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Some exciting news! This week sees the opening of the exciting Data as Culture art showcase installed at the Open Data Institute. 

In curating the showcase for the ODI we wanted to select a range of works that would not just reflect different data sources, but that would challenge our understanding of what data is, and how it may affect and reflect our lives.  The works range from geomagnetic data visualisations, to wall painted cellular automata, to tabloid newspapers of search term trend graphs – all tangible interventions into the mass accretion of data around us.

 Semiconductor’s 20Hz (2011)

Martin John Callanan’s Text Trends (2012) 

As data becomes more accessible to artists, as it opens up for use as a raw material, we are seeing more of its integration into works that explore environmental socio-political and economic aspects of society. By utilising data in an experiential way, this selection of works pulls data out of the virtual domain and into our physical world. We hope the exhibition provokes discussion around what open data is, how it informs and affects us, and how we interpret it in a way that is meaningful.

Find out more about the commissioned Artists and the Artworks.

To keep informed about this please follow us on Twitter, or sign up to our mailing list. 

Viewing is by appointment. Please contact the ODI at info@theodi.org.

Learn how to make super shiny festive decorations in this seasonal soft circuit beginners workshop! Whether you want to make a star, Christmas tree or a snowflake, you will learn how to stitch basic circuits using conductive thread and adorn your felt decoration with LED’s. Led by MzTEKer Emilie Giles, the workshop will give you new skills in working with textiles as well as learning basic electronics.

Back by popular demand!

For all you techie women, join our one day introduction to the LilyPad Arduino and get your garments interactive!

During the course of the day you will be introduced to the basics of soft circuitry, some basic electronics, Arduino software, programming, and reading a sensor. At the end of the day you will have a functioning interactive patch, which you can sew onto a garment, bag or cushion cover.

PLEASE BRING WITH YOU:

A piece of fancy fabric of your choice. It is best to use something non-stretchy and stiff, something like cotton or canvas – perhaps with a ‘Christmassy’ twist? ;)

If you want to bring your own laptop, please make sure you have installed the latest Arduino Software on it.

A USB to mini-USB (you are bound to have one somewhere, we thought best not to buy more ;)

Fee: Including LilyPad Arduino £75 + £1.60 booking fee – This includes the LilyPad Arduino, LilyPad Battery Holder and FTDI board.

Not including LilyPad Arduino £35 + £1.60 booking fee – This is for those who do not require a LilyPad Arduino Kit as above. There will not be spares to borrow unfortunately, please make sure you have one for the workshop if you purchase this ticket.

When:

15th December ‘2012 10am – 5pm

Where:

SPACE, 129—131 Mare Street, London, E8 3RH.

Tutor:

MzTEk’s Sophie McDonald

Sign up here!

If you have any queries, please contact us on info@mztek.org.

Please note that this is a women’s workshop only.

An introductory workshop with MzTEK at Phoenix Brighton to learn how to create soft circuits and make stitched or wearable electronic and interactive artworks. This course will teach you hot to make a soft circuit toy, in this case a chatbot (or a creature of your choice!), but the skills can be applied to other projects.

Make crochet chains with conductive yarn, sew with conductive thread and make buttons with conductive material.

The workshop is aimed at women only and celebrates Alan Turing Year.

Price:

£20

When:

Saturday 8th December 12pm – 5pm

Where:

Phoenix Brighton, 10–14 Waterloo Place, Brighton, BN2 9NB

Tutor:

MzTEK’s Emilie Giles

Sign up here!

After a lot of considerable hard work by the wonderful Florian Lunaire, the musician that we’ve been working with on the Hacked Human Orchestra project, there is an amazing sound piece online that was created with input from all our participants at Wilderness and Shambala:

We hope that you enjoy it and we’d like to thank Guerilla Science for making this all possible – they’ve been an amazing group of people to work with on the project :)

Another big thank you to  Lush Projects, Jamie Allen and Jo Kazuhiro for helping us with the circuits, to Kobakant for working so closely with us on the design of the instruments and a HUGE thank you to PhD student Shauna Concannon for becoming part of the MzTEK team for the Summer – you’ve been awesome!

You can again watch a film by Debbie Davies, depicting the first workshop which we ran for the project back in June, at our home The Centre for Creative Collaboration, and there is an article by Shauna Concannon about her experience of working on the project here. We’ll have all the learning materials up on our website soon.

Hacked Human Orchestra has been generously sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering.