New Media Thinking

On 2011

2011-12-31T21:29:00.000Z

Looking back on the year, its been a year when the foundations of the past few years have really started to be built upon. Settling back in London was a good move, it’s got me into the ability to settle down and do stuff. The projects I’ve been involved with have soon become part of the landscape, the feast has become part of West Norwood, and Makerhood is growing to become the main port of call for Makers in the area. Its been great to be involved the past year helping to bring these projects into fruition, and I look forward to helping develop these projects in 2012.

It seems that the last year has seen a shift on my freelance side away from odd job isolated projects and onto active ongoing development. This is something I really prefer doing, getting involved not only with the coding or design, but also having a chance to steer projects and be actively involved with the development. Something I intend to pursue in 2012.

Elsewhere its been fun actually spending time in London again properly. Although most of that has been local, life in Herne Hill has been quite fun. I love the fact the park is so close and the amount of events that get put on over the year. Theres also been the chance to explore London, such as checking out the Abandoned tube station, and thats more I look forward to doing next year.

Overall its been a good 2011 and a much more positive one, I think the positive thinking for this year has really helped push things and should set me up for a good 2012.

December in London

2011-12-24T23:15:00.003Z

I've travelled back to the farm for xmas, leaving London behind for the remainder of the year. December marks the start of the period when everything quiets down on the work front. Projects i'm involved in have drawn down for the year and everyone involved, including myself, goes back to spend time with friends and family.

It's also a time to reflect on how things have gone for the year, it's been good and interesting being in London full time again, and large parts of next year will be focused on building on the work and relationships that I have built up over this year past.

In part, the slow down of projects has brought a welcome break and a chance to get to do things in London again. There where also a chance to get along to various events that where organised by the various networks I'm part of. Dark Mountain had a very interesting meet up in Early December and it was a great chance to catch up on the conversations coming out of that. I've also had a chance to go along to more of Vinays Truth and Beauty events at Hub Westminster, including a very interesting (and long) talk on everything to do with rockets and space programmes.

Also there where project associated events. West Norwood Feast had Christmas Lights and a night market alongside the usual feast, and Makerhood put on their (what will now surly become) their annual Xmas social and card making event.

January can be a slow start to the year, there is already a lot of work building up for me (surprisingly!). This December has taught me that the one of the things I want to make sure I keep doing is make time for the things that go on in London, getting out of the house or workplaces more and enjoy being down there.

Merry Christmas everyone!

November in London

2011-11-30T23:58:00.000Z

The year is almost over, what a year it has been. I can't imagine I'd be where I am right now back in January. London certainly has been interesting.

November has been dominated by Vinays Truth and Beauty, 'The Future We Deserve' series, a fascinating series of talks on how the world really is... I made an attempt to video it here, not the best in terms of quality, but you can just about read the slides, Vinay looks to have gathered his slides on the Truth and Beauty site.

I've starting making a home (of sorts) at Hub Westminster, a new co-working space in central London (that seems to be located on New Zealand Sovereign soil). Its come about as Space Makers now has its base of operations set there, and since I'm there for meetings now, and for many of the great events that happen there (last weekend there was a guerrilla performance of King Lear!)

Makerhood continues to grow, although I was having to this morning help someone debug their images for upload. It also marks a transition from the purely web selling experience to having much more physical presences. They've had an exhibition in Brixton, have a pop up stall in the Market, and have started the first of their Makers Forums in Brixton, this one advising makers on aspects of business. Yours truly will be building the online infrastructure for this. Also Makerhood has their annual Christmas card shindig at the Dogstar this Sunday (I'll be along later on as on the weekend...)

It is the Last West Norwood Feast of the year, and its a special Christmas event. The saturday evening sees light shows and entertainment, followed by the final market of the year. The feast has been an amazing experience and its been great to see it develop from the first introductions to the project last year.

Octobers Workload

2011-10-31T23:59:00.000Z

Been a busy month, alongside the usual slate of projects;

Dougalds University project kicked off with an unconference event at Hub Westminster, a new space thats opened up in this large office tower. It was a great fun packed weekend, and while I for the most part was on documenting duty, I still found time to join in with a few of the conversations, test chilly powder in the name of herbal science, and enjoy pints and banter in what became the University Projects union bar. I really liked the weekend and the project, it's interesting to see the different ideas behind education develop and I'm interested in following the journey of the various projects that come out of it.

Secondly, Space Makers kicked off their second project in Penrith. I had a chance to go up to the North of England Town, and catch the launch event. Really looking forward to seeing how this project develops over the course of the year, the town, somewhat reminds me of the market towns around my home town, Atherstone, and the like. I'll be helping with doing online development and support on the project as part of my role within Space Makers.

Elsewhere work continues as it does, I'm starting to get back into central London again, after not really making many journeys central. In part this is because of the many events the Gang of Collapsonomics have going at Hub Westminster. Also RCA have a competition on Art Students facing up to our economic reality [PDF link] which seems to tie in with some of the people and projects I've been around / been part of over the last few years.

September in London

2011-10-01T00:15:00.003+01:00

September comes and goes, the days, started out wet, have ended with light hot evenings, generally keeping me awake.

So work wise, the transition from August where everyone goes on holiday, to September where everybody is checking availability and wanting things done, has meant that I've been doing a lot of work prep (albeit, not much in production work, mostly continuations and project prep). I've got some great projects and coming up for October as a result though, so existing times. It's strange though how I'm still getting used to this transition period, knowing how often it comes round.

I'm going to be restarting my work / agency search through Autumn over Xmas, kind of the period I need to get cash-flow going, so if your looking for a Drupal or Wordpress developer (or even a UX guy), let us know (email on newmediathinking.com).

Elsewhere, I'm getting to know South London a bit more. Walking and wondering Norwood, Herne Hill and Brixton. The other week I discovered this Land and Freedom Camp on Clapham Common, set up by ex Kew Eco village. I had great time watching Winstanley on the Common and seeing what else they had been up to that week. I have a feeling that many of them I've / will cross paths with via various networks, Dark Mountain etc...

I'm also starting a new experiment, with all the posts on my Flickr / Youtube that I'm making, as a better way to build an archive of what I'm doing and to do more short posts over on my new Blog, Offline / Online, as a way of managing so much auto posts I do.

Onwards....

August in and out of London

2011-09-01T00:12:00.000+01:00

August it seems is the month that everyone goes on holiday. I can't blame them, although it hasn't been much of a summer in London. I've at least had a chance to get out and enjoy the weather elsewhere.

Hide and Seek ran an evening sandpit (no big weekender this year) which was a lot of fun, even though I did end up losing the games, once wearing a number 7 shirt waiting for a ball to be called that never was, and second playing a fun chase game based on gentleman's club, which was a great game but ended up being caught out and losing all my 'lives' within the first 5 minutes.

First Sunday was West Norwood Feast, again a very successful feast and a lot more photos uploaded to flickr. I was a bit more relaxed this time as during the last few feasts i'd had a lot of other work I was juggling at the time, so it was great to actually have a feast where I could just enjoy myself while taking photos. The feast passed of well, and I got roped into helping with take down, which is all good natured fun. Then there was the Feast helpers BBQ which was a great way to wind down the day.

This was the same day as the riots in Brixton. It was a strange experience since I was not in Brixton, or had to pass through. I saw a lot of tweets about the Brixton splash, about it all being very good natured and that no riots here. As I left the BBQ in Norwood back to the house in Herne Hill, there was early talk about it kicking off. I know several people in Brixton who couldn't get home that night.

The riots brought about a strange surreal-ness across London. There was kind of a 'will it be our area' feeling everywhere. For the next two days there where loads of Police around Herne Hill, it's not as if there is anything here, I think it must have been used as their base of operations or something. The Tuesday was the most surreal, every shop closed up except Cost Cutter and the Olleys Fish bar, both doing a roaring trade, plus the Pubs, probably the safest place to be... The sport shop emptied their entire stock, it was all very strange.

I went home to the farm the following week, take some time out of London. Its good to be back at the farm, even for only a little while. Its not quite the digital dead zone it once was. Still no mobile signal, but broadband seems to have improved at the house. I even picked up my new Mac while I was there, slowly getting used to Lion and it's features. It wasn't all about tech though, I do like spending time out of the city, just a chance to enjoy the countryside.

Then the weekend before last, it was the Dark Mountain Uncivilisation festival in Hampshire. It was much shorter than last year, a lot more uncivilised (which was great), and a very intense weekend. I'm still digesting it so will write up something later either here or the other blog. I spend the weekend listening to intense talks on Collapsonomics, getting to learn how to Scythe (and being really bad at it!), some interesting fire side conversations and some great music, both plugged and unplugged. I spent a great deal of time also exploring the site, trying to get to East Meon (and walking back up the hill to the sustainability centre). My only regret is that I would have loved to have done more of the activities and not hung around the main space (I was also helping out with the Book Shop during a few of the rush periods on the Sunday, most of what I wanted to see on the Saturday was in the main space). I had a good time though and will have to blog properly about it all.

Now as August ends, lots of work starts to come back again, now trying to sort it all out.

July in London

2011-07-31T23:31:00.002+01:00

The summer comes round fast.

So the big news this month was that Makerhood went live 2 weeks ago. It's been a very interesting, and challenging project, particular from a development point of view. The site, although built in Drupal, has a custom shopping system I'm writing to handle multiple sellers (since I was rather off put by the complexity of the Marketplace module, all though having spent a huge amount of time designing and writing my own, maybe not so much). I'm looking forward to see how this project develops, and I have my own set of challenges within the project to work out design wise.

Work wise, things traditionally scale down during the summer months. So i'll be spending the time looking over other projects and seeing what I can get going... Still sorting that out. I want to make a bit more 'use' of London. I went along to a preview event for the HP touchpad at the Guardian a few weeks ago. This was after the hack weekend which I really wish I knew about previously. It was great to see the new device and chat with some of the people behind building the software and learning what I could write for it. I really love WebOS devices (I have a Palm phone), though not sure if I will end up getting a table just yet.

It's more event like this though, sort of like I was doing in 2009 that I want to get back into, especially now I'm starting to have a bit more time in London over the summer.

June in London

2011-06-30T23:32:00.003+01:00

Tired, shattered, exhausted, been working hard on getting a few more sites ready, and working hard on projects, Makerhood and such like.

West Norwood Feast (also on this Sunday) is getting close to it's hand over stange, I've been prepping the site and taking a small working group through the process of content editing, as well as starting the process of sorting out the profile pages which I've never been happy about.

Makerhood has had to have a lot of extra work, currently trying to get Paypal intergration with my custom shop module, I'm writing a wrapper around simple payments for now. Trying to work out what it returns and how that is processed by the simple payments module.

Speaking of Makerhood, although not been to all of them, it was great fun going to their makers meetings, and seeing how real users where using the site, as well as discussing ideas and developments with them. Its been a really good journey to have co-design and direct feedback as I've been doing the development process. I'm hoping to have the payment system ready somewhat ready for using testing on Sunday where I'll be rushing back from the feast.

In between all that, I've had some chance to spend a bit more time in Central London, I ended my Tuttle drought after spending to many sleepless nights. I went to see the RCA Private view which was a great catch up with RCA freinds and lots of interesting 'conceptual' work which I will see if I can get some time to write about. Also not quite London but this month (a month early actually) was the Wings and Wheels event at the Farm, which is always a welcome break from London life.

May in London

2011-05-31T23:53:00.002+01:00

Another month passes by, another month of late night web work...

I've been spending a lot of late nights up late, so feeling very tired, Makerhood is getting close to it's alpha / beta launch phase. It was quite an experience ruining the testing, and some good feedback came out of it.

I've not spent so much time this month travelling into central london... Thats the thing with being south - zone 2/3, whilst it's not far to travel into central, it's still a bit of a hassle. It's more being on train lines not tube, so theres the switching, or walking up to Brixton station.

I spent the last weekend seeing gigs and other performances by London friends. Marmaduke Dando had a great gig near me in Stockwell. Then Black Mass Movies was a great midnight movie session at Limehouse, and Gaia singing the Blues in Angel. It was a weekend I wish happened more often.

April in London

2011-04-30T23:38:00.003+01:00

Continuing with the monthly update theme.

This month has been kinda busy, mostly web based things.. Seems odd being in London but not spending so much time travelling into central. I thought I would do more in the way of travelling, I have my regular haunts (mostly C4CC on Fridays and Royal Festival Hall) which seem to be my out of home workspaces, that and Federation Coffee in Brixton. Actually been spending a lot more time getting to know areas around me and working outside in the Garden now the suns out.

This months updates are the usual fare, Getting Makerhood ready for testing, been fun working with the girls and also their design team. Generally keeping the WNFeast site from falling over as it gets traffic spikes near to each feast day. Talking of which West Norwood Feast next market day is.. well tomorrow, so a bit late to be writing a blog post promoting it but if you want to see what happened there is my photos on flickr from the last feast and I will be there tommorow to have this upcoming feast well documented too.

I did spend Easter on the farm, it's quite a strange experience going back to the countryside from London, I have this strange relationship to London, always been drawn here, it sort of feels like home. I really like the escape facility though of the countryside, having a place to go to. My parents are wanting me to come back more often, though I don't think I'll be doing the weekly thing.

I had the fun of updating my sites hosting payment, though now I have the fun of actually sorting out my new site, that is something I definitely want to get sorted going forward in May. It's about time I gave it a proper portfolio of the work I have been doing...

See you on the Internet

March in London

2011-03-31T22:24:00.000+01:00

March In London, actually settling down to spending a whole month in the city and not travelling back and forth. There's been quite a few activities happening, Saw RMS at the IET back on March 7th, it was the usual Stallman show, though good to hear it in person. I was at Rewired State hackday, had a good time, need to get my 'hack online' (an online court report filing site). I've been busy with the meetings and with keeping the website from falling over for West Norwood Feast (I fail to understand why a simple drupal site is having so many issues on 123reg hosting but still).

Of course most of this month has been spent toiling away working on a few more 'earn money' jobs at the moment, but interest to come....

Back in London

2011-02-28T22:49:00.003Z

This blog really has turned into a monthly thing hasn't it?

Well the big plus, I'm back living in London on a semi-permanent state and no longer simply staying on top of the pub in Brixton. i'm back in south London, not too far south of Brixton (now in Herne Hill) which is an area I got to know quite well on and off over the last year.

I've had a busy first month, mostly continuing with existing work projects, development meetings and building out the web presence for the West Norwood Space Makers project. I'm working on a new social start up that has some parallels but is very divergent in its implementation to the big startup project that never happened I was working on last year.

Earlier in the month I spent some time at the Really Free School in there first building before they got all the press attention. It was an interesting time learning everything from a derivatives trader telling us the inner secrets of trading, re-imagining the use of space, and took part in a debate on future of ICT in education.

It's not quite a comeback as I've been in and around London for a while over the last year, but I'm looking forward to having a new start down south...

Is January really the month we’re all hung over?

2011-01-27T21:29:00.001Z

I’ve often been describing January to people as a month when nothing much happens, that it feels like a month when everyone's still hung over from Christmas that it’s not a period where I get much in the way of work, where not much happens.

I’m actually thinking that isn’t true, at least in recent years in any case. This January turns out to have been quite busy indeed.

I have been heavily involved in building the online site for Space Makers new project in West Norwood. More on this in a later post as it’s very much ongoing, but essentially it’s going to be an online community for the West Norwood Feast project and a place to map out what already is going on there. Alongside building that site I have been involved in the Meet Ups discussions about how the project can work online and been guiding people through putting up editorial.

I’ve been at several meet ups and planning stage for a new social enterprise start up. I’ve been getting a lot more commercial interest in my projects, I even had a trip up to North London/South Hertfordshire School to teach a student Arduino. All of this is very much a result of so many of my social networks that I built up in the last two years.

These networks built up back in 2009, again it was those first weeks in January, Tuttle, Temporary School of Thought, Long Now Meetup. It was a period where a lot of introductions happened and where a lot of my current networks where built up.

So while in terms of work, January is not really my busiest, it does seem to be that part of the year that sets things up for the year ahead.

looking back on 2010

2010-12-31T17:09:00.004Z

My photosets this year on Flickr, in many ways, what I post to Flickr has been a great way of documenting the activities I get involved with, particularly over the last year. I've been involved in so much, it's actual good to now have something to refer to about what I do on top of academic projects.

It's been a good, if slightly strange sort of year. I had hoped to be back in London full time, though the nomadic existence seems to have stuck with me, and I'm actually enjoying it. I've been involved in some very interesting projects in London, one obvious one dominates those photo sets (Space Makers Brixton Village if you haven't guessed) and I'm glad that they are being made use of as a record of that project, and I'm looking forward to being involved in the next one. Theres another social enterprise start up I'm involved with too. There have also been projects which, despite efforts did not materilize in the way thay I had hoped, more on that when the time is right, but importantly the experience of the attempt, and the practical skills that came out of it still made it worthwhile.

I've become more involved with project, I've been more practical, I've been uncivilised in the welsh countryside, I've got more practical projects under my belt now, and I'm looking forward to what 2011 has in store.

December

2010-12-23T23:50:00.002Z

December is a very strange month, as the year draws to an end, projects close down, new projects go into hibernation / slow development and any web dev work is usually finished off in the early part of the month. It's also the time I spend more either at home instead of travelling. It tends to be a natural wrap up and conclusion time, or a natural break. I'm more or less spending the time sketching and planing rather than doing on most projects, in some way it's good to have a break from hard deadlines.

The snow is outside, it's really a nice break from the bustle of the city, though while it can be nice to be on the farm for a while I still feel the calling of London. Whilst I was living in London proper I used to come back for New Years and really liked going out to the fireworks, its very different to being by the fire and watching sky lanterns pass over the fields on the farm.

It's also a time to think about how best I want to present myself in the new year, planing out what my new website should look like, and what kind of projects I want to be working on in the new year. I'm going to spend a little time looking back on the past year and forward into next, where I thought I would be and where I want to be, for now though, time to spend a few days off.

Being Practical

2010-11-30T21:47:00.003Z

Trying to think what to put down which seems like a monthly thing now with this Blog.. I guess if most of this year has been more about social, developing networks etc... This month then has been very much about implementing very practical skills. In most instance, this has been on the web development side. Throughout the year several projects have been around developing web as part of it, so in a way it's been nice to spend a month doing straight web development for a change. I've become more skilled in both Wordpress and Drupal dev, and while this has mostly been simply for work, it's definitely something that will also filter through to other projects.

In another sense, being practical is also about how I'm going to develop a practice going forward. Since I did not get employed straight out, and haven't felt the need to get into teaching, there is still a sense of how to but the more conceptual side to work and what value that generates. Thats something that I'm determined will happen i the new year, but it's been the work and projects I've been involved with other the last year that seems to be teaching me the most on how to push that forward.

Trying to work out the best method for putting it into practice is still an ongoing experiment. With the development I have done over the past year, trying to get a Job from this is one possibility, as is continued efforts to push development through freelance. I'm still not sure if it's right to position what I'm doing as a stepping stone to something else. It's also bring up the old debate of whether I should look into getting into research again... Its not something I'm too sure about. Balancing the practical skills with the more conceptual side and selling that is still something I'm working out, I'm not sure there is a permanent answer.

however through this last year, it's been very much about trying things, being part of various peoples projects, and having a record of stuff that I was part of, even if not all of that launched in the end, that has been important to me.

October, Digital Death and other experiences

2010-10-31T23:17:00.005Z

Back in early October I was privileged to be able to attend Digital Death Day at #c4cc.

I've been interested in the ideas behind digital death, particularly since seeing Digital Remains project at the RCA Show in 2006. The questions behind 'what happens to your data when you die' especially with so much of our social lives lived online now. How can these momentos be passed on.

The day was run under 'Open Space Technology', a very interesting (and engaging) way of running unconfrences. I liked the whole ethos, that whoever comes are the right people, that it goes on for as long as it needs to, and the appropriateness of the rule of two feet, that if your not learning or contributing, its ok to move on, its your responsibility to find a place you can.

Two favourite sessions. The day itself led to quite a few interesting conversations. A presentation on a digital inheritance service, (much like digital lockers and the like, except rather than just relying on the 'are you alive' e-mails, they also monitor your social networking activity, plus you can nominate real people they check with. Avoids the scary 'your loved one is dead, here's their passwords' e-mails, just when they have an accident. This led into a conversation about digital wills and other aspects of inheritance in the digital space. (Leaving your social media accounts to loved ones, whose responsibility is it to look after them? how will you let people know?, also should we not just opt for a tape worm to delete it all!)

Post lunch, there was also chance to look through and talk about the meaning of forever, and what does it mean for data to be kept forever? Do any social media services use the terms, we will keep your data forever? Who is going to upkeep it? How can it be preserved for history? There was a talk of perhaps a Doner card like widget or scheme, maybe a 'I want to leave my social media account for history.' I think this is a serious issue, as not only are we generated so much online data, but we're losing it too, and how do we guarantee we can read it back. I picture an digital archivist, historian, restorationists from the future using today's computers, and today's software, reconstructing web pages from photographs, complete with imperfections, as a matter of social record.

An interesting day, I'm still digesting things from this, I do want to see if there is a project I can draw out of this, I'm particularly interested in this idea of digital archivists and the meaning of keeping our data forever.

October Catch Ups. Keeping going, house hunting not so well, but thats ok for this year now, above the pub is fine. I continue to try to earn a living through web development while working on other projects, though through next year I would like to switch it so other projects pay... Thats something I hope to be closer to doing.

Future We Deserve. Vinays New book, been rushing in my two submissions before tonight's deadline. The Future of Programming, about how we need to expose the magical experience of getting a computer to do something was my first. My second, on Hacking society, brought in part of Beta Town, a project from First Year RCA. I'm still not too sure what to really talk about with regards to that, hacking society has a lot to be said about it, though I think adding Beta Town helps with the narrative a little. Please add suggestions as I'm told there is time for edits.

Blogging for Five Years

2010-09-30T23:59:00.003+01:00

Sneaking in before the end of the month, though technically, I post this after midnight.... Still it's kind of nice to see a sort of unbroken line between all my posts after the last five years.

It's been interesting looking back at the last five years, while I would like to do a fuller reflection of my life over the last five years, a much fuller reflection on how far I have progressed, it's something strange looking back at what I thought I would be doing and where my life has gone.

It's funny looking back at the first few posts, back in 2005 I was expecting to move into a 'job' in the traditional sense very quickly. It's certainly not turned out that way. I'm still working out what that means, I don't count it as a failure and it fits part of a future article / blog post on 'future attitudes to work' but I can't say that I have had a job in design which is what this blog was intended to document. While those of my Peers at BIAD have gone on to take places in the London Design scene and elsewhere (but mostly London, which seems to be the measure of success, how strange?) What was I intending from that point? Was I trying to get into the design scene? what kind of designer was I? I say this because at BIAD there was definitely some confusion, I was aiming to do online, but without experience of online if that makes sense, lots of conceptual work but how to make this practical...

Then came RCA, and RCA experience was good, I learnt a lot and it's caused me to adjust the way I think about things. There's different things coming from my RCA experience that are coming forward that I didn't necessarily pick up from the time, I'm still processing what comes from that, even two years out. There is a strange experience of doing the RCA thing and seeing what comes even two years after now, it's definitely not what I thought I would be doing. Particularly becoming associated with the gang of Collapsonomics and other adventures that followed in that year. I had a funny conversation on the street with one of my former tutors I bumped into over the summer, about who was doing the most work. I'm not sure I would say I was, but it does depend on perspectives.

I'm going to have to write something more in details that looks at where I am and where I'm going. While this hasn't turned into a blog about me getting a job and the path through doing so. What it has been is about the change in my attitudes to how I develop and deploy my skills, and who I want them to benefit, I'm still looking for jobs and other work, and so this blog will still chart those adventures. I have to write a new post on future attitudes to work as that is very relevant to the position I find myself Five years on.

Some thoughts on Play

2010-08-30T22:47:00.006+01:00

(De-brief at the end of playing Visible Cities at Hide and Seek Weekender)

Doesn't time go fast when your having fun? I've found that it has, particularly over July and August which is why I haven't been writing to this blog in a while. So first the catch ups, still doing some web dev to earn a living, still doing bits and bobs for / with Space Makers, still running a few projects on the back burner, still looking for a place to live... But I've also had a chance this summer to stop and play, and that is what this blog is about.

Play has been a bit of a strange thing for me, dominated by electronics and online, I'm not really a gamer in that sense, though I do play on emulators to remind myself of my 8bit upbringing, alongside a few social online games I've experimented with but quickly fallen out of favour, there's something just not quite right that feels odd about it.

Back in July I went along to the Hide and Seek Weekender, having been the previous year and along to a couple of sandpits earlier in the year, this is a social / pervasive games experience (this year at the National theatre). Whats fun about these games is they become an opportunity to have fun, often without much in the way of technology, and in a social way with new stranger friends.

The first night I played this game where we had to travel to different dimensions avoiding chasers (Visible Cities). There wasn't any set teams or anything, but a group of us seemed to come together (safety in numbers) for the ruining about, joining with a few others to complete set tasks around the 'gates' to enable us all to transfer dimensions. Di spite the very sci-fi settings, it was very low tech and that added to the fun. the representation of being in different versions of London was simply done by exchanging coloured ribbons tied around the arm. You could tell who was in your 'dimension' and who chasers where, it added to ad-hoc group dynamics that formed from playing. It would be easy to imagine such a game involving an iPhone app and with geo spatial co-ordinates triggering challenges and it linking out to others in the same 'dimension' in the game including chasers, though I wonder if that then would make the game more solitary as it was played?

There where lots more games that weekend, some involving technology while others not. What was good about the ones that did involve technology is that it blended quite well with the game play and the interactions flowed with the players and not caught up in the tech itself, which was no easy feat to pull off. The game 'Serb I am' which involved taking ch alleges from a magic black box, and then performing them in the street (this included the task of soliciting 'donations' for BP, to which we raised about 64 pence!) Also Nikki Pughs Sonar Goggles, used for playing her game, 'The Bloop' became an interesting and spontaneous set of experiments involving trying to race across the foyer. A very odd, but fun experience (when you don't end up trying to walk down the stairs, from what I remember). I did take a lot of photos of the weekender, but not as many as I might usually take over a weekend, I think that is a testament to the fact it's hard to take photos when your playing, and next time I might not take as many as I will play more.

This makes me think of a piece that was in the free newspaper provided at the event by Briony Greenhill. It talks about whether electricity spoils fun (from her playtime blog). It's an interesting hypothesis, while I wouldn't necessarily say that it is, games that did use some electricity where still fun, but the key point I take away is the fun was created between the players, the fun moments and creativeness that occurs within the games. That's what is really interesting about the games that weekend, a space where fun could be generated. I think an interesting parallel was last year at the Tree house Gallery writing the Collaborative Scroll. During the writing and getting others involved on the old typewriter, was quite a fun in its way of getting participants and seeing what they would write, or just filling in the gaps in the morning / evening, the reading with the electronic loudspeaker seemed to loose the ad-hoc'ness of it all and felt out of place, far too broadcast. Whereas the writing felt very dynamic and got people interested in what we where doing, the reading seemed to send people away.

In August I organised a couple of board games nights in at #Brixvill. It was a bit hit and miss, trying to get people involved, the second night worked a bit better, having games available for people to play (Dominoes seems to go down a treat, though lots of kids want to play it). Having them available for people to play worked out quite well, It was an interesting experience running the games night, and again there was spontiaty created between those that play, whether it was those 'other enthusiastic kids' wanting to play dominoes, or the two friends walking though the market seeing a chess board set up and playing, it was a moment of generated fun, using the games as a catalyst. I'd be interested to see what other generative fun could emerge.
I would like to try the 'bring your own most obscure game' again soon, but this time with more lead time promotion, I would be interested in who brings what, and what fun can emerge.

Late one before the month is out

2010-07-31T02:15:00.002+01:00

Late night, lot's of late nights, mostly spending July as a web monkey, looking for summer fun. Still my web skills are getting some exercise (I know Drupal and Wordpress theming, and how to write custom modules now) and I need to build up the funds. I'm spending my time in London above a pub, which means no sleep, but good for late night code sessions. Had some fun over the course of the month, want to get round to writing up Hide and Seek Weekender, maybe some time later. Tuttle and other events have been interesting and discovered a shared interest with an old friend who I'm helping out with some electronics size so it's nice to be flexing those muscles too.

RCA Show 2010

2010-06-30T20:22:00.003+01:00

Currently on the the Royal College of Art, I went along to the private view and popped back last Friday to see the latest works from RCA graduates, particularly from my former department of Design Interactions. I noticed the RCA has spared no expense, in terms of re-spraying the SHOW letters from 2008 in bright orange.

There's some really interesting stuff there, I can't do a full critic as during the private view it's always a bit crowded out, and only had a brief chance to quickly look everything. I have some photos on my flickr (as always) that picked out a few interesting works.

The Pro-Nuclear project was interesting in terms of the conversation it seemed to provoke on the video, though can't see it going down well on the Dark Mountain (peak uranium anyone?) It's good to see another side of the debate though. I also like the Device's to disappear with, which in a way reminds me of getting away from London when I go back to the farm :-). I also discovered that I have an 'undefined' chance of dying of 'undefined'! I'm scared.

Show is on till the 4th July.

An Uncivilised Week in Llangollen

2010-06-21T12:43:00.006+01:00

At the end of May I went along to the Dark Mountain Uncivilisation Festival in Llangollen. I'm still thinking a lot about the events and conversations that happened, so I've not had a chance to write something until now and it is still something that I will come back to.

The week before hand was an informal 'Dark Mountain' camp, which I blogged on my personal blog (day one, two, three, four, five). This was more of an informal gathering, and while some events where planned on the wiki before hand, it really became a see who shows up event. This in fact worked out better in its own way. I turned up on the Monday at the pavilion in Llangollen, in true urban camper style dragging a wheel suitcase behind me! In hindsight I should have thought about bringing a tent. The plan was to build Hexayurts on the first day, and I did do some research into where to get materials. On the first day there was a group of 12 of us and a few of us went along the canal scavenging for Bender poles in to what became my home for the week.

We where joined at the Camp by the Freeconomy Wrexham peeps, who set up the free stall for others to bring and take and also provided the Teas and other refreshments. They told me they had a great weekend at the festival as "they took no money!" Also Viv (of the November project and other things) who much taught us about gathering hazel poles and building the bender tent. He also took on a lot of the cooking duty :-). It was also good to have access to his Solar panels for re-charging purposes.

On the Wednesday we got the Hexayurt materials, it was more hard-board than plywood and so the campers (including the few more that arrived that day) started on cutting the boards. I should say we, but more them and I was more occupying my role of documenter and archivist. I have a good selection of video to look through and edit later on. As it was hardboard, the group used a stitching technique instead of screwing it together which went late into the night and into the next morning. It even got a nice paint job! Though the Hexayurt really became a flexi-yurt after the rain started to fall upon it, it's worth noting that it survived the festival compared the the second bender tent that had to be built, which was collapsing by the end.

The biggest highlight for me, and possible of the whole event not just the camp was the walk to Dinas Bran in the early hours of Friday morning. Me and three other campers, two Americans who where passing through had stayed up the whole night round the campfire before impromptu set of the big climb (which I had done earlier in the week). It was such a breathtaking and inspiring place to be at dawn, these ancient ruins looking out onto the Dee Valley in the sunrise offered a unique chance to connect with the environment around us. The walk seemed to go down well with my climbing partners.

Other highlights of the week where the civilised day in Llangollen, including meeting the local pub wolf, the pleasant interruptions by the heritage steam train, generally the conversations around the camp fire about what brought us to Dark Mountain. It may not have stuck to the plan, but it still turned out great.

On to the festival... Uncivilisation was billed as a gathering of like minded individuals who had become fascinated by the Dark Mountain Manifesto. It was a slow start from the end of the camp and into the festival proper. With Friday day packing up the camp site for most people, there was some confusion about where I was going to sleep, and in the end a group of us (with Viv's) assistance built a second bender tent. We wanted though to all drop out and see the day time talks (Transition Town culture, which I caught the end of, Viv's November project, which involves a Barge on the Thames and corporate jollys, but tell them some stark truths at the point the can't get off the boat, and Tony Dias who was sleeping in the Bender tent also read his poetry). After these sessions we spent some time rebuilding out home, which also was to double up as an activities tent, though in the end I suspect most people had sense not to use it given it collapsed a few times. In hindsight had there been no confusion where we would be, I think it would have got done much better and spent more time on it to make it more stable.

The Friday night though was amazing, I opted for the Power Down in the church hosted by the delightful Marmaduke Dando. I spotted an interesting practice session in the church yard beforehand which was as equally delightful as the candlelight performances in the old church. Also on the Friday night in the main hall there was Antons 'Death Blues' band bleak, Dougald wasn’t joking when he said the stage had now become a de-militarised zone.

Saturday, up nice and early. The festival main discussions got under way. I stayed in the hall for most of the sessions. There where some really interesting talks, some of the videos are online already, such as Paul Kingsnorth talk on environmentalism being ‘Tony Blaired’ which formed a lead in to ‘that debate’ between Dougald and George Monbiot. One of the highlights (and one that is getting a lot of praise I hear offline) was Vinays talk on stopping violence and what collapse looks like (Collapse is where your living conditions are the same as those who grow your coffee), That really silenced (but also inspired) a lot of the audience. Lottie Child also talked about her Street Training, following up on some of the things she had talked about at the pre uncivilisation meet ups. She started by telling us telepathically the answer to the question of the sessions for that day, ‘what do you do when you stop pretending.’ I thought those three talks where a great way to introduce the day.

Onto ‘that debate.’ I’ve talked to Dougald since this and I think he agrees too, billing this as a ‘grilling’ was not the best way of framing the debate. Dougald at the beginning of the debate had tried to orientate it as a conversation, and I think personally that a conversation would be a much better way to engage others, particularly critics, into the conversation that Dark Mountain project is having. I think that it is helpful to embrace critics so that there is helpful scepticism. I think this is what Dougald was trying to do after the (virtual) shouting match that had been happening in the Guardian, and why the debate was with Dougald and not Paul. Unfortunately I think George, and the audience, had took the billing at it’s word and prepared for a grilling. In that context, it is not that hard to see why a lot of his points met with applause from the audience. Though speaking to some people afterwards, the audience was not all Dark Mountaineers, but people who where in mixed minds and Dark Mountain was picking up their interest. For me I did think George did make a few valid points, that we should be careful not to allow Dark Mountain to fall unintentionally into accidently supporting something like open cast mining. I don’t think that is what would happen, but it does highlight a point where opening this as a conversation space would have been more inviting. Also with the debate, the pro vs. anti tech theme raises it’s head (the tech fixes like wind farms), and it would have been interesting to go deeper into this. It reminds me of something I first heard Dougald talking about at the Temporary School of Thought when we first met. Talking about economic chemotherapy, that while we shouldn’t expect there to be a magic technology, we shouldn’t dismiss the idea either. I think this would have been an interesting part of the conversation, that while we shouldn’t rely on tech fixes, should we dismiss all technology all together?

The debate near the end opened up for questions. I think for me, both Vinay who talked about this being a one world and that we all have responsibility to each other, and Gaia, who talked about issue networks and loose affiliations, which meant that while we might disagree on certain things, we can still collaborate on the parts that we do agree on. Both of these questions brought the debate back on track. I talked to many people outside the hall during the lunch and later in the day, there opinions range from being supportive of George to him being a shrill, overall I think having this as a conversation would be better placed, as I suspect underneath there is more common ground than is being let on.

The final main session I saw was Alastair Macintosh and his Galiec Chatting from friends, which is something I caught the end of so disappointed to not see the whole thing. Reactions from the audience tell me it was inspiring. Also on Saturday was John Mitchinson from QI and lots of great music in the evening.

End of the night a sizeable group took a *cough cough* 10 minute *cough* walk by the canal, in the dark, to Horseshoe falls. While the walk was long and not everyone made it, those that did had a great impromptu camp fire and sing-a-long, as well as being a great conversation space in it’s own right for talking about the events of the day. I echo a lot of the comments that having a camp-fire space for these sorts of conversations.

Sunday dawned, and I decided to opt out of the main hall talks for the day. Breakfast in the town, followed by going food foraging with Andy Hamilton, looking at all the wild foods that are around the site, and getting a nectar hit of dead nettle flowers. It was during this I noticed that the Bender tent had all but collapsed so had to opt out and get help to do some minor repairs. Afterwards there was time to watch Steve’s Ritual Ride film (always fun to see an interaction designer having to work out how to use a DVD player).

This led nicely into Vinay and Mike leading a session on ‘Collapsonomics’ and collapse in general. Vinay has a nice audio of the whole thing (see collapsonomics link). A lot of the ideas I’ve been exposed to the ideas throughout the past year, jokingly being called the archivist for the institute of collapsonomics, but it is always great seeing these ideas talked in public. The audience where quite receptive, there was some banter relating to the Monbiot debate (Monbiot brought up the Hexayurt a lot during his debate, as in you can’t persuade people to give up houses to live in on, not serious I think, but it seemed to hit a nerve). There was also talk about people paying a fee to maintain a small holdings farm, to be useful in case of a disaster. I know some informal conversation happened about deploying online infrastructure for that, but it’s something that needs to be looked into more.

The final night of music seemed to run a lot smoother. There where some really great performances on the night, including Circulas and there medieval folk / rock which everyone seems to agree where simply fantastic. Also Chris TT and the finale by Chris Wood where great to finish off the weekend. Outside we where all still dancing outside with the Freeconomy Wrexham peeps into the late hours.

I think the festival went well, so thanks to Paul and Dougald for all the hard work organising. There has been a lot of feedback which they are taking on board, and I know from conversation with Dougald since that there thinking a very different approach (which I won’t share until they do) that will greatly build upon it. I look forward to Uncivilisation 2010.

More Photos on my Flickr as always (Dark Mountain Camp & Uncivilisation Festival)

To be Uncivilised in Wales

2010-05-23T23:49:00.003+01:00

From Tomorrow I will be at Dark Mountain Camp. I will be travelling up to Llangollen in the morning hoping to arrive just after midday. I have an nervous expectation of the week, and towards the festival, though I am looking forward to it.

The first major issue is getting the Hexayurts built. I have placed a few messages on the network, asking for what we are doing, but after having several face to face discussions, I'm pretty confident it can be sorted out on the day (here's hoping anyway). It's going to be fun building the shelters, and I look forward to living in one. Still not sure what will happen to them once we are done with them though.

The week is looking interesting too, and I'm sure with many of these things, it will be more than just the 'official' schedule where the interesting discussions will come from. I'm hoping from my time at the camp to learn a lot more by doing practical things and discovering what I can take away and use in the long run. Plus I'm looking forward to some great conversations round the camp fire!

At the weekend it becomes the Uncivilisation Festival. The line up sounds great, I'm really looking forward to the Power Down on Friday, and also seeing Steves Film for the first time (from the poster, I joked that he looks like he has top billing!). I know this has been a lot of work put in by Dougald (and Paul too) so it's going to be fun seeing it pay off.

Getting on....

2010-05-17T22:20:00.003+01:00

Been up and down into London throughout May, documenting Spacemakers Brixvill Saturdays (and now Thursday lates), working with Dadamac on ongoing developments and enjoying the pre Uncivilisation Festival moments. I've had the time to take a slight web project work break and do some things. Wefab has awoken again, and after some issues with how the web part should work, so is starting to take some of my time. I'm also starting to play with my electronics kits again.

It's been a strange month, keep going with the old, but also start putting in foundations for the new, and also spend time meeting people and getting to know new things going on...

Becoming Uncivilised

2010-04-28T00:30:00.005+01:00

I've been following Dougalds Dark Mountain project since his Long Doom talk last year. I went to the manifesto launch in Oxford last June, not really planning to, but spur of the moment, glad I went though. I'm interested in new cultures that emerge as we realise that "the end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop." (to quote Dougald). I have my ticket for the Uncivilisation Festival in 2010, and mulling over the practicalities of attending the week long camp to build and live in a Hexayurt.

In the run up to the festival, in London at the Centre for Creative Collaboration in Kings Cross (and elsewhere outside London!), there are meetups for those attending, or thinking of going, or just generally interested. Speakers (and performers) talk through their work, experiences, as a pre-cursor to the festival, and a way to meet others laying the path in our uncertain future. Last week Lottie Child talked us through street training and tanoy hijacking, Briony Greenhill talked about having one hand on a laptop, the other on a spade. Lloyd Davis played for us while talking about Tuttle to Texas. We also learnt that it's possible to fly a kite on the London Underground, and possible to catch rabbits with a copy of the Guardian.

Tonight (Wednesday 28th) there is Maramduke Dando and Chris TT (both of which where great when I saw them play at the opening). There is a ning group here.

I've also been thinking about my own projects in relation to the ideas Dark Mountain sets up. Ethical Contracts particularly has always been a funny project for me, never quite sure where it sits or what to do with it. The stories of an ethics trading system that goes bad could equally have been influenced by collapsonomics. I'd be interested in talking more about them and the scenario it sets up, as I see it as a negative scenario. I wonder if Uncivilsation can provide further insights?

Where Next?

2010-04-17T21:58:00.003+01:00

March and April have both shaped up / shaping up to be interesting and frustrating in various ways. It's been a few weeks since the housing crisis post. I have been back to London since then, using hostel accommodation above a pub in Brixton for a few nights, still looking for a place in London, thought I might have somewhere and now starting again. It's something that I'm used to by now, and starting to just push on with it. This week I have had personal matters to deal with back home so not really been looking. I resume the search this week and since I will be changing tactics a little (pretty much accepting places on the spot and allowing them to then make a decision, rather than viewing a few and calling back to find out they have gone). I'm really hoping to get down there proper by the beginning of May.

Work Wise, keeping going with web coding, not exciting but stable for now... Dadamac work continues, I'm starting to branch out more into social media work, I've been teaching various people around the world how to use Twitter via the chat room which has been quite interesting. I've been continuing with documenting the Space Makers Brixton project, though missed this weekends fun, I'm currently re-doing parts of the Brixton section on the Space Makers site, though they will need approval before I put them live, something to try to catch up with the team when I make it to London next week. Also lots more leads coming in... Interesting times.

So where next? These are some of the questions that are now starting to emerge. It all comes down to wanting to really move into doing more interesting projects, but then that leading to constantly being in a state of transition, which has meant work wise i've not been getting settled in terms of income and development as much as I could be. There are two blog posts that keep being put off which describe this in detail. The first would be looking back at my time at the RCA and what that brought to me, how I developed and what I took away. Those things are not really tangible things when I think back to it, I did not do the MA and then get directly equipped with a job, instead what came from it where intangible, opening up ideas and ways of where I want to go that may have only been at the back of my mind but are different yet make sense. I have the feeling this is what opened me up to being drawn to the Collapsonomics and Dark Mountain gang. The second blog post that i've been meaning to write is about future attitudes to work, particularly how mine has developed. This has developed over last year, particularly hanging round with the aforementioned gang. Been opened up to new ways and possibilities of working has been interesting, but as various conversations I have been having with people, I've never really experienced the old way of working (I have been a freelancer working ad-hoc in peoples offices / studios, as well as being mobile and working from home). The fact is though that my only 'traditional job' where I worked in the same place, day in, day out, for a fixed set of hours was the season at Drayton Manor back in 2001.

So that is the big question, I am at a crossroads now. I don't think the 'Just get a job' route is open to me, even though that was the method I was looking for out of college. I'm in the grey area now so I have to make the best of it, and it's exciting and frightening at the same time. I also want to bring my own interests and projects back in to the mix, as they keep being pushed to the bottom. I want to get back to London, I have Space Makers and Dadamac projects to continue, but I want to branch out a little. Coming to London again will mean having to spend about 2 - 3 days on web work, whether that be existing freelance or through agency. But I want to make time for my own and see where they come into the mix.

Spare Room Hunting

2010-03-31T21:57:00.004+01:00

I had hoped to post a post on happier things, rather than what is jokingly called my favourite pastime. March has been quite busy, both professionally and personally, but it has come to be dominated by one thing, and that is trying to find a place in London to live again.

I had to move out of London in September, money was tight, I was just managing to pay rent on the Camden place. I had been looking for somewhere cheaper, but by the time summer came, I decided it was for the best I take a break at home and sort a few things out. I've been able to come back into London quite regularly since then, either trying to find hostel accommodation for a few nights, or as they seem to get full on weekends and around holidays, by staying with close friends. These relationships have been getting quite strained though of late, often I find myself having to jump on the London train, finding there is no room at the inn and making a desperate search to find somewhere to stay. Tonight is such a night, and as I write this, I'm currently twittering and messaging as many friends as possible to see if there is room. The people I usually stay with are now moving out, I did have someone else before then too. I had hoped to have somewhere in place before now, but it is not to be. This means that now future London trips are in jeopardy, I will have to rely on hostels in the first instance, which are now going to be packed and have no room, and my emergency friends places are now full. So truly stuck in that regard.

What about more permanent housing. I have been searching on and off since January, and started making full spare room hunting efforts around mid Feb. I've seen so many places, some good, some not so good, none really great, but I'm on a budget so.. The thing is, it's not the houses, the rooms or even the people. There's been a fair few that I have been wanting to sign on with, but it's always too late, either it's gone already, not quick enough, or there is the several people also interested, and the decision going the other way. I just had another rejection e-mail tonight, of course it's not personal, but even when you think you have bonded in a way, those 15 - 20 mins of looking round is never really enough time to make judgements. I don't mean to sound like a bit of a moaner, of course when choosing potential housemates, you should find people that you will get on with, and there always will be those that just 'gel' with everyone. I just feel that it keeps going on like this, and having to put other places on hold that then just go, just keeps being frustrated, particularly now that I have less opportunities to come down and look.

I've played the spare room hunt game before, but it's always strange to me. While I have gone through all the usual methods and commotion's before, in the end it was always my social networks (offline / real world ones that is) that came through in the end. I have a friend of a friend etc... In Birmingham at UCE, it was at first the college notice boards, even though I was trying online sources, it was getting to know people through the college is how we found each other. When I came to the RCA, there was the meet up where all first years gathered to exchange details etc... It was through this list that I was able to buddy up with someone and agree a rent on a whole flat, then just advertise out through the list. Even at the end of that lease, with the housing crisis, I did the look online for spare rooms, but it was through a friend of the RCA, who also happened to be a first years land lady, that I was able to get the room in Camden.

I really want to put more into my social networks, and hopefully that is where you lot can come in.

Lets get on to the details, so I'm not trying to be too fussy about it, I'm looking for around the £300 pcm mark, up to £350, sorry money is tight. Nothing fancy, a bed, some space to store cloths, room can be small, an internet connection, nice friendly people. I have considered just getting a bedsit, and while I do like my own space and time to myself to work at home, in the end, I like to be sociable and be around people. Travel? Well I work all over London when I'm down here, though would mainly be concentrating on around Brixton / South London. Zone 2/3/4 would be fine. Nearish to a tube / train station (not expecting to live next door to a station, just don't want to be a half hours walk away). Me, well if you know me, you know me, and if you don't I'm 28, male, freelance designer and coder, doing interesting things in London needing a more permanent housing solution.

UPDATE : I've left in the bit about me not having somewhere to sleep that night, but in the end I was able to contact one of my 'emergency if your stuck friends.' So I did have somewhere to sleep. I still have to make decisions about how next to come to London as it is clear I can no longer rely on such circumstances however.

Updates on TalkTalk (Tiscali) Issue

2010-03-14T23:21:00.004Z

Been so busy to blog this updates, but the problem is (hopefully) finally resolved as of last week when I received an e-mail from on of the senior customer service reps informing me that they accepted I have paid the money owed and the account was closed and I wouldn't be hearing from the debt agency again, so far that is holding to be true.

I haven't had a full chance to go over everything that has been said and send a response yet, though I am glad the panic is over. I do have issues with the way it was handled and the way this process has came about, though I suspect the main issue (why they didn't take my forwarding address) will remain a mystery, since nobody can verify who said what two and a half years ago. Mind you, I do think it is interesting that if they didn't have an address on record and knew I was moving, why this was not flagged up? Of course these days I would avoid the issue, almost all my billing is done online for everything now.

On a final plus, they did make reference to the fact that the debt agency hadn't met there standards. I have my own ideas on how debt collection, tracing, and issues like this could be better solved, and maybe if I get time, I might share them with you.

So I’m having some problems with TalkTalk (was Tiscali)

2010-02-15T19:27:00.007Z

Back when I first started at the RCA in 2006, one of the first things I did, moving to a new flat in London with two other students, was to arrange for Broadband to be installed. We looked around, and decided Tiscali looked like a good deal. Everything was great and never had a single problem with them. However, at the end of the first year, I faced a bit of a housing crisis, the others had decided to give up the flat, and so since I had no-where to transfer the broadband account to, I had to cancel early. I called up Tiscali in May 2007 to inform them of this, and that it was becuase I had to move out, and also gave them my forwarding address at my parents so they could send in any final bills (I was expecting an early termination fee).

Nothing happened, I was left to assume this simply was because there was no fee, or they had taken pity on my circumstances, I wasn’t sure since at the time I was desperately trying to find somewhere new to live in London before the start of the second year in college. So it comes as a bit of a shock that two and a half years later they seem to have decided that I do owe money after all. I’m quite puzzlled, upset, and distressed by the events that have happend, and really would appreciate advice since I’m not sure what to do next.

It all started in early January this year when a company called SRJ Debt Recoveries sends a letter simply labelled ‘Trace Confirmation’ which I think looks a bit weird, and at first instincts is to treat it simply like phising. (it looks exactly like this one)I did some online research and discovered a few forums talking about the same issue. The letter makes no mention of who the debt is too or how much it is, though is filled with credit card logos, on the back is a direct debit payment form, and it implores me to ring the number or go online. Maybe I was a fool, but I decided to ignore it.

So then, two weeks later, a second letter arrives, this time much more mean in tone, stating that I am going to be taken to court and have my credit rating damaged. It is this letter that first makes mention that this is TalkTalk (was Tiscali) and my former address in London, it also asks for £103. I was in quite a bit of distress over this, thinking why the account was not closed, and trying to find all the old paperwork that I had when dealing with them before in London.

So I go the the Citizens Advice Bureau in Atherstone. I ask for their advice, asking them that I would rather deal with TalkTalk directly rather than the debt company, as I felt they would have more of an understanding of the situation, plus I thought it was unfair that I would have to deal with and pay fees to a third party I had no connection with over an issue I thought had been fully resolved back in May / June 2007. After much passing the buck on the phone, eventually they where able to speak to someone in the billing department who did confirm that the account had not been closed, that there was an outstanding termination fee of £86 to pay. They did not tell us why they had failed to take my forwarding address, or why I had not been issued with a final bill. I did in fact, ask them to make sure one was sent, and we where told that one would be issued to my parents address within seven days, this has still not arrived.

Despite all this, since I had acknowledged that there was the possibility of the termination fee being owed, it boiled down too, I either pay within 12 days or they take me to court. So after thinking that this issue had been dealt with and closed two and a half years ago, I now find myself feeling like I’m being bullied into handing over £86. Unfortunately for me, I am not the most strong willed person in these matters. I don’t really know that much of my legal right in these situations, and while the CAB people where very good in helping me, even they conceded that if I owed the money best thing to do would be to pay it now. At least I thought this would put the issue behind me and with a final bill there might be a chance for me to issue an apology to the other house mates over the confusion and try to recover some of the money. There’s a part of me though that wishes I found out a way of fighting this.
(Note: I don’t really talk about my disability in communicating much as I prefer to usually not make a big deal of it, but it does make issues like this quite difficult to deal with and simply don’t have the same ability dealing with people over the phone or pressure selling that others might, which is why I usually ask for others help in dealing with them, or find other ways to deal with it)

So I’m thinking that this has been dealt with, and then this morning, in a letter dated the 12/02//2010, I receive another letter from the debt agency demanding there £103, and if I don’t do anything in the next 7 days, we’re taking you to court. I had hoped to avoid having to deal with them, as doing several searches online had revealed that they are not the nicest of people (money saving expert forum thread and Consumer Action Group thread) . I really do have issues dealing with people over the phone. The advice from CAB over the phone this morning was to write back to the debt agency, as that is who I have to deal with and I have a nice simple template letter to print out which I will send recorded delivery tomorrow morning. I have also e-mailed back TalkTalk with a complaint and wait to hear back their response, but I am not very confident in getting back a response that closes this matter. The only thing I want to be clear on is that I do not think I should have to pay any additional fees, given that it is unfair not to have been informed of outstanding issues before I left the London flat, and not to have been contacted by TalkTalk / Tiscali during the two and a half years, and why nothing was sent to the address I provided to them as contact, I still have not received the final bill.

Still, that might be the end of the issue, really this is just a space for me to put how upset and distressed I am with this matter, because I simply consider the way it has been dealt with to be simply unfair towards me, and that it should have been dealt with at the time I left the London flat. If it ends then that will be fine, and I will move on, upset, but I can move on.

What makes this worse for me though is that I used to recommend Tiscali to people, I thought they where such a good company, I had great experience with them at the time. This issue has however, really distressed me to the point where I will have to now say to people avoid them like the plague. Hopefully what I write here is something that others might be able to deal with in a better way should it happen to them. good service shouldn't stop just because the customer is leaving, particularly if the circumstances weren't in my control.

And finally, I write to ask for advice on what to do if this doesn't resolve it. What I need to do to help me resolve the issue fully. I’m trying to move on, I’ve got a lot of projects I want to concentrate on, and don’t need to keep losing a days worth of work dealing with this.

Busy Early February

2010-02-08T00:58:00.002Z

Been a busy week, will have to write more at some point, but here are a few catch ups.

WeFab is currently in private Beta, which is great as a lot of hard work has gone into it and it's good to start getting feedback from people. I still need to time manage myself into getting more time to devote to WeFab and commercial work, once I settle back in London and can achieve a good balance between necessary commercial activities.

Tuesday was the RCA work in progress show, it was great to meet so many people, though not so many from my year this time round. Opening nights are always too busy to see much work, so I did pop back on Friday to have a look. It was interesting, I always prefer work in progress shows as you get to see a snapshot into designers thinking rather than something overly presented (at least that's what I think). I'll write up some specific thoughts, though I really liked a lot of the other departments work this year too, some interesting work that almost could have been DI in certain aspects.

Tuttle was at it's new place at Centre for Creative Collaboration, a nice space and a very different atmosphere, away from commercial surroundings. I actually liked it as a space, and look forward to Tuttling there more often.

Post Tuttle, I got an invite to Monkeys with Typewriters social media questioning. I was a bit quiet on this one, there was an interesting debate, but sometimes it's very easy for it to become lost on me. (a better explanation of twitter and perhaps my take on social media in general can be better summed up by Dougalds Beginners guide to Twitter).

And on Saturday, exciting carnival atmosphere at Brixton Village market with the Space Makers. Lots of fun goings on with the various cultures in the Market, including lots of Columbian Dancing and music. It's really good to see the market getting lots of activity now. On a Space Makers note, the project with Dougald went live this week, though it's been tentative days, I'll wait for the formal press release before promoting it here.

If you go down to Brixton Village....

2010-01-21T22:55:00.003Z

... You will find a whole host of new and exciting ventures have opened up, thanks to the Space Makers Agency Brixton Project.

I spent the last couple of weekends (thought I will miss this one) at Brixton Village market, where Dougald and the fellow Space Makers have been busy encouraging several new ventures to take over empty units in what is billed as the largest empty shops project in the UK. Each Saturday they are putting on new events to encourage people to pop down, two weeks ago it was the reunion of the Temporary School of Thought (the gathering that brought a lot of the gang of collapsonmics and spacemakers together), where we had stand up teaching on everything from improvisation to calculus with a monkey and a cannon! Plus as a bonus in the afternoon, several guest speakers, including Vinays Infrastructure for Anarchists (which hopefully I will get online once I sort the sound out!) (token link to my flickr set)

Last weekend was a Tasty January, which included several of the food stalls setting up tastings, performance by someone with a pink ukulallue and the famous Ms Marmite Lover having her restaurant for the day in one of the empty units. It was really fun to see what they have been doing, sample the food that is on offer (I highly recommend Brixton Cornucopia, especially for the soup!) and to have fun with all the other goings on there. (second token flickr link)

It's been really fun, I'm loosely involved, having done the work on the website, and currently working on another project with them (to be revealed soon!). Plus it's good that I get to see how people are getting involved in exciting things.

Also last beg, please join the facebook page, so we can grab the url!

And this weekend is Craft Crazy...

Start the new Decade as you mean to go on....

2010-01-11T22:54:00.002Z

I'm recovering from my backup hardrive crashing, currently restoring, which has put a bit of a delay on things. However early January is off to a great start, and a nice pointer to the coming decade.

There is snow everywhere, making travel difficult, though I have set myself the task of a return to London now, currently looking around online before trying proper in the next week. So London fun was good, did some more WeFab hacking, First #tuttle of the new year, which is mine (and a lot of peoples) first year anniversary. Was quite nice being in cafe, and Lloyd seems to feel that it is worth taking it to different places for a while. Had my first tour of the Brixton Spacemakers projects since the launch, really like what was going on, and of course the Temporary School of Thought reunion. Really like Vinays Infrastructure for Anarchists (and the Pentagon) talk, I have a lot of photos and video to sort out and put up as soon as possible.

Internet on the farm has been down, so still reconnecting, I like disconnection breaks, just want them to be planned. I also seem to be getting lots of work, or at least the promises of work, it is starting to be interesting work though..

I'm also going to start posting lots more shorter posts on this blog, like the early days, blog more, tweet less, just to see how it goes.

Gluesniffers Returns (though I can't be there!)

2010-01-11T22:39:00.003Z

Dispite my previous post calling it a now defunct meet up, the gang have got round the table and brought it back. Gluesniffers, ICT meets Appropriate Development returns Tommorow (tues 12th Jan) at 7pm at The Masons Arms, 38 Maddox Street, [details on the meetup page].

I'm really gutted to be missing this, it was such a great opportunity to meet new people in both these fields and find interesting connections where people can work together. It was where I met Pam of Dadamac, an organisation which is focused on having dialogue and establishing connections with rural Nigeria (and elsewhere) not just trying to push in a solution without working with the locals on the ground. It has lead to ongoing work to help develop the UK side's visible presence for me., alongside lots of other interesting conversations.

If internet does become avalible (I have a feeling it isn't) then I might try and skype in... In any case, I'd be interested to see what kind of things go on there.

2009

2009-12-31T18:11:00.003Z

Well, what an exciting year this has been, I have felt a lot of changes, particularly in terms of how I see myself moving forward both personally and professionally. I’ve gone from feeling quite down at the end of 2008, doing minor web coding, and trying to get a job in design, to having a very different outlook, meeting a lot of new people who have become long term friends, and finding my own way of applying what I do in commercial context. The change has brought with it fresh optimism in 2010 to push myself further in terms of ‘what I do’ but also raises fresh challenges.

Tuttle Club had been a big highlight of the past year, thanks to Lloyd for keeping it going. It became the meeting place at the end of the week to just come and talk to people about all the everything that was going on. It was a great place to just talk to people and meet new people and was the central place where I met a lot of my new friends this year.

I spent a lot of time with the collapsonomics crew, they have been somewhat influential in how I have started to perceive the world... for good or bad! :-) In seriousness though it’s been great fun listening and learning about collapse, and other things. It was this group that started the Gluesniffers meet ups, the (now defunct, sadly) meet ups on appropriate technology with an unfortunate name. It was there I was introduced to Pam of Dadamac, which has become another strong strand in my life. I’m fascinated with how people communicate online, and I was attracted to how they online communities in the UK and Africa collaborate. I’ve been working on helping make more visible the work they do, and in 2010 want to push this further.

I’ve spent a lot more time working with social media, though I’m the last to say I’m in any way a ‘social media expert’ it has become interesting seeing how online connections made through twitter and other networks have led to real life friendships and connections. Also the amount of discoveries I have made via these services, new things to see and do and new opportunities that have arisen. It’s odd that actually I’ve allowed this blog to fall behind and that is something I’m going to rectify in the new year (tweet less, blog more).

Summer, the Treehouse Gallery, what more can I say that I haven't said on this blog already. It was great to meet new people and be part of that experience. To have a sanctuary amongst all the busyness in terms of my own development, and was in itself, a significant part of my re-thinking. It was great to have access to the space, to be able to listen and be part of so many new ideas that may not even have crossed my mind, to try and experiment with ideas and projects, and the great fun of living there during the final week. I think what was so much more enjoyable about the experience, was that unlink other times, I actually wanted to be there, I wasn’t there just for ‘research’ or as an outsider, I was able to be a participant, to openly experiment, to develop friendships, it was fun.

I came back from London in September, but maintained London connections, and am still looking to go back there. I have continued developing websites, just for the money, but looking to push forward other projects. I’ve been working with the Spacemakers, initially on web development for them, and this has crossed over with a project I am working on with Ed from IDE. I’m getting the time to develop my own projects, looking forward to a return to London, now people are approaching me to see if I might do work for them. Interesting times.

I think the big transition is this, last year, my focus was trying to do interesting things, but doing that in a job, I still have not ruled out working in a job, if it was the right thing, but more and more throughout this year I've become more focused on making my own way professionally, either pure freelance, or more contract style work, to try and find the right balance in my own work and applying it to others. Its very different to my attitude before, and while it does bring about the questions of ‘what are you doing’ from parents, and it has been a hard year trying to set this up. The foundations I feel I have managed to put down, and have already managed to start building on them that things feel like they are going right, finally, I feel confident and optimistic about working this way into 2010.

My Decade of Learning

2009-12-31T10:55:00.001Z

As the decade comes to a close, lots of reviews of the year and reviews of the decade are popping up all over the internet, and it seems like a good chance to reflect upon my own life these last 10 years. It is a decade of learning, both formally through educational institutions, North Warwickshire College, BIAD, and later RCA. More importantly though it has been learning through experience and re-evaluating my own place, direction, and where I want to be focusing myself. It’s seen many changes, I’ve gone from wanting a job in IT, trying to combine computer science and media, to trying to develop new experiences between people and technology. Although a long post, its really just touching on what has shaped my life these last ten years, sometimes what I right here is quite personal, I hope this gives some context.

In the early part, I was at College finishing A-levels. At the time I wasn’t really focusing on university, not even thinking of degrees or long term futures. Back then I was focused on simply getting through my A-Levels, at college I spent most of my time hanging round the student centre, or around Nuneaton town. I was focused on getting the work done, at the time, Computing, Media and Maths (an odd combination to be sure). I’m not sure, looking back, that I knew what I wanted to be doing, it was very much get the A-levels and then get a good job... what good job though. I got through with 3 C’s, and then... I ended up working various jobs, Warehousing, Loading trucks, venting fire extinguishers. I ended up working a season at Drayton Manor.

University, I hadn’t initially considered it, and the push came, not because of not getting a good job straight out of college, but because during the end of term at college, I did feel that I should be aiming my work for something more. I spent the autumn while Warehousing I spent some time trying to decide which courses to apply for, where to go. I was still very much focused on trying to do technical work though. My interest was to combine computing and media studies, I wanted to do multimedia, the courses I applied to where all multimedia, but from a tech basis. I really wanted to go down to Bournemouth, but the idea of living too far away from home seemed to still scare me enough that I eventually picked UCE, to apply for Multimedia Technology at the Technology Innovation Centre.

I’m not sure why, the course kind of felt like a rough match, though it was still very much a ‘I apply for this and in three years get a job’ kind of application. The first year often felt like I was dancing on the edge of anything real meaty, learning photoshop, flash, C, doing a bit of project management. It was strange that for a multimedia course, at the time no HTML or web development was being taught in first year. At the time, me and the fellow first year students just put this down to normal first year, you know, its always crap. I did a lot of my learning during that year away from the college, I had already learned HTML and also PHP coding at the time, something my brother had helped set me up with during my time at Drayton Manor, I ran a website that documented various reality tv shows, I’m glad I soon fell out of favour documenting Big Brother!

The real experience here was living away from home for the first time. Halls was fun and many of the friends I have made there, I still know even during my time in London since most of them have made it down there. I got first hand experience of communal living, crash course in cooking, the usual halls nuisances like having to go outside at 3am because someone set the fire alarms off. I was in a shared room for the first half of that year, before my room mate sought private accommodation. It was also the start of my ‘favourite pastime’ as in finding a place to live. Having to learn the ins and outs of finding properties, finding house mates. I felt sad at the time when I wasn’t part of the initial groupings that formed, but something about that experience has made me glad that I’ve always sought housing with new sets of strangers to become friends, something I seem to follow up on each time I go house hunting.

The second year at UCE really became a transition year, I had got fed up with Multimedia Tech, it seemed mostly about Business Management (though now I wish I knew it better). In fact, while they had now started teaching us web coding, the talk with the course director had pretty much said that this was a course for training managers to understand tech. I wish no ill on the course and the tutors, but it was not for me. I spent time looking around, eventually I came across the Multimedia Design course across the road at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.

It meant I had to step back one year, a big decision, but the course made so much more sense to me. It also reflected a big change in my thinking. I was no longer satisfied with it just being technical for me (ironically, I felt I learned a lot more tech at BIAD though), but really wanted to tackle design thinking lead challenges. As BIAD and TIC where both part of UCE it was a simple transfer of courses. The projects we where assigned during first year really tried to engage us with the people that tried to use or services, yet sought a good balance in teaching and understanding the underlying technology, it was very much about designing experiences. The final group project, designing a theme park as a whole year group (we where a small group) really helped bring us as a group closer together, and also developing useful thoughts on how services and systems fell to other people.

I felt at home on the course, and I was starting to focus on new career paths opening up, a designer who knows both technical and design languages, focus on experiences as a user. (later, this became what I termed middle-end design, trying to say that I’m not just front end and back end, but a combination of the two, never really found the best way to express that though). It felt what I was doing was right, and then the course was cancelled, the numbers dropped, and it became just 3 hard core students. There was talk of trying to get it going again, in the end though I went through graphic design. I was reluctant at first, even thinking of another transfer, I really was not much of a ‘graphic designer’ in any of the traditional sense. I didn’t really get the two projects that I had been assigned, feeling a bit down. It was lucky that the course was part of the broader Visual Communications that I was able to with the final two projects of second year, and with my final year project, negotiate my own way of working into them. I even won a D&AD student award (well commendation). It was a strange adaption, one I felt I had to figure it out all myself, thankfully the BIAD tutors where quite supportive and managed to carve out my own niche, follow my self branded ‘middle-end’ (which always confusingly kept being said as middle-ware which is something entirely different).

The final two projects of the Second year at BIAD where quite open, and final year I was filled with a mix of optimism and nerves. I was carving up my on niche academically, but was still trying to find a way of how to apply it commercially. I think I spent most of my final year more worried about how I was going to apply for work. The great speeches on how to get placement and work, made some sense, but how was I offering what people want? I found it difficult trying to apply for placements, and apply my niche, even going forward post graduation. To often I was pushed into just offering technical expertise, be a web coder. It seemed to me like a step back. I did try to mix these two worlds, developing the graduate web site, mixing my user experience side with live development, doing user testing, it was fun. I wanted to keep doing the exciting work I was doing, my final year projects where about really looking into (at the time) new forms of interaction, and I was a lot more focused on moving away from desktop screens, interactive TV, radio, billboards and mobile, actually trying to create interesting narratives around these technologies, even slightly dark. I also wanted to get a job.

I passed my degree with a First in Visual Communications, I was happy that summer of 2005. I started this blog in optimism. I kept looking for work, but it seemed that I was also wanting to learn new things. During my final exam, the external assessors had mentioned RCA. I did some online research to find the Interaction Design MA. After the open day, it seemed this was a new home for me. I wanted to explore interesting ideas and new forms of linking technical experiences to people. It also felt strange, I was ready to move on, having not really had much in the way of stable work in the intermediate year. I spent some time doing websites, mostly for free out of ‘for the experience’ and going to job interviews, learning the rules, doing self-promotional work. I always seemed to be in two minds of where I wanted to go.

The RCA, the course having changed its name to Design Interactions, seemed to make a lot more sense to me. It would allow me to carve out my niche, to apply my creative thinking skills to technology, experiment with the underlying tech and connect it with people, seemed right. Also it felt that this would help connect me with a future career, in terms of getting to know the right people. The first year weird me out a little, and I did feel not to get everything. I focused mainly on the Flight Kit project, linking a set of technical experiments into this story of pilots who fear heights, which became this kit for domestic instrumentation. It was the link between the electronics, something I enjoyed experimenting with, and the narrative involved, weaving the two, on reflection, something that actually has become important in all my later projects, and some previous ones. It made the project real, something I had trouble grasping with other first year projects.

Highlights of the RCA where the Japan trip, my first foreign adventure, getting there was nearly a chore, getting a passport at the last moment. (well, christmas). It was great being exposed to the culture, the lights.... I spent a day lost while trying to change money, nothing better than to get acquainted with local customs.. The best part of the the trip was not the buzziness of Tokyo, but the weekend in the Northern Japanese village of Toge. A very communal experience, and I felt a closer connection to the culture, we learned about the area, some local customs, ate communally, learnt how to have a proper Japanese bath, a real Osen in the Mountains. We did some work, clearing snow (read, cause avalanche), but we all got on well with the villagers, and was a nice change from being lost in the snow. I took a lot away from that weekend.

Final year at RCA was always going to be difficult, and I do wish I had enjoyed it more. I was stressed out, first by having to live in a hostel and commute at the weekends, then by the ever pressing financial issues. It seemed these things stressed me out so much they where always on my mind, more so than developing my projects at times. There was always talk of having a year out, sometimes I still wish I had. I developed my projects on interactions surrounding data, new interactions and experiences, something I have since been following up on. Once I got into my stride and focused on my projects, I started to actually really learn new things, both technically in terms of programming, and in experience prototyping. I connected with new people, thanks to Helen Hamylen setting up User Labs.

The shows came and went, I never really felt my work is great in exhibitions, not really an exhibition type. My first year work in progress with the flight kit was disappointing for me, I tried to focus on getting electronics working, they didn't. Second year work in progress was a lot better, I actually got to have something that I was able to test how people where interacting with something I have made, I enjoyed the look on people faces as they interacted with my blog bot, and began learning how people where interacting online. It became an anti-climax in a way with my final show. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but my final show felt more of an exhibition of ideas, not things, it became difficult to tangiblise my ideas during the show. But I learnt how to do it, talk to people, and became confident about talking about my work.

I was worried, during my post graduation. I passed the MA, but again felt that I hadn’t connected this to career paths. During the MA I was still certain that I wanted to still get a job, and that I could develop the connections at the RCA. However after it was all over, it seemed I was repeating steps from the end of my BA. I was picking up minor freelance work, doing interviews, trying to get placements, talking to agencies. 2009 marked a very step change in my thinking, in terms of how I apply myself professionally, which I will write more on. I’ve learnt so much this last decade, and so much more this past year. I’ve always had trouble trying to adapt that commercially though, this year, it finally seemed to find a way, and that is something I look forward to applying in the forthcoming year, and decade.

December... Feeling Disconnected

2009-12-19T22:47:00.004Z

December comes, and almost goes, as does 2009 and the Decade... So I'm going to spend the next few days reflecting on the year that was, and what is to come.

December is a very strange month, the end of the year, and in one perspective, is very busy in terms of finishing off things, indeed with regard to commercial web development work, that has been the case, a lot of finishing off web designing and coding. It has also been a time to head down to London and work on various things with WeFab project, then heading back and collaborating over Skype. On the other though, it has still shown the difficulty in travelling, having to disappoint a few people by not being in London at the right time, and missing out on a lot of the Social activities, the final meet ups with London friends who have really made my year.

Its a shame that I seem to miss out on a lot of things then. I really would have liked to go to the Space Makers party, not only to meet London friends to wrap up an amazing year, but also to help in the Promotions and various projects that will happen in the Brixton Space with the project Im working on.. A conversation I had with Ed over skype this evening, just about various Drupal fixes brought up the question about where I am from, which resulted in a google map highlighting the farm on the edge of Birmingham to cries of, "thats where travel to London from?" This is part of the problem, similar to the time at the RCA where I had no home and was commuting down, it leaves one disconnected from the people I have been connected to, and much harder to establish new connections on my own from the village, even travelling into the centre of Birmingham to establish myself there has proven difficult at times, though that is because I'm still focused on getting back to London and my work connections there.

Perhaps though the Birmingham thing can happen in the new year, to be honest, I have been distracted with other things too often to pursue it, though I am convinced that my fortunes (or otherwise) belong in London, that is where my main contacts are, and that is where the work and friends are too. It's difficult to but it into words, but I was able to get out and talk to people while I was in London, and it's not the same on the farm, and being here, rather than being the quiet sanctuary to work on developing more interesting projects, has instead become a place where I feel I have to retreat in taking on commercial work to show that I am doing something, but that is a topic for another time.

In the mean while, I need to make decisions about my own future, and how I want to feel reconnected, and doing so is urgent as it is the key to getting back to developing (and actually implementing) many of my ideas for more interesting projects, and I really feel that means I have to get back to London... so time to indulge in my favourite past-time post new year?

Bar Camp Africa and Other November Events

2009-11-26T00:59:00.004Z

November draws to a close, and so another month of fun and business. I'm still working on several, mostly web based projects on a freelance basis right now, but I have had time to settle in to other events too.

Barcamp Africa UK was held back on 7th November at Vodaphones HQ. I had signed up to see what Vinay and Mameding where up to, which was a great talk on the Ending Poverty with open hardware, that sent some great debate around the room (video link - 700mb). I spent most of the day helping out Pam with Dadamac Day, an online celebration of the Dadamac Learners / Teachers Talking component of Dadamac, a UK Africa Connections Organsation I have been working with to assit in there online visiability. It was fun, and quite interesting to have a connection to real rural Nigeria in the event, even if it seemed overshadowed by the more pronounced talks and sessions going on (it was a fringe event to an unconference!) but it did look like those who did take the time to join in the online chat (worknets transcript, chat was also via skype) got a lot out of it, and it emphasised what I like about Dadamac, that it is more about encouraging a dialouge between Africa (particully rural Nigeria, and Fanstuam foundation where John, the other part of Dadamac is based) and the UK / the west via the internet. It also helped in terms of talking to others about what they where doing I felt too, with someone commenting what all this was about my home country, and finding out that it wasn't just a bunch of westerners trying to dump some next big idea on Africa, but actually facilitating that conversation... what can we learn from each other. Elsewhere at Barcamp Africa, I managed to get some time in the session talking about the XO laptop, and the Sugar Interface, which was interesting in terms of looking at the software development model in place. More photos from my Flickr.

During that week I was also involved in a few other things, I went along to Know how Now, to meet some of the usual crowd, and Mammeding giving an interesting talk about Wikireaders. I pitched the idea of maybe taking the SD card database, and writing something for mobiles to be able to read the database, that way the wiki (either Wikipedia or Appropedia) could be distributed via sneakernets to a wider user base. I'm not sure how much take up might happen on Wikireaders, but they seem a fascinating device.

I was also helping Dougald with the Spacemakers site (yeah, I built that!) for the spacemakers Agency. I'm going to talk more later about that, I'm intrigued by the ideas of the concept of space... It was a lot of staying up late finishing the site. On the tuesday evening there was an event at the Brixton Village / Granville Market to launch a project of the Spacemakers Agency to fill all the emtpy units, with lots of talks and discussions on the re-use of the space and differing peoples ideas, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.

And the rest of Novemeber? Working... Several web coding work, plus coding away on a drupal install for WeFab, about to go into testing now, something I have to get back too.

September, October

2009-10-28T23:44:00.004Z

Dear Blog

Sorry I have missed writing to you for so long, there are so many things to catch up on...

Ok, so forgive the cliche entry to the always at the end of the month blog writing, but it has been a while and so many things with promise seem to have gone on that it is worth making note here from both September and October of the highlights.

TedxTuttle

Back in September, I was able to attend a special gathering of the Tuttle Club independently organised Ted talks, organised by the guys at Broadsight. The full program was a mix of video Ted talks and live talks, including former Tomorrows World presenter Maggie Phillbin, how our perceptions of tech and visions of the future have changes, and some of the tech first shown on TW, clips included. The highlight though was Rachel Armstrong talking about synthetic Biology and architecture (literally, living buildings), a very DI subject, and was nice to hear someone talk so positively about it, sometimes to much dark side when it comes to biotech projects. Really fascinated about her Venice repair project.. Some fascinating discussions all round on the subject, and others... See the web for the full program, and hopefully soon the videos will be online (thanks to Alan and the Broadsight team for organising too).

WeFab and Design London Boot Camp

I have been part of a new venture by RCA IDE graduate Ed Muffit, WeFab is a social enterprise around sustainable textile manufacture, encouraging textile (for the moment) designers to submit patterns that 'makers' can offer to make, and as the buyer you choose who the maker is to buy from. Currently I'm working with Ed to get the website in a fit and ready state for testing. I attended the last two days of the Design London Incubator Boot Camp (Ed was there for the whole week) which was a crash course in business by Imperials business school. At the end of the week there where pitches from various projects, looking forward to seeing what happens to LooWatt (since I might know some organisations who would be interested). It was great to meet a lot of people and go through part of the experience of Design London, and so many IDE grads from my year where participating pitching projects. We're hard at work on WeFab, so I won't say much more now, but will post after launch, in the mean time, please sign up as interested if the concpet interests you.

Hacking Design and Fashion Hacktivism

(or Home Sewing is Killing Fashion). Fascinating talk by Otto van Busch on hacking fashion, and other products in general. I'm really fascinated by the other artist he mentioned who is doing counterfeit crochet Guci bags (not that I want one or anything) but the idea of re purposing the design and style. There was a lot of talk about hacking allows you to take true ownership of something, also the aesthetic of hacked design, that the product doesn't looked as polished, because the finished product is that it works.. lots of parallels there with my 'design style' then. There was lots of discussion about the re-use of clothing, and of the relationship between the designer and the maker, interesting crossovers with WeFab (and I managed to get Ed to come along) and as always, really fascinating discussion afterward.

Hello Digital

Last week in Birmingham, there was the second Hello Digital conference / festival. I say conference, as this year seemed very conference, very different to last year. It was a strange experience. I preferred last years openess, and the talks by Heather Flickr and the like, about the things they have done. Still there was some fascinating discussions, future business models and the like, still very businessy though. End keynote by David Rowan from Wired UK was great, lots of interesting (and again, positive) futures, plus we bagged a years free sub to Wired. Nice. The after party felt a bit awkward, I still feel slightly out of place in Birmingham for some reason (home is not really Birmingham but countryside, so difficult to get in and just meet people) something I want to change... Also highlights I'm not much for networking parties..

Well thats this months posting... Usual updates (as always more regularly) on my twitter...

Homeward Bound

2009-09-30T23:00:00.002+01:00

I'm at home now, trying to put a few things together and my future plans into perspective over September. Trying to decide where I go next in terms of work, career, and life.

Strangely, I seem to have been spending more time back in London than at home, relativity speaking, and at some point I do need to re-connect with my midland based networks. I'm still keeping good connections in London, there's still a lot of activities going on that I still want to be part of, and looking on how I can keep being involved with.

Major things include TedxTuttle, a mix of a Ted videos / talks and live banter, and some very interesting conversations and Spacemakers Relaunch with Dougald, and the opportunities for the re-use of empty space (another set of items to add to the to blog about list). There have been minor things too, lots of events and little things, but it is difficult to travel, and I'm conscious that I do have to find ways of not been cut of. Social Media tools help, but I find there the most useful for emphasising real events and relationships, so I want to look more locally too.

Mean while, work life continues, I took a bit of a slow down in September, but I still do web code and design. There's been some interesting talk about whether to separate out the web dev side of my site and establish different persona's. I still want to pursue the interesting stuff, but right now, financially I can make the web side pay, if I but serious efforts into it. What I really want is quiet time to work on my own projects to make new work that has for a long time been 'in the pipeline' that I talk about so much but never find the time to finish off, so that is what October will mostly be.

For decisions on where to go career wise, that's a more reflective look. Part of this is a persona's issue, just who do I identify myself as and in what context. I look at fellow RCA people and see them doing wonderful things, we are all on very different paths, but I can't help feeling that some people are more adapted at being a professional than I am. This time last year, I was still chasing job, interview, internship. Now, not so much, want to focus more on developing interesting work and experiences, and this has a lot to do with the experiences I've had and the people I've met over the last year. But this is a dramatic shift in terms of my own development workwise, and I'm having to learn to re-tool myself for that kind of world... The story continues into October.

Summer Experiences

2009-09-14T23:30:00.004+01:00

I'm back from London, taking a break after a hectic, but fun summer. The idea was to spend September working on my own projects rather than concentrating on pushing more commercial work, but that seems to have gone out the window, so still chasing and working away on several projects, must find space to work on my own at some point.

Summer though has lead to several interesting experiences, and it's experience that I see myself moving towards in terms of work, but the most satisfying experiences have been though work related projects but personal experiences that I wanted to be part of, just to be part of them.

The big one of course, was The Treehouse Gallery Project. I've talked about this before, so I'm not going to go back over the details. I got involved through Dougald, and after spending more than a few days there quickly became embedded. I even got to stay behind after hours, and spent a few days helping with de-construction. It was great to live communally and experience that lifestyle, and have the opportunity do be involved in such an extensive project, and use it to branch off into doing workshops and projects from it. I think what was different from previous times I've got involved with groups, in that I was actually there to be part of the experience, and for my own interest, I wasn't studying them, or trying to ask questions for 'research' purposes, which usually just makes me nervous and appear as an obvious outsider. It was great, I actually got to be involved, seeing very different sides to the project than just a normal visitor. being involved and experiencing new ways of doing, working, and living. It was also great, as it meant working tangibly, not digitally (though I did sort of become the unofficial documenter given the size of my flickr set). It was great being part of (and accepted) into the sharing community, I wish good luck to the guys on the next adventure (and look forward into how I might be able to be involved).

As for the two projects I was involved with ('How to Travel the World for Free' and 'Collaborative Scroll') , they went off great. I'm going to conduct a post project review of them both in a later post (hopefully), though I think there are definitely learning experiences from them to draw out, again it was the experience of doing them that mattered more in the end than the end results, though lots of interesting things came out of them too. Running a workshop in an ad-hoc organised and improvised way actually worked really well, and some great insights from the two guest speakers I found (Sarah Haq and Vinay Gupta). I have some great audio that I recorded that I need to edit and is on my to do list. Collaborative Scroll came out well too, think the reading bit could be planned better, but again it was an improvised experience, and a learning curve. I think I'm going to try and catch up with Dougald about improvisation, i think there are definitely some useful discussions that we have had before over it, and how that might have helped the scroll project (and be useful for next time). In the mean time, this is what Dougald has to say about impov in conversation with Lloyd.

Away from the Treehouse Gallery, the other major experience was early August. I went along to The Sandpit Hide and Seek Fest. I've become intrigued by the idea of play, and gaming in general. Again, rather than being someone there to study it, I was going to be part of it, and to have fun. I played a good few games, really enjoyed 'Property of a Traitor' which involved a group of us trying to decode a dead spies belongings to diffuse a bomb, and the other games where all fun too, being able to be part of a different realty set for a while, and develop new stories and ways of looking at scenarios. The only real issue I had here is that I did seem to spend a lot of the time photographing, and the time I really enjoyed myself, and got the most out of the experience was in getting down to it and playing. I think that is another post to add to the list, the importance of play and storytelling in my work, something that has been there for a while, but I never quite realised it was there.

Well, I'm back away from London, and my plan is to go in and out for a while. There are a few events I want to be part of still, I also want to try and spend some time connecting to the Birmingham based networks as well, now that they are close by. I still have to decide where I want to be based, the idea of having this (sort of) break is a chance to reflect on the past year post RCA and the different things I have been doing, both commercially and otherwise, and just how commercial I want to take my self, or how many other experiences I want to pursue.

Discussions and Performances at the Treehouses

2009-08-30T01:34:00.005+01:00

Sort of following on from the previous posts, I'm going to be facilitating two events at the Treehouse Gallery this week with Anna again.

First off on Tuesday evening from 5:30pm,
'How to Get Around the World for Free...?' is an open discussion on the possibilities (no matter how bizarre) on how to travel the world on as little or no money as possible. Although we will be bringing our own ideas, it's really going to be open format, and we're looking for your ideas. Currently on the table are:- working on a boat for ride across the ocean, the merits of hitchhiking, and can you still bag a free flight as an air courier by giving up your baggage allowance. The hope is that you, the audience, will be active participants in the discussions, and suggest new ideas as together we explore the possibilities of is it really possible to travel the world for free? What are the best methods to blag free transport? How far can people travel with little or no money? We're also interested in finding people with experience of either those suggested topics, or couchsurfing, wwoofing, or free / super budget travel.

The Second event is still being finalised, but hopefully Sunday 6th we will be having a live reading and improvisation performances of the collaborative scroll. We're looking for people to perform as we read through the crazy narrative and improvise creative interpretations to the action.

If either of these interests you, or you think you can help in any way, please get in touch at via e-mail or just turn up and surprise is with your suggestions.

Fun in the Treehouses

2009-08-26T12:40:00.006+01:00

Very interesting adventures this summer, mostly focusing around the Treehouse Gallery in Regents park. A group of artists have constructed two treehouses, and a set of other structures for art and workshops over the summer. I know some of the group through Dougald, and have been spending a lot of time there learning various new things, doing workshops from poetry on human rights to printing, Feast of strangers has got to have been the most interesting. I find it great to have a collaborative space in London that isn't so businessey, unlike various other events. I'm creating an ever bulging flickr set of all the goings on there (settling into my self appointed role as documentor in general). (Also, one quick mention of Parliament of Fowls performance by Warhourse Theatre Works and The Beekeepers, also excellent, and where also the guys behind Pirate Day).

Its also seemed to turn into a central point with a lot of people I know. Dougald especially seems to be involved in organising a thing ever week. Fascinating talks from De-schooling society (which influenced my poem, the right to learn), Dark-Mountain (which videos still are not uploading correctly :-( ), Pirate day which where fun adventures tracing the River Fleet (and lots of chasing about, but great acting), and Spacemakers network. All of these events are interesting in their own right and so I'll talk more in detail as I get the media uploaded for each of these, but each one of these talks has been fascinating in their own way and has been a great learning experience.

It was also good to bring these discussions to a wider audience, there was definitely a feel of lots of new people coming to these events, and particularly with 'Feast of Strangers' where several hundred strangers turned up and we had very heavy discussions on radicalism. It was a nice format too, very much like the philosophy restaurant scene in Monty Pythons Meaning of Life. Find someone you never met, and pick conversations from the menu. I had a fascinating discussion with a parole officer of a nature of rebellion, and our different perspectives on have we rebelled in the past, and how is that changing now. This brought up a section 44 stop and search that I had to go through in the last year, which while I have moaned about it, though not much of it, it was a random search I thought, little did I know that it was recorded and is now (apparently) on record. Theres an obvious sense that we are becoming less passive and more assertive in enforcing our rights now, where as before there was trust.

Onto what I have been working on, I will post more when it is done, but along with artist Anna Cole, we are using an old typewriter to write a collaborative scroll, a story of absurdity, and have been inviting participants to write part of it. It has been an interesting experiment. I sometimes feel a bit awkard about asking people to participate in projects, sometimes I get protective, but there is something about the treehouse space that makes that disappear, at least from my perspective. It has been a real learning journey on how to get other collaborators, with most of the kids just wanting to type their name, or asking, 'what's a typewriter?' The early days people where nervous, but we hit our stride on day 3, and over the weekend we had a lot of people writing various bits in. I think it is interesting that want to just add new plotlines, and not carry on the story too much, while Anna and I weave the narrative back together, and again, had a very interesting talk with Dougald about the ins and outs of improvisation. We're almost wrapped up, and now we need to think about the reading, which should be the most fun part...

Portfolio Evening at Thinkpublic

2009-07-31T17:28:00.006+01:00

Last Wednesday I was invited along with 10 other young designers at various stages of there career, from recent grads, one year out people (like myself) to current students. It was a chance to present our work to each other, and also to Thinkpublic's design team (Alice Osborne and Ella Britton) and get each others insights into each of our projects and out design processes. It was interesting as it was also varied, with a healthy mix of graphic designers, fine arts, product and finally a couple of interaction designers, one of which is about to embark on a masters in Copenhagen.

The afternoon itself was organised first as a round table Pecha Kucha presentation. We where given the template the Friday before to fill out, 12 slides (not 20!) to present our work. I was trying hard to think what I would present, and in the end went through my final year RCA projects, though it is perhaps the last time I will present them all in isolation (trying to get new work up to showingness readiness). The event was a bit chaotic as they did not leave a gap between presenters so it was guessing when your work would be shown and running around the table (which in truth added to the fun!).

After which we broke into smaller groups to discuss our projects amongst ourselves and with a couple of the ThinkPublic designers. It was interesting discussing my Data Relationships projects (and slightly later and in less detail, Blog Bot Platform, and its expansion as City Sense/Perceptive Cities). I think though that even though it is a very heavy conceptual project, I still came of as 'its too complicated' and I need to focus first of all on explaining the core functions before moving on to the conceptual layers (both the time device and the satellite scanner suffer from this, there workings are simple, establish your micro-local time zone and listen into satellites data streams. The larger concept is linking this to the abstract forms of data and the links between the data enthusiast and data lost). Interesting too was discussing possible expansions, resurrecting the knowledge engine to allow the rest of us access to the enthusiasts secret knowledge, although I was told to keep a laymans point of view. Maybe this is something to discuss with Helen Hamylen Centre in future as before in developing the original project.

Other interesting projects too (too many to mention, just a few struck as interesting to me). Stephanie Andrews Book for dyslexia, which highlights interesting design patterns within the book to make the reader feel dyslexic. This includes altered coloured text and ripped words, making the reader think. Also liked Bio Clinical, felt a (almost) DI project, it involved selling tape worms complete in chic style packaging as a sliming aid. There was also a nice project regarding use of mobile and appropriate technology in Ghana, felt relevant to other projects and clients i'm working with. We spent a good afternoon discussing design with each other and exchanging ideas of where to go next and who to contact. Also a nice debate and discussion in the bar afterwards with Kate, Mayo and Trond. Very good evening all round and look forward to keeping in touch with all the designers I met.

Links to those who participated (to be added as I find them):-
Kate Burn
Mayo Nissen
Trond Andreas Klevgaard (he talked about snow).

Thank you to Thinkpublic for hosting and inviting us all.

Dark Mountain Launch

2009-07-19T23:50:00.004+01:00

On Friday I hoped on the coach to Oxford (and missed my last one back, so thanking the Oxford Tube which runs all night) for the launch of Dougalds (and Paul Kingsnorth) Dark Mountain project, welcome to uncivilisation. The evening was fun, the radicals out of London and invading the countryside (and who said the radicals where all in London anyway? There where people there from all over.)

So a brief introduction to Dark Mountain. Best way is to look through the manifesto, and the Eight Principles of Uncivilisation. The impression I come out with is that for so long the debate has been that society as we know it is in danger of ending and we need to do what we can to keep our way of life, but really, we should be pushing for society as we know it to end, and build something else. More information, I suggest you read up on the manifesto. I like however, that the turn seems to be towards the artist and designer as the way forward, not just political elite used to solving problems. We have to look forward to the end of the world, my favourite quote from Dougald is that "the end of the world as we know it, is not the end of the world."

The launch itself was great. Interesting music from Marmaduke Dando, Chris T T and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly, not to mention an impromptu reading of 'Gods own Drunk' by fellow RCA Grad Steve. All this in the Isle Farmhouse inn by the river in Oxford and a great gathering of 'radicals' over beer. I look forward to the Journal, and may even submit something myself.

Photos on my Flickr.

Shows

2009-06-29T23:22:00.002+01:00

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

2009-05-31T23:10:00.002+01:00

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.

2009-05-24T11:47:00.003+01:00

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?

2009-05-12T23:08:00.002+01:00

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

2009-04-30T23:49:00.002+01:00

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)

2009-04-27T23:33:00.003+01:00

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?

2009-03-30T00:35:00.007+01:00

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

2009-02-25T01:18:00.001Z

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.

RCA Work In Progress Show 2009

2009-02-17T22:12:00.002Z

Lots of Blog Post catch ups, been almost a month without writing... Thank goodness for twitter.

So I'm going to spend this one talking about the RCA Work in Progress Show. It's now over (very short this time round, only one week!). I went to the private view back in the beginning of February. Some really interesting work, good to meet old friends and seeing second year projects, and nice to meet some first years too.

The private view was busy, hectic, crowded. Lots of people, lots of interesting chatter, lots of busyness, was really fun. Aside from talking to the crowds, and trying to take in some work, I got roped into (not that I minded) helping Nelly film participants on her 'Soyuz Chair' as she was launching people into space. I like her project as it embodies some really fascinating eccentricities, relating hobbyists to complex science and technology and fits into some of the other discussions I have been having regarding linking expertise's and this idea of a network of garages.

What I liked about the Show this time round, apart from not being a participant so I could relax, was that there was lots of stuff. I can't say for certain, but I suspect that the show being slightly later the projects having been moved on a bit more there was a chance to really understand more what each person is interested in and what there work will be about going towards the final show.

I popped in on the Friday whilst it was more quiet. Daisy was having a (friendly) grilling by Durrell, been there myself! I had a good chance to look round all the projects. I won't start giving a full review, but a quick mention of Thomas Toaster Project is one that has been making the rounds on a few blogs. He's trying to manufacture a toaster, right from getting the raw materials. I think what is interesting is this exploration of mass production goods, how we are detached from the making process. He has actually managed to smelt some iron, though not much. I feel there will be a few Blue Peter moments for Mr Thomas.

There's some photos of the show on my flickr set.

Economic Chemotherapy at the Temporary School of Thought

2009-01-29T18:35:00.003Z

So as promised, here are some of the long awaited blog posts.

Last Wednesday, I was at the Temporary School of Thought which is / was a squat being used to give free lectures and art lessons, amongst other exciting and fun things. There are quite a few posts around for those interested.

One talk I went to was by Douglad Hine of the School of Everything. He was talking about Economic Chemotherapy, which dealt with this idea that the current economic downturn may not be such a bad thing, and that actually, that it may be beneficial for rethinking our political and economic systems, better environmentally, and that these are times when actually disruptive innovation can happen.

There where lots of interesting thoughts through this talk, and ideas and innovations that people have used to separate themselves from the (artificial) economy. It had very close relationships to some of my research I was conducting with the Future Of Money project with Intel, my Ethical Contract Trading Project. The early days of that project where about setting up an alternative trading system around ethical services. I particularly liked Abundance, by Grow Sheffield. Dougald talked about how this group would find all the either abandoned fruit trees, or even trees in peoples gardens which where not harvested, and harvest them, eventually giving away the fruit, alongside present recipes etc... This fitted in with a theme of decoupling certain needs from the existing economic system, particularly food. There was also discussion about similar projects globally.

There was talk to that, as certain parts of the economy shrink, then that actually leaves more room for innovation, so called disruptive innovation as while it shrinks the monetary value, it grows the service value. Yellow-wikis was given as an example. A business listing directory that would have been like yellow pages, but open edited (and was apparently shut down as Yellow Pages had trademarked yellow in relation to business directories).

Some other random factiods I picked up from the talk;
That the average Second Life avatar uses as much co2 as the average Brazilian, so does this imply a first vs second life?
Some interesting talk about the ‘network of garages.’ Bottom to top development of new technologies and services.
New forms of currency and local currency, including one interesting reason why it was discouraged, that it is harder to tax!

Some very interesting thoughts, and also very interesting conversations afterwards.
The school itself was an interesting building, I only got along for one evening, then I had to leave, but you can see some pictures on my flickr.

Eventful January

2009-01-22T00:45:00.005Z

I will have to put down each of these as separate blog posts, been meaning to write something here for a while, but January has been surprisingly active, if not work wise, then with some meetings and events at least.

Most work wise has been sending in job applications, scheduling interviews, and also sending in requests to meet. Actually it has mostly been applications for January. I know I wanted to get on with meeting people, and I have through other places, but I really want to start going back to studios again. I'm going to start scheduling those for February now that I have a list together. Right now, I need to sort out money issues, and that has meant (again) looking for work, and trying to keep myself afloat. I have some interviews scheduled (including 1 tomorrow), that will see me doing 'skills based' work for a while, if they like me of course. I think the thing for the moment is do something skills based, but be in an interesting environment.

The other reason for this is the fact I have to move at the end of the month, so I am busy browsing the housing boards and doing house viewings. This takes time, and not something I enjoy, but I do need to find a place to live if I want to stay in London (and for now, I want to stay in London). I have about 2 weeks to sort it, but this is taking most of my time right now.

In terms of events, two things I want to blog about in more deatil, and I want to get a chance to later on.

First, I have been going to Tuttle Club otherwise known as the London Social Media Cafe. This has been a very interesting experience for me, and a good chance to meet new people and talk to them about what I do and how it relates to what they do. I said at the time that there although it is different from my work, and I'm not trying to be a social media fashionista, there is a very good cross-over in terms of our work, particularly in terms of how it relates to people engaging with services and systems which is fundamental to my work and social media. I have had some really fascinating conversations each of the last two Friday mornings, and although I will have to miss this Fridays out, I do look forward to going back.

Second is a tip I got from someone I meet at Tuttle. In Mayfair there is a Temporary School of Thought, in a way, sort of the think Steve would be interested in, its sort of similar to his education videos. Basically there is a mansion / squat that has been taken over, and free lectures in alternative thinking are given. I went to listen to a talk by Dougald Hine about Economic Chemotherapy, or how to survive in the economic downturn and why it is not such a bad idea (in fact is probably a good thing). It amazes me that now there where so many parallels with my early research during the Future of Money project at the RCA, in fact more and more now the money project makes more sense to me.

So I will aim to do a proper write up / blog post on those events later on. Also will be meeting Dougald, and others as I will be at the Longnow London meetup, thinking about the future.

In Other News, found out I did not get the BBC Interaction Design role. I'm thinking over the feedback and how to move forward. The BBC is a place I really felt at home while from what the panel where saying to me, so I will still keep applying to them. I think the BBC is one of those companies I really would see myself working for.

So I have lots to get on with. I still haven't kicked of my self directed work yet, I should get on with it, find the time. I'm going to focus on those in Febusary, by dedicated some time each week to those projects, sort of like what Google does. I'm actually cooking up a lot of ideas that I want to prototype out all in my sketch/notebook, as well as move some of my RCA projects a little bit forward. As always it's finding the time, and while I thought January would be ideal for that, the finding work, managing money, finding a house seems yet again to be taking over my life.

More posts soon, I promise!

January and 2009...

2009-01-05T23:37:00.003Z

Still not sure how to or what to write this, so I'm just putting my thoughts down a bit randomly.

The new year, and a new start, things are going to have to move pretty quickly. As I said in the pre new year, sometimes the opportunities have not been as forthcoming, because I am usually in the wrong place, or spending time doing enough work to stay in London, and not using London the way I would like. So This year I plan to spend a lot more time on using my current location, where ever that be, for now London.

I plan to start going to a few more events. One of the things I most enjoyed where going to events such as this happened, and I want to do more, and become properly involved rather than being an observer. I've been tracking a few interesting events, I really would like to go to a few barcamp type events, so I will keep an eye out for what is happening. I've also been interested in the Social Media Cafe, although my work is not focused on web, and social media, it is still focused on the interactions that people engage with in services and systems, and the Blog Bot project which I intend to follow up also makes use of invading social media spaces. Overall, even though my work isn't directly associated with social media, it is an area I am interested in, and making use of the tools. I actually would like to get my hands dirty working on a social media project, as I feel it does relate to my larger theme about interaction and experience in complex systems.

Talking of Blog Bot Platform, I really want to expand some of my projects, and work on self directed work. Something new that allows me to talk through my way of thinking, so I really want to dedicate some time to that, and also re-presenting my existing projects to help me engage with people better. With the Blog Bot platform project, I want to re-focus it on how people interact and engage with it online, what are the rules for blogjects and how do we react online.

These will be tasks I will work on throughout January, setting the groundwork for later on in the year. Alas, priorities for January are again, finding work, both skills based (web design/coding) and more long term. But in January, I want to spend the time meeting people, trying to visit agencies and studios, and getting better at meeting people.

2009 will force me to make a choice though, and that is where to I go, as in location. I would like to stay in London, but financial constraints mean that may not be possible, and I have to make a choice about whether staying on in London, trying to get contract work while I try to find something more permanent, and spending more time doing that work than the long term plan, or the alternative, of moving back home and saving the money I have. It seems to me that Birmingham is getting quite a scene for digital and social media, and I am starting to establish a network there. In London, it may be big, but is harder to network if you don't know so many people, perhaps Birmingham may provide better opportunities, at least to re-group and plan a different strategy. I guess what I am trying to say is that could I be better off back home concentrating on my own work, and then talking to agencies / studios about it, or keep going in London, and pushing for skills based work in the short term, but using London more. I have to make this decision quickly, so January will be a great test of what I should do.

The final thought, as I go forward, it also marks a slight change in the style of this blog. Not in a bad way, but as I said in the pre new year, I want to keep this blog more positive. This won't be brushing things under the carpet, so to speak, this blog is still my personal journey though interaction design, but it will be slightly less overly reflective and negative. I will keep the old posts, they reflect who I am and are an important part of my journey. Going forward I intend to use this blog more positively, and for me to be more positive in life.

Overall, I want 2009 to be the year I break through (professionally).

End of 2008

2008-12-30T23:36:00.004Z

What a year...

So 2008 is coming to an end, and 2009 will lead to new beginnings, as I continue to make my way into the world. There's a lot to get through in these reflections, in the new year I will post about future plans, where next, and how to get myself back on track, this post is about looking at the past year.

There has been so much, the obvious highs, getting my RCA MA, the two shows, meeting lots of new people, getting some really good feedback on my work, from both people generally, but also from an industry perspective. For me, the down side is still trying to make my way into the real world, from a perspective of finding the right area to work in, and where I connect to different parts of industry. It's not that it is necessary bad, but I wanted to be doing more than coding web pages at this point, The various interviews always come of great, but I'm just in a different area to what they happen to be looking for.

Ok, let's not drown in negativity here, I think in the past this blog has been too full of that, I'm going to try and keep things a bit more upbeat, because things are progressing, even if it is slower than I want it to be.

The RCA has really served to change me, and I'm really happy to come out of it with three great projects that showcase my different sides, from practical coding and building, scenario planning and political design, to designing experiences and conceptual prototyping. When talking about my work, they have really helped me structure the way I present it, and particularly with Interviews, where I can emphasise my skillset in a structured way.

Shows have been a bit mixed, generally good, but sometimes I feel my work really isn't the kind of thing that works best in exhibitions. I think this year, the work in progress show came of a lot better for me than the final, simply because I built something, albeit very simple, that took the world I was building up and allowed people to interact directly with it, and that brought people into my project, and what I was doing. I still felt the final show, despite my issues with me being crammed in the corner, gave a good overview and interest into my work, but it was more observational, an overview, and I feel that having something the audience could have interacted with may have worked better in terms of bringing people into understanding the systems I was thinking about, bringing more of the project details into the show space. However, decisions had to be made, and with three complex projects versus one, and with it being a lot more polished, it still came of quite well. Plus the fact I have been in a major show now, and that experience is something I can take forward.

Moving on professional wise, over the summer I have had some great conversations about my work, although it has been sometimes difficult to get in touch sometimes. They have been more relaxed, though sometimes more challenging, I remember a few conversations that have gone in a different tangent, but that has been a good thing.

In many ways, I think I would have preferred to have more of my professional interactions that way, and have concentrated on doing more self directed work rather than just trying to get money, and trying to get into the job market. It is still important to keep pursuing them, but I think I would have preferred doing things that way, I seem to be much better at it that way. Instead my focus has been on work. It seems that I spend London life pursing web coding work to see me through the month, and then using the spare time to try to arrange interviews for more long term work. I still want to pursue that angle, but sometimes the places I have been to, the pre interview tasks I have had to do, and the questions that come up through interviews have not let me put myself or my work forward quite the way I would like to, and this comes across in the feedback I receive. It's not a bad thing, I will adapt the way I present.

I also think sometimes I have found it difficult to link my own way of thinking to some of the companies, particularly ones that recruiters send me too, there can be a disconnect between me doing systems work, and a mobile company, trying to balance the commercial sides of there project, with my naturally conceptual side. Obviously the experience thing factors in as well, my recruiter does try hard, but sometimes I'm not sure how to treat them (the companies I'm sent to), and have retreated back to user interface design and 'hairy interaction design issues' when going through the tasks and interviews I would prefer to bring in a lot more of my conceptual systems thinking, but it can be difficult to to jump ahead without spending more time understanding the service, this is something I will look into in the new year.

The most interesting events have been some of the social gatherings, going to This Happened have been really fascinating and inspiring, along with other talks and events. I never really used London as much as I would like at the RCA, getting out has been a great way of meeting new people and seeing some great new work, ideas, or just generally finding ways to get to see interesting things.

So 2008 has been a year of Opportunity, Development, and Transitions, looking forward to 2009, but I have some really key decisions to make about my future.

Back to Basics Show - LCC

2008-12-15T20:06:00.004Z

Popped down to Carnaby St where old Biad Friend of Mine Natalie Jones has an exhibition along with the rest of her graduating class from the London College of Communication Graphic Design Masters course.

Some really interesting work, the show, Back to Basics, looks at some of the basic elements in graphic design, and nice how it is in a cosy little shop hidden away in London. The private view included mulled wine and mice pies! The show is on till December 21st if you get a chance to see it, and there is the opportunity to buy some limited edition prints of student work, plus student books to browse through which are really interesting.

from the Back to Basics show, I really liked the Pixelated Reality by Moira Gill, particularly the accompanying books, which illustrated a relationship between a person and television, a sort of interdependency and almost romanticism, much to hard to really describe here, but it felt very DI.

Now I've managed to sound like an advertisement (I didn't get any cash, honest). I do think it's great show, I also had a chance to catch the more formal MA Show the other week, and you can see their work online at Volume2008.com.

Still here...

2008-11-30T22:34:00.007Z

I really should be posting something interesting, reflecting on developments since I started this blog, though I have been slacking of late on the blogging front, trying to keep busy, finding work and doing work. On the plus side, I am actually receiving pay for the work I have been doing, which is always a plus.

I'm sneaking this one in before the end of November, and will hopefully provide some more detailed updates on what I am doing. I'm currently steaming with a few ideas for a few web projects which I am going to try and develop over December / January, and have been researching into how to re-activate Blog Bot Platform and a few other projects, though I think for December I will try to prioritise getting money in. Also have another BBC interview this week, and an Interaction design task, something to look forward to.

oh and, 200th post!

November Updates

2008-11-12T23:01:00.002Z

Things moving in very odd, and ad-hoc fashion.

During the end of October, Steve from ex-RCA had me going up to Peterborough, and then Leicester, to install some Musical Bollards. It's by an organisation called Greyworld as part of an installation, Musica. Though we couldn't stay to hear the results, it was fun.

Alongside some other projects I am working on, I've been back at the Design Interactions department at the RCA helping to upload content via the old department website (while the new on gets revamped to be brought online next year). It's been interesting experience, learning how to handle tomcat and magnolia from the command line, and things should be active next week.

Also had an interview at the BBC for a designers role on Monday. It was interesting, particularly going through their tasks, but the role was more for visual communication than interaction and user experience design. I also have an application for an interaction designer their, hopefully something might leak through. The chats with the guys their where good though, in that they are more receptive to graduates. I'll see what happens with it.

Hello Digital in Birmingham

2008-10-30T00:44:00.003Z

Last weekend I went back to Birmingham, and had a quick stop in at Hello Digital. It was good, but think I missed a lot of the festivities which seemed to be spread out over the midlands. What I did get a chance to see, and one of the things I was looking forward to most was an interesting talk, and then Q&A from Heather Champ, Community Manager at Flickr. Really interesting stuff, particularly in how they mange and work with the online community, lessons learnt on introducing new features, and handling downtime. It's a pity couldn't stay for more, I would have loved to have gone on the photography walk round Birmingham, and as always, there is that question that I would loved to ask, but didn't think of it at the time. Still very interesting, and some valuable insights into social media, something I am interested in pursuing a bit more.

Also had a chance to catch Davis Oz's Baskerville Film, again really interesting work. I'm not know for being really into typography, but nice to know Birmingham has some famous graphic design roots. The film is also going to be shown at Plus+ in Birmingham.

Needing a Strategy

2008-10-19T23:33:00.002+01:00

So October draws on, the search continues, both to get work, and in the networking game.

I had hoped to be a lot further on, I'm still adapting to being in the real world, sometimes the quirks of how things work still. The old experience question comes up again, something I had hoped to be thrown by now. I realise I am not commercial experienced, in so much that I decided to pursue my research and conceptual side. So really my commercial experience boils down to web design and web coding, also not having an internship and the issues around last summer. Trying to bolt on commercial experience is the problem, and persuading others to give the chance based on that.

So I need a strategy for going forward, something that came up at the reunion night a week ago. On one hand it is keep applying for jobs, pushing forward, even though these will be skilled based in the first instance. Alongside placing applications online (hoping for good luck). Also talking to my recruiter, their doing good in sending me places for interview and getting my CV out there, however the experience problem comes up, and I do want to get back in the habit of this summer, meeting people and feedback on work, and getting back in touch with those I already met.

The second thing is to try more on the freelance side, to see what else is out there. It's hard as I'm not the best at finding these things out, I'm starting to pick these things up. Contract coding, web coding, web design.

On the final note, self directed work has took a serious back burner. I keep thinking I need to bring this forward, but always put it off. It becomes one of those things I never get round too, I have a few ideas for a few web apps I want to test out, and this should help out in getting the user experience side of me up and running (plus, doing web stuff is free!) Going to try them this week.

Also maybe need to (finally) get a PAYE job, any job, I need to get money to stay in London, it has been too long.

Spies like us with 7th Syndikate

2008-09-27T15:42:00.000+01:00

So what was 7th Syndikate all about, what where they doing contacting bloggers and setting puzzles, and what did happen on Wednesday. It was an interesting experience, one that I enjoyed despite getting into the game late, and a fun evening once the secret was revealed.

It all started for me last week, though this is something that has been going on all September when a group of London bloggers got contacted, I guess mine was in the junk mail? Either way, I got an e-mail to join a Facebook group, curious I decided to try and find out, asking via twitter if anyone new. I joined the group, and got pointed to a blog post from Miss Geeky with some clues, and more info now being talked about on the Facebook group.

In a way, it felt like I had stumbled onto to something, maybe I had been interested to be part of this, and just missed the e-mails, or maybe the point was that I wasn't part of the original group, but it stimulated a sense of curiosity to get to the bottom of it all. In a sense I am disappointed not to have been in from the beginning as it was quite intriguing, but I was able to reverse engineer several of the puzzles, this included a set of flickr photos that lead to a google maps page. I think in the end this gave away where the event was to be, and a few people also seem to have got it.

Then one final e-mail came through, The eagle is approaching - watch the skies was the subject. It then went on to explain that we should make our way to the Albert Memorial for a rendezvous with the other agents on the 24th September at 18:15 to 18:45. Wear a hat (preferably a fedora), Sunglasses and carry a newspaper under the left arm. Your Mark will wear a Tan Mac and Bowler hat, follow at 10 paces and copy every move. There was also the promise of drinks and nibbles that may or may not be poisonous.

So there I went, having roped Jeff into coming too, though he arrived a bit later. I got a few funny looks on the Victoria Line, and then made my way to the Albert Memorial. Hat and sunglasses on, and filmed by (at least) two of my fellow agents, yeah I look a bit odd, but I was in good company. So we talked about how we got into the game, what we thought it was, whether we where about to be 'Rick Rolled.'

It was all good fun, and lots more turned up, and Jeff managed to find us. Then we had some photographers have us gather on the steps and pose for the cameras, we even made the papers! We where wondering where 'the Mark' was, at one point almost anyone in a tan coat would have been followed, but after the photograph, the man in the tan mac and bowler hat came by, and we all started following, kind of weird with a group of people all wearing hats and sunglasses. We walked past the Albert Hall, copying the different movements, and getting lots of weird looks. Once we got to the subway for South Kensington Tube, we where lined against the wall and given marching orders, before filling out towards the V&A, Secret Revealed!

The online alternate reality game was in fact a promotional stunt for the launch of Cold War Modern at the V&A. Not something I may have ordinary considered, but well worthwhile and something that if you get a chance to go to, I'd recommend. We had a debriefing from the guys at 1000 heads who arranged it all, plus drinks and nibbles, which turned out to be not poisonous in any way.

The exhibition was good too, I really liked seeing how the superpowers where competing with each other, and also seeing the sense of optimism in the sense of possible inailatinon. The design seemed to still aspire something, saying there way of life was the better. Though I also liked Opus Cover of two supermen, saying that really both superpowers where the same. Its something strange that the time showed more of design for vision. It was good to be there in the museum after hours, a very private view, and maybe have to pop by and take it all in, just to see if it is different with people.

As for the game, despite being a marketing stunt, I actually thought it was clever and worked really well, bit disappointed I wasn't able to get more involved and had to hack my way in, Still it was fun, and good to meet a few people. There is My Flickr Set of the event, and a few others by searching for 7thsyndikate. Also a few blog posts by various other agents who got a bit more involved in the game :-

We Made This - 7thsyndikate: the whole story
Ice Cream For Everyone - The eagle has landed... At the V&A!
Fresh Plastic - Entering Mission Intelligence & Minor celebrity broadcasting live from the train... & Agents and Albert's.
Twightlight Lullaby 7thSyndikate = Cold War Modern at the V&A
And Finally, from the Official 7th Syndikate Blog, The 7th Syndikate reveal all.

If I forgot anyone, let us know!

3 Years On...

2008-09-25T15:01:00.003+01:00

Three years now since I started this blog, A lot could be said to have changed. I've grown up a lot since then in finding my way in the world, and got a whole new degree, but at the same time, the optimism and issues I initially faced and blogged about are coming back. I now find myself looking for work, and like back then, had a few successes in terms of meetings, was looking forward to generating follow through. The difference is that now I know it will not be easy, however I think the important thing is that I know where I want to be going, at least initially. Back then, even though I was aiming for a web designers position, it wasn't really what I was after or showing, now at least I can say I want to work in interaction design, to explore how people interact with technology, systems and services. Still there is confusion about exactly the best place to pursue this, though that opens the door experimentation.

Thats not to say it has been all plain sailing, though some things are best kept private. Like before I do get positive reception to my work, but it is the 'where am I best placed to apply this' question that arises. It also brings about the questions, why do I blog? What do I blog about? A few these happened at the event last night (more on that later). I'd say this is my journey though interaction design, my personal journey, in what I have learnt and how I intend to apply it. Enjoy.

dim3 ak7ion

2008-09-23T22:15:00.002+01:00

I'm late doing the posting on this...

So for the last few weeks theres been an alternate reality game / viral marketing thing going on called 7th syndikate. I kind of stumbled onto this world, and although too late to get the agent name and password have managed to reverse engineer the clues and have a peak inside the game, or maybe that was the idea all along?

Will post more details tomorrow, apparently all will be revealed.

And if you are wearing red, "Big Armadillo!"

This Happened #5

2008-09-23T20:10:00.004+01:00

This Happened last Friday was quite a good night, I have been meaning to get back into the London Scene when it comes to meeting fellow Interaction Designers, and also hear about new work. I did go to the last one, despite being late, and really enjoyed my time, so glad I got to see the whole thing this time round. We where crowded in a little room, but it did feel a bit more intimate (and also like the talks in the DI Seminar Room). Presenting was Yuri Suzuki (from Design Products and our former Tokyo Guide) and Sound Chaser, along with his panic before the RCA Show. Tobie Kerridge, with his research project Material Beliefs, I liked his devices for representing different body data. Finally, and possibly the best of the night, Dominic Harris from Cinimod Studio, and how he built a UFO.

I did grab some pictures, but my camera decided it didn't want to co-operate, suffice to say they are not that great. Luckily, Hayoen the official photographer managed to get quite an impressive set. All on flickr, Mine and Hayeons.

My favorite moment was Dominic Harris qualifying project guidelines :-
+Impossible Deadline
+Questionable Budget
+Interesting Mix of Technologies
+Other Grounding Restrictions (eg. Weight).
+In a foreign country and languages.

Small Steps

2008-09-18T22:30:00.002+01:00

A few small steps, maybe not as fast as I would like, but progress. I think the next few weeks may be very interesting.

So first the bad, the interview for the social networking place, although good, didn't result in the job. I suppose I can safely mention the company now, FlirtoMatic. Its an interesting company and in a way I'm slightly disappointed it didn't work out. I still have to check back for the feedback, but the word is that they did like the work, but felt more experience was necessary. Given the role was for the only interaction designer, maybe they have point. It was good to meet them though, an interesting experience.

Mean while, with the help of my recruitment agent, I'm starting to pick up contract work. It's still slow going, again, the experience issue, thats the hardest thing to overcome. Still with a html test behind me, to prove I can do it, there opens up the possibility for more 'pimping my skillset' work, at least in the short term.

As for more on the interaction design front. It's warming up. I had an interesting visit to the guys at Engine Group, a really interesting service design company who really liked my work. It was good to get back into the swing of talking to people about my RCA work, and what I want to be doing long term. Now people are coming back of holiday, I can begin these conversations again.

The only thing is that I want to be working as soon as, I know, to eager, but I do want to get started as soon as. The next thing is trying to get some new creative work. Perhaps thats what I should have spent the summer doing, I see others seem to have, I wanted to do the contact thing as soon as, not to mention trying to get money. Now I need to think what the new project could be?

September

2008-09-02T12:56:00.003+01:00

Things might actually be picking up...

So my first interview proper as an interaction designer passed off well(ish). I actually kind of thought I was a bit confused, however I now have a second interview and have been getting on with a set of assigned tasks. It's fun, definitely more commercial (obviously) and sometimes a bit hard to relate my RCA work towards, which is definitely more conceptual, however it is a case of emphasising the skills and I still think the company (no names here for the moment!) liked the conceptual stuff.

Thats kind of the the other thing, how commercial do I want to go now. The obvious driver here is money. Hopefully with a recruiting agency working for me, getting contract web dev jobs in the short term (if interview is unsuccessful), pimping my skills as it where. But I would like to develop more commercially, to apply my conceptual work in a commercial context.

Since my work is about designing experiences and how people/users encounter complex systems, that is definalty the area I would love to be working towards, and I have been thinking about possibly going into research in the long term, however right now I want to test my skill set out there in the world.

They say that the first job is a skills based role, and this company kind of is, not just my coding and prototyping skills, but mostly by actually designing interactions for their users. Its interesting to see how, not having much of the traditional interaction designer, how what I do works, they seem interested.

The flip side is that I don't get to spend much time on the more interesting side of things. It seems just by looking at various friend web feeds that the other graduates are all doing some interesting project over the summer, given most of the people I wanted to pursue where on holiday, maybe I should have spent time on something. I get frustrated because already my fellow DI grads already seem to be doing interesting work. There is plan to try and do that, not just try and go on the job hunt right away, but I still need to decide that.

Getting started, the Real World

2008-08-19T09:53:00.003+01:00

Its a slow start, I will admit, I thought things would be much quicker. The real issue here has been that the people I really wanted to be speaking to are off on Holiday. One of the people I have been looking to pick up work from commented that this is the time of year when the UK just shuts down, I think he's right.

So what has been up? Well self-directed side has been in sleep mode, though something I may try and restart. It's mostly been an effort to meet people, though I am well behind my 'at least three people a week.' The aforementioned holiday period, this will be something to restart in September, though for the rest of the summer, I am scaling down. The focus needs to be securing some paid work. Freelance has not really come through as much as I had hoped, its a hard sell, I need to make sure I have money, just to stay in London now.

As onto the meetings I have been too. There's been a lot of interesting conversation about my work, and its good to hear others opinions on it. So its clear that the outside, like myself, sees me as a systems person, someone who thinks in systems and how people will interact with them. I'm torn down whether or not embracing service design or not is quite right for me, and talking to people seems to be a 50/50 split. I'm trying to learn more about it before I try the big service design agencies later on.

I suppose this leads to another difficulty, which is finding myself in terms of titles and nice neat labels. My RCA time didn't really serve to say, 'this is exactly what I do' which is a good thing, it was more about exploring and experimentation, however I'm learning out here, more and more people are asking for a label, or a job title. Am I an Interaction Designer, an Experience Designer, a Service Designer, a User Experience Designer? At the moment its a case of giving the best description I can that fits the company and my work.

Its also about making my skill set more at the forefront. The big thing that is coming up is that any first time role is going to be more skills based anyway, so perhaps the exact title is less important, but saying what I can do (in terms of design, and just raw skills like my web and coding). With that in mind I'm now registered with some recruitment agencies to help me find work, at least to get my commercial experience quota up. I have my first proper interview end of this week (TBC).

Following on from that, is to keep trying, get back in contact with places that have had people away, now I hope there are coming back, and try to get some time to get back some self-directed work. To be truthful though I do need money, as always in London, thats what matters.

Immediate RCA Post Graduation...

2008-08-06T22:09:00.004+01:00

Still trying to get my bearings, hence the fact no post has happened for the last month. It's odd making the transition from RCA life to getting started professionally. It's strange for two reasons, once is that I have had to make such a transition before, from BIAD to the real world, and that one was unsuccessful. Mind you, that transition was more about me being pre-occupied with, first finding myself, and second, my decision to pursue the RCA. This fits into the second reason, Royal College of Art has been such a huge, and dominant part of my life, and to be truthful, still will be. My first transition into the professional world was so dominated by the "I'm thinking of the RCA" when looking for work, it became obsessive. Now thats reversed, that I have been there, I'm now much different than I was.

That might be an odd way to put it, I'm definitely different, and a lot more sure of myself and my work, though at the same time, am still seeking advice from industry about who I am as a designer and asking how it fits into what industry is doing. I guess the best way is to describe some of the events between graduation and now, and what I intend to do.

First off, clearing out the studio took a bit longer than expected, I seem to have been in there almost every day for the two weeks since it all finished. My desk(s) looked like a bomb had hit the place, so a lot of clearing up, boxing things up and just throwing things away. Most of my possessions are now locked away in the studio storage space. It was good to have one last farewell to the place that has been my home for two years, and to re-discover lost possessions buried away.

I've had a few interesting meetings, though to be honest, the last month has been more about having a (little) break than spending time doing networking. Nevertheless, I have spent the time meeting a few people. The meeting with Matt Jones went really well and had some great feedback on my work. It was also good to have a chat to someone who knows this industry, and to have a professional opinion on where it fits with industry. I've been thinking a lot about what we talked about. Specific contexts like design thinking and service design, evidencing prototypes. It's something that has been coming up a lot, describing my work. So I am about exploring the roles of systems and services and designing the experiences and encounters people have with them, though visualising prototypes of objects and items that people will encounter as part of those services. Putting it like that, and communicating that to people, it starts to really make sense in a way. I have a lot of leads coming from that meeting to which I am now following up.

I also had an experience with a more traditional product design agency. An interesting experience, I have been going over what they said, and although it's not a place I would like to work, it was still good to do. In the end, my work is different from the kind of things they are looking for , I'm definitely more in the design thinking space, not straight user experience design they where after.

A lot of the time has been the age old quest, chasing money. I have had some freelance work, nothing to write home about, web coding one project, website design for someone else. I had hoped for something more, but then, delays in getting things from clients, it's going too slow for comfort, much slower than I hoped given I am reliant on this to provide my income to stay in London, so it looks like I will have to find some PAYE job after all, not something I look forward to, but a sad nicety I guess, as long as I don't get trapped in it, thats all.

So I spent the last week back home, my parents have the annual air show which is a mixture of volunteer, professional and ad-hoc displays. Really good day, and good weather, though I was stuck down the bottom taking the gate money (actually a bit more chaotic, got to have been the busiest year). It was down there I got my funding for the next month in London. The show was really good though, we even had a Hurricane bombing a bunch of German guys, got to be something Nina would love with the re-enactment people, though I can't vouch for the authenticity, the entertainment factor on the other hand had everyone applauding. So the rest of the week was at home just getting on with things ready to return to London.
(see my set on flickr)

During that week I had a nice surprise, I was interviewed (over phone) for a kids computer science magazine. Not something major, but still a nice bit of publicity and something to mention. The guy doing it was interested in the Satellite scanner, and I persuaded them to look more widely at the data project. It should be interesting and I look forward to reading about it, plus again, while not something industry would necessary read, it is something I can bring as an example, and helps me in terms of getting my publicity out there.

So next steps, August is going to be a break or make it month, and so meeting as many people as I can is a must, starting with the initial connections I have made, and then expanding out into interested parties. Still at this stage, like I was when I left BIAD, it's more about advice, but try to also look for internships, or freelance, shout I am available (but not too overpowering). The more immediate plan however is to secure funding to stay in London, which means getting work. Freelance if I can, but temping is an option, until I get some financial security. It's an issue I am rattling with because I don't want to take time of meeting people, it is going to be a delicate balance of setting priorities, I hope it won't be for long.

End of my RCA Life

2008-07-09T23:01:00.005+01:00

So I haven't really had time to spend updating this blog, and telling my story for the final chapter in my RCA student life. It has, with a bit of sadness I have to say, come to an end, but in a good way. I have now graduated with a Masters of Art (Royal College of Art) in Design Interactions.

So there is a lot to tell, I will try to use this as a quick catch up, like last time, and also to go through my view points on turning pro...

The Show turned out quite ok, and in fact has generated a bit more interest than I had thought in me. I may not be storming the blogosphere, though I am featured in a few places, I have found it enjoyable. I am not the best at the talk to people in the show, but was able to have a few interesting chats. A lot of people where really interested, with Blog Bot Platform being a good stimulation of discussion. Surprisingly, Ethical Contract Trading also got people talking, though I am disappointed that few people have gone to listen to the stories online. It has been more of a trickle to the point I decided to delay putting on the next episodes as they are very complicated. I may simply upload them in the next few days anyway, and find a different strategy for promoting that project. It is interesting when I describe it, but I think following it up has been hard. That project was always going to be hard to represent in a show space, I still hold that I should have been allowed to place some of the story into the show space, I think the real problem is that people don't understand that there are wider social fictions that are part of this project, so they don't get the project. As I said, new strategy needed. The Data project, whilst being praised by many of my peers and tutors as a really strong project, often felt ignored hidden in the corner. A few people would try to watch, and read the descriptions of the devices, few people would brave wearing the headphones. That said, there where smiles when seeing the flood risk device turn over, the others much harder to communicate. It was only when I was explaining these to people that they started to get it.

This is not a criticism of the show planners, just expressing why I feel down about it. If I had known how others work was going to fit in, I would have definitely changed my layout and spacing. Quite simply, people got to Jeff's work, tried going through mine, then got distracted by Chris box playing large screen videos, and ignored my project. It was difficult getting attention. The few that did however seemed to enjoy it. My other issue is that with the layout teams, they did a great effort, but the where times when the communication did not seem to be going to well, and I can't help thinking that if that had been better, my space could have sung out and really communicated my projects across. Anyway, that is in the past now so not much point dwelling on it.

Other events, Helen Hamylen award, well no award for me, but well done to Revital for getting two of them! I was nominated, and in the finalist, the presentation went well and very positive, but on the day Lady Hamylen was doing her tour, I was skipped (I wasn't the only one). Apparently their was a list already. Mind you, I am not disappointed, I think I had gone a little of track anyway with my data project, more into the enthusiasts and less about a new experience for data which is what I think they where interested in. It was still a good experience going through it though, and for helping me work with experts and users, it was a good experience. I finally got round to claiming my first round of expenses, actually quite hard as I didn't spend much because it's mainly film and research, not much on model making. Mind you it's nice to have some money, pity I did not get the prize.

Brendan has had his leaving do. Its sad to see him go, Brendan was the tutor I first spoke to at the open day, offering encouragement to apply to the course and on the course has always been the friendly face to talk to about anything. It's a shame to see him leave but it does mean he gets to spend more time on his own practice, and go on the television. He had a leaving party in the show space, including a leaving present of a signed hat. A few of us also went to a pub in Hackney afterwards, well those that decided to turn up! :-) Brendan also has his Airphoria experience back at Shunt which would be fun.

Convocation, the RCA equivalent of Graduation, was a fun affair. I am not normally one for these things, dressing up in robes. We where all in the Albert Hall, and finally my parent said come to the RCA to see my work and the ceremony, plus having a nice chat to Tony and also Nina, who where all curious about the strange things we have on the farm. Quite odd that they where discussing manufacturing (with Tony), one of the things I am not so good at. Nina was quick to point out that my work was full of buzzwords like Blog, something my Dad does not like. Still it was fun to see everyone go out with a bang and enjoy themselves. I finally got my certificate, so that is that then.

So now the move is to the professional world, a path I have walked (and was not so successful) at before. Immediately, the transition is to talk to people, talk about my work, and try to keep my negotiated projects going. I already have a few things I want to tidy up, and will see how that goes. More immediately however, I need to get money, the RCA experience has left me running on empty, and if I am to stay in London and get connected, I need to be able to play the bills. I need to earn about £1000 to stay in London each month. Hopefully more expenses that I have claimed will help. I had some freelance lined up, but that has now been delayed! This is a bugger up that has set me back, and I need to find immediately replacement, even if it is just web design (but hey, I can do coding and electronics too), I feel pimping my skills might just be a quick and dirty way to get some cash. Then I can go through 'the list' of people I need to talk to and get going. Wish me luck this time.

The Show... Catch Ups...

2008-07-01T13:43:00.003+01:00

I am going to post more detail on this later, this one serves as more of a catch up to events since the opening and passing the exam.

It's been an ok show, not great and fantastic to me, this is something I will write about later. Still, it looks good, and does actually generate some interest, I even got Blogged, though it looks like they took scans from the catalogue. I have been less successful with the other journalists, didn't get a single interest on press day, everyone else had interviews galore. Well I exaggerate that, but it seems everyone else is much better at generating interest and talking about their work, something I am not.

Still I shouldn't sound so moody, the show was never the big thing for me, it was producing the work, and I do have a lot of interesting work to go forward. In fact, somebody has e-mailed me out of the blue, asking what languages I can code in, also I hope to arrange a proper meeting with Matt Jones, who lead the intel project with us, I am much better at talking about my work in person rather than in exhibition, I prefer the direct approach.

Speaking of which, the Helen Hamylen presentation went really well, very postive for me. On friday I had to present my Data Project, which had been shortlisted for their Design for our Future Selves Award. They where really into the nature of the obsession, and like the fact that I hadn't gone and patrionised my user group, but had embraced the data obsessed. With my data project, I designed three devices for different data entusaists, and see how they link to the rest of us in a data dependant society, the data lost. It was well recived by the panel. I'm not sure i'm in for an award though, Helen Hamylen herself toured the show to pick out her faviourite from the shortlist, and passed me by. I was later told that in fact their is a shorter shortlist, I am not on it. Never mind, it is the project that counts, and good luck to the others listed. I'm not a fan of offical parties, so not really liking the idea of attending innovation night, would rather do something else.

The Show is on till Saturday, but closed Friday, my work is in the basement, in the bottom corner of the Design Interactions space.

Exam Result : Passed

2008-06-23T18:33:00.002+01:00

Just a quick one, Tony came in, along with other tutors, great speech, announced we have all passed.

Feels so good, been a long day, and a long and hard two years, but it has now paid off. Although not official until tomorrow, when the ABCD (academic board) meets, but the recommendation is that I, Andy Broomfield, shall be a Master of Arts (Royal College of Art) in Design Interactions.

I need a drink.

Exam Day Commeth

2008-06-23T13:39:00.003+01:00

So here it is then, the day of destiny as you will. I actually have already been through the exam, I anted to post about my nervousness before and preparations, but the panic to prepare this archive for Diana and the department website kept me up a bit, so I overslept. Panic, I couldn't get in to check my things where working. Luckily they all where.

The exam run through with Nina yesterday really paid off. Although I was a bit nervous, I was able to just go in and talk through my work, much like I was with people in the show space. The reactions I got where quite positive, particularly from Masamichi who asked a few questions to clear up the confusion over a few issues (how do the blog bots know what to say). The reaction and discussion was quite friendly too, and just to make sure I was communicating the right things to represent my projects.

It seemed well, I heard a bit of the discussion post exam as I was leaving, sounded positive, but serious, I suppose that is how it is.

But it all went well, I actually enjoyed it, and it sounds like the reaction to my work was good, nothing hinted at we are worried about this, just letting me explain my work and process.

So will I get an MA(RCA) Maybe / Yes. :-)

RCA Show, Preview Weekend

2008-06-22T23:29:00.002+01:00

Well we did it in the end, it was all touch and go, and I haven't had chance to get much in the way of photos with all the work I was doing, but we got the show open at 11 on Saturday, unlike a few other departments. :-) It's seems very good, and while there where a few issues with how my show should look in the space, I have to admit that it's worked off really well. I think there are a few tweaks I need to do, and aside from a bit of emergency invigilation, and exam preparations I would have got a chance to do it, so that shall be post exam, through I am happy enough that I have the work to get through it, just need to present it good and I will be ok, will try a few minor edits.

The private view was good, not really a good person when it comes to events like this, feel too crowded out, but it was good to see people enjoying my work, was worried people where ignoring it during the preview, but in the private view and on sunday, it got more attention. Was also good to see last years lot come back to wish us luck, surprised that the exam is after the private view, and in many ways, I agree having an exam a couple of days before the private view may have been better, particularly to get our work ready for the opening.

But it is good, and the exam tomorrow, I am feeling more positive about it now.

RCA Show Preparation, Part 3

2008-06-18T22:19:00.004+01:00

Things are moving along quite rapidly now, the panic seems to have set in, but some weird method of handling it and getting on with things has also kicked in. My first year help has been fantastic, and my work is looking quite professional if I dare to to say so. Everyone else in the studio is getting on quite well too, it is all coming together, though everything seems to be all over the place.

So to try and go things in order, Blog Bot Platform is now running happily in simulator, will be switching both Light Blogger Bot and Storm Blogger Bot back to their live counterparts to run in some tests up to show to see how they perform live. Also a to do is to adjust the simulator, this time to make it more neurotic. I have new images for the tree and cat, Tato, the cat I live with did not think much of having its picture taken wearing an accelerometer and decided it was better to have a scratch. Also on the agenda for this project is to touch up the comments each one says (mostly spelling errors, though some expansion on the sayings would be good). Also need to re-style the twitter page for the aggregator.

Ethical Contract Trading, the stories are now recorded, will edit hose tomorrow. Tonight I am building the website for it, which will host them in podcast form. I have had the postcards printed now, one more thing out the way. I have a nice selection of images, and I think the tutors where right in terms of changing the politeness face image.

Data relationships, the edit proceeds on, Sascha and Tommazo have done an amazing job with the superimposing. I have been in the edit suite putting it all together, last job is to add the soundtrack, the film looks great. I am worried that some things might not come across though. Satellite Spotters and Flood Risk all work great. Accurate time piece, I am worried that having the offset at only 43 seconds (I want to show off the obsession) might be confusing. I added a still to focus attention on the clock face, I think that works.

So on to the show space. At the moment things are a bit here and there... Because there are changes to what I originally showed I am very confused. It is not that I see the changes are bad, or that I am ungrateful for the efforts of the team involved (Cat has a wonderful job on my graphics). We are going to be talking this over tomorrow in the space, and I should be a lot calmer once I see how things are laid out. The plus side is my work looks like a very quick hang.

And so the work goes on....

RCA Show Preparation, Part 2

2008-06-12T23:25:00.002+01:00

(filming, photo by Dot Samsen).

Today was the final 'crit' if it could be called that, it was more like see what are you planning, but it better be final. It was actually scary in the morning when I got in, seeing Steve doing his presentation in Tony's office, it looked scary. I was in a bit of a panic striken sate as things where all over the place, as others went in. I could see all of the tutors looking like an interrogation. Of course it did not end up like that, but from the sounds of others in the morning, things where being changed (well, Alice said change the colour being the comment to everyone, make everything green).

So as the day went on, I got on with things, I got on with making a rough cut of my film for the data project, making sure the blog bot simulations where running, and got what graphics I have in order. It's still chaos, since I sometimes feel the graphics guys, as good job as they are doing, have been leaving me out in the cold, and it only in the last few days that I have been seeing, oh so that is how it looks.

For the week, I have been in the edit suite, plus I had to do some re-shoot for my film on the data project, check the picture above. I also have to look through the footage to find certian key cuts I can make, and feeling the pressure, as que is building for the edit suite. I have had to do an emergency re-cut for the time piece, spelling time zone as one word (timezone), though maybe it's ok since I could treat it as slang. Statement of Intent amendments and captions have also dominated.

When it came to my turn, I was nervous, but it was less formal. They meet in the video edit suite, and I showed my rough cut. They where actually a bit more supportive of some of my footage that I felt I wanted to re-shoot, so that is looking up. We also debated the prints and graphics for each project, and how the blog bots where going to work. The only real issue is the masks are out. To be honest, even I think they are not as successful as my original vision, I think they was confusion in what I gave to Ceasar, and the face device looks just like a mask, and I thought I could still make use of it. Brendan has given me some examples, and I will fix them this weekend I think.

I hope to get everything done on time. This week was supposed to be my target week, though that has now slipped to Monday, I think Monday is have everything done in ready state for testing and debugging things so last week fixes can be made during show construction. Still the last few weeks have been my most successful so far.

RCA Show Preparation, Part 1

2008-06-09T13:56:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm going to start my countdown here, seems that every other student is doing so, and it is scaring me. Since blogging is taking up a lot of time, you can follow most of my progress via my twitter tagged with #rcashow2008. Its been a lot of changes and finally I seem to have hit a gear with building things, and I'm glad to say a lot of helpers. I am behind a little, as this is now my contingency week. Things really have to be finished by Friday. My data project film has 1 last shot to do which should be tonight / tomorrow morning. Then I can get the edit done, still nervous about tacking the display, but ran a few tests on the backup technique, and it seems fine. Elsewhere I am having a lot of graphics taken care of, got o love Cat and the graphics guys for there efforts. I have been having a few battles however, so am feeling a bit lost in the planning of my show space, seems a lot of changes out of my hands. Also glad I got some voice recording done today for the Emoney stories, Some good voices, but I think the animation girl was right about using non-professionals, Sashca had a lot of stumbles.

To work....

This Happend

2008-06-07T22:49:00.002+01:00

Taking a brief break from project work, and thanks to Sascha bagging me the ticket, This Happened is an event where speakers from various design / interaction world gather to talk about their work. This time Semitransparent Design, Matt Jones & Russell Davies, Henry Holland (actually, Matt Jones said "he's on holiday, Bastard"), Simon Oliver and the departments own Brendan Walker last Wednesday.

Despite arriving late due to issues on the Jubilee line, so I sneaked in whilst its was getting underway, but it was still a good night. It was great to be able to see a lot more of what is happening in the interaction world, sometimes been stuck in the studio, particularly with the final show prep and own projects dominating my world view. Interesting to hear of Simon Oliver about his game designs for the iPhone, and his thunderballs??? inspired lemmings like clone, well a bit more than that, but a nice little problem solver with these rolling balls that yo select and order about. It was good to hear about peoples different perceptions and workings with iPhone programming. What was a strange moment for me anyway was that he is the Handcircus guy, who provided much critic on our interim show (2007). Talking the Brendan about this, jokingly, yeah, where is the ethical side to it.... I don't know, could have been twisted to the Robots project!

Brendan did his thrill thing, which was great, think it was the first time I have heard of his work explained more in full, and in context. More than just fairground rides and death slides, I knew that all along, but it was great to see the context. Also Matt Jones (in very poor pic). Was showing off his new secret project. I would get my photos on flickr, put there so blurry. May I recommend Hayeon's Photos. I look forward to the next one if I am in London.

Three Weeks...

2008-06-02T23:39:00.002+01:00

The countdown keeps ticking, and the stress keeps building as the work moves forward, though a bit slower than hoped due to a few drawbacks in prop-making. The biggest issue has actually been the smallest things, getting the things my Data Enthusiasts would distribute their knowledge from the devices I have designed, eg. How do they indicate Local Timezones, or Flood Risks etc.. There's a lot to sort out in so little time, and to get these little details, even though their appearance on film is small, are still important. I also have a lot of re-shooting for my Data Film, and might resort to simply using stills as I can see the tracking, superimposing the screens is going to be problematic, and I still have to shoot the Satellite Spotters film, not realising that the biggest problem their is that it is dark where I have to shoot, and I can't get the lighting ok! Doh! So keep trying for that. I Plan to spend Tomorrow and Wednesday doing a lot more filming, for all three pieces when I really need to be in the edit suit, and it is pushing back the other projects, though they are in photoshoot mode. I still need the stories for emoney read out by someone, have to remember to put shout outs tomorrow, and might resort to fellow students, as I did last year with Michiko and her Green Guerillas. There are issues with the props for that project, and I have to get this shoot this week for any chance to go to printers, really all projects need to be in resolved or close resolved by Friday this week, and final resolve Wednesday next week, because from next week, I am 100% on show.

Four Weeks

2008-05-25T22:13:00.003+01:00

The final push, almost. One month left before my RCA show and exams, this week has mainly been about setting things up ready for next week, where I will be doing a lot more of the final production, I have two helpers now (thanks Ceasar and Dot) to help me with finishing my props and doing the filming. I have to reckie some locations for the Data Project film shoot. Have some great ideas in my head, and some of them on paper, next week will be a big shoot. Also have to photo-shoot the money project, which I hoped to do last week, but still need to get those props made.

Last week has mostly been dominated by the yearbook / catalogue. So my entire section needed a complete re-write, new images, new bio, spelling errors checked. Tony thought it wasn't representing the projects right, and I think I've annoyed the designers with all my corrections over the weekend. Hopefully I won't need to change anything now, I don't have the time. On the plus side, my portrait is looking fantastic, worth the effort of carrying a dot matrix printer across London.

Speaking of Dot Matrix printers, I spent part of last week helping out a DP girl get her printer working, which I got a some help with gluing my shapes together. Glad I have proper help now, I really want to be working on my projects now. Mind you, it's good to see from the open source part, at least my printer code will be out there and being used.

With Blog Bot Platform, I have packaged the program as a binary, so it can be downloaded from the google code site. The configuration is now in separate files, not hardcoded. I also have a basic Arduino port, but since it only means reading one sensor (for the time being, I have decided that it is just one sensor, but the source code can be expanded for more and combinations, but that's a post show development). I have put the code in soft feature freeze, as for the show the Blog Bots would be simulated, I am going to merge the simulator code so that it is part of the main Blog Bot program.

With the Data Project, I have become a lot better with model making, well, getting things on the laser cutter. I am close to my final designs, been good to experiment with them, Tony welcomed me to 2.5D. Got a final iteration to cut on Tuesday, and will try to get a couple mass produced for the film. With the help I'm receiving, I may even get the models in the show.

This week, make models, photo-shoot money stories, shoot data film, long week.

All Good Things.... Fibre

2008-05-19T23:06:00.003+01:00

Very sad moment, as I just formally Closed designfibre.com or at least suspended it for now. It's very sad it didn't emerge into something, as I had hoped it would be a site for new emerging talent, and maybe it still good be. Whilst formally the site passed back into my control a couple of weeks back, obviously finishing the RCA means I can't pay much attention to it, but I plan to re-develop it as something different, but to fulfill the original mission of linking emerging strands of creativity. More on that after I get my MA.

Now back to work.

Five Weeks

2008-05-18T12:38:00.003+01:00

Calm before the storm? The final push has now creeped up on me, almost feeling like it has hit all of us, now is the time to get things together. It's odd, I'm at this strange state now, I know what I have to do, I have it all planned, I have the concepts ready, what I have to do now is purely production... Almost.

My projects are now set in stone. Blog Bot Platform is going forward, mostly as simulation of Blog Bots in the world, trying to find a replacement for the prisoner blog bot as it causes an ethical dilemma and break the illusion. I want something simple, that almost could be real, and that I can name a simple sensor. What I want to do, (and why this is an almost...) is to quickly build them, and maybe hide them in places so that it is not simulation, but actually these are Blog Bots in the world, just not in the places I say (I already plan on having at least the plant sending it's live feed from my studio, pretending that it is in Kew). Other than that, I will be making a port of the hardware side to arduinio (it's just analog inputs so no big problem). I had hoped to get some participants, I may have a final push on Monday, but I'm de-emphasing that part, the open source is to say this is how the Blog Bots would be built, not that being the most important part of the project. It did come up though as a component in the crit, I have ideas for how to replace it.

Ethical Contract Trading, My stories are being checked over by people, I want to get them read, but they appear online. The next week I think I will be doing some frantic photoshoots, to have some nice imagery in the show. I am then going to use that, alongside extracts of the stories that will be printed on Postcards, and this will lead to the online site. I have to get some help doing some of the graphic design. In the crit, I showed messages that had appeared on the phone, I might use these for the postcards front side. I have a lot of things to do, but it is photoshooting, and prop making, that will be my main task this week.

Data Relationships has come out of it's graveyard of failure, and has been re-born. I now have three nice devices, a Satellite Data Tuner, which allows satellite spotters to tunes into th satellite data by browsing the night sky, and tune between an information based what it is, right through to the audio beeps and noises that the satellites make. The second is an accurate time piece for Time Nuts, that allows them to move from political time, right through to liberating their data and tuning into accurate longitude based micro Timezones, and how they connect with people. The final one is a bit more tricky, I want to use more Location based data, the tutors think I should be precise (height above sea level). I think I will have an interesting mix, but it does give me a hint how to relate this data to the Data Lost.

The Data Lost was an important part of my project, which seems to have gone missing during the crit, and planing the devices. In the scenarios I have been planing how the Data Enthusiasts connect these to the Data Lost group, and thereby everybody. For the Geo Locations, this can be things like printing out and publishing their own flood warnings, or little stickers saying this place is at risk from a geological feature. For the Time Device, it is about setting up micro time zones, and alerting people to them, to liberate the control of their data, what the planned but never implemented (but still have all the research and resources ready to go) Easter project was meant to do. That leaves the Satellite one, how does it relate to Data Lost, another Almost ready. I also have a last experiment / simulation to perform, which I have ready in software, just need to hardwire an accelerometer (which I have experience with). It won't go to the show, but will be good to demo the experience of browsing the sky for data thats around us. What I do need to do is firmly storyboard this, and then go to tutors this week, ask Nina advice upon it, and move them in to production next week. I will continue making some more shape prototypes though. I have fallen in love with Laser Cut.

Interesting in my mail box this morning where some encouraging words from Mr Dunne regarding the final show / exam, Telling us what would happen if are projects weren't up to scratch, the Fail or get referred. Nice positive words! Actually he said at the end that from the crit on Tuesday, everything looks like it is taking shape and should be a good show, just think the good news should have been said first. I am a bit worried, production isn't my strong point, and I need to get five weeks of just production. I still want to leave two weeks just to sort my show space out, but mine dosn't look to complex, mostly printing things. Want to get as much photoshooting and prop-making done in the next two weeks. I talked to the guys at the Interaction Design reunion, this is the time when everyone seems to bring it together.

A Crit that Clears the Air

2008-05-13T23:14:00.002+01:00

Today was a very strange Crit, and whilst it didn't appear to have to great plan that others seemed to be bringing the table, an approval to just go with it for them, it did at least clear the air for me and finally it looks like I know now what I will be spending the final weeks of my RCA time on, and which projects are destined to head for the show.

It was an odd crit, for the past few crits we have been out the seminar room, more of a roundtable with everybody. This time we where in our seminar space, though this time split into two groups meant that it was much more like the Round table experience. It was different too, much less formal, rather than doing the static 15mins present, 15mins grilling, this was much more conversational, which was actually a good approach, though I think I got a grilling.

This crit was about what we where going to be taking forward into the show. I have three projects, as Nina says, three very complex projects. Representing them will be the key. The others seemed to have really professional diagrams to lay theirs out, I resorted to blu-tacking paper on the wall. Actually this provided a key insight. For the Blog Bot Platform, I had hoped to display a set of 'simulations' feeding into a twitter feed, displayed on my printer. Tony immediately bean to see it as a step back from mis-representing the effort into the software program, that these are clearly simulated. I think now I have to re-figure this configuration out, but what I want is to show these as Blog Bots in the world, but still distinguishing my project from the other twitter physical computing / twitter bots that have emerged over the course of the year. My research in this is not the objects themselves, although they are important, it is our encounters with them.

The second project, Ethical Contract Trading, also lead to changes in how it is going to be presented in the show. I have my three stories that represent my ethical trading system from different perspectives, the ethical 'Name', 'Trader' and 'Speculator'. I am getting the stories simplified, and I wanted to represent this in the show as an audio. This lead to the trouble of having people listen, would anyone want to read them? I have had debates in the past with Nina, who feels I should present these as written things to be taken away. I only think that will be expensive given the number I will need to print (though if I do something bigger, I could follow in Michiko's idea of selling maps for £2, in my case, ethical trading story books £3?? Well get some money back). So that looks to change.

Finally the Data project, which has spent a long time in limbo land. The devices I am now making seem to have skewed themselves back to being targeted at the 'Data Obsessed.' This was something I did want to partilly avoid, as it would become to easy to become cliched. Still tutors seemed to like the ideas behind my devices, partculy Sattelite Spotters Sounds, which at the moment to me is the weakest simulation. The data compass has morphed into a data location slider, with some axtra input into specific data sets (height above sea level to work out if you are in a flood plain?). Time project has become my accuarte watch for time nuts. This left the Bus Spotters experiment, which was slated as mundane (I think it's more my bad animation / simulation at this point). This was meant to be a way of tapping into Bus Spotting data, and included the flip over to Data / Information. It is also strange, as this was the one Nina and the rest of her tutor group had been pushing me to go for, looks like it won't be going forward, but since I want to make better prototypes I may keep the spyglass shape to see what it looks like lasercut. The shapes may be of use learning the materials I will need to make the probs of the devices for a short film which is how I will now represent this project.

So I was feeling a bit down after this crit. Nina came to see me and we went through what I should exactly do, it seemed to solve things and in hindsight I agree with most of what was now said. We also expanded on the Emoney project, so what I am thinking is a mix of the two suggestions. My audio clips move to online, which will then be downloadable. The postcards, or what prints extracts of the story / images will have the url, a kind of best of both worlds. Fiona has a suggestion that since my dot-matrix printer will no longer have a role in Blog Bot Platform, perhaps it should be what prints the stories out to take away. It may save on cost, but could be very Chris Hand. Poor Fiona, throughout the crit she kept asking me, "I don't get this" "So what is happening here" etc. I think she has become Data Lost. Tony and Nina where on hand to explain what I actually meant.

nearing the end

2008-05-11T16:12:00.003+01:00

I had the photoshoot for the Year Book / Catalogue this weekend, it's something that has brought about the feelings that I am now coming to the end of my RCA time. The photos I have seen for everybody so far look really good, but I won't spoil it just yet. I also had the fun of carrying my props across London, not only to the shoot in Ivo's hackney abandoned warehouse, but also through the park for a few drinks afterwards.

The real thinking here is that now, with about 6 weeks to go before work has to be in a finsihed state, things need to get moving. We have a crit on tuesday which is supposed to show what we are going to go for in the show. At least I can say I have my ideas now solid, though I am not sure how to read the tutorials with Nina in terms of how much she approves of it or not. I had a big rant prepared, but maybe not best to write it here, but Tony seems to unserstand things a (little) bit better. Perhaps that is my fault and the crit on tuesday will be the time I will have to communicate what I am doing a lot better, and to see if they 'get' what it is my projects are about (the larger systems) and peoples encouters with them. Not nesercally (though certianlly a bonus) to have otehrs involved building things.

I have my design all planned out, but production now where I am having trouble. I had hoped to have my models for the Data project ready, but I managed to get lost on the way to the Plastic Shop! I will go on Monday, but that means not being able to go Laser cutting till Wednesday. Cardboard and Foil it will be! Most of what I am doing now is going to be simulations, demonstrating how people interact with my systems. What I am worried though is that I am now losing the interactive element, something that in the work in progress show was very important to me.

Much Change a Tutorial Makes

2008-05-01T23:07:00.002+01:00

I thought yesterday, with all the panics would be too good to be true, now everything changes, not sure if I'm panic or not anymore. The plans I had are now seem to be in tatters, though through Tony and Nina, I seem to at least have a new one, I hope I can pull it off.

So what happened, well I spent most of the day doing some more mock-ups for my data project, which is causing most of the problems right now. So I was trying to look what had been said in Nina's group therapy sessions the last week. The criticism of what I was representing was that it was not abstract enough, and that it seemed too simplistic to simply turn into data or information. So I tried taking some inspiration from the Trainspotters, and created some imagry realting to diving into the complex numbers.

Goes from Train Times and Platforms, to Companies, to Train Numbers.

From Car Makes, to Colours, to Individual Registrations.

Directory Enquires, user Reviews and Cost per call.

I like the imagery, I'm not exactly a 'graphic designer' despite having a degree in it (it's complicated, before you ask). What I was trying to express was the idea of being exposed to a flood of data, would you try to spot patterns? If you are data lost you use it as a tool for tapping into your data enthusiast side, and vice versa. Hmm, long way to go, not sure this is the direction I want to take. Tony and Nina seemed to think, 'Red Herring', goto make a choice.

That left the original strategy, and showing what I had showed to Nina's group last week to Tony. Surprisingly this bit went well. Actually, not sure if he 'liked' it, but at the end of the day his words where take a decision and go with it, and this is the idea. It seems that I can now devlop it at least. So the plan here is that there is a knowledge engine, which users ask queries to by submitting data (eg. their current location). What then happens is that the knowledge engine, by way of public and private apis goes out and pulls as much related data and information as it can find, from both official and user generated sources. It then sends this back, the way the use navigates this is by flowing through either a Data Obsessed side, by mining more and more abstract data patterns, looking for something particular. Alternatively, if they feel they are data lost, they can look to an information based side that allows them to translate the data into various meaningful forms. These two sides would flow together, so it is only at the extreme ends that a user is exposed to pure data or pure information (of course I'm paying lip service to the meanings the EDC guys gave me, though I'm beginning to think, whilst not a bad place to talk to, maybe artistic license with the terminology is a bit better). The idea being that you always have the temptation as a user to try to tap into your Data Obsessed or Data Lost side, to try find hidden patterns and meanings.

So Tony wants me to draft up 6 posible representations of this object, this 'Data Compass' I think thats the best way forward two, and I already have the idea bubbling in my head. The idea behind this excercise is to narrow down my options and think of the deatils, rarther than the big bubble and mess it all has been with this project. I agree as well, as it is already clearing my head on where to go. It is a risky stratergey, as it means diverting my attention from Blog Bot Platform, which was to be my main project, however as Tony says, this one does play to my skills now. I am just annoyed, with myself, that I have spent so long chasing Train spotters and research, and just sketching, that I haven't really experimented as much with this project as I would have liked. I still have loads of ideas for experiments, including the infamous time project which had the money issues not emerged I would have loved to over easter. However it now enters as one of the Data Compasses (a Data Chronometer) for this project.

And what of poor Blog Bot Platform, it now seems it will not be getting the representation I had hoped, and will now be very scaled back.The issue here is building the test objects, and I am no product designer. So it now falls on relying on getting a community to work on the objects, and see if they come up with any. David Muth has always told me this will be the difficult bit, trying to build a community, and if it wasn't for me wanting to make perfect commits, maybe I might have one now. Instead I still have to generalize the Java program, which was an aim for next week, and something I may try to sneak in.

It means now asking if anyone is interested in helping to develop their own Blog Bots, and whether I can persuade people to look through my code and help work on it. I've a version online that I was using over Easter, and I intend to spend some time updating the wiki, the project is on Google code at http://code.google.com/p/blogbotplatform/. If you think you can help out and want to help make a Blog Bot, I look forward to your contribution. In the mean time, I will draft out some e-mails to other people that could be interested. I just hope I don't get flooded (my worst fear) as it means taking more time off to deal with these requests, rather than working on the parts I want to.

As for the real interesting side, well the purpose behind Blog Bots, what I have been researching and why I left the plant running over Easter, was to look at users interaction with these bots over Twitter, the encounters with these lines of text, invading the web 2.0 space. I have been documenting different encounters, from human response (or sometimes lack of it, I wonder if @replying to people on Twitter you don't follow is rude?) To the the robots. Funny that it is mainly the spam bots that seem to follow it, like a honey pot. I also like another bot out there that kept asking the Plant, 'what are you doing?' So that leaves the old representation then, the top half of my plan I mean. I will have 3 - 4 scenarios, Blog Bots in the World (Plant in Que Gardens, Earthquake Buildings, Water Monitoring Fish), they will write fake Twitter feeds, via a printer or screen, and also to Twitter. I should be able to do this quickly, as it is a re-hash of existing code, just faking sensor data, or even random tweets at set intervals, and see what happens with it. My only concern is, unlike the plant where there was a direct interaction, this one now happens at a distance, that is something that is lost, the Data project has to take that role over.

End of April

2008-04-30T23:43:00.002+01:00

A while since I posted, this one is mostly a few catch up updates, how things have changed. Things a slowly but surley going on with my projects, though to be honest I have to get them going faster.

Blog Blot Platform took much of a back burner, though I do have it planned out how I will exhbit in the show, and I have to spend some time updating the websites regarding it. This will give abetter idea, but suffice to say, while I will not be abandoning the plant, in the show my attention is on these new abstract 'test' objects that demonstrate the platform, and a sensory object communicating to twitter. This will be combines with some visual scenarios that will also be showing their 'tweets' in the show, so the objets encounter with the audience is like on twitter, where they see the pieces of text they encounter. Only thing here is to build them, and that is where my skills are lacking, I'm just not a product designer, and I need to find someone who is better at the what's the best material side. The coding is ticking along, I did some tidy up work in SVN, and intend to start really using the wiki. I'm not sure I will get the community before the show, though once I have a few more commits I might try advertising, maybe. I also have to port the code to arduino, I want to use them as they seem much more of a logical choice or helping to build a community around them, eventually with the Blog Bots themselves, these are distributed or constructed after downloading a schematic, as an add on that plugs into an arduino, which then plugs into a computer which runs the Blog Bot program, and communicates with twitter / other web services. It's a lot to do, but pending agreement with Nina, I think it's a plan, and it is doable, David Muth thinks it good.

Ethical Trading Contracts has had a few brief moments of awareness. Mostly being sketching the user experiences, something which I want to try photographing up. So again, doable.

Which brings me on to my Data Project, which has hit a real problem, designers equivalent of writers block. So it all started by looking at peoples relationship with data, and data obsessives and data lost. So I tried looking at train-spotters, which while online I could talk, in real world where elusive. It's embarrassing as Nina sort of forced me in to it last week by coming with me, and shows how she is so much better at the 'people thing.' So I got some useful insight there, how they see the system and understand it better, though I think we got lucky with that group, as others where much less friendly about speaking to me. The real insight for me are still the Experts from Cambridge that Yan-ki brought in. I have a lot of research, and in part I think that is why I got through to the final selection. There is a big problem though, and that is that with this research I have to make something. I said originally that what I wanted to design was a new experience for data. My point is that the Data Obsessed and Data Lost are not separate people, part two components inside of us, we have a Data Lost side, and a Data Obsessed side, and we are able to move between these two states. Can we be trained to work with our Data Obsessed side to understand the system, like the train-spotters, or are there moments when we may get new pleasure from becoming 'Data Lost' Pulling lots of abstract numbers and enjoy being lost amongst it. It is a lot to think about, and I need to think about it VERY, VERY QUICKLY.

Bursary Day

2008-04-16T10:23:00.002+01:00

A short term relief in terms of my finances, the college Bursary of 1000 has just been paid. It's a good thing as my bank account is almost empty. In terms of the Career Development Loan, Co-Op has in principal agreed a load of 1500, and it doesn't look like I will need to pay back that much more over two years (1650 I think, or thereabouts).

I am a bit worried that I sent the reply a bit late, after trying to find the various proof of ID etc. I sent it off just on the end of the 14 day deadline, so I don't know whether I will get approved or not. Though to be honest the deadline was a Sunday and I sent it on a Thursday (before), so they should get it ok. Just have to wait and see since it is all at my parents address where it goes back to. They also said they would open up a new account, which I thought was strange as at this time of year I don't want to be juggling money.

The combined 2500 is enough to see me through to the end, but I need to make a decision about even buying a base Macbook, which will take away funds from my show budget / post RCA, or to just keep going with what I have. The iBook, dispite Tims and others efforts, won't be coming back to life. The other option is to wait and see if Lawrence Atwell has any luck, but if that came through, that money would be ring-fenced for the show, and would be coming quite late (end of May!).

In the mean time, I'm out of trouble for at least a month.

62 Days to Go

2008-04-13T01:05:00.001+01:00

Picture 279.png
Originally uploaded by ke21

Thanks Kenichi, actully I think it is now 61 as I write this. There is a lot to think about, from the crit on Thursday, and the panic I had in handing in a user report for the design for our future selves program, it is clear I have a lot to do, and I want to give my self 3 - 4 weeks of show preperation time, I'm not sure I will have my projects resolved by then. I have a lot to do.

Broken iBook just when it is Needed

2008-04-10T00:26:00.003+01:00

The best laid plans.... as the saying goes, it seems I have had a unique bugger up, and with tomorrow being crit day, that is not so good!. I had hoped to add a new element to my data project, as the conversations with trainspotter have not been so fruitful, while I didn't have the GPS which was an essential part of the equipment, I had thought to be able to do the online component. Unfortunately my 4 year old iBook decided it had different ideas, and decided to die on me! Oh dear, so the last few days back at college have been trying to rescue it. Tim says the problem was with a chip on the logic board, and has glued it down, I hope that works. The problem now is the Hard Drive looks to have died! Tim had planned to rescue the data of with one of his external caddies, but that wouldn't pick it up. His latest trick is to leave it overnight in the freezer! I dare to think what is happening to the poor data on there. Either way I am trying to gather what I have together from the last backup I did.

It is hard for me as I have to try and show progress, and lots of people are showing things, and it looks for a while I will be showing diagrams and sketches and that is not what I want to show at this stage. Brendan says in his e-mail that it doesn't have to be a proper slide show presentation, and can be rough and ready. Thats good as I can show the thinks in situ as it where. The one success of Easter was Light Blogger Bot running, and the experience of the Blog Bot encountered via Twitter. Mostly it was other Bots that caught it's attention, but since I want to have different Blog Bots talking to each other, that is a good thing to show. From the real people that follow it, most stop after a day when they realise it takes over the timeline. Not al have responded, but I asked via twitter what people reacted to it, and some find it quite therapeutic, if a bit too much. Then just show a few diagrams on where next (open source platform and suggested objects). Emoney I hadn't wanted to show, but may rush out my face masks for quickie comment. And that brings me to Future Data, which has hit a brick wall as I was chaging direction and I now want to build a knowledge engine. But I had hoped for more progress than just ideas, and it's going to be hard to get something usefull out of the crit, and for putting together the DFOS user report on Friday, not sure what I am going to but in.

In the mean time my old iBook sits in the studio, it is switching on now, so just waiting for the hard drive, How long does a hard drive take to defrost?

Light Blogger Bot Experiment

2008-04-01T20:14:00.003+01:00

I have been running some experiments with Light Blogger Bot before I jettison it as an object and make the switch to something else (quite what I still have to determine, but I think in the crit post Easter I will spend some time just quickly going over the ideas with proper diagram / sketches).

In the mean time, over Easter I have had Light Blogger Bot tweeting away. This has been fascinating in one aspect, as while I had not had internet access while I was at home, I spent time checking it via mobile, to get a feel of the obsessive experience. It was fascinating checking back up with the plant complaining about being too bright, or abandoned to the darkness, seeing that one line, and a few previous entries on my tiny Mobile browser could easily have simulated a text message. It was like tracking the weather in London while I was away, and from the entries, looks like it was brighter. I could also use twitter to send SMS, but there is another slight problem.

The problem came once internet at home had been restored. I subscribe to it's RSS feed rather than following it on twitter, I had learned my lessons on doing that during the show. 20 updates popped up, ok good, but these updates all seem to be in the last 30 mins. In fact I had discovered something similar during term time when I still had it running to the dot-matrix printer, the plant is so neurotic it is unbelievable. I thought that was just the changing conditions of having the plant in the light box during the show, and being by the window while set very sensitively while experimenting with the printer. Before I left therefore I set it up to be less sensitive, and placed near an open window. Still the plant tweeted away as if it's life was ending, telling me and anyone who cared to listen that it was wilting away. This is unfortunate though, as when I popped into the studio yesterday, I did indeed find that the plant had wilted quite a bit. I hope it hasn't died, I put some more water in just to see if it recovers.

Who I feel sorry for are the 26 people who are following it, though some of them just appear to be bots themselves (interestingly, part of the project I want to look at developing is what happens when a bot finds another bot, I think WaydBot has an attraction to it, as it keeps asking the plant what is it doing, though I also feel that's because it is invading the public timeline. It is interesting though, as part of the project is about what happens when these bots invade public space, clearly some people are monitoring the public timeline and becoming interested, then leaving again once they realise how much it tweets and takes over their timeline. Looking through it's e-mail about 50 odd people have followed it at some point, so keeping 26 isn't that bad.

It makes me think though, what are peoples reaction to it? During the show, the direct interaction attracted quite an attention and people really like the direct relationship between the control they had over the plant (setting the light levels) and the plant's reaction (printed out in front of them). How does this translate to the web? Online whilst I have got some information out there, in the most part it is the tweets that all there is, yet it is attracting attention. I have noticed it also appearing on a couple of blogs. My ex-BIAD dissertation tutor has picked it up, soon to be followed by Podnosh who also followed it for a brief time, before asking whether he understands it or not. My question to anyone else out there is what do they perceive the experience to be. Is there a suspension of believe into what the plant is thinking? Is there a point of intrigue, a what is going on here? What are peoples relation and attraction to the plant?

Finally some news into why I need to find a different direction. I have some ideas already and I think in the first few days of next term I may try them out. This experiment should really be one of the last for Light Blogger Bot, as I will have to move on to other objects. I had before the break been making progress on ditching the last of the dependancy code that tied it to the light sensor, and should become more portable. In the mean time I still need to decide how it can be represented. My motivation of course is the Botanicalls on Twitter which I had Blogged about in a previous post. My problem is best represented by a blog posting I found at Sprukt. There are the inevitable comparisons with my project and Botanicalls, they have the mindshare and twittering plant will be considered their space. I will have to translate my sketches of new objects into proper things quite quickly.

Financial Issues

2008-03-29T23:25:00.002Z

March has come to an end, Mad March never did take off, as with most things it got postponed, though I will try to get some of that underway for the beginning of April. I do at least have two leads on possible web design work that can help with Money, and I might have another few leads on chasing people to speak to, but concentration is now on getting my work back into a more presentable state. Easter has been a bit strange, I have been at home, and it seems like a return to the dark side of the information age. Parents house had internet down, and the only way to contact the outside world was to run by the pond with my Mobile. I was doing some planning for my project works, but over this, and during the last few weeks of term, I have been immensely distracted.

The distraction, money. This is something I had hope to avoid having to confront openly, but I feel I am now on the back foot. Before Easter it dawned that for the first time I now have insufficent funds to get to the end of the course. Therefore Mad March got postponed and the concerntration became how do I get my funding. Before the break, the second years where planning a trip out to Porgigual. All paid by the course, but still, I coulnd;t afford the expense of simply going out there, particully since I needed to spend the time getting my finances in ordrer. Student support have been helping, lot's of planing and form filling over Easter.

I have got applications of to a vocational Charity called Lawrence Atwell, which help people from poor backgrounds enter vocational careers. I also have an application outstanding for a career development loan with the co-op. I'm not sure if the grant will go through, trying to fit the eligibility criteria (just in) and having to write a letter back to them answering outstanding questions (on paper, it looks like I have plenty of money, just in reality things are a bit of a miss). If I get it I intend to use that funding (between £200 - £2000) to fund materials and show. The CDL, if I can pass the credit check should give me £1500, I dare not ask for more. It will be hard paying back, but I think I will just have to start taking any job the moment I get out of college. There is also the Bursary from college, that will give me £1000 in the middle of April. Now it is just a waiting game in terms of these funding, if it comes through it will get me through, it will be hard but I can make it. If not then I'm not sure what I will do.

Of course there is trying to get work. I am chasing a few leads now, and had it not been for the housing crisis I would have worked during the first term, or like last year, maintained a part time PAYE job over the course, like how I funded my BA. Now of course there is a problem, with it being the final push to the show, I really can't take the time away from my degree now, and risk the referral. Maybe though I can chase these leads for work and do it in the next few weeks. Get something.

On the plus side, I have been ploughing on. I have been running an experiment with my Blog Bot over Easter, and has attracted a bit of attention on twitter. My secret Easter project was postponed while at home, the GPS won't arrive until next week, but I'm going to do the other side of it this week. Lets see how it goes.

End of Term

2008-03-16T22:38:00.003Z

Or a Mad March (2) update...

Well the penultimate term has ended, slightly oddly in any case. The final push remains with a long 13 weeks + Easter of experments and produtions towards the final show, or at least that is what I hope, as there are now complication that I will explain in a later post that I have to sort out over the holidays that will decide if I really can do the final term. For now this one is more about reflecting on what has been.

This term has been a lot better than this time last year, though it has also been a lot shorter. I liked how my work came off in the show, and the reactions I have got, even though I did not get the publicity. It's also been a good chance to flesh out the ideas for the projects I want to take towards the show, and whilst there are a few ups and downs, namley Blog Bot Platform needing a new carrier object, and Ethical Trading Contracts still seemingly stuck on hold and needing a way forward, Easter will be an ideal time to flesh the direction out, so when I come back I can got straight in with the production side of them. Future Data Relationships is a bit more complex, as I do seem to be stuck a lot in research. This is not just secondary though, I have enjoyed talking to both usergroups, running after Trainspotters, and also talking to Data Experts. I have got a good collection of 'knowledge' together that I have to interpret, and I have an experment planned for during Easter (watch this space) that should set me up in good step, which is good since we have a crit the week were back.

So I have three projects that are now in development, though it looks like Blog Bot Platform will remain central. Still it does carry with it my theme of Data to an extent, and I just need to decide (quickly) what is it that Future Data Realtionships will be in terms of how it manifests itself. I have said before that what I am designing is a new expernice for data, but now it's time to really focus on what that is.

On the professional side, Due to Easter and well, incidents the last week, it looks like Mad March may have been pre-mature. This is not a cancelations, more of a repositioning. I'm going to try and set myself up to get a little bit of work, which I need to try and tie me over. Perhaps I should try to set up a few studio visits for after Easter maybe? The talk with Rory from Live|Work that Nina set up was definitely insightful, and I wouldn't consider it off putting doing these in my final term, actually it might turn out to be helpful, and already I will be integrating some of his advice into my work as I plan it out over the break. I just wish I had more and there are now events creeping up on me that demand my attention that I have to sort out and which always seems to take priority. Fuel RCA, through it's Confidence in Pricing forum was slightly insightful. I always have a bit of trouble understanding these things when it come to relating them to professional practice, as all too often it just feels like picking figures out of thin air. The chat with Anab Jain and John Arden helped a bit more for my confidence.

All in all though, I do feel that I will still be playing catch-up to the rest of my second year friends come graduation. Apparently our course has around a 90% employment rate, and givern the way I'm feeling, and the fact that there are only 10 second years, I'm hoping this year is 100%! Looks like no matter the outcome of Easter, I will have to extend Mad March to April.

Mad March (2)

2008-03-01T22:33:00.006Z

A reference to this post from my pre RCA past.

So here is the thing then, the whole idea of Mad March was to really push my work side forward, in that case it was to stop sitting around and really chase after work, and whilst it wasn't as successful in terms of actually being employed, it did push my thinking in terms of being a professional forward, and in the end resulted in me being awarded my place at the RCA. I think therefore it is worth taking some stock of the lessons learnt from this period to see if they can be applied to my RCA path to push not only my career thinking forward, but also allow me to take some of that and apply it to my work (in a sensible and not de-tract from the intellectual side way).

It has been something of an issue, I will admit. On the report from my pre-exam, it is marked down for professional practice as 2 (out of 5) which is something of a surprise given that it wasn't discussed. It could be that they are taking into account previous discussions, but I think it may be more than I deserve. Perhaps I shouldn't be knocking myself down, but I still have a great fear that at the end of this, I will still find it hard to get work and may end up with a repeat of the issues I faced on graduating BIAD, namely walking out completely naive, and being told 'great work, but not relevant.' To an extent I had a similar issue this summer, which in itself has caused a knock on effect, namely money is now getting very tight, and this at a time when the rest of second year want to spend Easter in Portugal. I just don't think my finances can take it. Digression aside, one of the things that was supposed to happen was to arrange to go and see different agencies / practitioners and get a viewpoint on my work. This is something as part of the 'Recovery Plan' that I constantly put off and find I have other things to do, namely the housing crisis at the beginning of the year. Whilst the term regarding work doesn't slow down, and I don't think I will have much of an Easter break, it might be that this time is the chance to really get a chance to talk to industry before the hectic-ness of Summer term, which judging by the Pre-Exam results, will have me building flat out!

It is on a positive note then, that thanks to my tutor Nina, I now have a set up meeting with Rory Hamilton from Live|Work (and former interaction design tutor) to go over my projects. This should be a good meeting to go over with someone who is part of those two worlds of academia and indusrty, to help me look at my work from an indusrty perspective and hopefully help in terms of building bridges between what I do academiclly, and how this can work professinally. I think it is worth this month really pushing this and trying to meet some more.

I am a bit worried in terms of what to show, as with the exam, I don't really have finished projects in the one extent from second year, as there are still very much in active development. What I can do (and what I have decided in relation to discovering the Botanicalls Project) is that I will re-brand Light Blogger Bot as Object 1 for blog Bot platform, and I can show that, alongside the development for Ethical Trading Contracts and (future) Data Relationships. The logical choice would be first year project, but the thing is I'm not so happy with first year. Domestic Flight Kit is the obvious choice, it is the one first year project I am really proud and happy with. I may also show Beta Town, even though it still remains diagramtic form. I am worried about having too many diagrams (in fact with my work I want to try and abandon them altogether outside of idea generation phase). That leaves me to an extent with falling back to BIAD work, something that happened during the summer. Interrogation.tv and Red Button Radio spring to mind, a kind of here is where I was, here is where I am going.

Basiclly, it comes down to something that used to come up at BIAD about how many projects I should represent, and it was always seemed to be with me that I should have 6 projects, best one first, second best last. I still have a prober printed portfolio I keep in the studio, and as I was printing things today was thinking about whether I should revisit it with RCA projects now. But it also raises some otehr issues, something that came up in an e-mail from Tony before the pre-exam. That we should be at this stage doing more experments and building things, and documenting these as portfolio pieces too. Maybe this is also part of 'Mad March' as I try to make the transition from academiclly focused to being a professinal (whilst still maintating my own design direction and not throwing it away and declaring I just want to be employed!), something that should have happened a long time ago.

Botanicalls Twitter

2008-02-25T15:36:00.006Z

As if some cruel fate decided to sting me on exam day, a reference to this very similar sounding project pops up in my rss feeds. Somebody is also making plants talk via twitter. See blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/02/how_to_make_plants_talk_t.html
and www.botanicalls.com/twitter.

Now I have to decide the impact this has on my project. I had heard of a similar sounding one, where a plant calls for water, it may be the same project, I just hadn't seen it. It will have serious impact, as I fear I can't continue Light Blogger Bot to version 2, as it will be ghosted by this project. It's a shame as I had wanted to spend the efforts bringing that experience to life, and moving other objects more as scenarios, it now seems however that I will have to quickly get my other Blog Bots ups to speed in terms of concept, as I will need to now take one of these forward as the actual build. The platform itself should be possible to do that, while the code is still linked a lot to Light Blogger Bot, the next phase was to de-couple it entirely, and make it more neutral, I will have to do that quicker now. I will have to have a look through them to notice the differences, but I don't think that I can go forward with my blogging plant, as it will be harder to pass the originality test. While looking at Pothos and comparing it to Light Blogger Bot one thing is clear is that mine is more neurotic, possibly because people still play with it. It will remain as a the test object, but looks like I will now have to kill off, which is a shame given what I was talking about for Light Blogger Bot Version 2 during the exam. I'm just glad my exam happened in the morning, because if it had been in the afternoon with this, I would be panic stricken.

Talking to Jeff in studio, it seems it may be a blessing in disguise, if I have to take one of the other scernarios, which are weaker at the moment, and having a different Blog Bot using the platform may even make it stronger. Hmmmmmm

Pre Exam

2008-02-25T12:30:00.004Z

Today was the day, I'm still coming to terms with exactly what they said, and others are having their exam as I write. It wasn't bad, but Tony and Masamichi both had some interesting questions, and differing insights on where I should go.

It was a bit confusing for me, mainly because (as I wasn't presenting first year work) projects are still in development, and while I can call them 'finished' and wrap them up, I would rather keep going. Of course for Ethical Trading, I had put down 1 week as the wrap it up, Tony says he was worried about me spending more time developing it. It seems that the system is still too complex, and there may be more concrete scenarios to it, I thought the stores where that, though he has only read the first one. I want to package it as a book, or something similar, and it may be in that that I can find some visuals to emphasise the scenarios in that complex system, the imagery, what does a ethical contract look like it, what is it's response etc.. Masamichi thought that I should concentrate more on the nature of the ethic, not things like carbon trading which is just false economy. I replied that I would like to work on the more obscure trades such as overt politeness. It was at that time Nina pushed me out the room, with the words it was a comment, not a question, along with her usual light banter 'push off' remark.

For the other project, I had Blog Bot Platform / Light Blogger Bot set up in the seminar room, a bit hack and slash, but working. So I was able to demonstrate that project, and also talk about the situation, how the plant owner would have set up this system to monitor it's conditions. Also how this is invading web 2.0 and bringing those hidden processes to the surface. And the development of the open-source project which will lead to version 2 of Light Blogger Bot, emphasising the more networked object, and other scenarios and blog bots. They had fun playing with it, and Masamichi seemed really interested in what I had done, and was asking questions around some of the workings, where all the phrases pre-scribed (yes for now, no / maybe for v2). Nina tried to slow me for speaking Jargon, and in the end I hit my seven minute target (just) to talk through Blog Bot Platform. During the end, Tony's criticism of the project still came down to the fact that I still haven't got it in context, and I will need to emphasise that. Fair I guess, it's something I am aware of, as part of the Robots project, it has always being about exposing hidden process, with no pre-tense that these are 'dumb' objects, yet there is a suspension of disbelief. The next phase is to work on the open-source side, and for the show really emphasis the connection with what is being expressed, not just in the exhibition, but also how people will encounter these objects through web 2.0. What is it that I am trying to say? That is something I will work on, not just through Light Blogger Bot version 2, but also the other blog bot scenarios I devise.

The final project, my work in progress though the Helen Hamlyen center is Future Data Relationships. Since it is very much work in progress, and my research is running a bit behind, this was where I was most worried. The project is looking at Data Obsessives, and those with specific relationships to data, how might that help those we might describe as the Data Lost. What would be the points of transition, of conflict, of relationship between them? What will be out own relationship towards data? I have been researching in to train-spotters, and this has proved a bit more successful online than face to face. Yan-ki Lee is arranging a trip to the Cambridge Engineering Design centre for me to talk to Data Analysts, as I want to understand the systems behind data, something Tony is keen on me doing too it seems. Masamichi's commentary was that I shouldn't limit myself to these too groups, the Data Lost and Data Obsessed, there are others, the Data Owner, the Data Creator. My comment was that this wasn't really considering them as stereotypes and outsiders, I think I take his point, and I want to defiantly avoid clichés, however my comment on the these groups is that they are aspects of a person, and we are all, at different points, Data Lost, or Data Obsessed. There is also the point of transaction, data is just the raw points, but each of us have different viewpoints upon it when it becomes information.

Overall there is a lot of sticking points, and all though I don't think it went badly, I can't claim it went great. Sort of in-between ok, I take on board there points, that the projects all have a key thing that will bring it to ground and enrich it. Blog Bot Platform needs to be contextulised both in exhibition and on web 2.0. Ethical Trading needs work to bring the scenarios out, to enrich this complex system how it effects people. Future Data Relationships needs to deal with scenarios, the abstract systems, and again be contextualised, to not be limited to something very narrow, to work with real people.

So I can't claim I went through with flying colours, there may be a chance I get 'the letter' that tells me I need to fix things quickly, but there was no sense of that today. It does give me a sense of where I need to be in a few months time, and I defiantly need to focus.

The Pre Exam Commeth

2008-02-22T23:12:00.003Z

So the first part of the most scariest moment soon is to dawn. The Pre-Exam with Masamichi Udagawa?? as our external examiner, happens on Monday. It has been renamed from being the Part 1 exam, as officially, it is simply a chance for the external to get to know our work. It is slightly easier that is 'work in progress'. But I'm still having to show two (ambiguously described whilst talking to Nina about this) Finished pieces, and the main project. The reason I say that it is awkward is that, whilst I could describe my two previous project, Robots and E-money as finished, the fact I have decided to carry them on to a degree, a part 2 as it where, sort of throws a spanner in the works. Not in the, not enough work regard, but in the, can you bring a project to completion and show a finished, polished, package, which I can sort of do, but still want to hint that I am moving on with this in a different way. Some are getting round this by talking about first year work, but I just don't want to do that.

I was thinking a lot about this when writing the statement of intent. Blog Bot Platform, in the Guise of Light Blogger Bot will be the main project. I can show that, from evolving out of the Robots brief into looking at our believe in data and this system. The owner of the plant has control over the environment, but also has to deal with the plant (the systems) responses. I have the finished device that I used in the interim show which I can get up and running again. Hopefully anyway, the actual plug is missing, so I have get a new one, and since Tim isn't a Monday person I will have to try my elecrian skills and hope I don't electrocute the External! So that can be fun to try out, and then the presentation around the thinking behind it. I still need a 'Nice Photo' like so much of my work. I still want to talk about the expansion plan, the fact it is open source, and the next version will be more networked, and some hint to other scernarios, but I think I will keep that part quick.

So second project is a bit more concerned, but I won't spend too much on it. E-money, Ethical Trading Contracts, will talk about the system, and my stories around it. For me, I had preferred to have this project buried. I kind of like the idea, but was less satisfied with the end result. for me, the design was this system, and the stories became a way of getting involved with those within it. Tony regards the project as 'On Hold' and so far I haven't seen an indication that this is a problem, as long as I commit to do some design work on it. I said in he statement of Intent that I would spend a week doing some design experiments, and perhaps produce a book (or a website) depending on budget, ironic given the project title. I will have to see how these things pan out, I'm still a bit confused how will these appear as 'finished' with me acknowledging that I am going to do further work on them.

The final piece is my main research project, (future) Data Relationships. This project looks at our future relationships towards data, and abstract substance, yet increasingly we are moving to a data centric world. I have come up with the concept of two user-groups, the 'Data Obsessed' and the 'Data Lost.' How will they relate towards each other. Because of my focus on Blog Bot Platform, this has been a bit late kick-starting. I have been trying to contact data enthusiasts, and while some successful online, it has been harder in real life. I have my initial research, and my adventurous in trying to be a data obsessive (not very successful). What I think I should show however is along similar lines to what I presented to Nina's tutorial Group forum. Nina has these group sessions where 3 of us are nominated to talk about something, it's something of a love / hate thing for me, but never-mind that now. I talked about some early concepts, that might not be the direction I go. I thought about my two groups, how would they interact, would we have a class system (the Data Obsessed being the 'Upper Class' and Data Lost being 'Lower Class'), but since it is only specific knowledge, this relationship is unstable and they can swap, one is actually always part of the Data Obsessed and the Data Lost. It's early days for this concept, it might not make it through the wider real person research I still have to conduct, both on my own and through Helen Hamylen. I don't think I will concentrate too much on this, because I want to emphasis the other projects. But I do want to get the message about this project across, to show this is the area I am working towards.

A lot of the time then i mostly putting the presentation together now. Unlike the last exam panic there is no pressure in re-shooting photography and producing new work. I would like to maybe get a nice photo of Light Blogger Bot, Alice has been 'Photoshopping till she dies' as she says. Maybe I should adopt her ethic, but so far my Photoshopping skills are not quite up there with the greats.

We will see how it goes Monday.

Pecha Kucha at the Japanese Embassy

2008-02-14T23:41:00.003Z

Thanks to Ceaser for the Invite. This was something to cheer me up from a really bad day, but more on the issues I think post pre exam, I have to push those to side. To concentrate on happier things though, I think it was a good night. I had been to a Pecha Kucha before during the first year trip to Japan, and it was an ok night, Steve anyway had a fun time when his presentation crahsed. I always wanted to go to one of the London events, and always missed out, so glad to see they might be up and running again soon.

So this event was something special the UK guys had set up, run in conjunction with the Japan Society. Ceaser knew two of the presentations. Sayaka Motani who was a sculpture, and Emi Miyashita, an illustrator. I really liked (though given I'm male, slightly freaked out) by Emi's penis drawings. These depicted women worshipping, then eating giant penises. There was even a sketch of St. Penis Day. The audience liked it though, everybody laughing along. Sayaka had some very interesting sculpture work, based around fusing human and animal, human and fruit, human and plant. These where sculptures that took a manipulated form of the above, and blended it with human skin. the audience seemed to like the human banana, and I think I'm noticing a pattern here.

Other great speakers included Simon Kaner, who spoke on Archaeology in Japan, which was very fascinating, particularly looking at the digs for ancient Tokyo, and also looking at the ancient Japanese. There where also several mentions of Magic Mushrooms during his presentation (regarding the ancient culture that is). I also liked the Cow Furniture, made from leather from individual animals, show by Julia Lohmann.

But that is enough name dropping for now, a good welcome break from things though.

Thoughts on ... my Work in Progress Show

2008-02-08T23:42:00.002Z

Its late Friday, I just spent the an hour locked outside the residence I'm staying at, I'm tired, perfect time to rant on about the work in progress show.

Ok in seriousness, that's not what I'm about to do, and I guess its the difference a week makes in that the promised rant may well become mellowed down now that I have had the chance to reflect on what was said, different peoples reaction and response to my project (both good & bad) and a chance to discuss things over with my tutor regarding this. Sorry if I have now built some of your hopes up but at least now thinking rationally (well, not quite) which means I can get a better idea of what the comments mean.

My project, Blog Bot Platform, which I chose to represent using Light Blogger Bot, the first bot to use the platform. It was also the main project from the Robots brief, to which Blog Bot Platform was branching out from. To represent this I had been spending a lot of time porting the code over to Java / Eclipse, so my code was working, and you can track more of the development in previous posts. The scenario was very simplistic, a plant owner, fearfull that it had grown on a hydroponics farm imagined the plant was sensitive regarding light, so a system was set up that monitors the condition, allows the light to be adjusted, and the plant would respond by 'blogging' both to an ancient dot matrix printer, but also via the twitter api so it could be monitored far away. It sounds simplistic, and maybe quite kitsch, something I will have to sort out by the final show, but the main reason for developing the blogging plant system is that it forms the basis, the hello world if you like, of Blog Bot Platform. If you can get it up and running then you know your doing something right.

There has been some critiscm of the way I had set my system up for the show, mainly not representing the network side and concentrating on the printer. I wanted a much more tangible interaction, and for the show, I wanted this to be my practice run in engaging the public, something I was terrible at in previous shows, not just last years work in progress where I just had the pilots uniform laid out on the ladder, but also in my BIAD shows. Each time I exhibit my work tends to be overlooked, and while I have (had) come to the conclusion that my work simply doesn't work in an exhibition scene. But since the Final show in June will most likely be the most important aspect of my life so far, not to mention that is where the exam will now be, there is a very real chance of exhibit or extinguish.

So the point here was that what I was trying to represent was in interaction of the system, the idea that this plant is writing this blog. As Tony was discussing, there is something of a poetic experience behind it. Once you turn the switch, there is the surprise as a brave show guest turns the switch the surprise as the printer bursts into life. There is suspension of belief, you know the plant really isn't saying these things, but as the the light goes dim, the printer writes its complaint, "It is Too Dark, Turn on the Light!" The archive that builds up on the paper (I have a good stack of it after the show), a sense of the plants feelings. It was this, and the engagement with the audience I was after primely, and while it would have been nice to demonstrate the network side, it certainly was not the essential part of the project at this stage. Now it is an essential part of the next phase of the project, because that is where it gets very interesting as each Blog Bot invades the Web 2.0 arena. Once I did get networking up and running I was able to spend this week running some interesting experiments with the network side, seeing lightbloggerbot appear in twitters public timeline, and by the looks of it so did a bunch of other people, though I suspect some of them may be spam bots. There's something nice too about it invading the rss feeds, the plants complaints appear alongside my slashdot feed and various blogs I follow. Because it is via twitter lightblogger also has all the various features twitter has to offer, so mobile texting is also a plus, though with over 6000 'tweets' in the two weeks it was running, maybe too much.

So that discussion of the network effect brings me on to the discussion / dispute that occurred during the show crit. Whilst it is true that the network side is the part that will be followed up, even expanded upon, it was NOT what I was trying to represent in the show. That is the general disagreement I have with my tutor (sorry Nina) and the dispute during the crit. What I wanted to get out of it was how successful I had been in engaging my audience with the direct interaction. Have things been positioned ok, why was it taking a brave soul to turn the switch to get people to interact with it, instead of something people knew they could play with and enjoy? Why was I (to a much less extent this time round which is good) still suffering walk on by syndrome with my project? How could I improve this direct interaction? Even silly things like are the statements the printer writes out the right kind of things to say? Do the make sense with the lighting conditions? These and many more are what I wanted answers to, and I was only able to get them to a limited point of view, and still lost the opinion.

Instead, whenever they talked about my project, the conversation was deliberately spun to talk about networking. Each time, the only thing that was talked about was, "Does this say Network?" But that wasn't what I was trying to say in the show. Perhaps I shouldn't have cursed it with that earlier post regarding the issue. It would have been difficult to represent, I knew that, and if that was what I wanted to say I would have done it a lot differently. But it wasn't what I wanted to say, and instead of being able to get feedback on the issues I wanted to represent, and the practice run in engaging the audience, I felt left a little cold. Nina's talk about this failing to represent the project in the show was way off in my opinion. Telling everyone else that it didn't capture the essential element I thought was wrong, as the essential element (at this stage) was the communication between the environment, the plant, and the statements that are written, and I wanted feedback on how that had performed. Even when I tried to direct the conversation back to that, I was told to immediately shhhhh, followed by more talk on the network effect. It was only in the end when both Jimmy and Brendan, who had joined for the crit gave some small practical advice. I had a more off the record conversation with Jimmy (such a pity he is not a proper tutor on the course) which helped clear the air over a few things, and luckily I did manage to grab Nina on Tuesday while the reports where being written, and talk over our differences. Its lucky in a way that I hadn't written this post before then, because it would have become a real rant. Suffice to say I do now understand that part of their job is to push us, like it has always been, but on this issue I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree regarding it, and accept that networking will become an important part of where the project moves on too.

The public reaction was quite mixed, as said above, it tended to suffer (still) from walk on by syndrome. It take a brave soul to turn the dimmer, only to be shocked as this printer bursts into life. Followed by amusement on what is being printed, and then a quick gather round call to their friends. It is this kind of engagement I was sort of looking for, a practice run because I have to do it better for my projects in the show proper. My graphics and scenarios need improving, and that is serious work. The issue was it looked somewhat out of place and well, uninteresting to those who are unfamiliar with the project. It didn't seem to instantly grab people to have a go, and while I think that added to the shock value, it still would have been better for people to know the project right from just seeing it, more practice there needed. Once people got familiar, they did enjoy my project, which was what I wanted from the show.

On the other hand, the conversation with Regine from WMMNA (the course's official Journalist) didn't go so well. I guess I was still nervous and just wasn't explaining the project too well. She said she found my project cold! Still trying to work out what that meant. Luckily Alice came down to take over, as Regine had moved on to have a general wonder by that point. I hope I haven't made a too much of a bad impression, but I couldn't help notice my project is not featured in her flickr stream when I had a quick gander through. Obviously my public engagement their seems to have gone tits up and need coaching on that front. I wonder if there are any courses to take on 'talking to journalists about your work with confidence 101.' Ether way I miss out on the blog hits, though good luck to everyone else. I noticed Revitals project on Gizmondo, followed by the comment about what would happen if the blue screen of death occurred.

Still overall I can't say it was all bad, better than last years disaster, and maybe a half success this time round.

Dissertation Results

2008-02-05T13:12:00.000Z

Just a quick one then, while I still think about the aftermath of the show.

The nervous wait for the dissertation results finally ended today. It was torture, as they where due out yesterday, though we finally got them today. I knew my writing quality was not great, I wasn't expecting distinction, and hoped my referencing style hadn't condemned me to failure. Instead the e-mail came through informing me I had a Low Pass!. A Low Pass, at least if you fail you get some notierty. I had planned on pulling a David Hockney and refusing to re-write, only to be given an honorary degree years later. Joking aside, its an ok result, and reflects the fact my writing style isn't exactly great, and my referencing was not quite up to it, particularly as most of my referencing was online material, but at least I got through it. I'm not sure if there will be any follow up as my dissertation tutor is no longer teaching, be a shame not to see where I went wrong.