genzai·chi

projects

A listing of selected projects, works, residencies etc grouped in approximate chronological order.

2010

What’s going on?looking back at 2009 and forward into 2010

Looking back at 2009 I can see a shift in my practice. Following on from Emergent Game and periods of time in Japan for dis-locate and in Canada for Almost Perfect most of my time and energy has gone into developing a local infrastructure/community that supports the sort of work I want to make.

As a result, there’s not been much time for making much work itself, so the project listing here looks a bit sparse… Stay tuned though, because all this admin work is going towards making future projects even better! Also, I’m racking up a lot of experience in event planning!

I’m currently spread around the internets a bit: try BARG for pervasive games related activity and fizzPOP for the hackerspace stuff. I’m also pretty busy with various schools projects, but I don’t list those here for various reasons. When I can write about the schools stuff, it can be found under the ’schools’ tag. More about my school work on my EASWM profile page.

2009

Uncertain EastsideSeptember – October

A walking project to investigate my relationship with the Eastside regeneration area “Cultural Quarter”, using inaccuracies and shifts in GPS technology to map the perimeter of an area about to undergo massive change.

Blog posts:
Why I’ve been talking a lot about Eastside recently.
Uncertainty around Eastside.
Eastside walk and talk event.

Invigilator: MalvernOctober

Part of the Invigilator series with Paul Conneally.

Commission and exhibited documentation as part of MECA.

Emergent GameJuly and August

A version of Emergent Game developed for festival settings and run three times at the Royal Festival Hall, London as part of Hide&Seek events.

Players adopt a soft toy to represent them in the game, give it a personality and special skills, and then complete a series of creative missions from its point of view.

Flickr photo sets here, here and here.

fizzPOPFrom April

Core member of a new hackerspace in Birmingham. Organising and hosting hack sessions and also regularly writing for the fizzPOP website.

intersticeFrom March

We are the interstitials.

Sometimes things need a place to happen. In March I moved to a flat with a lounge big enough for things to happen in.

Interstice is a personal pledge not to a) stagnate b) work in isolation or c) let good ideas flounder because of lack of funding/premises.

Inspired by the Jelly co-workers and the sustainable sociability ethos of Kissa Hanare.

(untitled)Work in progress from February

A soundwalk/performative experience for an area of Digbeth, Birmingham.

Built using the mscape platform and part-facilitated by Eastside Projects.

BARGFrom January

This is not an acronym.

BARG is a network for people interested in designing/making/promoting/discussing/commissioning/playing/breaking games. We’re a bit biased towards the sort that might take you out into public places, or get you using pervasive technology or ones that challenge you in a way you never imagined, but we’re pretty open-minded so all are welcome to join in, whatever your interest.

Co-founded with Unknown Quantity, Pindec.

2008

Welcome to The Banff CentreNovember – December 2008

A playful experience written on the mscape platform and designed for two or more people carrying loudspeaker units around The Banff Centre campus.

In C for Open RoadNovember 2008

Intervention in the landscape inspired by a semi-aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley.

Almost PerfectNovember 2008

Month-long co-production residency at the Banff New Media Institute, Canada, prototyping locative technologies for project work.

weatherproject 2019October 20082019

Part of Superstruct.

I was really intrigued by the idea of capturing a moment in time and space in a jar, then collecting and indexing them. Does the jar contain a ReDS-contaminated cough? A bio-engineered speck of pollen? Some new toxic pollutant? Or the last remnants of clean rural air?Fan letter from Laura Hall

Call and ReturnSeptember 2008

A project with The Ludogeographic Society involving workshops in Yokohama and Kyoto, presentation at the Dislocate Festival and programmed involvement at igfest (interesting games festival), Bristol.

Emergent GameFebruary – June 2008

Commission for New Generation Arts. www.emergentgame.org.uk. Interactions, instigations, collaborations and play.

The Ludogeographic SocietyOngoing from Spring 2008…

We like to play. We like to explore. We do it together.

Pathways to Becoming an Engineerin preparation…

Publication accompanying the acquisition of Day Science/Night Science by the University of Birmingham’s permanent collection of artworks.

Includes a specially commissioned essay by writer and cultural critic Sadie Plant.

2007

Yamanote Storieson hold, pending an opportunity to develop the project in Japan.

Collaboration with Orie Inoue.

Downloadable mp3 file of tales originating from the SoPG:Yamanote walks.

How can you tell a story, convey a sense of journey and encourage an engagement with location?

Research trip to Japan13th of July – 2nd of August 2007

Attendance at Dislocate07 and various collaborative projects with Japanese artists.

Invigilator seriesOn-going from May

As for us, by means of this place, various things are being noticed.translation of sign used for Invigilator:Tokyo

Part of the Walk to Work project: transposition of a part-time job as gallery invigilator to unexpected locations. How can presence affect space?

Invigilator: New Forest
Invigilator: Derby
Invigilator: Tokyo
Invigilator: Nuneaton
Invigilator: Digbeth

Walk to WorkOn-going from May

Collaborative project with Paul Conneally and Kevin Ryan.

Walk to work is the umbrella under which a series of collaborative projects are being developed. The central idea is that of taking your everyday journey to work; transposing it to a new location; and then enacting some sort of work function at your new destination.

we transform the new space with our presence and work and this then begins to lead on to other questions…
Paul

Link and shift.

Sites of Potentiality Guidebooks: AnsdellMarch 2007

Expanding the Sites of Potentiality Guideboks project: using appropriated maps of Tokyo and transposing them onto different locations to seek out alternative points of interest.

In Ansdell, members of the public were invited to use the maps to provide a schema for exploring their local environment.

Jeremy’s café was used as the hub through which their experiences were re-told.

Self Service: Pub ConversationsThroughout 2007 and into 2008

Self Service invites a series of speakers to converse with a guest of their choice in front of an audience in the Lillie Langtry room at the Old Lamp Tavern, Birmingham.

In our quest to counter-balance the flood of talks about development/infrastructure of the arts/creative industries in the city of Birmingham, we’re talking about art practice over a pint.

More information from the Pub Conversations website.

Subscribe to the podcast by entering this address into your feed-reader (eg iTunes):

2006

Sites of Potentiality Guidebooks: Yamanote Line1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th of November 2006

4 days; 29 stations; 1 map.

Using a single map from a Sites of Potentiality Guidebook to systematically explore central Tokyo looking for alternative points of interest.

Sites of Potentiality GuidebooksOctober/November 2006

Their anonymity gives them flexibility. They can be transposed onto wherever you are. Locate your starting point, allow their straight lines and right-angles to guide you through the real world and then find your place to be. There will always be something of interest there – you just need to find it. Examine, explore or just sit and spend time with the place.

Peer-to-Peer SketchbooksFrom August 2006

A creative strategy for investigating an artistic landscape. A series of books of ‘blank pages’ to which artists are invited to contribute a fragment of their current work. Each participant is then asked to pass the book on to an artist of their choice for completion of the next page. In this way, the process of gathering these contributions will result in a subjective cartography that maps out the current terrain of individuals and also the links between a progression of artists.

Whilst the content of the sketchbooks remain unknown to us until such time as they are returned, the journey each book makes is logged on the Peer-to-Peer Sketchbooks documentation pages.

Funded by the Springhill Project support, 2006.

Research trip to Japan8th of September – 20th of November 2006

4 weeks as an assistant in the sculpture department of Joshibi University of Art and Design; 2 weeks travel; 4 weeks developing project work and visiting more galleries than you can possibly imagine.

See also: Peer-to-Peer Sketchbooks, Sites of Potentiality: Yamanote Line, and the blog pages.

The Anti Talent ZoneAugust/September 2006

At the heart of the Anti-Talent Zone you will find an emptiness organised by Nikki Pugh… Pugh has wiped clean a section of our glorious city currently in the grips of a reality adjustment adding one new name to the mix. The site of Hewitt Street in Manchester, home to a successful contemporary art scene originated by local artists, is also the model of growth for Birmingham’s Eastside as overheard by Pugh in the halls of power.
introduction by Gavin Wade

With Asia Alfasi, Elizabeth Rowe and Liam Scully, curated by Gavin Wade.
Curated space within the TEN4 Magazine.

submissionJune – December 2006

A back-catalogue of various creative activities subjected to an arbitrary judgment process.

As part of the [insertspace] project, Open where artworks are faxed through to the MILL-WORKERS building in Manchester and subjected to the will of the tenants.

Counsel for the ArtistJune 2006

8 statements chosen to form the keystones to future artistic practice.

The statements are distilled from the work untitled (testimony) and therefore have come from a wide range of sources. Now printed onto postcards, you are invited to select the words pertinant to you/others and continue the process of dissemination.

Part of the three texts series…

untitled (testimony)June 2006

Over 200 statements chosen to from a year’s worth of notes. These are the statements written down because they seemed significant at the time. These are the statements that resonate.

Part of the three texts series…

Day Science/Night ScienceFebruary – June 2006

Installation at the University of Birmingham developed out of the Interdisciplinary Support Programme.

Part of the three texts series…

Interdisciplinary Support Programme, ISPNovember 2005 – March 2007

R&D grant that enabled a 9-month residency at the University of Birmingham.

ISP explored creative possibilities arising from collaboration across disciplines… Emphasis was placed on collaborative research and cross-disciplinary activity through risk taking and experimentation

Supported by Vivid, Equal, Arts Council England and Birmingham City Council

Early Works

lecturenotesLate 2002 – early 2003

Respond to the idea of getting lost. Go to a university you are not a student of. Go to a lecture you do not know the content of. Take notes on whatever seems appropriate.

theweatherprojectFrom 2001

An ongoing project in which volunteers collect a sample of weather and document the experience.

www.theweatherproject.org/about

Rotting Pots2003

Adventures in electrochemistry…