Shows

Again meaning to type this up for a while, and will post a few updates this week. Been a busy last two weeks, and the welcome breaks have been going to both my previous colleges for their graduate shows. Some very good work has come out of both BIAD Visual Communications and RCA Design Interactions.

It's been interesting to see what each new set of graduates work, and their interesting ideas and projects from both disciplines. BIAD had lots of great graphics work, a nice selection of work which I want to write a little more about, but you can see it on their site 181 show and I really like Johnathans Chinglish graphic set, which has real potential as a learning system. During the night, David Harris from Wunderman also gave an opening speech which had some interesting advice on creativity during the recession, kind of inspiring to know a lot of creative started life out in recession, and that is often essential to struggle before success.

Onto the RCA show, and while I do have to take some time to go round proper, but the private view was great. I like a lot of the DI work this year, mostly because it is lots of Big Projects, from self made toasters, rocket powered furniture and nano cloud ice cream to name a few. It was good to catch up with both students I knew as first years, previous grads, and good friends. The show seems to be one of those reunion moments.

I liked looking around, although it was crowded at both shows. It was interesting to see new work, although being press ganged by former tutors to talk as a previous graduate when you want to look at the work maybe not so (I am happy to talk as both a BIAD and RCA grad, though I did want to see some work can lead to me being caught off guard!). All in all though a very good night and two good shows.

A Week in Collapsonomics

A Week in Collapsonomics

Last week was an interesting one in the field of Collapsonomics. There where quite a few meet ups around this space the last week, and it has been an insightful way to look at the state of the economy and peoples approaches to it. I’m interested in this space, particularly how it relates to the future of money research I was involved with at the RCA, I get the feeling that the projects would be very different had they been done in today's climate (what a difference a year makes).

The First meet up was Spacemakers / Silicon Hackney. The focus was on the use of empty spaces. I’ve been following this for a while, I know Dougald and some of the other gang of collapsonomics are interested in re-using empty spaces, such as old Woolworth's stores. Another idea that has emerged has been Gaia’s Intern Commune. The meet up was a good place to see what others are thinking in this space. Also it was a joint meet up with the Silicon Hackney so was able to have a few good chats in the pub afterwards around social innovation.

Wednesday was The Long Doom as part of Long now London, a fascinating talk by Dougald. Some of the issues touched upon came up in his Economic Chemotherapy at the Temporary School, and there where some very interesting ideas based around what happens when long term decline replaces long term growth. It was good that Dougald wasn't talking from a pessimistic point of view. Instead the focus was on what he says is, “the end of the world as we know it, isn't necessary the end of the world.” The other part that struck me was the issue that luxuries are what will survive, particularly in reference to markets. Right now they are a luxury thing, but it’s history is that it was the main space for exchanging food, goods and ideas.

Final big event was the talk / round table with John Loder at the School of Everything offices. Interesting (and at times, a lot of heavy information) to process in terms of how we got into this mess (from the point of view of the economy, banking, mathematics). There was a lot of discussion around the way that the risk the banks where taking risks based on maths that shouldn’t work but seemed to (until it all went wrong). I have a lot of notes on this to write up, but being able to deconstruct the banking risk methodology as wrong, quote of the evening has to be “Bankers are massively incentivised to sell asynchronous crap.” Again, great chats emerging in the pub afterwards, and it was good to have a chance to talk through some of the complexities with someone well connected in the financial system.

In this space, I am interested in how we will change our everyday perceptions of financial systems, particularly in the moments where it is (or seems to be) on the verge of collapse. I think a lot of the time it feels very distant in terms of how we can be connected to a system that itself feels so fragile. The money project at the RCA, and particularly my Ethical Contract Trading project was about in one way, of visualising and creating a physical connection with complex economics. I’m interested in what new forms of financial experiences may emerge and are emerging during times of economic contraction.

Or then again, maybe we should all join the Crimson Permanent Assurance?

So I lost the bet, but still interesting things to come.

So I lost Mr Pinto's bet, mind you, Bird Bet service seems to be down so we can't settle just yet. I'm still interested in doing something with Tipjoy's api though, between the two of us, we had some interesting discussion, particularly on how it may link to Experience Nights and some of the other crazy things Mr Pinto likes to plan. I might not be able to come up with a service right away, all the good ideas I have don't really involve money at the central core, but it is something I'm going to keep pushing forward with, and still looking for people who would be interested in doing some hacking on this. What I really like is this idea of generating a lot of 'representational wealth' out of very little. Taking the example of the Tip Tweet Trusts David was telling me that the group who was participating was able to generate and trade $200 or so from the initial $25 they each put in, no new money was ever created, but this values kept circulating between the players.

I guess it's kind of been the story of this year, spending so much time chasing earn money work, and doing that, I seem to have let the interesting projects slip. I want to try and spend some time this week putting that in order as I already have the ground work for a few things underway. I'm hoping to be able to better connect with people at places like Tuttle by showing and hacking things together.

Fancy some Brainstorming on Friday?

So I've been doing a lot of thinking, and also been bits of hacking at various places. Last Wednesday I went to the London hackspace meet up, which, whilst being more of a discussion, was still fun to attend. I missed out on the Yahoo Hackday, Though a few of my friends who went there found it fun and rewarding. Also I have been meaning to do a lot more at Tuttle, the really satisfying experiences come from actually doing something with the community that is there.

Also last Friday, whilst off to see Star Trek as part of a 'tweetup' was talking to David Pinto about ideas for using Tipjoy. Tipjoy is a payments network for sending micro payments, and I liked Davids Tip Tweet Trust that he tried to do earlier. So I tweeted earlier if he'd be interested in doing an app / idea for using their api. He then made a bet to say whether I would get a group together to do so. Well, with $1 at stake, how can I turn it down.

So, this Friday, I will be at Tuttle at the ICA, would anyone be interested in getting together in a group and having a brainstorming session with regards for generating ideas for using Tipjoy in interesting ways...

Moving into May

As the month ticks over into May, I'm still planning ahead of what I am going to be doing.

I have a few interesting set ups, not to mention work to do / complete, but I also want to spend the time doing more interesting things do. Today I had a good meeting with Pam at Dadamac which is going to lead to some interesting things, plus I'm very interested in the work they do and Pams strategies for connecting with people. So I'm interested in seeing what develops, with that and other things.

In May I want to push forward in trying to doing my own work now. There I will still be looking for full time design work, but might keep the freelance as primary work for now. At the moment, it is trying to decide the projects I would like to be working on right now.

Working (in a way)

So again with the lack of updating excuses, I'm going to make a commitment of updating more often. This time, it's actually been mostly working, in a way of sorts.

Right now, it's still mostly web work, and web development at that. While this is not exactly where I want to be long term, right now it is something I'm happy to do for a while to help earn my keep and keep me in London, I'm also planning to use the experience to help move up to more interesting things. I have to say though, that the web work I have been doing this month has actually been challenging, getting back into learning and working with php, and moving to a more object oriented approach. I will submit the links when it is all ready, they have been a very challenging which is good, though I do want to now move this experience back into a design side.

The work itself, a mix of front end and back end web development and coding, something I am familiar with but can still be interesting. This has been a mixture of freelance, and also been spending a few days back at the RCA helping to port over content. It's actually been a busy month working this way, but it has meant that my networking / self promotion has taken a back seat, so now trying to promote that side.

On the other side, it's also been a much more humbling experience in terms of money. Although I have been busy working, I have also been (relatively) poor. I see a lot of association with the ideas being talked about at tuttle and gluesniffers with Dougald and co. Mainly about finding resources in terms of simple things like budgeting, getting food. Would loved to have spent the time trying out a few experiences like local currencies etc.. An I am still looking into that side of things, but they all seem to want some commitment for the long term. I need something to help now (or then). I look forward to the launch of Dougalds and Colin Tates Signpostr project, to which I now have privileged access as an alpha tester. (ha, pre-launch promotion). This isn't as bad as it sounds, though I did take last week off (and ended up being of grid for a week) back at the farm. Felt frustrating at the time, miss it now.

Onwards to this month, and with a new commitment to try to work on interesting projects, I'm also planning to try a bit of co-working / project development, maybe at tuttle or another London event. I have been cooking a lot of 'ideas' projects which always seem to sit on the back burner, maybe working with someone at these events may prove beneficial in getting something interesting of the ground. On that note, I re-registered designfibre.com, have plans (thinking life streaming for art), something I want to discuss with people.

What have I been doing?

So March has come, and almost gone, and yet no blog posts emerge. Perhaps the what are you doing? The question Twitter asks is apt for this month, what have I been doing? My Twitter Feed has become a much better place to follow what I have been doing, a much more instant and reactive place, but I don't want to turn this into a 'I love Twitter' post as there are enough of those lurking around. I just want to sneak this post out before March is up, and I promise myself to blog more in April.

Instead, lets talk about March. So I am still trying to find work, and picking a few things up. Money is still an issue, something I will come back to in a later post. Housing is as always, my favourite past-time. I am still looking, but may be heading back home, all depends on how work situation works out.

At least though, March has felt like I have been putting a lot more of the ground work in place, I'm hopeful that this will lead to some interesting work in the next few weeks / months, and add to further development, no matter where I end up living and working.

So what have I been doing? Meeting, networking, planning, doing. Looking for work and doing work. Talking to recruiters and also attending interviews. Top it off that I have to quickly finish two web projects by the end of this week. So much to do... It's actually hard to quantify it down, but lots of little things which in there own little way look to be adding to lots of different things.

Some March Highlights :-
Kinetica festival was great, nice to see a lot of physical interaction. Really Liked Chris o'Sheas Beacon installation, which also seemed to attract a lot of interest from the kids. Have to upload flickr photos at some point.
This Happened at the BFI was also interesting, Lots of good talks as always. I liked the guys who did the heart model (names forget me as I blog into the night).
Gluesniffers, Connecting ICT to Appropriate development. Its an interesting meetup, I'm going to have to blog more about this, and I think there will be another in the next few weeks (date and place tbc). This is actually lead to a few positive discussions for interesting projects.
Long Now London, Meetup and chat, talking about the future. Some good chats have been coming out of this, again, one for a further in depth blog post as time permits. Stuart was talking about his projects in Hawaii, also good to see a lot of the RCA DI crowd, and others in this space.

One more twitter thing, can I recommend following #collapsonomics hashtag. I'm going to also try and write further my own thoughts on this, as the ideas and resources that come up from it are very interesting, and might be another project I start to work on as a self directed thing.

Tuttle Club

Since January I have been going to the London Social Media Cafe at the ICA. Its run by Lloyd Davis and has been a great place to meet and chat with people associated with how people interact and engage with each other online.

Tuttle is many things, for some its a chance to work on projects, for others its a meeting space, and for others, it can be something else. I think one of the great things about it is that it isn't defined as what it is, but there are so many great and different people to meet and talk to.

I went to my first back in January, when a crowd of 70 people where there. It was packed, and was a bit nerve racking. Luckily there where plenty of people on hand to help break the ice. Since then I have had many great chats with Bloggers, Photographers, Journalists, PR people, Musicians amongst others. Its been great finding out what each others are doing, and what I do / have been doing. I really like the cross over between social media and the kind of things I am looking at in interaction and experience design.

Its also lead to quite a few follow up meetings, its actually been a good way in to find out what is happening in the London scene, from events such as Long Now Meetups to Hacking the Recession. I think from my perspective it has been a great introductions service. I also think I'm going to start using it more as a way of showing / doing new work in time.

I've been putting of writing this blog post, mostly because I have been unsure of what to write. At the moment, I'm still getting past the talk about my RCA work, and learning what others are doing, though I'm making some good connections and starting to talk and engage more. It's hard to put that down in words, so my best advice is to come along, I might even see you there.

Also some pics on my flickr.