I met Nikki through the BARGmeets in 2009 and she very quickly got me involved in playing games and taking part in events that helped me to explore my surroundings in new and usual ways and see it from some very different perspectives as a result! Not only does she create beautiful play and playful happenings, she inspires and encourages those around her to do the same – Nikki has helped to make Birmingham a more interesting and fun place to be.

I’ve attended a number of events organised by Nikki Pugh since 2008-ish, usually as an audience member, if that term is accurate as there’s very little passive observing at a Pugh event.

I’ve always found Nikki an inspiring and welcoming figure. She creates an environment of exploratory play, combining autonomous meanderings and group cohesion. She leads authoritatively but allows those who follow to influence the journey. I’ve often felt she reminds me of my best school teachers.

The most useful aspect of Nikki’s activities to me has been her acting as a bridge to the occasionally alien world of “Art”. By showing that games (BARG), circuit bending (FizzPop) and simply paying attention to your surroundings is a valid form of artistic expression she has helped me to see myself as less of a spectator and more of a practitioner in my thinking and doing. She has, in short, helped me to become an artist. For this I am eternally grateful.

As I have journeyed around Birmingham’s arts and culture scenes over the last few years I have met a small and rare number of people who don’t merely preach “public engagement” but who quietly and sustainably live it. In my opinion Nikki Pugh is one of those people.

Nikki ran an interactive game with attendees of Moseley Barcamp, and the feedback I received was brilliant! Her enthusiasm was contageous and it was so lovely to see people of all ages take part in her organised fun.

Nikki’s passion in participatory events is evident from her recent endeavours and is always peppered with her wonderful enthusiasm and sense of fun. To put it bluntly, Nikki could turn a humble cereal box into the most brilliantly exciting story, or the beginning of an adventure, with seeming ease. The fact that nobody is excluded from the adventures that Nikki can create makes it that much more wonderful.

How does the activity increase opportunities for the public to engage in arts activities?

Well, by event:

1. Colony prototyping – I don’t always understand the ‘how’ but I always enjoy the ‘what’ of a Nikki Pugh event. This one involved walking around the streets of Digbeth with a giant bubblewrap ‘creature’ that you had to keep happy.

2. Market Pong – Turning Birmingham’s market tables into a Sunday ping pong competition was not only good exercise but made me think about how to look at ‘set purpose’ things in our environment in a new way. Again there was an element of spectacle and being given permission to be a performer in that. As a result we lured passers-by into the game.

3. Improbable Machine – some artworks need cues for us in the non-arty public to hang onto. Anyone who has ever played Mousetrap could connect with the Improbable Machine – and often became a participant in the rebuilding process it in order to do more than just passively view the final result. It was this that made me look out for other Fizzpop and Nikki Pugh happenings.

4. Emergent Game at Royal Festival Hall involved teddy bears on a series of missions. I had very little idea of what was going on but still very much enjoyed it, and noticed that you could engage with the game at any age level. I think this cross-generational appeal is one of the wonderful things about Nikki’s creations.

I’ve taken part in several of Nikki’s BARG events.

They have been a lot of fun, and provides a great opportunity as an adult to play games.

The games have been very inclusive and inventive, and attracted a wide variety people from children to adults.

Nikki makes inspired use of public places, which in turn give participants a chance to view and engage with their surroundings differently.

Nikki’s enthusiam and passion is catching. A Nikki Pugh event provides inspiration, community, learning, and fun.

Anyone who can get me, an averagely uptight Englishman, standing in a busy shopping street pretending to be a tiger, has a gift for public engagement which can benefit the arts immensely.

I first met Nikki via some early BARG events and was inspired by her enthusiasm and abilty to communicate some very left field ideas to the general public.
Since then i’ve attended some of the FizzPop workshops she set up and was always impressed with her ability to take ‘DIY’ technology and find some method to share it in weird and wonderful ways which were always engaging and in keeping with the true spirit of ‘hacking’.
As previously noted the fact that people aren’t even aware they’re taking part in participatory art stuff is a testament the whole ‘Nikki Pugh’ experience.
Midge

My main contact with Nikki has been on a professional level, giving me a distinctive insight into how she works.

Nikki is lots of things. First and foremost, she is a doer. As stated in the first line of her blurb, she makes stuff happen. Clearly, there isn’t anything more crucial for driving engagement than ensuring your ideas are realised for everyone to enjoy. Good ideas count for very little, if the implementation doesn’t match. Secondly, Nikki’s ideas are top class. Nikki asks all the right questions in her practice and comes up with a wealth of relevant and inspiring ideas. I have recently worked with her on a proposal for a joint project and I don’t mind admitting that her development of my initial idea made it many times more engaging. That’s just what Nikki does. Lastly, when Nikki is involved engaging the public in her projects directly, her manner is infallible. She’s able to engage with people of all ages and backgrounds to bring her ideas to life. It’s rare to find someone who can do all of these things so well and it’s precisely because Nikki is able to drive a project from the ideas stage, via the implementation, to the delivery that her enthusiasm and ability to engage people is so strong. More power to her!

The last time I saw Nikki she was ushering people (myself included) around Digbeth with her odd looking Colony organisms. This was a challenging and exciting experience. It could’ve felt awkward or even pointless were it not for the clear and inspiring explanation provided and the enthusiasm and support provided by Nikki.

Nikki makes (odd) stuff happen.

Nikki is one of the UK premier makers within the Hackspace movement. She is at the same time organiser, teachers and go-to person.

Nikki’s workshop session on “Circuit Bending” held at Nottingham Hackspace in 2010 had the exact right balance of creativeness Vs technology.

Nikki’s workshop added value for those attending on many levels, firstly as a soldering 101 giving attendees their first experiences in this valuable skill. Secondly help grow confidence by letting makers take control of their world by “hacking” noise making tools to work their way. And thirdly as a creative and fun skill for attendees to take forward as a hobby or remember as a learning experience.

Nikki’s influence and advise has been crucial in the development of Nottingham Hackspace and the burgeoning Hacker and Maker space movement in the Midlands.

Endlessly inventive; always follows through.

Several times a month I will read a tweet by Nikki describing a pile of toys she is about to slice up, home made electronic kit she is waiting for a break in the weather to test, time machines that have gone comically wrong (with a schools workshop due in the morning). Experiments to observe the world workin, on many scales.

Each time I think “surely not” but they are all real reports, I’m certain.

This is the NP experience: an artist tirelessly engaging in surreal arenas but with a rigorous scientific agenda. I’ve experienced several of Nikki’s many outings from marching for hours in a triangle through empty Sunday industrial back streets to being blindfolded with a dolphin fastened to my head. There was always a sound reason, it was always fun and I’ve always felt fortunate to have been there.

From 2009 to late 2010 I had the pleasure of working with Nikki on several events with fizzPOP. Of the events perhaps the most notable were the fizzPOP Howduino and Improbable Machine, which both saw people of all ages and skill levels come together to exchange skills and show that technology isn’t that scary and that it can be very fun and creative.

I’ve also taken part in several BARG activities. The most inspiring was Market Pong, which inspired me to take another look at the spaces around me. The idea of using the empty tables of an outdoor market for a game of pong would have never crossed my mind, and is a fine example of how Nikki reinvents spaces and uses the city itself as her creative playground.

Tthere is much evidence that Nikki Pugh adds great value to any of her endeavours, but in my experience I have been inspired to adopt the ‘I make things happen’ mantra. Nikki’s contribution to the fizzPop project has filled a much needed resource for people that desire a space to share/explore ideas and meet with like-minded people.

I also want to mention a BARG session that my kids aso attended; that was quite a magical session where at one point my kids appeared to be taking control over one of the games, and the adults willing submitted. That memory will never leave me…

Thanks to Nikki’s fantastic introduction to circuit bending I have rediscovered a love and fascination with electronics that I had lost during an education that didn’t encourage girls to take an interest in technology.

Nikki also has a fantastic ability to bring together diverse groups of people and to help them discover new skills and ways of approaching and exploring the world.

Plus, you know she’s always going to make it fun!