Texts
Essays, articles, interviews and other published things:
46% Bad: some thoughts and observations about infrastructure
A 20 page, A5 black and white zine to accompany a sculptural manifestation of a pictogram from a cycle lane. At first glance it is fairly convincingly bike-like however, on closer examination, it becomes increasingly obvious that things are not quite right…
Produced as part of a residency at the School of Jewellery (Birmingham City University), the zine takes a journey through the infrastructures and systems that relate so closely to our bodies—the infrastructures and systems we rely on to keep our bodies intact—and notices that there’s something missing.
The zine is available to purchase for £3 + £1 postage within the UK. For bulk or international orders please use the contact form to make arrangements.
More Than Just a Pinpoint: Locative Media and the Chorographic Impulse, by Kim Sawchuk & Samuel Thulin
“This paper addresses the representational fiction of the pinpoint within the mapping processes associated with locative media art. These reflections on the pinpoint draw upon several locative media projects undertaken by the Mobile Media Lab over the past fifteen years as well as other locative media artists including Nikki Pugh, Paula Levine and Jeremy Hight. We examine a tension within locative media between the desire to precisely locate a place through the use of geographic coordinates, what David Bissell defines as a penchant for pointillist proximities, and the way that technologies, places and our interactions may only ever produce approximations. We ruminate on these approximations through the antiquarian concept of chorography, which emphasizes evocation and calls attention to creative forms of description as an alternative to mapping practices that seek to pinpoint locations within abstract, quantifiable space.”
[download .pdf file]
Locative Awareness: A Mobilities Approach to Locative Art, by Jen Southern
“Over the last decade the impacts of global mobilities have become increasingly visible in the parallel developments of locative media in art practice and a new mobilities paradigm in the social sciences. In 2006, in a special issue of Leonardo locative art was described as two broad areas of annotative and phenomenological practice. This paper uses the new ‘critical mobilities’ approach that has arisen in recent social science to suggest a broadening of those categories to include situated and embodied, mobile, relational, networked, experimental and multiple practices. I argue that this multiple, entangled and assembled description of locative media contributes to a new sense of ‘locative awareness’.”
[download.pdf file.]
Chapter for Envisioning Networked Urban Mobilities. Edited by Aslak Aamot Kjærulff, Kevin Hannam, Sven Kesselring & Peter Peters
Volume 3 of a three volume book project on how cities, cultures and economies change under the conditions of global complexity and reflexive modernisation. An outcome of the Networked Urban Mobilities conference, Copenhagen, November 2014.
Where the Sky Widens: An exploration of slow making and spatially-aware prototypes as methods for considering emotional connections to distant places.
Evaluative document (equivalent to a dissertation) for an MA final project.
[download .pdf file]
Exhibition Catalogue for Right Here Right Now at The Lowry
“A major new exhibition providing a thought provoking snapshot of contemporary digital art. Featuring the work of 16 international artists, Right Here, Right Now looks at how technology affects our lives – through surveillance, artificial intelligence, voyeurism or online dating.
Created in the last five years, their critical, playful and illuminating artworks challenge our understanding of the digital systems that surround us, while making visible those that are hidden. Prepare to re-think your increasingly connected digital life.”
[download .pdf file]
Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching: A Beginner’s Guide. Nicola Whitton (Editor), Alex Moseley (Editor), Routledge.
“In order to bring together our perspectives as researchers and educational practitioners with views from industry and experts in game design, we interviewed a number of experts in the games industry, creative industry, and academia. Key quotes from these interviews were selected for inclusion in the book, but here we provide the full interviews.”
[http://gamesbook.playthinklearn.net/pugh.htm]
The Ministry of Rules: Interview with Nikki Pugh
Interview by Nina Simon about Ministry of Rules for Museum 2.0
[http://museumtwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/ministry-of-rules-interview-with-nikki.html]
Uncertain Eastside – Document One: 2009
Project documentation available to buy from MagCloud
[http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/131607]
Hide&Seek: the company that wants you to play more
“Can asking people to pretend to be whales really change the world? Hide&Seek thinks so…”
Article by Lyn Gardner in The Guardian that references The Bloop.
[http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/jul/08/hide-and-seek]
Emergent Play
An essay by Dr Sadie Plant in response to the first iteration of Emergent Game,a commission for New Generation Arts.
[http://ludogeography.npugh.co.uk/texts/emergent_play/]