Upcoming residency at Coventry Artspace

Next week I’ll be based at Coventry Artspace as the recipient of one of their 5 Artspace Research Commissions (ARC).

I’m HIJACK; tasked with making architectural interventions in the Artspace building, hijacking its usual purposes to create an unusual find for a public event.

My unusual finds will be in the form of small interactive interventions. Using a variety of sensors such as proximity, motion, heat and humidity sensors, mechanisms will move, shake, rattle, roll, reveal, hide, strike, ping, scrape, dangle and waft as people move into their awareness.

In the best of research traditions, we don’t know what will come out of this work, but we’re curious to find out.

My proposal is based around the Heritage Open Day weekend coming up on the 8th and 9th of September and the question “how does it flip our assumptions for Heritage Open Days if, rather than people going to look at the building, the building is looking at the people?”

Now I’ve had a chance to delve a little deeper, it might perhaps be more accurate to say the residency will aim to instigate conversations responding to the next wave of questions that arise after you ask the one above.

• Should the devices be integral – of the existing structure – or superficial – new additions placed onto surfaces?
• Does the building communicate with us?
• If so, about what? In what sort of voice?
• Can we affect the flows of people around the building?
• Would we want to make people uncomfortable?
• If so, how uncomfortable would we be comfortable making them?
• What might the devices reveal about the building …or about the people?

The Artspace building has a rich history to draw from, but time is limited, so it’ll be interesting to find out which of its many stories bubble up to the surface in that time.

I’m also curious to find out what the research reveals of me and my practice.

Back in July I attended the Interactive Architecture day at MADE. I went into it thinking “yeah, spaces and sensors and that: this is totally what I do”, but soon found out I was really struggling with the shift from putting the tech on the people to putting the tech on the architecture.

Here’s where I start to question what I want from interactive architecture.

If you’d like to see how far I’ve managed to explore in a week, please do come along on either Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th September between 11am and 4pm to find out.

It’s free, there are other tours and stuff happening as well, and we’ve already decided we don’t want to make people too uncomfortable. Probably…

Coventry Artspace, 16 Lower Holyhead Road, Coventry, CV1 3AU [map]

Morecambe noisy things

As a follow-on from yesterday’s GPS Orchestra workshop, artist Jen Southern and I today spent some time refining code, dreaming up new devices and generally prodding things with vibrating pager motors to see what interesting noises we could make.

The results were a few quick prototypes taken to Morecambe for some testing along the seafront in a surprise spell of sunny weather. We made a tapping box that indicates when it is being carried at different speeds (we haven’t quite got it right yet) and a tinned assortment of pager motors that responds to what direction you’re moving in (we tried it on foot at Morecambe and also in the car back to Lancaster – nice!).

It was really interesting to see what we could achieve with a handful of components: not only in terms of producing the device and its behaviour, but also thinking about how to effectively communicate changes to the person carrying the noise.

GPS Orchestra: Octopus edition

Despite some seriously wet weather, at about 5pm yesterday some curious – and noisy! – figures could be seen/heard wending their way around Barrow Park.

Most of the day’s 7 Orchestrians were brand new to the world of using Arduino, so after a quick crash course we limited ourselves to using a vibrating motor each and some simple code that changed the number of buzzes depending on the direction being travelled. That and the most waterproof instrument builds we could manufacture!

bird in a tin from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

The bandstand in the park provided a nice setting for drifting around in large circles and we liked the idea of returning at a sunnier time (obviously not August – what were we thinking?!) and performing for an audience sat in the middle whilst watching us move around the outside.

Here’s a slideshow of my photos from the workshop:

Thanks to our hosts and to everyone who took part. Keep an eye out for more GPS Orchestra workshops around the country over the following months, and also for further interesting things coming out of Barrow Park courtesy of Octopus.

Segue

From

to

After a fabulous few days with Grizedale Arts, Ikon Youth Programme and the Coniston Youth Group, tomorrow we gather at Octopus HQ and play Barrow Park.

Weatherproofing homebrew GPS kit (part 3)

With the first GPS Orchestra workshop and the Ikon Youth Programme project coming up, there’s been growing urgency to find a way of protecting my GPS modules from a) people and b) weather.

I’ve been toying with the idea of laser cutting some cases, but have found prices prohibitive, so I had to think laterally…

Job done – I’ve turned a dozen of these battery-to-USB-power gadgets from the pound shop

Into a swarm of Cumbria-ready GPS units.

#

There’s a Flickr set showing the intermediate stages…

GPS Orchestra workshop with Octopus Collective

On Saturday the 25th of August I’ll be up at the Octopus Collective HQ in Barrow-in-Furness instigating much noisiness with a GPS Orchestra. This workshop is a challenge to invent and build devices that play themselves in response to movement through landscape. We’ve got a bunch of random stuff and Barrow Park to play with, so I’m anticipating a lot of fun!

Places are limited, so make sure you sign up on eventbrite. The (subsidised!) workshop costs only £3, payable on the day, and runs between 10am and 5pm.

The blurb:

GPS Orchestra

Join us for a day of making noise with devices that are triggered by GPS. This an orchestra like no other you have ever seen or heard!

After an introduction to networked devices and ways in which GPS might be used to influence things, we’ll spend the day collaboratively contriving and constructing our orchestral oddities.

Will there be drums that beat as fast as you walk? Things that ping more the further they travel? A crescendo as you get closer together? There’s no way of telling until we make them!

We’ll be using Arduino microcontrollers, XBee radios and simple electronics to play instruments assembled out of whatever we can muster. Whilst coding experience might be useful, it’s nowhere near as essential as imagination, a sense of humour and a willingness to give things a try. Absolutely no musical ability required whatsoever.

Please bring a laptop with the Arduino software installed and anything else you think Might Come In Useful. Examples include, but are not restricted to:

• Arduino and/or electronics components (solenoids, servos, motors etc)
• Bangy things
• Rattley things
• Tappy things
• Bleepy things
• Things for making other things out of

A selection of items (and a limited number of laptops) will be available on loan, but the more the merrier and who knows what amazing noises we might be able to get out that bric-a-brac you’ve got lying around!

The workshop will involve frequent excursions outside, so please come dressed appropriately for the weather.

Arduino + random = GPS Orchestra

GPS different: upcoming workshops

I’m a sucker for multiples, so you can imagine how excited I am as bits of GPS kit come rolling in not just in twos or threes, but in class-sized quantities!

GPS modules, cables and nano microcontrollers. Plus bonus bubblewrap!

I’ve been developing a couple of workshops designed to get people thinking differently about ways to use GPS.

I’m not saying I have all the answers (and it’d be a bit boring if I did!), but I can certainly furnish some basic skills and, in the spirit of hackspaces, getting a bunch of people in the same room at the same time with a load of stuff is bound to catalyse Interesting Things. So let’s have at it and push the possibilities!

First takers are the rather marvellous sounding Octopus Collective based up in Barrow-in-Furness who will be hosting GPS Orchestra. Here the challenge will be to invent and make unique noise-making devices triggered by location in – and movement through – space.

The other workshop currently on offer is Beyond Longitude:

With an emphasis on the experience of people moving through space, Beyond Longitude is an introduction to using the open source Arduino platform to make digital devices that respond to – and make things happen in – the physical world. We’ll work through a series of small projects and instigations asking how to use GPS to do more than just draw a line where we have been.

Both workshops are initially planned as being day-long sessions for about 10 participants. I bring the electronics and enough instruction to seed some possibilities, then we get making and see what happens.

I’m looking for groups and organisations around the country who would like to host one or both of these workshops. If you have a suitable workspace and are interested in investigating interactions with a nearby outdoor space, then get in touch.

Adventures with IKON Youth Programme

The members of Ikon gallery’s Youth Programme are more often to be found hanging about on the canal system, however the week after next we’re heading up to the mountains and the lakes of Grizedale to work alongside the Coniston Youth Group.

I joined them for a planning session yesterday, and this is what the room looked like afterwards:

To say that I’m looking forward to it would be something of an understatement!

Playing Out

This made me smile a lot; not only from a play point of view, but also the place-making.

Playing Out from Playing Out on Vimeo.

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Forest Road

Sure the Dogpool Lane sign usually has some creative deletions going on, but for some reason one of the signs for Forest Road has been completely white-ed out for a while now.

Just as I was starting to think it needed a bit of green, someone else has beaten me to it:

I like that this has happened and I like the subtle effect it has on how the neighbourhood feels.

What little bits of street hacking would you like to see?