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The final performance for Homegrown will be taking place at Vivid Projects on 9th September from 19:00 - 22:00.

It’s finally here! The grand finale! The Homegrown artists will be performing for the fourth and final time at Vivid Projects, Birmingham. It’s set to be a fantastic show. After four months of development their work has come a long way and is better than ever.

Come join us and experience an evening of extraordinary experimental performance.

The artists: Albert Smith, Andy Howlett, Caitlin Griffiths, China Dethcrash, Myah Jeffers, Sebastian H-W

The Homegrown project, initiated by Home For Waifs and Strays, has been working directly with the aforementioned artists to build on their performance skills over a number of months. For their final performance I lent me skills as curator to help them think about how to use a dynamic space like Vivid Projects. Y’all should definitely come and experience the wide range of works. There will be performances, one-to-one pieces and installations.

On 10th September I’ll be delivering a Pure Data for Beginners workshop as part of #ArtistsCompute2016 in Coventry.

Having recognised that computers have changed society beyond measure #ArtistsCompute2016 is dedicated to mapping, presenting, probing and escalating this impact.

The festival, which is built around a large group exhibition of the same name, features many educational, participatory and enjoyable events including workshops, talks, screenings, performances and parties.

A full, detailed timetable is available here.

The workshop will be a short intense workshop focusing on the basics of using Pure Data and GEM. The workshop will take place from 11:00 - 12:30 at Fab Lab Coventry. They will already have computers there but if you have a laptop please ensure it has Pure Data install and that GEM is working. For details on booking and for information about all the other events please check in with Office for Art, Design and Technology.

One more thing…

Last Day is surprisingly still installed and is included as part of the festivities. Check it out if you haven’t seen it already before it’s gone!

Short Circuit opened to the public on September 2nd at Stryx and featured a Sonification Studies performance by me :-) Below are some photos from that night

There’s already been a couple of associated events surrounding the project, so do keep watch of the website for more information.

From 19th to 21st August I’ll have some new work installed on routers throughout Nantes, France at the Electropixel festival for the Captive Portals project by Tim Shaw and [ ](http://funktion.fm/>Sebastien Piquemal.

Wi-Fi networks populate our urban environments and create intersecting boundaries within physical space. These territories provide us with new and interesting topographies especially if we consider the creative potential of these new spaces.

Captive portals provide a temporary gateway to the Internet, generally a place for businesses to harvest data but for us a place to provocatively host digital artworks. With this we creatively explore captive portal technology as a place to embed artwork in public space.

This curated collection of artworks will exist in the urban environment around Nantes hosted on small autonomous Wi-Fi routers. Each work is available through a web-enable device (smart phone, tablet or laptop). To access the piece connect to the Wi-Fi name related to the artwork and a captive portal will appear on screen.

For this project I created a new work, Freemium Basics:

“If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold”. This phrase said by Andrew Lewis aka blue_beetle in 2010 should make any user wary of using free services. The promises of corporations offering “exclusive” “premium” gifts – loyalty cards, free wifi, vouchers etc – is that it will make your life better, easier, help you, help others, and ultimately make the world a better place.

By accepting these “gifts” we give permission to these corporations to enter our lives, track our social, spending, and general living habits. With this information they can greatly influence the opinion and habits of us and our social circles. These free “gifts”, then, come at a price.

Using Free Basics (previously Internet.org) as its target, which is Facebook’s failed attempt to gift “free internet” to India, Freemium Basics sheds light on the dangers of clicking “I Accept” on free services without considering the costs.

If you happen to be in Nantes log on!!!

From 3rd September (my cakeday) to 29th I’ll have some newly commissioned work on show at Short Circuit at Stryx.

Short Circuit is an ambitious international touring group show devised by Independent Curator, Aly Grimes, and consisting of nine New Media artists and collectives in an attempt to re-assess the archetypal framework of a travelling exhibition. It proposes a new experimental model of display realised in three different locations across Europe to include Birmingham, Copenhagen and Venice. The project’s structure aims to investigate new ways that exhibition spaces can present touring shows in the Digital Age and will manifest as a highly experimental research project susceptible to failure. It might glitch, trip, malfunction or ‘short circuit’.

A touring exhibition or ‘travelling exhibit’ is a type of exhibition that is available for circulation to one or more venues in addition to the premises of the organiser. Its structure typically comprises a grouping of works that tour together, arriving as a complete set at each participating venue. This method enables the sharing of new ideas, draws connections between artists across geographical boundaries, attracts new audiences, allows for the diffusion of knowledge and local cultures, provides fresh interpretations of artists’ work and brings opportunities to share production costs.

Other artists included in the exhibition include: Emily Mulenga, Juneau Projects, The Cool Couple, Kensuke Koike and Ryts Monet, Honey Beckerlee, Mads Damsbo and Johan Knattrup Jensen and David Stjernholm.

For the opening event on 2nd September I’ll be doing a Sonification Studies performance. The piece hasn’t been performed in Birmingham since one if its first debuts at the Sonification event at Vivid Projects in 2014. Come to see how the piece has developed since then. Stay for the art.

There will be other events for this exhibition including talks, workshops and an Augmented Reality event from Juneau Projects. Check out the website and Facebook Page for more information.