Mapping Data: Performing Landscape
16 December 2009, 1 – 5pm
HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden
Way back in the summertime Jen Southern (UK), Jen Hamilton and Chris St Amand (Canada) presented their Running Stitch artwork in the Open Source Embroidery exhibition at BildMuseet. Whilst the artists were in town we were all excited to meet Per Sandstrom at SLU who has been using GPS to track reindeer movement in Sweden. It seems that our relationship with landscape is being explored and challenged through GPS and GIS across the arts, humanities and sciences. Projects at HUMlab include QVIST led by Fredrik Palm, and Research Fellow Paul Arthur who has been working on the Virtual Perth project in Australia.
We all agreed that there must be points of synergy between researchers in different disciplines who are using this technology. Sharing our work may help to develop our understanding of our own practices, and to consider the cultural implications of our research. So at last we have organised a multidisciplinary seminar to take place in HUMlab on December 16th. 1-5pm. Everyone is welcome.
Speakers:
Paul Arthur, HUMlab Research Fellow. Virtual Perth, Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative.
Jen Southern, Artist, University of Lancaster, UK.
Per Sandström, SLU, Forest Resource Management.
Fredrik Palm, QVIZ, HUMlab, Umeå University.
The seminar will explore questions such as: How does GPS affect our understanding of landscape? What are the cultural implications of GPS and GIS for the audience and for the mapmaker? How do we annotate and story tell? How can geographical data be explored, compared, analysed and animated over time?
This seminar is supported by HUMlab in partnership with BildMuseet at Umeå University.Contact: ele.carpenter@humlab.umu.se
Monday, December 07, 2009
Friday, December 04, 2009
Public Craft
The next Open Source Embroidery project will be a book. Exactly what kind of book and how it will be published is still up for discussion. But it will be somewhere between a reader and source book of craft and code.
For newcomers to this blog - the Open Source Embroidery (OSE) project investigates how the open source software development model has been incorporated into the language of cultural participation. Tracing the history of craft and code from Ada Lovelace's notes on the Jaquard Loom and the Analytical Engine, to contemporary networked creativity using fabric and coded threads. ... However, there is still a gap between the 'theorists' and the 'practitioners' within the wider field. And I think there is a need for an accessible and rigorous publication bringing together key texts, new writing, and visual pages of art, craft and code.
A primary aim of the OSE project has been to make material the often invisible processes of digital networks and code. So it is important that the book exists as a coherent physical publication - as well as having some kind of open online publishing format. The urgent need for a critical enquiry might lead us to keep the texts as a permanent component, whilst enabling the visual pages to be selected.
I've just started to read Richard Sennett's The Craftsman where he describes Linux "a public craft"(Sennet, 2009, p24). His investigation into the relationship between technical and conceptual development in the process of making seems to make the OSE book a timely proposition. Unfortunately several of the books' reviews get bogged down in the argument as to whether Wikipedia is any good, and miss the point about the public ownership of craft skills, and the social networks which support both tradition and innovation. I can recommend Roger Scruton's review in The Times.
Watch this space for further info. We'll be sending out a call for contributions in early 2010.
For newcomers to this blog - the Open Source Embroidery (OSE) project investigates how the open source software development model has been incorporated into the language of cultural participation. Tracing the history of craft and code from Ada Lovelace's notes on the Jaquard Loom and the Analytical Engine, to contemporary networked creativity using fabric and coded threads. ... However, there is still a gap between the 'theorists' and the 'practitioners' within the wider field. And I think there is a need for an accessible and rigorous publication bringing together key texts, new writing, and visual pages of art, craft and code.
A primary aim of the OSE project has been to make material the often invisible processes of digital networks and code. So it is important that the book exists as a coherent physical publication - as well as having some kind of open online publishing format. The urgent need for a critical enquiry might lead us to keep the texts as a permanent component, whilst enabling the visual pages to be selected.
I've just started to read Richard Sennett's The Craftsman where he describes Linux "a public craft"(Sennet, 2009, p24). His investigation into the relationship between technical and conceptual development in the process of making seems to make the OSE book a timely proposition. Unfortunately several of the books' reviews get bogged down in the argument as to whether Wikipedia is any good, and miss the point about the public ownership of craft skills, and the social networks which support both tradition and innovation. I can recommend Roger Scruton's review in The Times.
Watch this space for further info. We'll be sending out a call for contributions in early 2010.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
OSE at MOCFA on YouTube
The Open Source Embroidery exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art opened in a buzz of excitement on October 1st. The gallery was packed with objects and people with a range of interests in art, craft and programming. Throughout the evening Studio Galli filmed Ele (me) introducing the HTML Patchwork, Running Stitch and Yarn Text. Travis Meinolf and Michele Pred also talked about their artworks in the exhibition.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Masking Tape History of Mondrian
I generally grumble about the integration of American culture into British culture, I like to think I can do without the global everything default. But there are some really truly great things about America which just haven't caught on in Europe. One of these things is coloured masking tape (painters tape). Red for high-tac, blue for medium-tac, and green for low-tac. It's practical, beautiful, and great for colour coding objects and tools as well as decorating, wrapping art works and planning a geometric painting.
My second day in San Francisco saw me purchase 4 roles of tape to bring home with me from the Cole Fox Hardware store (see last post). My last day was spent soaking up artwork at SFMOMA. And there I saw a 'work in progress' painting by Mondrian employing the use of primary coloured tape to design his painting. In my basic A-level Arthistory we learned about Broadway Boogie Woogie, the impact of Jazz and the American city grid structure on his painting - but no-one mentioned coloured masking tape as an essential tool in planning and influencing Mondrian's colour... did they?
Please correct me if you have an expert knowledge of Mondrian and can provide an arthistorical link to the impact of coloured masking tape on his practice.
Slow Networking
Here is the story of my map of the social networks that brought me to the Micro Makers Fair at the May You Live In Interesting Times festival at Chapter in Cardiff this weekend, and the new people I met, and the people we know in common.
On the first day I wore my Cole Fox Hardware Store T-shirt for the first time. I bought the T-Shirt whilst I was installing the Open Source Embroidery exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, where I made regular visits to the shop that sells everything, including red blue and green masking tape (see a future post on the missing arthistory of Mondrian’s love of American masking tape). The window display of the store is designed by an artist to exquisitely present hardware objects by colour. So imagine my surprise when 2 visitors to the Fair recognize my T-Shirt and pull out their house keys with a Cole Fox key tag – we are instantly connected in our love of the store, and they tell me their story of their move from San Francisco to Cardiff. Catherine stitches Mark’s name and 'Cole Fox Hardware' onto the map, whilst Mark entertains their little boy.
I was invited to take part in the Micro Maker Fair by Hannah, who I’ve known since the late 1990s when we both lived and worked in Newcastle. We’ve loosely kept in touch partly through art events, bumping into each other in Venice, and partly through our dear friend Julie. I knew Hannah would be super-busy with the opening of the newly refurbished Chapter Arts Centre and running the festival, so I stitched her name onto my network map. At the GwdDiHw (Goodie Who) bar I met Matthew and Tomascz who explained that they were living in Interesting Times in Cardiff. Matthew teaches computer gaming things at the University with Corrado whom I recognized from the opening of OSE at HTTP back in May 2007, Corrado knows Mark and Ruth from Furtherfield. They also know Hannah through Chapter. Then FutureEverything Drew arrived so I added them all to a sketch on the back of my print out of a google map of Cardiff. They all promised to come to the Maker Fair to stitch their names on the map. Drew came along and diligently stitched his name in bright orange. The others didn’t turn up, and I remember that real networks are formed by the people who show up.
The Fair is a hectic mix of stalls in the Chapter Stwdio. I'm squeezed between Dorkbot Bristol and wonderful Piano Migrations.
Later in the afternoon Alison from Bracket drops by the stall – Ah! She knows David Littler from the Sampler Culture Clash project in Brixton, they have similar music interests and often go to the same gigs. We spend an hour or so discussing our work. Saul drops by from The People Speak – he knows Hannah, Drew and me, so the connecting network lines will get interwoven when Saul is added. He has to write some code and doesn’t have time to stitch. I promise to add him on another time.
In the Chapter Café Bar I bump into my old friends Jo and Roy who I know through exhibitions, art film screenings and conferences, but also because my parents live near them in Southampton. We all attended our friend Debbie Fenwick’s wedding in Northumberland years back, and spent a tense hour driving around fantastic countryside looking for the country house, and arriving just in time for the ceremony. I love Jo because she talks about her job as a curator of Aspex Gallery in a very straightforward way. And of course Hannah and Jo know each other through work and location connections too.
When I meet up with Jo and Roy later in the day they are having coffee with Ellie Harrison, the data collector extraordinaire and Neil Mullholland, whom I’ve nearly met on many occasions, but not quite. I first met Ellie through LabCulture in Bridport, and organized an exhibition including her work at Peterborough Art Gallery sometime in 2003 I think. Ellie starts to stitch her name, but is called away by promises of a curry, so I giver her the whole map for her to sew in her own time and post it back to me…..
As Sophie stitches her name onto the Maker Fair map she quizzes me about why I think people have such a strong need to articulate their social networks, she thinks people are scarred of being invisible. I return to Baran’s notes on distributed networks – his vision in 1964 was a communication network which was indestructable. I think there’s an interesting correlation between Sophie’s survivalist stall of Wild Wood weapons for hunting and the need for a survivalist communication network. A point not missed in Heath Bunting’s work, and of course Sophie is selling Heath’s ‘Throwing Stones’. I decide to add Heath and Sophie to my network when I get it back from Ellie.
My other plan was to invite people to ‘speed-date their 6 degrees of separation’ and embroider their connections. But you just can’t ‘speed-stitch’, it’s a process of slowing down and careful precision. So whilst some people drew their 6 degrees of separation, there was too much going on for people to sit and sew their network. This is a project for hours of concentration.
On the first day I wore my Cole Fox Hardware Store T-shirt for the first time. I bought the T-Shirt whilst I was installing the Open Source Embroidery exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, where I made regular visits to the shop that sells everything, including red blue and green masking tape (see a future post on the missing arthistory of Mondrian’s love of American masking tape). The window display of the store is designed by an artist to exquisitely present hardware objects by colour. So imagine my surprise when 2 visitors to the Fair recognize my T-Shirt and pull out their house keys with a Cole Fox key tag – we are instantly connected in our love of the store, and they tell me their story of their move from San Francisco to Cardiff. Catherine stitches Mark’s name and 'Cole Fox Hardware' onto the map, whilst Mark entertains their little boy.
I was invited to take part in the Micro Maker Fair by Hannah, who I’ve known since the late 1990s when we both lived and worked in Newcastle. We’ve loosely kept in touch partly through art events, bumping into each other in Venice, and partly through our dear friend Julie. I knew Hannah would be super-busy with the opening of the newly refurbished Chapter Arts Centre and running the festival, so I stitched her name onto my network map. At the GwdDiHw (Goodie Who) bar I met Matthew and Tomascz who explained that they were living in Interesting Times in Cardiff. Matthew teaches computer gaming things at the University with Corrado whom I recognized from the opening of OSE at HTTP back in May 2007, Corrado knows Mark and Ruth from Furtherfield. They also know Hannah through Chapter. Then FutureEverything Drew arrived so I added them all to a sketch on the back of my print out of a google map of Cardiff. They all promised to come to the Maker Fair to stitch their names on the map. Drew came along and diligently stitched his name in bright orange. The others didn’t turn up, and I remember that real networks are formed by the people who show up.
The Fair is a hectic mix of stalls in the Chapter Stwdio. I'm squeezed between Dorkbot Bristol and wonderful Piano Migrations.Later in the afternoon Alison from Bracket drops by the stall – Ah! She knows David Littler from the Sampler Culture Clash project in Brixton, they have similar music interests and often go to the same gigs. We spend an hour or so discussing our work. Saul drops by from The People Speak – he knows Hannah, Drew and me, so the connecting network lines will get interwoven when Saul is added. He has to write some code and doesn’t have time to stitch. I promise to add him on another time.
In the Chapter Café Bar I bump into my old friends Jo and Roy who I know through exhibitions, art film screenings and conferences, but also because my parents live near them in Southampton. We all attended our friend Debbie Fenwick’s wedding in Northumberland years back, and spent a tense hour driving around fantastic countryside looking for the country house, and arriving just in time for the ceremony. I love Jo because she talks about her job as a curator of Aspex Gallery in a very straightforward way. And of course Hannah and Jo know each other through work and location connections too.
When I meet up with Jo and Roy later in the day they are having coffee with Ellie Harrison, the data collector extraordinaire and Neil Mullholland, whom I’ve nearly met on many occasions, but not quite. I first met Ellie through LabCulture in Bridport, and organized an exhibition including her work at Peterborough Art Gallery sometime in 2003 I think. Ellie starts to stitch her name, but is called away by promises of a curry, so I giver her the whole map for her to sew in her own time and post it back to me…..
As Sophie stitches her name onto the Maker Fair map she quizzes me about why I think people have such a strong need to articulate their social networks, she thinks people are scarred of being invisible. I return to Baran’s notes on distributed networks – his vision in 1964 was a communication network which was indestructable. I think there’s an interesting correlation between Sophie’s survivalist stall of Wild Wood weapons for hunting and the need for a survivalist communication network. A point not missed in Heath Bunting’s work, and of course Sophie is selling Heath’s ‘Throwing Stones’. I decide to add Heath and Sophie to my network when I get it back from Ellie.
My other plan was to invite people to ‘speed-date their 6 degrees of separation’ and embroider their connections. But you just can’t ‘speed-stitch’, it’s a process of slowing down and careful precision. So whilst some people drew their 6 degrees of separation, there was too much going on for people to sit and sew their network. This is a project for hours of concentration.
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