Photo by r00s
Last night team GLI.TC/H was hard at work getting the gallery at Roxaboxen ready.
The gallery opening kicks off at 6:30pm at Roxaboxen and features work from some really great glitch art, videos and artware (oh, and one of my pieces). Be there.
On Thursday 16th September I’ll be giving a talk at Birmingham Linux User Group about the issues affecting artists who adopt open source and free culture into their practice.
I have done a talk about open source and art once before at the LUG, which was well received despite the audience being mostly techies (maybe they’re artists at heart!). This talk extends greatly on what was said and goes into issues of copyright and what experiences I’ve had as an artist in the open source world
Thursday 16th September, 7:30pm start
Aston Science Park [map]. If you can’t make it the whole thing will be broadcast online and made available for streaming shortly afterwards.
The first issue of Dirty Bristow is out now and features a part-glitch illustration by me.
For the theme of this issue, Birth, I was asked to illustrate an article by up-and-coming funny man Harry Vale that goes on to detail his experience of doing stand-up comedy for the first time:
It’s a torrid tale about losing my virginity, punctuated by the revelation that it was brutally robbed from me by my own father. There are gasps, groans, and then finally laughs. Worry not, dear reader, my anal virginity is still intact (and available for a modest fee); it was just the truly awful and hackneyed opening joke of my first ever stand-up comedy gig.
You wouldn’t guess it from the extremely high quality of the magazine, but it’s all self-financed and published by apparent geniuses Jon Bounds and Danny Smith who have, to my knowledge, never ventured into publishing territory. It very much fits in with the zine ethos, especially as they make a point to give each contributor as much freedom as possible and steer clear of advertisements.
Go grab a copy now!
They’re also looking for contributors for the next issue, so support your local publishing scene and get in touch.
Somewhere in late December 2008 I was frustrated with the apparent lack of a local hacking scene. Luckily a few other people felt the same and in January 2009 fizzPOP was formed.
I once had all the time and energy in the world to pump into helping to organise events such as the fizzPOP Howduino, a visit from Mitch Altman and, and Theremin Day, but unfortunately now I have very little time to dedicate to fizzPOP.
In short: I’m leaving fizzPOP
Although we’ve stressed that fizzPOP isn’t a group run by a single person over time a few key people have stepped up to take on extra responsibilities and have even organised their own events with us. If fizzPOP is to continue to exist and to grow into something more it’ll need more of these people who can maintain and build the community. Feel like you could help to build a hackersapce? Make yourself known to fizzPOP and get involved! I recently wrote a blog post detailing some of the areas that fizzPOP needs assistance in, but we’re open to all offers of help in any kind.
Just to clarify, my departure from fizzPOP as an organiser (I’ll still attend when I can) does not mean the end of it. It just means that the extra responsibilities that I’ve undertaken over the years will have to be covered by someone else.
I Am Sitting In A Room is being screened at GLI.TC/H in Chicago from the end of September. Exact times and dates to be confirmed.
Still from I Am Sitting In A Room
GLI.TC/H is an international gathering of noise & new media practitioners in Chicago from September 29 thru October 03, 2010! GLI.TC/H is a physical and virtual assembly of artists, hackers, moshers, dirty mediators, noise makers, circuit benders, p/h/i/l/o/s/o/p/h/e/r/s, and those who find wonder in that which others call broken. GLI.TC/H seeks: Realtime + time-based performances (audio/video), utilizing broken/bent technologies/strategies. Workshops, sharing knowledge of hardware/software hacking, cracking, breaking, kludging, piracy, & tool building. Artworks and Projects, artware, videos, games, films, tapes, code, interventions, screen-captures, systems, websites & installations. Texts, lectures, essays, code, articles, & hypermedia.
I’m really excited to be attending the festival to meet other glitchers and hackers. If you’re in the Chicago area or otherwise just interested in keeping up with the festival I highly recommend keeping watch of the GLI.TC/H blog for info of events and exhibitions happening at the festival
For the last few months I’ve been lending a helping hand to organising of the very first Birmingham Zine Festival!
The main events of the festival kick off on September 10th with the Film Night at The Edge and continue until September 12th with events such as zine printing workshop and a picnic in the park.
We’re also having ongoing exhibitions at Urban Outfitters (which opened tonight) and a Postcard Exhibition at The Framers, which opens tomorrow (September 3rd) at 7pm.
You should all go and support the local independent publishing scene and perhaps even start your very own zine!
August was a particularly quiet month whilst I sorted out many things, including redesigning my website. There are still a few pages to reformat, but if you notice anything wrong please let me know.
Lots of news coming soon!