Category Archives: Art

windows.exe has stopped working

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windows.exe has stopped working is about that moment of uncertainty when software begins exhibiting signs of an impending malfunction. The software stutters, glitches, begins acting erratically, sometimes altogether freezing with no indication of when normality will return. When faced with this hopeless situation the illusion of flawless technology is shattered and we’re reminded that technology is imbued with the flaws and imperfections of its creators.

windows.exe has stopped working was commissioned by Phoneix for The Idle Index

Submerged

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Edward Colston was an English merchant, philanthropist and politician whose involvement in the slave trade was often overlooked. In June 2020 his statue in Bristol was toppled and thrown into the harbour during Black Lives Matter protests.

Through tearing down statutes we don’t rewrite or erase history but instead reveal more about it. It is increasingly important that we learn more about the history of our country and its leaders and face the full reality of its past.

Nodes

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Nodes is a new commission created for the Peer to Peer: UK/HK online festival which ran from 11th – 14th November, created as a reflection on the interconnectedness of the global live coding community.

Live coding is a performative practice where artists make music and visual art live using programming. This happens primarily at events such as Algoraves, but there is an equally active online community which organises regular performances, conferences, workshops and more.

Moving beyond e-mail and social media platforms, people within the community have built their own tools which allow for real time communication and collaboration across borders and time zones. In this way the local nodes the global live coding community are able to stay connected.

Many thanks to Dr Charlotte Frost from Furtherfield for the nomination. Nodes was commissioned on the occasion of Peer to Peer: UK/HK online Festival 2020 by Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Open Eye Gallery and University of Salford Art Collection.

Compassion Through Algorithms Vol. II

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I have a new track coming out on November 6th as part of the Compassion Through Algorithms Vol. II compilation, which is raising funds for Young Minds Together.

We’re a group of people from England’s North (from Birmingham up) making music and art from algorithms, shared here in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

We join calls for justice for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, but also reflect on the situation here in the UK, including the lack of justice for Stephen Lawrence, for Christopher Alder, for the people lost in the New Cross and Grenfell fires, for the Windrush deportees and all suffering under our government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy.

We want educational reform, so that the next generation can open their eyes to Black British history. Stating that ‘Black Lives Matter’ should not be difficult, but right now it’s not enough to be non-racist. We need to be anti-racist.

We share this compilation on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis, but please give generously if you can. All proceeds will go to Young Minds Together, a group of Black girls making music and dance in Rotherham UK, in need of your help to rebuild post-pandemic.

The compilation features tracks from 65daysofstatic, TYPE, Michael-Jon Mizra, Anna Xambo, Yaxu, Shelly Knotts, 0001, Antonio Roberts (that’s meee), Leafcutter John, and features awesome artwork from Rosa Francesca. November 6th is Bandcamp Friday, so if you buy it then Bandcamp will waive their fees and so more funds can be donated. Of course, you can always donate to Young Minds Together directly.

Black Lives Matter.

Gif Pack #1

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Between projects I often make little animations. Sometimes they’re made as a result of learning new software and sometimes I make them to test out an idea or technique.

I’ve decided that I’ll start a regular thing on this here blog – hopefully monthly – where I share some of those gifs and other little animations.

The ideas for the above gifs came from self-portrait I made for the first issue of This and That zine.

I really liked the texture I had used on the face and decided to make some random animations (similar to the ones I did for Improviz) and use the same texture. I did some post processing using Natron (e.g. the pixealation and desaturation).

Design Yourself: I Never Found Her

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In the sixth and final workshop of our Life Rewired inspired Design Yourself project, the Young Creatives worked with artist and writer Erica Scourti.

Erica shared her practice with the group and explored Optical Character Recognition software and speech to text translation processes, to interrogate how identity and human understandings are influenced by these now everyday filters.

Cosima Cobley Carr worked with fellow member and composer Pietro Bardini on a soundscape using a sax line shared by Nayla Chouaib. The video shows us phone portraits of Vangelis Trichias along with Cosima, lip-syncing along with text to speech software. Pietro Bardini created the backing soundscape by taking Nayla Chouaib’s saxaphone recording and taking it through several layers of resonators, reverbs and distortions.

More information here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/design-yourself-i-never-found-her

Design Yourself: Party for the End of the World

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In the fifth workshop of our Life Rewired inspired Design Yourself project, the Young Creatives worked with New Movement Collective and Fenyce Workspace who led a practical workshop introducing the group to their prototype project XO.

Through exploring how machines can control and aid human movement through choreography, the group looked at and interacted with project XO, a participatory dance experience. During the session they discussed power control, agency and empathy in the context of robotic interactions and imagined how to push the boundaries of interactivity in multi-user digital experiences. As a response to the workshop artists Pietro Bardini and Tice Cin worked with Antonio Roberts to create Party for the end of the world.

More information here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/design-yourself-party-for-the-end-of-the-world

Design Yourself: Evasive Techniques

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In the fourth workshop of our Life Rewired inspired Design Yourself project, the Young Creatives worked with Yoke Collective in a workshop focused on the implications of facial recognition technology.

The group used Yoke Collective’s method of harnessing make up and hair extensions to avoid detection from facial recognition technologies. Combined with the creation of digital masks via SPARK AR as the cornerstone for our video, they explored the dynamics of power and privacy in the digital age. As a response to the workshop, artists Pietro Bardini and Vangelis Trichias worked with Antonio Roberts to create Evasive Techniques.

More information here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/design-yourself-evasive-techniques

Design Yourself: Feeling the Gallery – Making sound and music out of visual data

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In the third workshop of the Life Rewired inspired Design Yourself project, the Young Creatives worked with artist Matthew DF Evans in a workshop that turned the Barbican into a composition using pixel sonification.

Using Matthew Evan’s pixel sonification method to turn the Barbican into a composition, we considered the physics of sound and how it passes through you. We are active gestural instruments, technologically enhancing sounds without even noticing. Our mouths filter sound: through every obstructive piece of biomatter, we create resonance and sound decay. We have suppressors in our ears that dampen sound as a means to protect ourselves. In this way, humans are substractive sythesisers.

More information here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/read-watch-listen/design-yourself-the-barbican