Liverpool Biennial 2012: The Unexpected Guest at FACT
Saturday 15 September – Sunday 25 November

The Unexpected Guest is part of Liverpool Biennial. It is an exhibition that brings over 60 artists together across 19 sites in the City including galleries, museums and the public realm.

The exhibition begins with the idea of hospitality. Hospitality is the welcome we extend to others, as well as a metaphor encompassing issues of the body, territory, politics and commerce. In an age of unprecedented movement between both people and knowledge, different cultures of hospitality confront one another as never before.

Whilst each artist has chosen to respond differently to this idea, at the heart of the exhibition at FACT is each artist’s desire to critique social and political hierarchies and to re-imagine hidden or untold histories. Spanning collaborative and cross-disciplinary practices, the works study and address contemporary cultures of exchange, violence, and the romance we might feel for a world that seems to have adopted an increasingly inhospitable façade.

This forum celebrates the Random Acts series of commissions – including new commissions from FACT for the strand – and opens up a dialogue about the future of television as a shared space that has the potential to bridge new relationships between socially engaged audiences, curators, creative producers, and broadcasters.

Random Acts is a short form daily arts strand on Channel 4, late nights. It is television as art, rather than television about art. Created by established and emerging talent, without presenters, ignoring the clichés of the usual arts TV.

Using Random Acts as its starting point, this day long event will ask what is the future for TV as a shared space? How should artists use the medium? What should TV aim to be in the age of the Internet? How can television bridge new relationships between socially engaged audiences, curators, creative producers and broadcasters?

The forum will celebrate the Random Acts commissions (including 25 new films curated and co-commissioned by FACT) and discuss new models of broadcast and their dissemination in our increasingly networked culture.

Channel 4′s Commissioning Editor for Arts, Tabitha Jackson, who is responsible for all arts programming on C4 and More4 as well as any cross platform and transmedia arts projects joins us to consider the future. She will discuss the potential impacts and opportunities for artist interventions in broadcasting with Director of FACT Mike Stubbs, and Lucky PDF, an artist collective from South East London.

International speakers include American performance, video, drawing and installation artist Marisa Olson, who in 2004 created ‘Marisa’s American Idol Audition Blog’ where she documented and crowd sourced suggestions for her upcoming American Idol audition. Readers were asked to help choose her ‘look’, her song choice, whilst she practised walking in high heels, went tanning, campaigned in front of Fox HQ and took interview training classes with MTV presenter Tabitha Soren.

Chip Lord will be discussing histories of artist intervention with artist John Hill, of the ground breaking collective Lucky PDF. Chip Lord was a co-founder of Ant Farm, one of the most important and radical media collectives to come out of the United States.

Artist performances will take place including Jeremy Bailey’s The Future of Television, a ‘tele-presence augmented reality performance’, and Roney Fraser Munro, who will be intervening throughout the day with a series of alternative personae that seek to create a DIY and punk aesthetic for the future of television.

Produced by FACT, and online with ArtPlayer TV, in partnership with Channel 4, Arts Council England and the Liverpool Biennial

Tickets cost £10/£8 (members/concessions) and are available online, from the Box Office or by phone on 0871 902 5737.

Taking place at:
FACT
88 Wood Street
Liverpool
L14DQ

For more information:
www.fact.co.uk/whats-on/random-acts-artists-interventions-into-broadcast

Glyndŵr University, in association with northern bloc and North Wales Open Studios Network are offering a series of Digital Craft workshops. Participants will learn how to use the innovative production facilities at Glyndŵr University’s 3D workshop.

Introductory Day       Wednesday 24th October 13:00-17:00

Overview of equipment including demonstrations on how to use 3D workshop equipment; vinyl cutter, laser cutter, perfect bookbinder and 3D laser scanner.

Workshop 1: Laser & Vinyl Cutting

Wednesday 31st October 10:00-16:30

Detailed introduction to laser cutting and vinyl cutting equipment. This will include demonstration of the computer programs used to produce items on the equipment and an opportunity for participants to produce their own files for cutting/engraving.

Workshop 2: 3D Laser Scanning

Thursday 1st November 10:00-16:00

Introduction to 3D laser scanner; including set up, capturing and saving data and the use of software to manipulate the data in a format ready for 3D printing.

Participants to bring their own items for scanning.

Workshop 3: 3D Printing

Wednesday 14th November 10:00-16:00

+ Thursday 15th November 10:00-16:00

Day 1: Learn how to set up and print with the 3D printer using computer files.

Introduction to the Perfect Bookbinder.

Day 2: Release finished items from the 3D printer and how to clean the finished items.

Participants have the afternoon to work on the equipment in the workshop with full technical support.

Note: participants need to be present for both days for workshop 3.

Public discussion on online collaborative working to create 3D objects

Friday 14th December [time TBC]

Four commissioned artists Simon Proffitt, Louise Christie, Wendy Leah Dawson and Peter Hathaway present and discuss their ideas, concepts and experience at the culmination of working together for 3 months to create craftwork collaboratively online and utilising Glyndŵr University’s 3D workshop equipment.

Free. Light refreshments.

Booking

Limited places available – book as soon as possible to reserve your place. See overleaf.

How to book

As a deposit, please send us a cheque of £10 per session (made out to Datrys) which will be returned to you at your attendance.

Also, please provide us with your full name, address, phone number and email address.

Send the cheque and information to:

Datrys

Ciafaic

Watling Street

Llanrwst

LL26 0LS

If you have any questions or queries, contact us on post@datrys.co.uk or 01492 642 291.

• Key individuals from: Education, Entertainment, Environment, Health and Tourism sectors.
• Technical experts from industry.
• Skilled iPhone, Microsoft and Android developers.
• Experienced Graphic and Interaction designers.
• Entrepreneurs and funding advisers.

Soda’s cultural projects in 2012

This year we’ve been incredibly busy working on projects for the V&A, Pearson Education, A New Direction and a major charity sponsoring the London 2012 Olympics. We’ve also been busy presenting and mentoring at various events, including Museums Lab in Belgium.

We’ve just moved to a larger studio in Waterloo, and are looking for pitching opportunities and new projects for 2013. Our new space gives us the ability to expand the physical making activities of Soda (the mechatronic, 3D printing-type fun stuff), which nicely complements our core creative software skills.  Please email fiddian@soda.co.uk if you’d like to know more about us, or have a project we might be a good fit for.

Here are just a few of the projects that have been keeping us occupied this summer. If you’d like to see more examples of work, our website is here.

V&A British Design

Throughout 2011/2012 Soda worked with Ben Kelly Design and the curators at the V&A to create the AV software and videogames laboratory area of the blockbuster ‘British Design’ exhibition. Using custome LED boards and projections, amongst other techniques, Soda reimagined the design of some classic British videogames, including Lemmings, Tomb Raider and Little Big Planet. Read more.

Truce Arts Project

With funding from the Arts Council Soda partnered with A New Direction and Creative Intelligence Agency to create the Truce Arts Project – an initative based around the concept of Olympic Truce, and with the aim of getting young people to produce digital art on the themes of truce and peace. Read more.
Soda created the website and social media campaign for Truce Arts. as well as leading workshops with groups of young people from the Headstarters organisation and Middlesex University. You can see examples of the artwork created for the campaignhere.

Olympic Totems

These sculptural LED totems were commissioned by a major UK charity for display in the Olympic Park during the summer 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. Soda designed and built the electronics component, and wrote the software to run the LED displayes, which showed an ever-changing array of beautiful patterns of light.

The 2nd blinc digital arts festival takes place this year on the 27th- 28th October in Conwy North Wales. Following on from last year’s success, the arts event will showcase some of the most exciting artworks from 30 different artists. This year’s event is dedicated to Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who helped to crack the German coding in the Second World War and is considered by many to be the father of computing. 2012 is his Centenary Year.

Last year over 10,000 people descended on the town to watch the castle illuminated by very powerful projectors, transforming the 12th Century architecture into a backdrop for Art. This year the event will be different, offering a more dynamic festival at various sites around the town as well as the castle.

Two large-scale commissions are being exhibited on The BBC Space running in conjunction with event. The first piece entitled, Intense Colour Movement, collaboration between Craig Morrison, Joel Cockrill, Jobina Tinnemans and Elizabeth Ashworth is to be projected onto Plas Mawr. The second piece, Thank You is dedicated to Alan Turing and aims to highlight the legacy of this incredible mathematician. This piece is also created by the Artist/Curators Craig Morrison and Joel Cockrill and comprises two very large lasers, a replica of the 4th Plinth and an extremely large white neon epitaph.

The selected Artists include Bedwyr Williams, the Welsh artist representing Wales at the next Venice Biennale, Jessica Lloyd Jones & Ant Dickinson, Helen Booth, Jobina Tinnemans, Malcolm Litson and Wendy Dawson. There will be a cross section of both performance and site-specific pieces that will be on exhibition for the event. Anna Demitrui’s Turing Touring, an exhibition of work created by artists in response to Alan Turning, will also be on show for the weekend. The venues and exhibition spaces are scattered all over Conwy and the event will run for two days.

Blinc Digital Arts Festival is on 27th and 28th October in Conwy; a walled Heritage Medieval Town in North Wales. UK. The event is the collaboration between Conwy Feast and Craig Morrison and Joel Cockrill and is primarily supported by The Arts Council of Wales, Conwy County Council, Conwy Feast, Cadw and the BBC Space.

Each Artist has a full CV and Statement on the website. http://blincdigital.com

For Further information Please make contact by email. office@blincdigital.com

On the 1st November between 15.00 and 20.00, Inventorium will bring people together to discuss the important issue of wellbeing of our youngsters and generate new ideas for ways to improve wellbeing.

Inventorium can support the development of these ideas, leading to collaborative projects which may generate new products, services and businesses.

There will be short insights from experts during the event; however, the main activity will be our facilitation of your collaborative deliberations on topics including:

• Being happy, safe and secure,
• Being social and having fun,
• Respecting yourself, others and the environment.
• Childhood obesity,
• Creativity and learning,
• Intergenerational activity,
• Improved multi-agency communication,
• Communication with parents and carers,
• Improving data on childhood wellbeing.

Is it for me?
This Inventorium event brings together people who would not normally meet to explore new ways to promote the wellbeing of the young person. If you are:
A psychologist, a health or education professional or policy maker;
A parent, a childcare or socialwork professional or work for a charity;
Or are a digital technologist, designer, digital creative, or entrepreneur;
then you have a contribution to make to this event.

If you are a young person you also have a special contribution.

When and where?
1st November 2012, 15.00 – 20.00
Adeilad Reichel, Ffriddoedd Site, Ffriddoedd Road, Bangor LL57 2TR

We hope you can join us for the Digital Aesthetic³ 2012 conference and exhibition – the third and final manifestation of the Digital Aesthetic series.

Conference

5th – 6th Oct 2012

University of Central Lancashire, Preston

The conference explores the impact that the digital has on our sense of self and our relationship to the physical world through talks, performances and discussion sessions.

Join Arthur Elsenaar (Netherlands) for electronic facial hacking and Takahiko Iimura (Japan) for an interactive demonstration of learning Japanese – wrongly!

Chaired by Professor Sean Cubitt (Film and Television Studies, Goldsmiths, London) and Dr Sarah Cook (CRUMB, University of Sunderland), the event also includes presentations and performance by:

Ruth Catlow (UK), Terry Flaxton (UK), Maria Chatzichristodoulou (UK/Greece), Peter Callas (Australia), Alexa Wright (UK), Lindsay Taylor (UK), Beryl Graham (UK), Peter Campus (USA), Adam Lockhart (UK), Marilene Oliver (UK), Brendan Dawes (UK), Chris Meigh Andrews (UK) and Mary Lucier (USA).

Find out more and book now at: http://digitalaesthetic.org.uk/conference/

Exhibition

6th Oct 2012 – 5th Jan 2013, Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston

6th Oct – 19^th Oct 2012, PR1 Gallery, University of Central Lancashire, Preston

The exhibition demonstrates some of the diverse ways that artists are using digital technology, and includes two new commissions:

Mark Amerika: Museum of Glitch Aesthetics – an online-turned-physical project that sees the whole museum subjected to the notion of the ‘glitch’ (co-produced with AND Festival).

Harrison & Wood: DIYVBIED – a world premiere of a new film commission which juxtaposes the familiarity of the everyday with the horror of the car-bomb.

Also exhibiting are: Keith Brown (UK), Peter Callas (Australia), Sophie Calle (France), Peter Campus (USA), Paul Coldwell (UK), Brendan Dawes (UK), Stefanie Dykes (USA), Terry Flaxton (UK), Pat Flynn (UK), Yuan Goang-Ming (Taiwan), David Henckel (UK), Takahiko Iimura (Japan), Mary Lucier (USA), Jo Lansley & Neeta Madahar (UK), Ingrid Ledent (Belgium), Marilene Oliver (UK), Alexa Wright (UK), Katsutoshi Yuasa (Japan), Lee Yongbaek (Korea)

http://digitalaesthetic.org.uk/

Warp workshop:

An Architecture of a Website

g39 Oxford Street Cardiff CF24 3DT
25 October (12-5pm), 26 October (10am-4pm)

Designer Wolfram Wiedner and artist Richard Bevan will lead this two day
workshop looking at the potential ways of thinking about and designing
artist websites. The discussions will be concerned with the conceptual
underpinning of how artist websites can work and how they can be thought of
as physical structures that we move around. Topics to be discussed and
considered will include; ways of thinking about how different websites work,
the contexts for making and showing work using them, how to direct traffic
around them and how to direct traffic towards them. The workshop will
propose the idea of content-driven design websites, looking at what an
artist might want from their site, and how the design should be led by this.
This workshop is suitable for artists who may already have an existing
website that they wish to discuss or may be at the point of wanting to make
one and wish to learn more. Spaces are limited to 6 participants who will be
selected on their suitability for the workshop.

To apply: Artists wishing to attend should submit an expression of interest
(max 300 words) stating why they wish to attend the workshop and what
benefit it will have to their website and practice to sean@g39.org by 5
October 2012. Successful attendees will be notified on 8 October by email.

Small travel bursaries may be available for artists needing to travel to
Cardiff from other areas of Wales.

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www.missingshow.com
www.wiedner.co.uk

The New Media Caucus invites members including artists, art historians,
and theorists to submit proposals for seven-minute lightning talks on
“Current Questions in New Media Art” for a 90-minute, off-site session
during the 2013 CAA Conference in New York City. The lightning talk format
is intended to provide a wide range of ideas in a short amount of time.

Proposals should address questions pertinent to current creative,
technological, cultural, curatorial, aesthetic, and theoretical issues in
New Media Art.

It is important to note that the venue has a full bar and kitchen items
available for purchase, and there will be time after the presentations for
mingling and discussion.

A laptop and presentation projector will be available if desired for use
during each presentation.

Accepted abstracts will be available for download prior to the conference.

Proposals must include:

€ 200-400-word abstract describing your concept
€ Current CV

Timeline:
€ Deadline for submission is October 26.
€ Notification of acceptance by November 16

Email proposals to mailto:rudinsky@unc.edu