tag: Art

From 16th January - 3rd February my 2016 piece Transformative Use will be on show at University of Greenwich as part of Granular: The Material Properties of Noise.

Granular noise is explored as a condition of material transfer in this exhibition. A central concern across the works on display is the material state change that occurs within the processes of mediation. Here, disintegration and/or reintegration of elements at a granular level is encountered as a mode of transference between states, whether physical or digital, and as a phase at which a thing starts or ceases to be.

On 17th March I’ll be delivering a presentation on the topic of Copyleft as part of my exhibition, Permission Taken, and the Arts and Science Festival at University of Birmingham.

Antonio Roberts introduces concepts behind the exhibition and knowledge of copyright gained through undertaking a CopyrightX course. This session encourages participants to think critically about how Copyleft concepts could be applied to their own practice or area.

If you missed the one that happened at Birmingham Open Media now’s your chance to take part! Places are free and can be booked here. There’s loads of other cool events happening during the Arts and Science Festival which you should check out!

On 15th March I’ll be running an Exquisite Corpse workshop as part of my exhibition, Permission Taken, and the Arts and Science Festival at University of Birmingham.

Antonio Roberts leads a workshop inspired by the Exquisite Corpse surrealist storytelling technique. Participants are invited to co-create an artwork re-mixing archive images and other materials.

Following the workshop there’ll be a discussion questioning authorship and ownership of the collaboratively created artworks.

A few weeks ago I put forward a proposal for a public art project that focuesd on augmented reality. There could be some confusion over what is meant by public art (if a gallery/event is free to enter isn’t it public?) so I’ll borrow the definition from Wikipedia, which, for all its faults provides a darn good definition:

The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all. The term is especially significant within the art world, amongst curators, commissioning bodies and practitioners of public art, to whom it signifies a particular working practice, often with implications of site specificity, community involvement and collaboration. The term is sometimes also applied to include any art which is exhibited in a public space including publicly accessible buildings.

GLI.TC/H 20111 programme

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—————————————– [Chicago, US] —————————————– THU: Nov 3 @7pm – GLI.TC/H Gallery Opening @MBLABS

Alma Alloro [IL], Anthony Antonellis [DE], Melissa Barron [US], Mark Beasley [US], Sophia Brueckner [US], ffd8 (Ted Davis) [CH], Jeff Donaldson && Daniel Temkin [US], Leanne Eisen [CA + US], Noah Eisenbruch [US], Gijs Gieskes [NL], jimpunk [www], Jeff Kolar [US], Harvey Moon [US], aandnota (Alex Myers) [US], Osada Genki [JP], Chelsea Arden Parker [US], Rob Ray [US], Pox Party (Jon Satrom && Ben Syverson) [US], Ant Scott [UK], Phillip Stearns [US], Party Time! Hexcellent! (Rachel Weil) [US], youpy [JP], Recyclism™ And all the bumper artists!

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

For the last six months or so I’ve been a regular guest on the Lost in The Wood radio show. Myself and the shows host, Nancy Bennie, have been hard at work to bring you the the first issue of the Lost in the Wood zine!

You can also view individual pages on flickr.

The first issue features an interview with the awesome Stinky Wizzleteat and articles and illustrations from Birmingham’s finest.

Printed copies will become available soon, as will details of how to get involved with the next one. Keep an eye on the blog for more updates.

This week I’m putting together a piece for an exhibition in Second Life and Eastside Projects:

Changing Room is an evolving mixed-reality installation that considers the inherent mutability and reusability of artefacts, concepts and situations in the Digital Age. Lead artist Michael Takeo Magruder will collaborate with Extra Special People artists Ana Benlloch, Iona Makiola, Antonio Roberts, Lee Scott, Zhao Wei and Selma Wong to develop a new collaborative space.

Blending the shared virtual environment of Second Life with the shared physical environment of Eastside Projects, the artwork will facilitate the realisation, curation and documentation of seven distinct - yet interrelated - art projects arising from a common pool of virtual and physical resources.

After seeing some of my recent work I was asked to do a family portrait. The last time I did a portrait on such a large scale was in 2007 in Adobe Illustrator and the last time I did a realistic portrait was probably back in 2006 of an old photographer buddy. I’ve been using Inkscape for just over a year now and whilst I’ve been doing little bits and pieces I haven’t actually done a major illustration.

On Thursday 11th June I gave a presentation about Open Source Software and its relationship to open source software. You can download my slides. There’s lots of information in the notes so be sure to check.

In general I covered the usual things including what programs there are availble to facilitate creativity. One thing I wanted to emphasise was the need for more collaboration between coders and artists/non-coders.

What makes many of the open source creative programs so powerful is their extensibility. In many of the programs have a scripting environment where plugins can be written, often in Python, that can do many things, such as batch processing, modifying an image in real time or just about anything that the programmer can imagine. A problem that we (the open source community) face is that not everyone is a coder. So, they may see the scripting environment as a drawback instead of a feature.

On Friday 29th November I was invited to the first Make and Do Party over at The Edge, which was hosted by Friction Arts.

There were about 20 artists present and there was a strong emphasis on just having fun creating art! I think there’s definite potential to increase collaboration amongst artists, possibly through the use of games.

Here’s some of the pictures from the night:

This is one of my works. It’s looking up onto a baby that’s about to jump off its chair.

Reading Floss+Art really has got me wondering if art should be free. By free I don’t mean public domain, but rather in a way that ensures the work stays free, such as releasing their work under Creative Commons or some similar Copyleft licence?

When I approached this question I split it into two questions, should art be free and should design be free. To clarify, I see art as something more aesthetic, more pleasing to the eye. I don’t think it strictly is there to answer questions, but more to raise them. It’s like a fiction book, which isn’t there to provide facts, but to entertain.

I’ve been wanting to start an open source art project for awhile now but the most confusing aspect of all of this is which licence to choose! I’ve already discovered that the GNU GPL doesn’t really cover art, and since I have stumbled upon three different licences that I could choose. Before I reveal them here’s what I intend to do:

I want to allow people to upload their original ideas onto a website and have those open for modification, whilst still crediting the original, and all subsequent authors/editors. Once an image is created I want the image itself to be available for modification and the original file i.e. the psd, xcf, svg etc file also available. All of these would remain free and not be allowed to be used for commercial work.

Click to englarge

Here’s some more progress on the open source zine idea I’ve had recently. I’ve been seeking advice on the Inkscape and GIMP forums, but feel free to add any thoughts ;-)

A followup to the last post. Here’s the blurb from the video caption:

Insectoid went to Earlswood and engaged in a silent, collaborative painting experiment.

We decided the basic plan beforehand, but no verbal communication took place during the 2.5 hours of painting.

The process of carrying back to the studio had an effect on some sections of the painting

Insectoid is now on last.fm, so get scrobbling!

Some newish artwork from me.

More images finally added to the traditional art gallery.

Some more new abstract work. Check out my portfolio for more

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Some new vector artwork from me. It’s one of a series of abstract pieces revolving around the use of letter-like symbols and very vibrant colours. Some more portraits coming soon. Check my portfolio for more. Ya heard!

Completed this a few days ago

It was originally going to include text, but I couldn’t get them to work in harmony. Oh well, another challenge for me!

Completed this one recently

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I’m liking the way this style is going, but I want to incorporate people and other objects into it, rather than just abstract objects and text. It’s proving challenging to make the two work together, but it’ll happen with more practice ;-)

a.a.s did a performance at the Crowd6 event Mingling and Mistletoe on Saturday evening. It involved us dancing around a Christmas tree whilst vaguely chanting the theme from a popular product and then spewing our guts all over the tree. We then crawled back to our cave whilst blood dripped from our guts creating a pool of festive gore for onlookers to gaze at. Wonderful!

Here’s a video of the performance courtesy of Ana Artstalking (who’s review you can read here). Enjoy!

My friend Mez informed me that Amarok, the popular media player for Linux and Unix systems is starting its own radio station, imaginatively called Radio Amarok. Whilst I didn’t want to design the website, I did have the pleasure of designing a new logo. After various attempts the panel chose this design: