tag: Projection

A fun night spent projecting onto the houseplants

Let’s Never Meet explores how the internet and technology enable us to form deep emotional and intellectual connections with people we may never physically meet. Our naivety and innocence allows us to create a romantic ideal of a person that may never be realised.

From 7-10th September I was invited to take part in the Uncanny Valley event in Burbage Valley, Derbyshire. It’s a lovely place! The event was described as:

A two day hack in the rugged Burbage Valley in the Peak District, hacking in nature, exploring the role of sensors and data in responding to the environment. In collaboration with Lovebytes.

Responding to the environment was probably the biggest hack of the event! Aside om the midges, the gargantuan hills, the cold and the lack of wifi, the biggest challenge that faced us was the lack of electricity. Jon Harisson of Lovebytes was smart enough to bring a battery pack, but with a running time of two hours this placed restraints of what was achievable.

BYOB Birmingham happened on Friday 16th March and it was a great success! For those who like statistics, in the end the event had 18 artists (plus videos from VIVID’s archives), 22 beamers, and nearly 200 people attend.

My thanks for making the night awesome go to:

• Flatpack Festival, which has been going for six years, for putting on a great festival and allowing BYOB to be part of it
• VIVID, whose amazing gallery space was perfectly suited for this event. There were worries about there being too many cables and causing a power outage due to too many beamers, but the excellent VIVID staff were on hand to make sure it all went swimmingly
• Bobby Bird from Modulate and Gary Judge (aka Arcade) for providing awesome music throughout the night. Many times I received comments about how well the music matched the event. Also, Cylob FTW!
• Shelly Knotts, for being helping me on the day, taking photos, keeping me sane, and for buying me lunch ;-)
• Rafaël Rozendaal, for coming up with the BYOB idea and allowing anyone to do as they wish with it
• The people of Birmingham and West Midlands, for coming out in your hundreds to support the event
• And last, but not least, my thanks go to all of the artists that traveled from all over the country to be part of BYOB Birmingham!

Be sure to check out the artwork from all of the exhibiting artists: Alan Brooker, Ewa Mos, Daisy Hogan, Antonio Roberts, Chris Plant, Modulate, James Warrier, Sarah Rose Allen, Paul Harrison, Kate Spence, Elizabeth Howell, Soraya Fatha, Leon Trimble, Michael Lightborne, Matt Murtagh, Pete Ashton, AAS