Blog

From 15th May to 7th June I’ll be exhibting new(ish) work at the RBSA as part of the Next Wave exhibition.

Next Wave is an entirely new venture for the RBSA. It is the first project based on the professional practice of early career artists to take place at the Gallery and has been designed to help support and promote both new graduates and those up to ten years post-qualification.

Seven emerging artists have been selected with the aim of creating a new style of exhibition within the gallery spaces. In an exciting initiative, exhibitors have been encouraged to develop their professional experience by contributing to the range of activities and events involved in the creation of a successful exhibition.

It is hoped that Next Wave will foster critical engagement, lively debate and networking opportunities for the art community and public alike, and at the same time strive to extend and diversify the audience for art in the region.

spɛl ænd spik, originally comissioned by Electronic Voice Phenomena, will be having its first IRL screening at the exhibition, alongside the work of nine other artists and RBSA curators.

In addition to being open during general opening times there’ll be an open evening on Thursday 15 May, 17.00 - 21.00 (part of the Art Bus thingy), and a Celebratory Open Day on Saturday 17 May, 14.00 - 16.00. Be there and be square!

On 16th May I’ll be in Liverpool for a performance with Rachel Sweeney of a piece developed for Light Night Liverpool 2014.

9pm – 10.30pm Ropewalks Square, FACT, Liverpool

Glitch artist Antonio Roberts presents a new aspect to his work exploring error, working in tandem with butoh inflected dance performed by Rachel Sweeney. Computer interface, digital image, human body and choreography are drawn into beautiful maelstrom of system error. The public are invited to join in and excert their own influence over this unwieldy system for control.

Commissioned by Mercy and Hive as part of the Syndrome programme.

In partnership with FACT, as part of Light Night 2014

It’s free, fun, and also fun!

I took part in Algorave in Gateshead on 26th April. Apart from being incredibly awesome it was my first time live coding - or rather live patching - visuals in Pure Data from scratch. I emphasise from scratch because nearly all of my performances involve me modifying patches, but never starting with a completely blank canvas. I also occasionally used the HSS3jb as a texture for objects, but never on its own. It’s also great for when crashes occur, which is/was often ;-). Here’s a few sampels of my visuals. Videos by Mariam Rezaei:

I learnt a few things about Pure Data that night, and my general opinion is that it isn’t that great as a live coding visuals tool.

One of first issues is encapsulation of objects. This can be done quite easily but it’s a manual process which would involve cutting all cords and reconstructuring a patch. That is, you would have to cut the selection of objects, paste them into a sub patch and then reattatch it. By way of comparison, Max/MSP has this as a feature already, whereas this isn’t mentioned at all on the bug tracker Feature request is now on the bug tracker. Not being able to auto encapsulate objects makes reuse a bit more difficult and cumbersome, which resulted in some really messy patches from me on the night.

This also relates to another issue of object insertion. When I was building my patches I would often have to preempt what I would need. I nearly always started with [gemhead]-[translateXYZ]-[rotateXYZ]-[repeat 10]-[rotateXYZ]-[translateXYZ]-[color]-[cube]. Inserting any additional objects required me to cut the cord and therefore the screen output. This would be solved if there were, for example, a method whereby if two objects were selected, the next object was inserted in between them. This is obviously an over-simplified specific use case which would need more thought behind it. Again, no mention of it on the bug tracker. Feature request is now on the bug tracker.

There were other thoughts I had on the night, such as the incosistencies and clumsiness of using the [repeat] object, the lack of a snap-to-grid option for aligning objects, the tiny size of inlets and outlets - even when the ojbects themselves may be huge, which is only exaggerated when using a 13" 1080p screen, and the lack of a toolbar (yes, I am aware of GUI plugins), but these are the two which I felt would’ve helped me most.

Has much else been written about the use of Pure Data for live coding visuals?

Since March I’ve been part of Vivid Projects’ Black Hole Club along with nine other artists. As part of a new initiative called Digbeth First Friday on 2nd May we’ll be having a bit of a social event!

The Black Hole Club is a lively, daring space for all kinds of creative people to share ideas. Join us for a social evening of visuals and sonics from club members. Expect beer, music and conversation, which journeys from David Lynch to Oculus Rift!

Digbeth comes alive on the first Friday of each month with exhibitions, late-night openings, special events, culture in unexpected places, live music, street food and more.

With different things to see and do each month, anything could happen on a first Friday night out. Grab a Disloyalty Card from participating venues and collect stamps to trade for treats as you sample the great independent culture Digbeth has to offer.

It’s all happening between 6-9pm. Expect there to be lots of analog video hardware for you to play around with! Oh, and it’s totally free!

On Saturday 26th April I’ll be heading up to Gateshead to provide visuals for Algorave, taking place at the Old Police House (map).

There’ll be music from Ghast Buitkute, Holger Ballweg, Norah Lorway Shelly Knotts and many more!

See you there!