2013 brought with it many surprises but was mostly a time for me to reflect on my practice and refine my skills. Unlike the previous year summaries I won’t give a massive list of everything that I’ve done - lest I still be writing this article at 23:59 on December 31st - just a couple of selections from the highlights from each month.
Nothing, as usual, happend in January
BYOB Birmingham 2013 happened on Friday 29th November and was just as awesome as the last one, if not moreso!
In addition to the high quality of the work, I was very impressed by the variety of beamers on show. To go alongside the standard digital projector there were DIY projectors (from Sellotape Cinema), overhead projectors, lasers and even a couple of slide projectors. Plenty of photos and a couple of videos can be found on Tumblr or on Flickr.
databit.me #3, the awesome festival in Arles, France that I took part in last year, started again on 23rd October. I’ll be there on 31st October for a small guest performance at the party on 2nd November.
Myself and Axel Debeul will be creating a lot of funk, soul, noise and mess by utilising almost anything that makes any sound. If you happen to be in Arles you should check it out! And if you’re not in Arles already, go visit! It’s a beautiful place.
On Saturday 12th October I’ll be in my home town of Leicester once again for the second BYOB Leicester.
This year’s event will have workshops in VDMX, Arduino and other things from 12pm from the likes of Minuek, Sean Clark and Tony Coleman, with the main event kicking off from around 6pm or 8pm. I’ll just be showing various work. Perhaps you can still bring your own beamer if you ask them ;-) More info on the Facebooks and Tumblrs.
This year’s Fierce Festival starts on 4th October and I’ll be taking part in two ways:
From 11ish on October 4th I’ll be taking part in a discussion at the mac where we give our thoughts on what we think live art will be like in 2113
A gathering exploring the future and live art’s relationship to chance across various spheres in our lives as part of 2113, the Live Art UK Associated Gathering 2013. The public part of this day will involve self-organised clusters of conversations picking up on themes explored earlier in the day.
From 5th - 11th August I was a mentor for Young Rewired Art, which is a newly devised offshoot project from the same people that run the Young Rewired State Festival of Code. The project, which ran alongside the main festival, had very similar aims in the way that it explored the potential of digital technology:
[Young Rewired Art] will explore how digital media can influence our next generation of musicians, visual artists, dancers, producers & actors etc and enable young people to showcase and develop their creative practice online. It would also enable young people to use technology creatively and explore the relationship it has to mainstream arts and culture.
My only confirmed gig of this year will be to provide visuals at SuperByte Festival on 13th and 14th September. Even though the festival is months away, the line-up already includes many great chiptune/8-Bit Sabrepulse, Ultrasyd and 8GB!
The first SuperByte took place in September 2012, and I was there to perform with Freecode:
To make the festival happen this year, the organisers have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise £2000. With 26 days to go, there’s only £953 to go! Go spend your money!