Aksioma is publishing brochures dedicated to the work of some of my favourite artists and activists. The latest issue of the magazine of Gambiologia (the Brazilian art and science of kludging) is dedicated to collecting, hoarding and recycling. And Neural just turned 20!
In the age of the ‘selfie’ and social media, might the figure of the Photographer, as observer and recorder of social change, becoming passé, destined to be replaced by a new type of collective ‘portrait’ formed from the aggregation and analysis of big data?
For the past few years, CAA’s founders Steve Lambert and Stephen Duncombe have been traveling around America (and increasingly Europe) to train grassroot activists to think more like artists and artists to think more like activists. The objective isn’t to replace traditional strategies with unbridled inventiveness but to use creativity as an additional tool that will help them gain more attention, make activism more approachable and that will, ultimately, make their campaigns more effective
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If i had to compare it to Frieze i’d say that catering is far better at Art14 (which for me means “WOW! there’s a juice bar, here!”), the public is much younger and the art is more accessible and not just financially. Last but not least, there’s no Jeff Koons inflated glitter in sight. I did see too many Botero though. At least one.
In this episodes we’re going to talk about James’ PHD thesis Why Robots? which uses the robot as a vehicle to study how technology be domesticated. But the designer will also discusss preferable futures and electronic devices that know more about your partner’s emotional state than you do
My Holy Nacho is a process driven project and exhibition using the power of the internet to create physical changes in the real world. Inspired by László Moholy-Nagy’s Telephone Pictures (1923), where the artist communicated instructions at-a-distance for a finished piece to a manufacturer through the telephone
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Mary Warner Marien discusses photography from a truly global viewpoint and looks at a wide-ranging collection of images through the lenses of art, science, travel, war, fashion, the mass media and individual photographers
The Phillips Hydraulic Computer was an analog computer created in 1949 by Professor Bill Phillips to model the economic processes of the United Kingdom using water and transparent plastic tanks.’ Inspired by this hubris of correlating human behavior to mechanical equations’, Design Interactions student Neil Thomson is currently attempting to create a Phillips machine based on modern economic models
The work of Owl Project goes from simple ironic devices such as the iLog which is a log that thinks it is a music player to large scale installations such as ~Flow which was a floating tidal waterwheel powered electro acoustic musical instrument responding to the river Tyne in Newcastle. Owl Project has also toured festivals and events with their rather ingenious Sound Lathe, a musical instrument based on a traditional green wood turning pole lathe that explores the relationship between the crafting of physical objects and the shaping of sound
Few people would associate the words “English heritage” with car showrooms, repair garages, filling stations, traffic lights, inner ring roads, multi-storey car parks, and drive-through restaurants. Yet, the exhibition at Wellington Arch shows that the car’s impact on the physical environment needn’t be reduced to ruthless out pours of concrete and “wayside eyesores”
Frederik de Wilde’s investigations don’t stop at nanotechnology and ultra black paintings, he also explores biotechnology, data networks, or any other scientific fields of research to uncover new frontiers of the intangible, inaudible, invisible.
That might sound highly conceptual but as the interview with the artist demonstrates research into elusive energy measurements and other barely perceptible phenomena quickly gives rise to reflections about politics, art history, economic emergency, universe hacking and very practical innovations in ‘clean’ energy
Superflux is looking at the ways emerging technologies interface with the environment and everyday life and the result of their research is a rather extraordinary portfolio which explores deviant economies for India’s elastic cities, climate change, political engagement, desertification, human enhancement, etc
Tracing a history of the field through its most innovative shows, renowned curator Jens Hoffmann selects the fifty exhibitions that have most significantly shaped the practice of both artists and exhibition curators.
The book’s thematic sections focus on a huge variety of exhibitions, including those that have explored public space; reflected on globalization; engaged audiences in revolutionary ways; and brought into the gallery other disciplines such as theatre and architecture
Designer Austin Houldsworth imagined a monetary system within the cultural context of Skinner’s utopian novel Walden Two. The payment system would challenge the established monetary function of ‘a store of value’, creating a new method of exchange that encourages people to actively destroy their money during a transaction
In this episode, we will be talking about knitting machines & digital images, punchcards, knitted Muybridge horse animation, and musical ‘textiles experiment’. Open source Swan pedalo will make an appearance too….
When Harmony Went to Hell. Congo Dialogues at Rivington Place in London brings side by side archive photos shot by Alice Seeley Harris while Leopold II was still the sole owner of the land and new work from Sammy Baloji, a Congolese artist who has spent the past few years investigating the legacies of colonialism in his country
Space scientist Lucie Green gave a wonderful presentation about the Earth magnetic bubble and about how the moon is electrically charged, Dr Jill Stuart focused on space politics, Tomas Saraceno talked about cities that are lighter than the air, Kevin Fong asked us to reflect on how past expeditions might actually belong to the future. Finally, WE COLONISED THE MOON presented the largest Moon smelling session ever done on our planet
This week i’ve invited designer and artist Matthew Plummer-Fernandez to talk to us about 3D-printed objects & the freedom but also the patent trolls and censorship that accompany them
These fables show potential of putative simple organisms in the past, present and future. What if invasive species become a weapon? What if the next danger is an engineered physical insect, not a digital one?
There will be live events, an on-line auction and special broadcasts. We really need your help this year but the good news is that Janek Schaefer, Yuri Suzuki, Rie Nakajima and many other exciting performers will party, perform and fund raise with us. Do join!
Speculative Everything offers a tour through an emerging cultural landscape of design ideas, ideals, and approaches. Dunne and Raby cite examples from their own design and teaching and from other projects from fine art, design, architecture, cinema, and photography. They also draw on futurology, political theory, the philosophy of technology, and literary fiction
Loop.pH’s work speculates on near and far future scenarios as a way to probe at the social and environmental impact of emerging biological and technological futures. Some of their most renown projects include collaborating with a Nobel prize winner to communicate the functioning of molecular machines, designing a curtain made of algae that produce bio-fuel, setting up an edible DIY bio fab-lab for the video of an Aussie band. creating a sound and light performance that explores the field of neuroscience and investigating the possibilities of living architecture
What remains of the Eight Hour Day movement preconized by social reformer Robert Owen in the first half of the 19th century? Is there a new definition of ‘work life balance’?
Artists, along with anyone working in the cultural sector, have experienced this evolution of working standards perhaps more acutely than most people. It seemed thus natural that FACT, in collaboration with the Royal College of Art, would ask them to explore these questions. The result is timely and thought-provoking
Critical Exploits showed how a new generation of artists, designers and engineers are taking a highly critical approach to the development and use of the engineered systems and infrastructures that we increasingly rely on for daily life
The artist uses live art, interventions and new media to investigate social and political systems; and to find his position in and to these larger systems.
Some of his projects involved outsourcing the production of a written constitution for the UK to China and having 1,000 dolls voice it, using the price of an African financial index to control lightning in a Berlin art center, testing certain hypotheses about social behaviour in a dinner party. And building an outdoors spiral staircase for cats.
Sue and Hagen’s installation, performance and graphic works seek to demonstrate that the future may indeed be frightening, but also highly entertaining. Previous projects have included creating solutions for space waste by disguising satellites as asteroids, building a solar powered solarium because ‘the sun dies anyway’, synthesising the smell of the moon and embedding it into scratch and sniff cards
The exhibition focuses on the area of the Piers in New York City during the mid 1970s, and speaks of the state of abandonment and dilapidation these underwent as a consequence of the oil crisis that reconfigured the geography of the city as well as the international market and trading system
From the early 1990s the internet has had multiple roles in art, not least in defining several new genres of practitioners, from early networked art to new forms of interactive and participatory works, but also because it is the great aggregator of all art, past and present. Art and the Internet examines the legacy of the internet on art, and, importantly, illuminates how artists and institutions are using it and why
My guest in the studio will be Ghislaine Boddington is an artist researcher, dramaturge, curator and thought leader specialising in body responsive technologies. Ghislaine is also recognised as an international pioneer in full body telepresence. and the reason why i invited her in the studios of ResonanceFM is that Ghislaine is also the Creative Director of body>data>space, a collective of artists and designers that looks at the future of the human body and its real-time relationship to evolving global, social and technological shifts.
In this episode we will talk about experiences in telepresence, digital culture in London and gender (im)balance in tech careers (believe it or not, we’re still there!)
Historian Garrick Hileman, sociologist Nigel Dodd and financial activist Brett Scott reflected on the question “Is Bitcoin the new gold?” Shaking up online and offline worlds, the online currency Bitcoin has increased its ‘value’ at immense speed in the last year. Being immune from government interference and private manipulations, it has been celebrated as a new alternative currency by some and condemned as source of unpredictable risk by others
The main preoccupation of the exhibition is not the militant commentaries behind artworks but the effect that political values and social movements have had on the production modes, aesthetics and communication of visual culture. As such Art Turning Left stands out from other shows dedicated to political art or activism
The Bio Art & Design Award used to be called the Designers and Artists for Genomics award but its objective remains unchanged: the award invites designers and artists interested in life sciences to propose projects that push the boundaries of research application and creative expression. Each year the three most exciting ideas are awarded a 25,000 euro grant to bring the project to life and exhibit it
My notes from a round table discussion at The Arts Catalyst about the concept of moon colonisation, asking: “Should We Colonise the Moon?”. What’s the future for the Moon – theme park or quarry?
My guest in the studio tomorrow will be Nicola Triscott, the founder and Director of The Arts Catalyst, a UK arts organisation that sets up events, curates exhibitions, releases publications and commissions ambitious artworks that engage with science. The Arts Catalyst, believe or not, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year so we’ll be talking about the art&science scene of the early 1990s and also about the embassy for The Republic of the Moon which the Arts Catalyst has opened a few days ago at the Bargehouse, Southbank, London
Much of Treister’s recent work maps ways that human intelligence and military intelligence currently interact and work on each other. She explores how in a world increasingly determined by pervasive technologies and the demands of the military and security arms of government and state, new relations between the observer and the observed have been established and new subjectivities formed
My guests in the studio will be Carmen Salas and Estela Oliva, the founders of Alpha-ville, a London-based organisation with a mission to connect people working in the fields of art, technology, design and digital culture. Alpha-ville has been busy since 2009 organising events, commissioning new works and curating programmes for arts and cultural organisations, festivals, promoters, events and agencies
Showcasing a comprehensive selection of the group’s diverse output, the exhibition includes video, software, net art, installation, and performance. F.A.T. Lab members will also be creating and hacking on new, cutting-edge projects to be added to the exhibition on the fly
Mircopets, book fighting, wikipedia playing the piano, a Playmobil scale Eiffel Tower, ‘la zapette’ and a fair number of robots. The latest edition of Gamerz was one of my favourite events of the year
The Age of Collage is a striking documentation of today’s continued appetite for destructive construction. Showcasing outstanding current artwork and artists, the book also takes an insightful behind-the-scenes look at those working with this interdisciplinary and cross-media approach
Eniarof looks like nothing you’ve ever experienced. It’s like a very wild, very Far West version of a digital art festival, with elements of village fair, hacker meeting and circus thrown here and there