invisible noise

invisible noise from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Just a quick note to say that, although things may seem a little quiet around here in terms of my own personal projects, many exciting things are happening over at fizzPOP (the hackerspace I’ve been co-running with Antonio Roberts.)

If you’re interested in collaborative learning or creative use of technology, then you should check it out:

Blog: http://www.fizzpop.org.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/fzzpop
Discussion Group: http://groups.google.com/group/birmingham-hack-space
Announcements mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/fizzpop-announce/

We meet on a fortnightly basis at The Edge for our informal hacksessions at which you can just pop in, have a mooch and/or work on a project (we can always find stuff for you to get involved with if you’re a beginner).

This year we’ve also been ramping up the volume with a programme of workshops and events. The next of these will be Theremin Day as organised by Sam Underwood (also featuring in the video above!).

The afternoon workshop sold out rather rapidly, but tickets are still available for the evening of live performances.

Ms Hypnotique

This is an opportunity to see one of the nation’s most renowned Theremin players. She has trained with Lydia Kavina, the grand-niece of Leon Theremin, and performs in many genres from classical to surf-rock to industrial. She has given numerous performances and recordings for artists including Bob Moog, Damien Hirst and TV appearances include “James May’s 20th Century” and “New Paul O’Grady Show”. In 2009 she performed on the fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square, as part of Anthony Gormley’s “One and Other” project and in April 2010 she will perform at Ether Fest at Royal Festival Hall in a 20-piece Theremin orchestra.

Mr. Underwood & Friends

Yes, me! I’ll be doing a super rare performance of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music, using four torches and four Optical Theremins (of the same kind made in the afternoon workshop). The performance will be in darkness and will peak in a cacophony of squealing sound.

Pete Ashton

Pete will be wowing us with his Thingamagoop (see video below) and some 8-bit sounds. He will also be collaborating with Ms Hypnotique and myself in an improv session.

http://www.mrunderwood.co.uk/gigs/theremin-day/

In May fizzPOP will be in residence at independent artist studios The Lombard Method for an intense two weeks of workshops and making of stuff, 1st – 16th of May. Stand by for more details of how you can get involved with making contraptions and contributing to blinky light extravaganzas!

There’s loads more in the pipeline too, with the British Science Festival in September, exciting partnerships with Aston University Eng Soc, robots, Arduinos and dorkbotbrum. No surprise then that we’ll be moving to weekly hacksessions after Easter in order to try and fit in everything that we want to do!

Emergent Game website relocated

Gosh, 2 years since I started sending people around the city seeing things from the perspective of soft toys.

The original Emergent Game website has now been archived at http://emergentgame.npugh.co.uk/

Pirates with parrots and rabbits with robots,
Witty repartee and elegant sub-plots,
Yellow fluff furballs that hang down on strings,
These are a few of my favorit things.

Angry triangles and dogs that do scuba,
Tractors and raptors and rum straight from Cuba,
Avataris that fly with a cape, no wings,
These are a few of my favorit things.

Overnight braveness in frizzers and fridges,
Ventures to Edinbra and bartrin’ for bidges,
Rodent detectors with baubles and springs,
These are a few of my favorit things.

When the peas talk,
When the bots bork,
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorit things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.

Egor Beaver, My favorit things

My favorit things from Egor Beaver on Vimeo.

School Council requests

A slightly paraphrased list of requests spotted on a staffroom whiteboard:

School Council requests:

• More themed days (followed by examples of things they loved)
• Bench ball team
• Swap cross-country for an indoor session when it is cold and wet
• Chickens

All the requests made me smile in different ways as I read them.

Looking back it strikes me as an incredibly well-rounded list of ingredients.

Moving forward with the secret knock in a box

A few months ago I made a box with a secret knock in it for an interview for a school project:

box with a secret knock in it. from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

It’s proved to be very popular, so it’s time to take it out of its prototyping stage and into something a bit more robust.

The version I’ve been using so far runs off a Real Bare Bones Board mounted on a breadboard. It’s OK, but I need to keep checking it all the time to make sure the wires haven’t come out. Not ideal if you’ve got a dozen young children clamouring around to try and guess the hidden knock!

I could move it to perfboard or something similar, but I suspect I’m going to be making several of these in the future, so I’m using it as a project to learn a bit about making Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs).

The first stage has been to eliminate the RBBB and move to a freestanding chip. I followed the approach on the Standalone Arduino / ATMega chip on breadboard Instructable.

I then combined this with the power supply from this ITP tutorial on breadboarding an Arduino. And finally added all the switches and gubbins from the original circuit.

Freestanding ATMEGA with additional project circuitry

It worked!

…and was a nice bit of learning too – I feel all empowered now!

Putting it all together. With arrows.

Having ascertained that it wasn’t all going to go fizz or POP, the next stage is to start arranging all the bits into a nice PCB layout.

…And for me to profusely thank Dr Sugden and the Eng Soc students at Aston University who are proving to be top notch fizzPOP collaborators and walked me through this afternoon’s learning. Much appreciated.

What’s next?!

T-shirts relocated

There’s been a renewed interest in my t-shirt designs recently and this has prompted a re-jig of what was becoming my over-full shop page.

So, I’ve moved all the clothing products off-site to a spreadshirt store. This has simplified the ordering process and has meant there’s more space for additional things with upside-down bits of Japanese cartography on them.

same shirt; different location

The genzaichi/you are here motif is now available on organic, men’s and ladies t-shirts and the Yamanote map and invigilator shirts are also there if you click through to the later pages.

I’m pondering on a furby-related design.

By chance and/or careful planning, spreadshirt are offering a 10% discount on orders over £20 made between 22nd March and 7th April. Enter “HELLOSUN” in the voucher code box in the shopping cart.

Go have a look: http://theinvisiblehand.spreadshirt.co.uk/.

the new midlands art centre…

The new Midlands Art Centre comes with Nikki-sized spaces. How cool is that?!

Perfect fit :)

natsukashii ne

Recent doings (including badges and a hard drive Spring clean) have left me very nostalgic for Tokyo’s rather marvellous and iconic Yamanote Line, missed friends and projects that haven’t yet been realised.

Here’s a quick scrapbook of Yamanote Sen related stuff…

“The Yamanote Line is one of the busiest train lines in the world. Running in a circle around the heart of Tokyo, it carries 3.5 million passengers a day.”

東京 • Tokyo

I’m not sure what it is, but I’ll assume it is a bank.
銀行でしょうか。
7 or 8 workmen shuttle between a fire hydrant and their van parked some way down the street.
His entourage is ready with clipboards, and walkie-talkies.
Yellow collapsible bucket.
黄色い桶。
As soon as the hydrant has been wrapped, a man comes out of the building and lights up a cigarette.
消火栓の隣で喫煙者が
飛び出します。

The stations play different melodies. Also, I think there are different melodies depending on which platform you are on (which direction you are travelling in). This one from Meguro:

and this one from Shinagawa:

.

“A little song to help you remember the stations on the JR yamanote line.”

新橋 • Shimbashi

ステンドグラスや
エスカレーターや…
I leave the station only to find myself in a large underground shopping centre.
At what stage do I start following the map?
I walk past a truck full of ice.
装飾的な噴水と
ややこしい階段は
あります、でも
遺孤の葉っぱが
のほうが顕著です。
Amongst the fancy fountains and KerPlunk staircases, it is a solitary leaf that shouts loudest.

One of the 29 stories that came out of my SoPG: Yamanote Line project:

Akihabara from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Artist Orie Inoue‘s interpretation, early explorations for what might one day be Yamanote Stories:

Akihabara: man carrying a large plant

浜松町 • Hamamatsuchō

From the walkway I see a beautiful garden laid out below me.
“Excellent!” I think,
the map must take me there.
とても奇麗な公園をみました、しかし入ることができません。
But there are no gateways into the garden and after crossing several lanes of traffic I end up underneath a monorail.
払い物。
街灯の上にボータイがあります。
A different route back,
I cannot afford the entry fee.
Lunch eaten on a fencepost.

Badges and postcards at the Created in Birmingham shop

As well as being able to buy Uncertain Eastside prints at the Created in Birmingham shop, I’ve also put together some special badge collections that you can only get at the Created in Birmingham shop and in very limited numbers.

SoPG: Yamanote

Back in 2006 I spent 4 intensive days walking around Tokyo. Rather than using my Lonely Planet Guide, I used a map cut from a postcard advertising an exhibition. With all the labels cut off.

Tamachi from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

You can read more about the project here; suffice to say that it was something of a pivotal moment in my practice and is what kicked off the whole genzaichi identity/ethos.

Where will you go and what will you see there?

The pack available at the CiB shop will give you both the appropriated map and the genzaichi/you are here symbol from the Yamanote railway line in badge form. You are invited to use them to instigate a random walk from a railway station (or alternative) of your choosing.

Use them to go somewhere you wouldn’t have otherwise have considered going to and then take some time to get to know that place. See if you can find what the point of special interest is.

Perfect for the latent psychogeographer in all of us!

Counsel for the Artist

At the end of my time at art school, I gathered together all the notes I had made from lectures, conferences, seminars and the such and searched through them picking out phrases that resonated. I found quite a few.

From these I selected the 8 really pertinent ones that I wanted to keep at the forefront of my mind when making work in the years following graduation. These became Counsel for the Artist and they are still cornerstones of my practice nearly 4 years later:

• Make exchanges with spaces
• Strive to achieve modest connections
• Set your own agenda
• Add to a culture of learning and experimentation
• Get the message across
• Meet a new network
• Resist the ascribed role of witness
• Circumnavigate predictability

You may have noticed these statements on my CV, in the tags I use for my blog posts and also about my person in various forms.

Buttons

The thing with these though, is I quickly found that people from other professions were finding the statements resonated strongly with them too. Hence I’m using “artist” in its broadest of terms: “A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice”.

Is that you?

You can get a selection of 4 statements to wear on your sleeve (or other location).

Counsel for the Artist badges

Postcards and more

The Yamanote and Counsel for the Artist badge collections are very limited availability, but fear not if you are quick enough to get one before they sell out.

The genzaichi and map designs are available on T-shirts from my online shop, and there are Counsel for the Artist postcards available at CiB and online. Buying some is as simple as getting in touch.

Uncertain Eastside at the Created in Birmingham shop

Yesterday I added some Uncertain Eastside limited edition prints to the stock of the Created in Birmingham shop in the Bullring shopping centre, Birmingham.

Uncertain Eastside in the CiB shop

You can read more about the Created in Birmingham shop on their blog, although obviously it goes without saying that you should go and visit if you can. It’s a nice example of creative communities making use of what would otherwise be an empty retail unit.

Location: Bullring, Level 3 Upper Mall West
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 10am to 8pm. Sun 11am to 5pm

Almost Perfect: the redux

Andrew pointed out that the video from the Almost Perfect residency I was a part of last year has made its way onto YouTube:

Hopefully this will shed a little light on the “what is locative media?” question for some of you!