It’s been a tough year.
January
As usual January was quiet. Libre Graphics Magazine 2.2 was released and I also did the artwork for Maximilien Irregular. He’s got an EP out y’know.
.
February
Back in late 2013 myself and Joe Newlin set out to collaborate on an audio visual artware piece. In early February, a month later than planned, we unleashed Neon Plastic onto the world! Download it here.
Later that month I took part in VOID, curated by Amy Kirkham and Charlie Levine, alongside some really cool local artists. I made some new artwork focused on jpg compression.
March
At the beginning of the month I headed off to Stony Brook University in New York for the first of two State-side visits in March. I took part in f(Glitch) where I gave lecture about glitch art and organised my last BYOB event.
After spending 10 days back in the UK I want straight back to the States – this time Chicago, New York City and a surprise visit to Miami – for a social visit. I know, I know, I should have just stayed abroad for an extra week….
I, of course, took this opportunity to do some work and performed alongside Jason Soliday at Antagonists Anonymous.
April
I released spɛl ænd spik to the world. It was a slight departure from my usual glitch aesthetic, but I feel it still referenced some of its key themes, especially randomness and finding signal in noise.
I also did some live coded visuals at an Algorave in Gateshead. I wrote up my experience of this, which was rather interesting.
May
Nathan Jones (not the wrestler)/Mercy, the same person/people that comissioned spɛl ænd spik, kicked off a colaboration with performance artist Rachel Sweeney. We did a performance outside FACT for Light Night
Daniel Rourke invited me to take part in the massive GIFbites/Bitrates online exhibition. If you don’t value your retinas you can experience my contribution.
An unexpected highlight of May was spɛl ænd spik being featured in the Next Wave exhibition at the RBSA, the outcome of which results in me becoming an Honourary Associate of the RBSA!
June
After soooooooo many dealys I finally launched Copyright Atrophy, a project that was previously shown at Glitch Moment/ums in June 2013
In addition to joining the Board of Directors of Fierce Festival, participating in a short residency at Jephson Gardens in Leamington Spa and making a video for UUOO, I made public my explorations of sonification.
This approach, inspired by the work of the Cyborg Foundation, would make several appearances throughout the year. Check out the software for yourself if you like pixel noises!
July
On the surface this was a quiet month but there was a lot of preparation work going on behind the scenes!
The main highlight was returning to Liverpool to perform again with Rachel Sweeney. I think this collaboration could go somewhere…
August
The month started with a David Lynch inspired exhibition at Vivid Projects. Between Two Worlds was a collaboration between Black Hole Club (of which I am a member) and Stryx that saw the space transformed into something resembling the set of Twin Peaks.
Although it was only up for one day it was the resut of a month of hard work. Pro tip: filling a space with soil is harder than it sounds. Let’s not talk about the wig…
I was/am part of another big online project, this time an ambitious project by Lorna Mills to invite artists to recreate Jon Berger’s Ways of Seeing minute by minute.
The project, Ways of Something, has been well received so far even though only episodes one and two (I’m in episode two) have been released!
The final big news of the month was that I became an artist in residence at the University of Birmingham.
In a departure from my usual glitch aesthetic, during my residency, which goes on until September 2015, I’ll be exploring issues of copyright, patents, intellectual property and art – issues which are pertinent as online communities become more prolific and harder to police. I hope to find ways to increase accessibility of collections at the University of Birmingham whilst still maintaining the integrity and reputation of the University and Copyright holders.
Believe it not, but these themes have been running through my work since the beginning! Notice how I only use open source software and Creative Commons licences? Expect more of my work to focus on these themes.
September
After releasing a JPG glitch pattern generator I went to the Chicago again (I hate flying) to take part in glitChicago and do a bit of teaching at SAIC.
I couldn’t be more thankful to Paul Hertz, jonCates and everyone that helped me get over there again. It should go without saying that I really enjoyed everything!
October
The sonification work that I had been doing earlier in the year, and that I had performed at glitChicago, came to a closing point with the release of the Pixel Player software I had made for the sonification of pixels.
On the back of the sonification work I went to Brussels to work with Constant/OSP at Balsamine for their Print Party
This time I converted the curves of SVG files into audio.
November
noteNdo came to visit and we both performed at Fierce Festival’s Algorave, which also saw me perform with My Panda Shall Fly (he rocks).
I then got an invitation to participate in Loud Tate: Code at Tate Britain.
It was an ever so delightful surprise to be featured along side my peers in a gallery that, to my knowledge, hasn’t heavily featured glitch art or “new media” in the past. Thanks to Jasper at Tate Collectives for recommending my work! The piece is still being developed and will see a proper release veeeeeeery soon.
December
For once December has been/was pretty quiet. Most of this time has been/was spent making preparations for 2015. Delete as appropriate, depending on when you read this.
I’ve spent of December learning new skills such as 2D and 3D animation, compositing and even music making. Most of that energy is currently being pumped into the Arhive Remix residency.
Fin
I started writing these end-of-year review posts as a way for me to grasp everything that was happening in my artistic life. Since I started “doing things” in 2009 when I co-started fizzPOP it seems that, out of nowhere, I started to do more and more, er, things. It overwhelmed me at times. As the years have progressed I’ve become more settled in my ideas and more confident in my abilities. Maybe using this end-of-year review format isn’t necessary anymore.
See you in 2015.