Friday, January 30, 2009

Northern Bloc - Llandudno - Thursday 29 Jan 2009

On Thursday I attended Shutdown:
The personal computer promises everything faster, better, cheaper. You can even conduct your social life online. But does this shift risk damaging our local economies and communities? What happens when you turn your back on the computer and use technology to build communities in real life instead?
The workshops and seminars explored the uses and implementation of social media technologies and of open methodologies in the area of research and creative practice. The event focused on the practical.

The presenters at the seminar were:

Adrain Bowyer: Wealth without money

Look at your computer setup. Imagine if you hooked up a 3D printer. Instead of printing on bits of paper this 3D printer makes real, robust, mechanical items. To give you an idea of how robust these items are think of Lego bricks and you`re in the right area. You could make lots of useful stuff, but interestingly you could also make most of the parts to make another 3D printer. That would be a machine that could copy itself.

This talk will be about RepRap - the Replicating Rapid-prototyper. This 3D printer will make items by building them up in layers of plastic. This technology already exists, but the cheapest commercial machine would cost you EUR 30,000. And it isn`t even designed so that it can make itself. So what the RepRap team are doing is to develop and to give away the designs for a much cheaper machine with the novel capability of being able to self-copy (material costs will be about EUR 400). That way it`ll be accessible to small communities in the developing world as well as individuals in the developed world. Anyone will be able to swap designs for anything to be made on RepRap using the Internet in the same way that music is currently shared. The RepRap machine is being distributed entirely free to everyone using open-source - so, if you have one, you can make another and give it to a friend.

Paul Miller -Why Don’t You? -School of Everything

In the 80s and 90s, the kids TV show `Why Don`t You` was more revolutionary than you might think. Its full title was `Why Don`t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead?` and it was all about the interesting stuff you should do instead of watching telly.

Now there are a whole range of internet services that have a `Why Don`t You ethic`. They`re not interested in creating a service that sucks people in - instead they focus on getting people out doing stuff with other people. In the case of School of Everything that`s about learning new stuff but there are others such as Meetup.com, ThePoint.com, PledgeBank.org, Dopplr.com that are all about helping people organise activity and not about them uploading their brains. This presentation will look at how you design an online service that helps people do things in the real world.

Simon Whitehead - Movement Artist

Simon will talk about the development of his practice - from working as a dance artist in a theatre setting to his current movement work, which often involves basic technologies and technologists. He will discuss several projects which combine the use of basic, often renewable technologies such as solar and wind power, mobile phones, sound and film, with an element of collaboration - working with other artists , the public and animals.

Simon will discuss some of his most productive collaborations in more detail, exploring how his work often involves working closely with technologists, such as long-standing collaborator Barnaby Oliver, who now lives thousands of miles away in Melbourne as well as more commercial relationships which have resulted in projects such as Walking to Work.

Simon will discuss several projects which don`t foreground the use of technology and the factors which influence these decisions. He will be rounding off his presentation with some observations about his experience of making his work and finding and developing an audience for it in his location in rural west Wales.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Public - West Bromwich - money n' innovation gone bad

Arts Council pulls funding for troubled West Bromwich arts centre
£500,000 annual grant withdrawn with centrepiece gallery still not working seven months after building opened

West Bromwich's arts centre: the most ill-judged building since the Dome

What looks like a magenta fish, cost £52m and closed before it opened?
The fate of the Public arts centre in West Bromwich should make us re-evaluate the worth of publicly funded buildings

It’s not what West Bromwich needs and it’s not going to kickstart regeneration, says Tony Ward; while Sally Luton argues that it will provide a centre for innovation and creative expression

want to see list

Gravitas - Earthfall on 10 March at Sherman Cymru

twelthfloor by Tanja Liedtke on Tuesday 24 March at Sherman Cymru

Miss Brown to You by Hijinx Theatre on 4 April at wmc

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

BBC National Orchestra Wales

BBC 2 Wales programme: Hoddinott's Hall of Music - shown on BBC2W at 19.00 on 26 January 2009

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales play Hoddinott, Sibelius, Ravel, Beethoven, Simon Holt and Varese

Art Tribute to Alun Hoddinott by Lubna Chowdhary

Saturday, January 24, 2009

The 50 most influential movers and shakers on the welsh arts scene - according to the Western Mail

1 Ruth Jones
2 Russell T Davies
3 Duffy
4 John Fisher
5 Bryn Terfel
6 Michael Sheen
7 Katherine Jenkins
8 Matthew Rhys
9 Alun Ffred Jones
10 Andrew Davies
11 Nick Capaldi
12 Judith Isherwood
13 Peter Florence
14 Tessa Jackson
15 Michael Tooby
16 Peter Stead
17 Michael Bogdanov
18 Jo Bartlett and Danny Hagan
20 Pauline Burt
21 Steven Moffat
22 Owain Arwel Hughes
23 Mari Beynon Owen
24 Terry Hands
25 Chris Ricketts
26 Ann Sholem
27 Geraint Talfan Davies
28 Tim Rhys-Evans
29 Cefin Roberts
30 John E McGrath
31 Thierry Fischer
32 Peter Finch
33 Tim Baker
34 Karl Jenkins
35 Sir David Rowe-Beddoe
36 Gruff Rhys
37 Peter Doran
38 Pablo Janczur
39 Gareth Jones
40 Rebecca Evans
41 Kathryn Gray
42 Dannie Abse
43 Doreen O'Neill
44 Llyr Williams
45 Gillian Clarke
46 Aled Jones
47 Catrin Finch
48 Peter Gill
49 Rhod Gilbert
50 Roger Burnell