AA2A: updates from the front

With the AA2A exhibition date looming closer (evening of the 25th for the opening shin-dig; various times on the 26th for participatory doings – save the dates), here are a few brief updates on progress…

I have purchased vast quantities of fabric:

The dye on this fabric is not especially fast:

The tubes fit in the car:

… but only just!

I have acquired a sewing machine:

The fear of sewing machines has been conquered:

Mostly by Lynne pointing out that they are DANGEROUS MACHINES.

Seams have been sewn:

Knives have been applied:

AA2A: production shifts up a gear and user testing commences

Aided and abetted by one Mr Catfood, today I launched into making two more of the wooden drums I’m building as part of the AA2A project.

Much bandsawing, nail-gunning and guillotining was interspersed with making a bracket to mount the servo on (who knew finding the right screw would be so difficult?! Respect to Sol for the moment of genius that made her think of terminal blocks!) and then testing the resultant tappity object.

In other news: Jupiter, the moon and Venus are looking rather marvellous from my back window at the moment.

Tinier GPS

After an enforced absence from the Margaret Street workshops, I’m bracing myself for a final push to get some serious making done in preparation for an exhibition coming up at the end of April.

Although I’ve not been able to get at the woodwork equipment, I’ve not been idle and have been working away at improving the code and GPS set-up that I’ll be using to animate the objects I’m producing.

I’d like to say I’ve built on the improvements I made whilst in New York, however it’s probably more accurate to say I’ve torn it all down and started again from scratch…

Here’s the kit I’ve been using up until now:

1 x Arduino clone (RBBB); 2 x bare bones Arduino clones; 2 x GPS receivers; OpenLog

Having initially tried and failed to satisfactorily read from the two GPS receivers via serial, I’d switched to using multiple Arduino units communicating over I2C. All built off the tutorials and examples made available at the wonderful Lady Ada site (and a lot of help from other generous people!).

A year and a lot of learning later, I thought it would be worth a second attempt at a one-microcontroller set-up. Having used Mikal Hart’s TinyGPS library for the Chin Up Chapeau, that seemed a promising way to go. And here’s the result:

One RBBB Arduino clone alternating between reading two GPS receivers via TinyGPS and SoftwareSerial (also based on work by Mikal Hart, available with V1.0 of the Arduino IDE).

I’ve been testing it over recent weeks and the results are a very close match to the lines I was getting with the original original set-up using two PDAs and mscape.

A walk through the city centre earlier today (click for larger version)

It’s not all about cutting things out, though: I’ve also added in a transistor to control a solenoid. Tomorrow I plan to insert it all inside a large wooden drum and see what happens…

Exhibition of Colony-related work at Phoenix Square

Following on from the residency I recently did at the Phoenix Square digital media centre in Leicester, traces of my work are now being exhibited in their public spaces around the foyer and café.

I understand there’s a short gap over this weekend to make way for an animation festival, but other than that my work runs through until Friday the 30th of March.

Invite boredom: Invigilator at PKN Coventry

Paul Conneally recently presented Invigilator at the Pecha Kucha Night Coventry Global Cities event.

Watashitachi ha kono basho de iroiro na koto ni kizuiteimasu.
As for us, by means of this place, various things are being noticed.

Passing

Earlier this week it was announced that, following the withdrawal of their core funding, VIVID will shortly cease to be.

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that VIVID has played a formative role in my development as an artist: from a baptism-by-fire project management internship in 2004/5, through to hosting the fizzPOP Howduino I helped organise in 2009; from many hours of part-time job, through to supporting the recruitment of others to transpose my invigilation role out onto the streets.

For several months over 2005 and 2006 I was one of the artists on the Interdisciplinary Support Programme: professional development; challenge in bucketfuls; a residency; a site-specific installation and a piece of work in the University of Birmingham’s collection.

Through VIVID I was linked to communities and conversations. Priceless.

This then is just a small gesture to say “thank you”.

Transverse Sections of Manhattan

Last Autumn I was in New York and one of the many things I did whilst I was out there was make a few new pieces of work.

The first is called Five Transverse Sections of Manhattan, and comprises GPS error traces from 10 walks across the island of Manhattan between East and West coasts (or as close as I could reasonably get).

Using a satellite underlay to match the GPS data to the appropriate roads

Today I tweaked the scaling of the traces to get them how I want them and did a few trial prints at A2 size. They look good!

It's always nice when the lines get a bit of space to breathe in

I’m pondering making this work available for purchase as an archive quality print. If you’re interested in owning one, let me know.

Testing potential: Hedge Enquiry at Edible Eastside

I was one of a group of artists selected to join Hedge Enquiry test the potential of the Edible Eastside site: “a quarter of an acre of canal-side land, a former distribution depot, which we are converting into a ‘pop-up’ edible park using temporary containers and raised beds.”

The concrete garden starts to take shape

I’ve visited the site a couple of times before and been very excited by the concept of transforming the derelict brownfield site into an urban garden and shared community space. I’m yet more excited now to see the transformation starting to take place! The site has been cleared; beds raised; the tea urn plugged in; and chooks and cats installed.

With the first growing season about to gain momentum, Hedge Enquiry are investigating possibilities for the arts programme and had invited us lot in to have a good old poke around and imagine what might be.

The first green shoots are starting to push through

I went along looking forward to an opportunity to spend some time with a space and allowing whatever revealed itself to trigger some creative propositions.

It was nice to have the chance to do this without agenda or expectations hanging over us. That said, I currently come pre-packaged with my own aims and objectives.

I’m still questioning what my practice looks like having absorbed the experiences of BARG and fizzPOP, wanting to make work that applies some of the thinking and skills I’ve gained through both of these. I very deliberately didn’t bring any tech with me though. This was time to be spent looking, sensing and working in my sketchbook.

I also had the Splacist manifesto in the back of my mind. Here are the bits that resonated for me today:

• We will link and shift; across time, space, people, places and processes.
• We will expose and re-see.
• We will work on and across edges. We will push them. We will blur them.
• We will reveal beautiful moments.
• We will find our own energy sources.

Today I have been thinking about: revealing the unseen; biomass accumulation; solar power; canal power; secret gardens; weather stations; timekeeping; flows; encroachment; and flags. Lots of flags.

Phoenix playtesting sessions #2 & #3

Due to low turn-outs, these sessions were more testing than play, however we still had some very big smiles!

By Thursday I’d made some units that communicated with each other via XBee radios. They remain happy whilst still in range, but once separated you have a short grace period in which to link up again. After that an alarm goes off.

For the first of the two playtesting sessions it was the first time the units had been taken outside, so we wanted to get a feel for what sort of maximum range they have. Not until after having experimented with corridors and lifts, first.

Faraday Cage: third floor.

Maplin’s carpark wasn’t big enough, so we moved on to the ring road and then the St George’s retail park. You can just make out the person carrying the other unit in the distance…

Range-testing in the biggest carpark we could find...

For the last session we headed into the city centre and experimented with corners, pillars and mezzanines in various streets, theatres, shopping centres and multistorey carparks. I’m afraid I was so engrossed in what we were doing that I totally forgot to take any photos!

Next step is to expand this out to a group and start working with range information to see how that affects the coalescence of a group moving through the city.

Phoenix playtesting session #1

I’m now approaching the half-way stage of my residency at Phoenix Square, however the last 2 days have been beset by various tech and mech crises so it feels like I’m only just getting started!

Last night was the first of my playtesting sessions in which members of the public have signed up to come along and get hands-on with whatever I’ve made.

Due to the slow start I hadn’t got the radio communication up and running, so we did a few experiments using the old faithful sonar goggles instead. After a gentle start in the empty room next door, we headed down to the public space of the cafe/foyer/cinema area.

Having now had their appetite well and truly whetted, my enthusiastic volunteers then wanted to use the goggles out on the streets!

We tried a range of locations and a range of challenges (including bollard slalom and fountain circumnavigation). This was the first time the goggles had been used in such an uncontrolled environment and I was very impressed as the guys’ willingness to try stuff out. As they said, the bar has now been set very high for the next time they’re used!

Corridor Challenge. The challenge being to not end up in either the cinema or the ladies loos!

Using the goggles to navigate from one side of the market to the other.

The video above shows a snippet from an experiment in moving together as a group: the lead person is using their sonar to navigate from one side of the square to the other, but the person behind has their sonar switched off, so they have to listen to the lead’s bleeps in order to be able to follow them.

My photos and video from the session are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_pugh/sets/72157629115638094/detail/