7794138. For all information please check out DeviousTheatre.com. You can follow progress on the residency at http://no72.wordpress.com.

There’s plenty of teching going on today, tomorrow and Saturday before the curtain goes up on Sunday at 8. Tickets for Sunday night’s opening performance are only €8 and equally can only be called for at the office or collected in person (we’re not selling the Sunday night tickets online). If you want yours, drop down to 76 John Street, Kilkenny (the old Meubles furniture store) any day between now and July 2nd (we’re opening the box office 10am to 6pm daily for the next 10 days or so). Off the back of Scratcher (February) and Shifting (April), I wouldn’t be leaving it too long to get a ticket though, audience will be limited to 70 per night.

The artwork for the latest Devious Theatre production, Smitten (which I’m using both my acting and producing for) has landed in the Dropbox (a vital tool for theatre companies, has to be said) and made its way to the printer this morning.

The poster is the result of a long day of green screen photography with myself and Paddy Dunne and many hours by Paddy following to get the poster to its final draft. Over the next three weeks there’s going to be a torrent of photos, behind the scenes images, promo images, videos and more hitting the local papers, web and the blogs within our own networks.

Smitten marks the third and final performance piece of an artist residency that I’ve been involved in from the beginning of the year, run out of 76 John Street (Kilkenny Arts Office). The works developed in the residency have allowed the theatre company travel to Dublin (Scratcher, February) and Cork (June, Solstice at Cork Midsummer Festival) so I’ll be spending a few days working from Cork in the fortnight. Smitten itself will open in Kilkenny on Sunday June 26th, running for seven nights.

You can get the full lowdown on the show at DeviousTheatre.com and tickets, priced €12 are available from Kilkenny Arts Office, 76 John Street, Kilkenny or online via tickets.devioustheatre.com.

Project 365. 365 Photos. 365-A-Day. Photo-A-Day.

Call it what you like, at this stage, the majority of people know what they are – a collection of photos (at least 365 of them) designed to chronicle a year in the life of something. Some people take a photo of a sunrise a day. Some people take a photo of their face for a year. Me, I’ve just decided to chronicle the gap between 2011 and 2012.

I turned 28 on Tuesday, had a cracking meal with some cracking people and arrived home with a load of photos from the night. But I’m shooting things every day, whether for work, theatre, food or something else. The phone goes with me everywhere and the pocket camera goes with me everywhere (and certainly has the scratches to prove it).

So, inspired by a friend that’s doing something similar since she lost her job earlier in the year, I’ve decided to run a 365 photo blog what happens between birthday 28 and birthday 29. Some days there’ll be one photo, some days a dozen. I know there will be food, technology, festivals, singing, dancing, wedding planning, the US, Canada, sun, snow and more involved. Keeping to it is one thing, but having set the site up as a Tumblog (Tumblr-type blog) with a mobile interface, it shouldn’t be all that hard.

It started on May 31st and there’s two days there already.

Twitter introduce their new photo sharing service, bringing it all back home. There has been some recent controversy and backlash around Twitpic’s changes in terms of service allowing the sale of images uploaded via their sharing service so it will be interesting to see if this direct contribution to Twitter sparks another revenue stream for the company.

If anything, it’s going to make searching for images and videos a real treat when it comes to event coverage (says he with one eye on Kilkenny Arts Festival this coming August).

The Blurb

Twitter brings the most meaningful information in the world right to your pocket. And, it’s never been easier to get a sense of what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world, or to share what’s happening in your world. Twitter search now delivers more relevant search results, alongside related photos and videos. And, you will soon be able to upload a photo and attach it to your Tweet directly from http://twitter.com.

Video by: @briggles, @jennadawn & @jbuckhouse
Special thanks: @wikiweeks, @mail, @whatsonjatweets, @TorinSimpson & Ben Moon

Music: “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” by @brettdennen courtesy of @DualtoneRecords.

Arriving at 76 John Street in February, you would be forgiven for thinking you were walking into a social welfare office, such was the setting for the play. Take seven bodies who are sick with the system and the uncertainty of the future, add some guns, explosions, threats, demands and more and you’ve got a fine recipe for social warfare.

The residency work continues at 76 John Street with the staging of Smitten from June 26th – July 2nd. Corkonians are in for a Devious treat as Smitten arrives to the Cork Midsummer Festival as part of Solstice in the old Fás building on Sullivan’s Quay for a one night only performance on June 16th.

For more on the residency, Scratcher, Shifting (the second piece of the residency) and Smitten, check out DeviousTheatre.com.

For the past few years, the crew at Young Irish Film Makers have been running Caffeine, a 24-hour international film festival and competition where you get 24 hours to develop, storyboard, cast, shoot, edit and release a short film. The catch being that on the day of the competition, each team is given three items, props or elements that must be included in their short.

The winning short was Run On, above, which was put together by Lukas Hartmann, Joey Harris, Steve O’Connor, Connie Walsh, Roman Hartmann, Liam Dinkelmann, Jamie Stedmond and Eanna Brennan. You can find out more on the festival itself over on Facebook or YIFM.com.

In the last promotional piece for Scratcher, currently ongoing at No. 76 John Street in Kilkenny, here’s the cast of the show using their acting to tell you how to vote.

Scratcher commenced it’s theatrical run in Dublin last week at Project Arts Centre as part of The Theatre Machine Turns You On: Vol II and continues this week, until Saturday, at the Kilkenny Arts Office on John Street (old Meubles furniture store). Tickets for the show are €12 and are limited to 70 per night. For more on the background of the show, visit DeviousTheatre.com.

Scratcher is part of the theatrical residency In The Future When All’s Well, running at Kilkenny Arts Office until the end of June this year.

Just sayin…

This year is one that will see The Devious Theatre Company grow a lot, all under the watchful eye of Kilkenny County Council and the Kilkenny Arts Office, thanks in large part to the theatrical residency that is In The Future When All’s Well.

The first show to be produced in the residency gets an airing in Dublin next Thursday night, for one night only, at the Project Arts Centre. The show appears as part of The Theatre Machine Turns You On: Vol II, a festival of new works curated by THEATREclub and backed by the fine folks at Absolut Vodka, The Arts Council, Dublin City Council, Project Arts Centre and The Workman’s Club. Tickets are available to buy here.

As a theatre company, we’ve been pushing to do more video online this year. Of course, we’ve been doing it for a few years already with behind the scenes clips, cast and crew diaries, rehearsal and performance clips all getting released online in and around particular shows. So, the trip to Dublin should be no different. If you’ve got 59 seconds to spare, take a peek at the above video and see you in Dublin next Thursday night.

For more videos, seek out Devious Theatre on YouTube. You can also follow the company’s activites on Facebook and Twitter.

What is being creative? from Kristian Ulrich Larsen on Vimeo.

We may not always create or invent, but we always learn when we try. If this phone ever goes from concept to production, you can count me in.

The flip phone is based on a concept conceived during a six-week long workshop by Kristian Ulrich Larsen, Ewa Sendecka, Jeppe Vestergård and Victoria Kusk. It was then developed further for a semester by Kristian Ulrich Larsen as part of an MA program at Kolding school of design, online at dskd.dk.

Yanko Design are behind the physical design of the phone. Spot the Android screens then follow it up on Wired and Engadget.

Every now and then a video comes along that gives (apart from going viral) makes you smile at the genius of it all. Best child acting performance I’ve seen in a long time too. It was released three days ago and is bound for the Super Bowl this weekend. The agency behind the ad is Deutsch Los Angeles and you can check the full production credits here.

For those asking for the list in full of everything that was mentioned on air this morning, along with links for where you can buy them, here you go. Check out the video too, I’d mentioned TikTok in relation to the iPod Nano (thanks to Paul Watson for the tip) but there’s straps already on the market as well from Griffin. (links after the video)

Consoles & Games

• Kinect for Xbox 360 (available in most gaming retails, some high street shops and supermarkets). Expect to pay in the region of €140-€150 to get you started.
• Playstation Move – Starter packs including motion controller and camera run from €70, again, gaming shops and high street stores (like Argos) will stock.
• Game suggestions for Christmas: Call of Duty: Black Ops, Fifa 11, Just Dance 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Gran Turismo (links to Play.com)

Tablets, Cameras, Video

• Apple iPad (available from 499)
• Samsung Galaxy Tablet (available from €650)
• Dell Streak (available from €499)
• Apple TV (available from €119)
• iPods – new iPod Nano available from €159. When talking about the watch straps, look for the Griffin Slap as a starting point)
• Digital Cameras – Nikon Coolpix 1100pj (digital camera with built in projector)
• Video Cameras – Flip Mino (available from Argos, prices start around the €90 mark)
• DVDs – DVDs mentioned on the show this morning included Inception, the Toy Story Box set (movies 1-3), The Wire (big seller last Christmas), complete 24 and Lost box sets and The Pacific. All have been seen recently in HMV, Xtravision and are sure to be available in most good DVD retail outlets.

Also Mentioned…

Also mentioned this morning were

• Digital Photo Frames – depending on where you buy, expect to pay from €20 upwards, have come down in cost something fierce in the last year or two
• Limited Edition Streets of Rage Megadrive Handheld Console – 18 games for the retro gamer including Sonic The Hedgehog, Streets Of Rage, Golden Axe 2 and more. Clocks in around the €32 mark via Play.com.
• Polyscience Food Smoker aka “The Smoking Gun” – Tipped from @avillagepantry this morning, this kitchen gadget lets you smoke your own food – chicken, spinach, drinks, anything goes. Handheld food smoker for those who don’t cook over flame or have wanted to try woodchip flavours like hickory, maple, apple wood, cherry etc in your cooking. Retails online from US$99.

The links above go out to Argos, Play.com, Pixmania and CuisineTechnology.com though you may find items mentioned above cheaper at other local / national stores. No affiliate links are included.

In a former life, car ads were all about the boot space, how many kids you could cram in, how many miles to the gallon, how much the tax would be, the safety standards…

If there’s one way of making your car advert stick out, it’s got to be including a performance like the above from glass harpist Petr Spatina.

Here’s another clip of him performing live on a foreign talent show, you’ll need to forward on about 2 minutes or so for the live performance.

Creative Camp in Belfast December 3rd

Creative Camp is returning to Belfast and it’s coming up pretty soon – this Friday to be precise.

Blick Studios and Trans Urban Arts are linking up to bring back Creative Camp, the free unconference for people from all walks of creative life. If you’re familiar with the BarCamp / BizCamp style setup then you’ll find yourself right at home with Creative Camp.

It’s being held at the Blick Studios building in Belfast and kicks off at 10am on Friday.

The blurb…

CREATIVE CAMP is a free un-conference event for people who are passionate about creativity and want to make things happen. CREATIVE CAMP is an event designed to combine the best of creativity, business and technology in a unique format to encourage networking, collaboration and peer on peer learning. Participants are invited to give talks, do demonstrations, and show their work and it is these participants who then set the agenda, decide on topics and generate the content, demos and portfolio presentations.

The event’s purpose is for people from creative industries to meet, network, and learn from each other. This includes Graphic and Web Designers and Developers, Artists, Filmmakers, Photographers, Musicians, Fashion Designers, Students, Educators, entrepreneurs and any other creative practitioners who have ideas, innovations, experience or inspiration they want to share.

Registration is closed for the event, such is the demand, but they are operating a waiting list system. If you want on it, drop an email to info@blickstudios.org or stop by CreativeCampBelfast.co.uk for all the details.

• the relevance of science, engineering and technology in our everyday lives and
• to demonstrate the importance of science in the future development of Irish society and the economy.

Locally (in Kilkenny) there are three events listed on ScienceWeek.ie.

A practical examination of farm animal digestive systems

Details: 2pm, November 10th, free admission. Takes place at Kildalton Agricultural College, Piltown.
An opportunity to examine the ruminant and monogastric digestive systems. Ideal for students undertaking the Leaving Certificate Agricultural Science course. This is not for the faint hearted so be warned!!!

Mobile Planetarium incorporating a science and astronomy show.

Details: Nov 10, During school hours at Presentation Secondary, Loughboy. Invitation only.
The planetarium has a detailed night sky with 3,000 star points. There will be a live interactive presentation using images and video to illustrate our universe and solar system.

Schools Science Display

Details: Runs Monday 8th – Friday 12th, 10am to 5pm at Castlecomer Discover Park. Free to general public.
A display of Science project work from local schools in the foyer of the visitor centre at Castlecomer Discovery Park

You can submit events you’re organising or involved in and find more events in your area at ScienceWeek.ie

KLCK gathering in Kilkenny, pic via Amanda Webb

The second Monday of the month is almost upon us which means the next KLCK Bloggers Network meeting is just around the corner as well. I was invited along as a guest speaker for last month’s gathering which took place in Kilkenny. 18 or so people made the night, the good numbers sparking some interesting conversation about blog promotion, mailing lists, WordPress plugins and the like.

The November gathering takes place this coming Monday at the Johnstown Business Centre in Johnstown, Co. Kildare.

We have an excellent speaker lined up for the night. John O’Connor from Red Oak Tax Refunds will be talking about measuring the success of our blog and we are introducing a round table discussion on how to find inspiration for our blogs. We are hoping that this round table discussion will encourage more knowledge sharing amongst the group and enable novice bloggers to get more from our meetups.

It’s shaping up to be a great meeting and as always …

The network is aimed at connecting bloggers new and experienced in counties Kildare, Laois, Carlow and Kilkenny with the meetups rotating between every month.

It’s a 7pm kick off, there’s no charge to go along and if you’re new to blogging, looking to build your blog or just get out and about for tea and chat,then Johnstown Business Centre is the place to be on Monday evening. You can follow the group’s activities on Facebook.

I had been thinking about it long enough, taking photos long enough, tweeting about it long enough and getting in the neck from friends long enough.

The “it” I’m referring to is food, my love of food, and now I’ve taken all of the above and finally started up a proper food blog.

I’ve got a year’s worth of photos on the iPhone and HTC that are primarily about food. I kept a tumblr blog going until mid summer which was made up just of photos of meals – breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, anything went. But a trip to Foodcamp over the bank holiday weekend gave me the kick in the arse / boost I needed to put everything in the one place and start writing about all things food. And so, if you didn’t get a nudge from me on Facebook about it, I present Any Given Food.

There’s about a week’s worth of posts on there at the moment but the notebook I’ve been keeping should see me through to the Spring, which is certainly enough in terms of content to get me started. That said, I’m not a conventional food blogger by any means. I can’t see myself painstakingly describing recipes (I’m very much “throw in a bit of this, some of that, bang it in the oven”) kind of home cook but the blog will carry posts on local markets, a wealth of foodie photos, dinners out, gluten-free bits and bobs and whatever else takes my foodie fancy.

I’m directing my food tweets via a new account, @anygivenfood and I’ll be posting extra content as I get it over on the Any Given Food Facebook page.

As of this morning I’ve also released a podcast feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/FoodcampPodcasts) for the Savour Kilkenny Foodcamp Podcasts so if you missed out on Foodcamp last week you can grab yourself some of the talks. There’s four available to download at present with more to come over today and tomorrow.

Thoughts and comments much appreciated and if you would like to subscribe to the new blog use this RSS feed.