Rules of Engagement – 10th November

Happy to announce that I’m curating a new programme called Rules of Engagement for the Open Data Institute’s annual Summit on November 10th. The programme features new commissions from Nick Briz, A.M. Darke and Everest Pipkin. By seeing people as more than just data points, Rules of Engagement asks those with power to reimagine how we engage with data, advocating for an ethical data future for everyone.

The Open Data Institute (ODI) arts programme Data as Culture harnesses the critical and unexpected voices of artists in response to ODI’s research. The current research and development programme looks at sustainable data access and building trust through certification, and creating data infrastructure for common challenges.

Rules of Engagement is curated by guest curator Antonio Roberts who was inspired by the numerous scandals involving data towards the end of the 2010s. The artist’s work will be integrated throughout the ODI Summit 2020 – Data | Futures and online.

Commissioned artists Nick Briz, A.M. Darke and Everest Pipkin interrogate the systems that have allowed unethical use of data. Through their work, the artists ask important questions that all of us should be considering, such as why could there be mistrust in current data practices or should data collection even be considered in the first place and who are the people or communities impacted by data misuse.

The artists have taken a very open approach, exposing ‘black-box’ AI systems, showing what technology says about us; challenging people who work with data and those who are subjects of systems that use data to reflect on their own biases, which may influence how data is used and collected.

Nick Briz – howthey.watch/you

Nick Briz’s commission, howthey.watch/you exposes the tracking technology built into our everyday experience of internet browsing. In this online work, the artist discusses this technology and asks important questions about its uses beyond fingerprinting and, ultimately, tracking.

A.M. Darke – ODI R&D Artist in Residence

As Research & Development artist-in-residence, A.M. Darke is researching a new work which will confront us with the biases and prejudices embedded into algorithmic systems which govern everything from credit ratings to criminal convictions. The artist is seeking to create a system imbued with their own biases, to expose how algorithms are extensions of its programmers. They want to reveal the uncomfortable truths surrounding algorithms’ far-reaching consequences, particularly for people from marginalised communities. During the Summit, they will take part in an in-conversation with curator Antonio Roberts discussing the challenges of creating such work while consistently working within a data ethics framework themself.

Everest Pipkin – Shell Song

Everest Pipkin’s Shell Song is an interactive audio narrative game about corporate deep-fake voice technologies and the datasets that go into their construction. The game explores physical and digital bodies and voices, asking what a voice is worth, who can own a human sound, and how it feels to come face to face with a ghost of your body that may yet come to outlive you.

All of the commissions and residency details can be found on the ODI’s Data as Culture website.

All of the commissions and residency will launch at the Summit on 10th November and will then be available to the public by 11th November. Check back here on 11th November or follow me on Twitter/Instagram for links to the artworks.

Thanks to Hannah Redler-Hawes and the ODI for the invitation to curate this programme, I’m really happy with the artworks!

Peer to Peer: UK/HK – 11th – 14th November 2020

From 11th – 1th Novemebr I’ll be presenting new commissioned work as part of the Peer to Peer UK/HK programme.

Peer to Peer: UK/HK is a digital programme and platform encouraging meaningful cultural exchange and forging enduring partnerships between the UK and Hong Kong’s visual arts sectors.

The programme launches with an online festival of international exchange and collaboration taking place 11-14 November.

The Festival will include an online exhibition of digital artworks from UK and Hong Kong based artists, including 5 new commissions by artists nominated by UK and Hong Kong based partners. There will also be a series of digital residencies taking place across partner organisation’s social media channels as well as a set of curated panel discussions.

The Festival is led by Ying Kwok (Festival Director and independent curator, HK), with Lindsay Taylor,  (University of Salford Art Collection), Open Eye Gallery and Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), supported by a project team.

In the spirit of exchange and collaboration the Festival is piloting a distributed leadership model, involving co-curation and co-production with partner organisations.

The project has been generously supported by funding from Arts Council England and the GREAT campaign.

I’m one of the five commissioned artists, alongside Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Hetain Patel, Lee Kai Chung and Sharon Lee Cheuk Wan. My commission will be a live coded audio/visual work which will then enter the University of Salford Art Collection as a permanent legacy of the project. Many thanks to Charlotte Frost from Furtherfield for the nomination!

Copy Paste at Ars Electronica 9th – 13th September 2020

Copy Paste is back and will be taking part in Ars Electronica from 9th – 13th September!

This year Ars Electronica’s online programme features exhibitions and events from 120 locations globally and Piksel in Bergen, the original host of the Copy Paste exhibition back in May, is one of them.

The online section of the exhibition will be on show, which features Carol Breen, LoVid, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez + Julien Deswaef, and Duncan Poulton.

in addition to this there will be a live curator’s tour from me on Thursday 10th, the Authors of the Future lecture from Constant on Saturday, and a live coding performance from myself and Alex McLean on Sunday 13th.

For links to all of these events happening with Piksel at the Cyber Salon see here. Thanks to Piksel for making this happen and Ars Electronica for hosting.

Blender Animation Workshop – July 25th

On Saturday July 25th I’ll be delivering an online a Blender workshop for Access Space!

The three-hour workshop (13:00 – 16:00) will go through a few basics of using Blender but will mainly focus on making abstract glitchy looping gifs, like the ones that I made for Improviz.

Tickets are £15 and can be purchased directly from Access Space.

Copy Paste – 22nd May – 21st June 2020

I’m happy to announce that I am curating the exhibition Copy Paste, taking place at Piksel in Norway from 22nd May – 21st June.

If you are an artist, then you have no doubt copied the work of others. This copying can range from using pages from a magazine in collage, adopting the style of an artist, or simply being inspired by the work of an artist. This natural process of copying, taught to us at every stage of our artistic development, is burdened by a very complex and messy set of laws and social conventions which define and limit how we can use copying within our practices. These don’t take into account exceptions or nuances, and come from a historical world where artworks were scarce physical objects, and don’t translate well into a world where culture is abundant and can be accessed and copied at will.

Being an artist who copies is to be an artist working in this murky grey area of right and wrong.

For those artists, I have curated Copy Paste. This exhibition features the work of nine artists and art collectives who all incorporate copying as a core aspect of their work. Taking the form of a physical exhibition at Piksel in Norway, an online exhibition, and an event series, the exhibition aims to show that copying is natural.

Exhibiting artists: Carol Breen, Constant, LoVid, Lorna Mills, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez + Julien Deswaef, Duncan Poulton, Eric Schrijver, Peter Sunde.

There will be a few events happening throughout the exhibition, taking place online and IRL at Piksel’s studio in Norway. More details of that will follow here and on Piksel’s website. Thanks so much to Piksel for the invitation to curate this exhibition 🙂

Gifhouseparty – 16th May 2020

On 16th May 22:00 BST I’ll be doing a gif-enfused audiovisual performance for the Well Now WTF? exhibition.

In the 30 minute performance I’ll be live coding music and sounds for all of the gifs currently stuck at home! If you want to be at the party send me a gif of yourself dancing against a green screen or solid colour by 12th May and tune in to the performance over on Twitch 🙂

Well Now WTF? – 4th April 2020

From 22:00 GMT on 4th April I’ll be presenting a new gif or the online exhibition Well Now WTF?

Museums are closed. School is cancelled. The world is shut off and we’re stuck indoors. All the bread has been sold and Twitter has lost its mind. Fox News is killing off its own demographic. While everything is cancelled, why not have a show?

In spite of everything, Silicon Valet is pleased to present Well Now WTF?, an online exhibition curated by Faith Holland, Lorna Mills, and Wade Wallerstein featuring 80 artists with moving image practices opening April 4, 2020 from 5 to 10 pm EST.

With everything going on, we ask ourselves: Well Now WTF? We have no answer, but we do know how to make GIFs. We can come together and use the creative tools at our disposal to build a space for release outside of anxiety-inducing news cycles and banal social media feeds.

As co-curator Lorna Mills suggests, “Why masturbate alone, when we can all be wankers together?”

Well Now WTF? is as much an art show as a community gathering. Beginning with the opening on April 4 and throughout the exhibition, we will hold online events on the site itself and via Twitch where people can gather and talk as they would normally for a physical exhibition.

Well Now WTF? will be available online at http://wellnow.wtf/. The exhibition will be free and open to the public, with a $5 suggested, pay-what-you-wish entry that gets redistributed to the artists contributing work.

There’s sooooooo many artists taking part. Too many to list here 🙃

The work will remain on the internet forever but If you join us for the opening at 22:00 on 4th April there’ll be an online party! Details will be posted here: https://www.facebook.com/events/150877186204563/

Algorave Cafe Oto – March 5th 2020

On Thursday 5th I’ll be back in London to perform at an Algorave at Cafe Oto

I’ll be playing an audio set alongside music and visuals from Deep Vain, Eye Measure, Hortense, Jude Marcella, Mahalia Henry-Richards, Miri Kat, Renick Bell, Seth De Silva, Yaxu, +777000 and hmurd.

Tickets are £15 plus booking for and can purchased from the Cafe Oto website.

Last time I was at Cafe Oto was 11 years ago for an Openlab workshop + performance which helped me on my path to explore programming as a creative practice, so it’s nice to be back but this time performing. 🙂

V&A Friday Late: Copy / Paste – 29th March

On Friday 29th March 18:30 – 22:00 I’ll be showing two new videos at Copy / Paste at V&A.

Gif by Erin Aniker

Human culture is built on a history of replication. We copy to learn, to assimilate, to preserve and to magnify. How is this behaviour being transformed by advances in technology and what is the value of the authentic or the original today? This Friday Late, watch dance pieces to examine how human error impacts repetition and examine the role of copying in preserving cultural heritage. From architecture to online identities, explore duplication in the digital age.

I’ll be showing two videos titled Visually Similar:

Visually Similar is a video work that examines how images and videos posted online can be used to preserve history, but can also be remixed to create new narratives. In sharing our work online we make a permanent record of a point in time, which can then be used out of context.

I’ll be there IRL too if y’all have questions. Check out the rest of the awesome programme too!