Possibility Mapping (heavy object and built environment)

It is only through our interactions/collaborations/experiments that we show up.

Change the assemblage and a different set of possibilities emerges.

Can we explore differently in order to reveal new possibilities?

Through the use of new tools, do we get a new world to interact with?

How do you arrive at the places that are not yet mapped?

Observations and questions arising from the Live Feeds research programme led by Spurse, NYC 2011

Possibility Probe (heavy object and built environment) is a starting point for asking questions and conducting experiments. A direct response to the trend of making mobile technology smaller, lighter and more discreet; these objects are unwieldy, heavy and broadcast to all within hearing distance.

Cumbersome – a burden if not shared – these Possibility Probes resonate with the built environment that they are carried through. Like a drum or a heart, they beat faster the more they are surrounded by the fabric of the city, slowing as space opens up around them.

How you carry them, where you carry them and who you journey with will all affect the possibilities that emerge and the unseen qualities that are revealed to you.

More images on Flickr: photo set | slideshow

And Miles… Installation view

I’m posting these images with echoes of a dialogue with artist/researcher John Hammersley still swirling around my head looking for a place to settle: LIVEness and enlivening; gallery as storage; weaving objects into your story; sense and self-ishness…

In the ARTicle gallery space for the exhibition And Miles to Go Before I Sleep…, the Possibility Probes are re-playing one of the journeys they made around Birmingham city centre on Thursday the 26th of April.

Possibility Probes hit the city centre

Yesterday we started the And Miles to Go Before I Sleep… gallery installation in earnest ready for tomorrow’s opening event.

After sorting out lighting, arrangements, power and cabling, all 3 Possibility Probes have now been assembled. Mona and I took one of them out around the city centre to see what it was like.

Mona gets her first Possibility Probe experience. She seemed to like it...

All looked very promising in terms of the object functioning as it should and there was much observing, thinking and discussion around some of the questions and associations it raised.

First up, we do like the materials. Seems there’s a hint of a coincidental Beuysian theme going on with a few of the works in the show. Now seeking a coyote for the opening…

We also liked the physicality of carrying it around and how it affected our awareness of what was around us.

As well as trying a few different ways of carrying it, we also put it down and stood away from it a couple of times. We like how it is still audible from quite a way off and are curious about how it conveys a different feeling depending on how it is placed.

For the opening tomorrow night the tubes will be ‘re-experiencing’ a journey through the city and then on Thursday we’ll be conducting more experiments with them to see what possibilities they open up. (Sign up here: http://heavyobjectbham.eventbrite.co.uk/).

Transitory print

As part of And Miles to go Before I Sleep…, 5th Beatle Mona Casey has produced a rather nice piece of print work bringing together snapshots of the thoughts and influences that are feeding into the practices of the 4 artists showing work in the exhibition.

Come along to the opening event at the Margaret Street school of art 6-8pm on Wednesday (25th April) to check out the work, the print and the journeys they mark.

And Miles to go Before I Sleep...

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep…

Between the 26th of April and the 11th of May I will be showing work alongside that of Gene George Earle, Trevor Pitt and Adam Smythe as part of an exhibition at the ARTicle gallery space, Birmingham.

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep… is a presentation of four distinct artistic practices. The title is taken from the poem ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by the American writer Robert Frost. The poetic line acts as a metaphor for the durational endeavour and journey inherent in artistic production. This exhibition presents a pause or moment in that journey and shows us not necessarily completed or finished work, but a transitory phase in the generation and exploration of ideas at a given time.

The opening is 6-8pm on Wednesday 25th April 2012, do come and join us.

On Thursday the 26th I’ll be running 3 playtesting sessions where you can take the objects I’ve made out around the city centre and see what happens.

The sessions are free and take place 13:00 – 14:30, 15:30 – 17:00 and 18:00 – 19:30. Please sign up at http://heavyobjectbham.eventbrite.co.uk/.

ARTicle gallery is at the School of Art, Birmingham City University, Margaret Street, Birmingham, B3 3BX [map] and open Monday–Friday, 10–6pm.

Test-driving the possibility probe

I like this moment in a project – where the idea made real is first taken out into the wide world and your visions are (hopefully) shown to be roughly on target and, if you’re really lucky, whole new avenues of exploration are opened to you.

Test-drive a-go-go

This morning Pete and I took the Possibility Probes (I’ve sent off the marketing copy, so these things now have a name – Possibility Probes is part of it) out for a test-drive.

Most targets have been hit:

• To be contrary to the light, cuddly, empathy-evoking bundles from the initial Colony playtesting (this project is an oxbow in a much larger, meandering research series)
• To be a little bit uncomfortable and unwieldy, but not too much so.
• To be audible.
• To be felt.

The one main area for improvement before the public get their hands on them is to improve the response to landscape.

Not bad for a first iteration, though…

Thanks to Pete for being a willing pioneer and test subject.

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…

Sound and vision

There’s a moment in every build where it starts to come together: you get a glimpse into the future and you can see what it’s going to look like.

At about lunchtime yesterday the make gained volume in that it started to occupy space.

A few hours later we’d added the skin and, rather pleasingly, the sonic properties are working out as planned too!