Open Source City should be taking place at some point next year, this event project whatever you want to call it needs some working up and the themes behind it need to be examined also. So I was quite lucky to be able to head along to Making Future Work conference in Nottingham last week.
We arrived late but just in time to see Evan from FAT lab taking the stand to talk about some of the brilliant projects that they have been undertaking in the most collaborative of fashions. The FAT Lab is an open collaboration in other words you can if accepted become a member and you get the passwords to become the server admin. Now that is open and honest and very trusting but i hope they give a training course before hand or at least back up regularly.
You can find out more about Fat Lab here at www.fffff.at – yeah that’s 5 f’s. They really do produce some interesting work such as that available at http://graffitiresearchlab.com/ video below. But what is even more inspiring is that they produce it in an open source manner. Yes – the code is there for you to take away right from their website.
Have a watch.
Can you imagine doing this across Liverpool – it certainly would knock the FACT/TATE laser into touch and would be a great temporary addition to the Liverpool skyline.
The other project that Evan spoke about is http://whiteglovetracking.com/ where a Michael Jackson video was released and the crowd was asked to respond to it. This was a really interesting response where the makers increased the size of MJ’s gloved hand. It’s fascinating to watch.
After lunch we settled back for another round of presentations this time from Richard Birkin (Mudlark), he had received a Digital Research Commission. He detailed some of the projects that he had been researching, it was a great but quick dash through open data projects he was familiar with, one he mentioned was Openly Local – http://openlylocal.com/councils/73-Liverpool-City-Council – I couldn’t wait to look further so tweeted out this link and got a reply straight back from a follower about open data he has, not for Liverpool but for Sefton a neighbouring council area which i still need to follow up.
I’m really keen to hear from anyone who is interested in doing some work around open data or getting involved in some way. I have heard that there are standard letters that you can send to your council – so again links and guidance would be helpful.
bio hacking
Andy Gracie, who studied in Liverpool, spoke about his practice and how it crosses over between art and science one of the highlights for me was the fact that he is trying to breed fruit flies that will be able to live on Titan. He also said that he regularly creates these Hackteria events – again a fascinating insight into the practices of science and art but this time with an element of hacking culture thrown in for good measure. http://hackteria.org You can find an interview with Andy here which uses much bigger words than me. http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2006/10/whats-your-back.php
Next up were a couple of guys from Boundary Interactions – it was their work that I spotted as soon as I walked into the building, a short cabinet in the entrance elegantly displayed LOST stones with wires sprouting from them. OK it had my attention but we were late so we had to run. A great project that has stones that interact with each other in an urban environment. – I’ll have to explore this project more later.
The final session of the day took place at Nottingham Contemporary a short distance away from the Broadway Cinema and Media Centre – unfortunately it was also a day of epic downpours so Ross and I were soaking by the time we got to the Contemporary.
And we were just in time to see Hetain Patel with his performance http://www.makingfuturework.org.uk/commissions/hetain-patel/ . He had written a new script that morning and shocked his co presenter when they had to rehearse afresh – but it was fresh – it was a great performance where they examined the use of video in performance and also the role of narrative within performance. It was raw and done with scripts in hand and brilliant. A great finish to a great day exploring new work and new collaborations all of which will be feeding into Open Source City 2012
Check this out below from Hetain – he did a short performance of this.
