
Matt will present Blast Theory's recent research into low cost outside broadcasting and video streaming as part of a lecture at Chelsea College of Art in London.
Blast Theory artists will be giving a talk at the opening of BLAST THEORY BLESS PRACTICE 20th survey exhibition at 4pm on Saturday 10th December. Spacex Gallery, 45 Preston St, Exeter, EX1 1DF. Free entry, for further details visit
www.spacex.org.uk
A special panel discussion examining new uses of film in the city. This hour-long symposium showcases cutting edge performance work, and will explore how artists and film makers are creating new relationships between cinema and the urban space.
Ju Row Farr is taking part and will be discussing Blast Theory's recent Brighton Digital Festival piece, A Machine To See With, a mobile cinema experience which casts the participant as the protagonist in a bank robbery. Me and the Machine, creators of sell-out Brighton Festival piece, I came by Myself to a Crowded Place, will show work in development that stages unexpected filmic encounters on the city street. The event is hosted by the BANG network.
Salis Benney Theatre at 6pm 24th November, Cinematic City Panel.
Click here for more information.
A Machine To See With is included in the 6th Digital Art Festival Taipei (DAF06) running from 11th-20th November and will be presented in English and Taiwanese.
Blast Theory artists Nick Tandavanitj and Matt Adams are both travelling to Taipei and will present Artists Talks during the festival. The presentation in Taipei is supported by the British Council.
More information here.
The first in a new series of lectures for young people aged 14 – 19 exploring art and technology sees Blast Theory talk alongside games company International Hobo at Whitehapel Art Gallery, 17th November.
For more information click here.
David Rokeby, Lev Manovich, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Matt Fuller and Sean Cubitt will all be speaking alongside Matt Adams at a seminar on "Invisibility and Unawareness: Ethico-Political Implications of Embeddedness and the Culture of Surveillance" at the Danish Architecture Centre, Copenhagen on 11th November
Click here for more information.
Matt Adams will present two recent projects to students at Taipei National University of the Arts, 4th November.
Ju Row Farr has joined the Arts Council England’s Digital and Broadcasting External Advisory Group.
Nick Tandavanitj will be presenting Blast Theory's work as part of the Click and Create Taster Webinar, organised by Creative Junction with Chalfonts Community College, Adobe and the National Society for Education in Art and Design.
Friday 21st October 11am - 12.15pm
FREE
Email Vicky Hope-Walker by Thursday 20th at 5pm to attend online.
Our SMS project for young people Ivy4Evr has been nominated for a BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) Award in the Arts and Culture category. The pilot episode was commissioned by Channel 4 Education last year, with a live trial in October 2010. Ivy4Evr was developed by Blast Theory with writer Tony White with SMS engine developed by TalkWeb from Brighton. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 10th November.
More information here.
Ulrike and Eamon Compliant will have its German premiere at the 8th Festival 'Politik im Freien Theater' (Politics in Independent Theatre) from October 28th-31st in Dresden. It is included in a special section of the programme URBAN MUTATIONS curated by Dietmar Lupfer, Director of Muffatwerk Munich.
More information here.
A short edit of our work A Machine To See With is now online at vimeo.
Watch it here.
Executive Producer Julianne Pierce is speaking at a forum on Thursday 13th October as part of Dublin Contemporary. Taking the form of a conversation led by artist Conor McGarrigle, Living with the Panopticon: Acts of Non-compliance in the Digital World asks how technology might be contested, shaped and reinvented in ways which enhance our everyday lives and examines the role of artists, designers and activists in creating non-compliance in today’s digital world.
The forum is free and runs from 7pm-8.30pm at The Office of Non-Compliance, LT2, Earlsfort Terrace. For further details and to RSVP click here.
Performing Mixed Reality is a new MIT Press publication edited by Steve Benford and Gabriella Giannachi. The book draws on a number of works that have been developed at the University of Nottingham’s Mixed Reality Laboratory, describing collaborations with artists (most notably Blast Theory) that have gradually evolved a distinctive interdisciplinary approach to combining practice with research. They offer detailed and extended accounts of these works from different perspectives, including interviews with the artists and Mixed Reality Laboratory researchers.
More information here.
We are delighted that A Machine To See With is featured in the inaugural Brighton Digital Festival in September. A new festival that aims to cement Brighton’s status as a leading digital destination and build bridges between digital industries and arts communities.
Presented in association with Lighthouse and Dome Brighton, A Machine To See With is showing on various dates throughout the month. For tickets and booking details click here.
As part of Brighton Digital Festival the Lighthouse is presenting a conference examining artists', designers' and filmmakers' attempts to improve reality on 23rd September. Matt will use A Machine To See With as an example of overlaying new fictions onto the chaotic and entropic space of the city.
More information here
Matt is speaking and mentoring at the Science Museum’s Live Gaming festival as part of the Games Jam on 30th September from 10.00 – 18.00. Attendees will have the opportunity to work with curators and live gamers from Hide & Seek, Coney and Blast Theory to deliver experiential games over the weekend of 1 & 2 October at the Player festival and will also have a chance to win the Science Museum’s PLAYER Award 2011.
More information here
Sugar Beast Circus are a collective of artists, performers and designers with a shared vision to create work that broadens the scope of interdisciplinary work and to break down the barrier between theatre, gallery and big-top.
During their residency they will look at how accelerometer devices can create an interactive relationship between a performer’s extreme skill and live animation. Spefically how accelerometers as hand held device or interface could enable audiences to influence performer movement, video animation and the outcome of the experience.
More information here
Rider Spoke has been invited to ANTI Festival in Kuopio (Finland), the world’s only contemporary art festival presenting solely site-specific works. The festival has an international reputation as a meeting place for artists and audiences fascinated by how contemporary art might respond to the spaces and places of everyday life. The Artistic Directors of the festival are Gregg Whelan (Lone Twin) and Johanna Tuukkanen. Rider Spoke will be presented from 28th September - 1st October.
Blast Theory artist Nick Tandavanitj will be giving two workshops and an Artist Talk as part of the 'Rider Spoke' presentation at ANTI festival in Finland.
Artist Talk, 27th Sept
An introduction to the history and current work of Blast Theory.
Workshop 1: 28th Sept, 9:00-12:00
A practical workshop to explore how location based works are produced and an insight into mixed reality and pervasive media.
Workshop 2: 29th Sept, 9:00-12:00
An overview of the creative process behind 'Rider Spoke' with hands on experience of working through some of the technologies involved and how Rider Spoke uses Wi-Fi to create a 'map' of the city.
More information here
Blast Theory is pleased to welcome our current intern Sandra Carluccio. Based in Brisbane, Australia Sandra is as an emerging independent performance artist and studying a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Honours) with a major in Drama at QUT (Queensland University of Technology).
Sandra joined us in August and will stay through to the end of October. She is working with Blast Theory on a range of projects including presentations of A Machine To See With in Edinburgh and Brighton.
Have you ever wanted to rob a bank? Following sell out US seasons at Sundance Film Festival and Walker Art Centre, A Machine To See With now makes its UK premiere at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Running from August 24th-28th at St Georges West, tickets £12/£10 with bookings every 15 minutes from 2pm-7pm through the Fringe box office.
A Machine To See With is presented in association with Remarkable Arts as part of the British Council Edinburgh Showcase. 28 companies from across the UK are included in the Showcase which highlights the work of British artists to audiences, presenters, promoters and critics. For more about the Showcase and a sneak preview trailer of A Machine To See With click here.
Blast Theory's Executive Producer, Julianne Pierce will present a case study on Ivy4Evr at The Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture: Digital Day at Brighton Dome on Wednesday 10th August.
The Digital days aim to share ideas and approaches to digital technologies for the arts and cultural sectors, and to present the Digital R&D Fund for Arts and Culture within the Arts Council’s wider digital strategy and activities.
More information here.
The Blast Theory intern programme is an opportunity for recent graduates and those embarking on a career in the arts to have first-hand experience of working with an artists company.
Our programme covers a wide range of activity including office administration, project management, database management, touring, archiving, marketing and publicity. At times you will also be required to assist the artists on creative project development and realisation. An important aspect of the intern programme is developing networks and new contacts and our staff are happy to provide advice on career directions and options.
Blast Theory usually work with interns on specific projects in development and give clear areas of responsibility and focus. Interns become a part of the Blast Theory team and our interns should be good at both working in a team and working independently. We also appreciate interns who work hard and who have a keen eye for detail.
The placements are for a minimum of one month and a maximum of three months. A small daily stipend is paid to interns to cover travel and other expenses.
For full details on how to please download the document here.
Dan Dixon is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England currently working on a PhD titled Playing with Reality: An Aesthetic Framework for Understanding Pervasive Games.
Dan says, The PhD I am working towards investigates the space between games, the physical world and the transformative nature of technology.
My main aims are to make an appropriately critical exploration and discussion on the subject of mixed reality games, and to construct a framework, using empirical evidence, for understanding these (bringing in the context, environment, culture and technological interaction).
This is an academic residency, intended to engage with Blast Theory’s practice over an extended period. The most important thing for me is to gain access and insight into developmental processes, of both work in progress and finished pieces.
More info on Dan's blog here
A Machine To See With, the Locative Cinema Commission from Banff New Media Institute, Sundance Film Festival and 01 San Jose Biennial is being presented at the Banff Summer Festival from July 19-23.
More information here
Soft Message has been included in the Travelling Sounds Library produced by Forest Fringe and will be playing at The Time Traveller’s Bookshop, Bridge Street, Skibbereen between 23rd and 30th July.
More details here.
We're pleased to be part of a recently announced artists commission 'Voices of the Sea' - initiated by a partnership of Brighton & Hove based arts organisations, to create two major new works, responding to the coastal context and maritime heritage of SE England. The commission also involves a residency at 20 Wellington Road in February 2012.
For further details follow the link, deadline for proposals 18th July.
We've received our largest ever commission to create a game for 25 players for the Red Cross Museum in Geneva. The newly refurbished museum will open in 2012. More details to follow.
Sarah Waterson has been practicing and exhibiting as a new media artist for the past twenty years. These works include electronic installations, collaborations with performers, video and audio work, generative and software based artworks, VR environments and data visualisations / ecologies.
Recent works include: Laika’s Derive, 33ºSouth – a three-channel audio-visual installation that juxtaposes the cities of Sydney and Santiago using a custom made data mapping system and database, trope, a new writing project developed for the Second Life environment, subscapePROOF, a custom made data mapping system, and subscapeBALTIC.
Thanks to Hannah Collisson for writing to the What You Like section of The Guardian "art is rarely this accessible or fun"
Link
Matt Adams will talk about Ivy4Evr at the Children's Media Conference in Sheffield on Friday 8th July.
More information here
Blast Theory Executive Producer Julianne Pierce will be speaking on Blast Theory and the creative economy at the third ACE Culture Club on 29th June. Culture Club is a fun and non-intimidating introduction for Arts Council staff to the world of arts policy and research. Also speaking is Tom Fleming from Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy.
Blast Theory is currently calling for applications for the 20 Wellington Road Residency Programme for 2012. Expressions of interest are invited from individuals working in the following fields:
- Pervasive & location based gaming & interactive media
- Mobile & portable devices in cultural & artistic practice
- Games design and theory
- Interdisciplinary and live art practice
The deadline for applications is July 31, 2011. Further details and an application form are available here
Blast Theory has received a new commission to develop a site specific audio work for Faster Than Sound at Snape Maltings in collaboration with musician Chris Clark.
Suffolk is a quintessential county of English peace and restraint. However the area also has a strong military history: bases, bunkers and research installations surround Snape. Drawing on this history, Fixing Point is a walk away from the Maltings into marshiness underfoot. Using a mobile app that tracks you as you explore you will find fragments of testimony from the relatives of victims in Northern Ireland.
Fixing Point will be presented on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 May from 10am-6pm and is part of the Soundfields project curated by Faster Than Sound.
www.fasterthansound.com
www.snapemaltings.co.uk
In May/June 2011 Nottingham Playhouse present NEAT, the inaugural Nottingham European Arts and Theatre Festival. Blast Theory is delighted that Ulrike and Eamon Compliant will have its UK premiere as part of the festival. Commissioned by De La Warr Pavilion for the 2009 Venice Biennale, Ulrike and Eamon Compliant is a walking work with mobile phones based on the lives of Ulrike Meinhof (Red Army Faction) and Eamon Collins (Irish Republican Army).
The walk starts at Nottingham Playhouse and runs from Saturday 28th May - Tuesday 31st May. Tickets are £5, Concessions £3 and bookings on 0115 941 9419.
More information and booking
Following the UK premiere at NEAT Festival in Nottingham, Ulrike and Eamon Compliant tours to Sheffield in June 2011 as part of Sheffield Doc/Fest.
We are delighted that Ulrike and Eamon Compliant is included in one of the worlds' foremost documentary film festivals and in addition has been shortlisted for the Sheffield Doc/Fest Innovation Award. This prestigious award is given to a cutting-edge documentary from the Sheffield Doc/Fest program. The jury includes Channel 4′s Kate Quilton, American producer Sandi DuBowski and Sundance Film Festival senior programmer Shari Frilot.
Ulrike and Eamon Compliant is a walking work with mobile phones based on the lives of Ulrike Meinhof (Red Army Faction) and Eamon Collins (Irish Republican Army).
Dates: June 9, 10, 11
Times: 12midday - 6pm daily
Venue: The Winter Garden, Tudor Square
Admission: Free admission, no bookings necessary
Presented by Sheffield Doc/Fest, funded by Arts Council England and supported by Sheffield Theatres.
More information
Making Future Narrative is a new initiative by Broadway Media Arts that will focus on experimentation, story-telling and ways of engaging audiences. The programme will involve talks, debates and a commissioning strand. The first event is being held at Lincoln Performing Arts Centre on Thursday 2nd June from 6 - 8.30PM.
Guest speakers are Brendan Oliver & Brendan Randall and Hetain Patel & Barret Hodgson who will present their commissioned research alongside artistic presentations from Blast Theory and Rachel Coldicutt.
Free admission but bookings essential HERE
Blast Theory artist Ju Row Farr is currently a guest adviser on the MA in Performance and Creative Research at Roehampton University.
We will be running a series of events from our studios in Portslade this May as part of HOUSE Festival.
Doors will be open between 12.00 and 18.00 on all 4 weekends of the festival (May 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 28th & 29th) and we will be presenting Soft Message, Riders Have Spoken (a playful graphic and audio archive of recordings from Rider Spoke) and Single Story Building along with documentary works.
Come and say hello.
Matt will be in conversaton tonight with Lorenza Ippolito discussing The Empty Space at Farica, Brighton.
More info here
Blast Theory's newest work 'A Machine To See With' is being presented at Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis between the 15th and 19th April.
'A Machine To See With' is a work for pedestrians and their mobile phones and is the inaugural 'locative cinema' commission awarded in 2009 by partners ZER01: The Art & Technology Network, Sundance Film Festival‘s New Frontiers Initiative and Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre.
For more information and to book tickets please click here
We are very pleased to welcome Jon Sutton as an Associate to Blast Theory. Jon joins Dicky Eton, Sheila Ghelani, Niki Woods, Paul Dungworth and Becky Edmunds as a regular collaborator.
Please click here to read a biography for Jon.
Matt Adams will be taking part in the symposium Fiction, Immersion and Virtual Worlds at The Sorbonne, Paris between 27th and 28th April.
Blast Theory will become a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England from 2012/13. Having been supported as a Regularly Funded Organisation, Blast Theory is pleased to announce an increase from 10/11 level of £113,788 to £140,000 per annum for the period 12/13 - 14/15.
The ongoing funding will assist Blast Theory to realise new works in broadcasting and location based media, expanding the company's reach to new audiences across the South East, nationally and internationally.
Blast Theory's Executive Producer Julianne Pierce will give a keynote at the SHARE conference in Serbia, being held from April 7th - 9th. SHARE Conference is a new kind of festival created by the State of Exit Foundation. For the first time in the region, a host of internationally acclaimed internet and social activism experts, new media artists and renowned musicians will be present in one place at the same time.
www.shareconference.net
Soft Message has been included in the Travelling Sounds Library produced by Forest Fringe and will be playing at Camden People's Theatre until 27th March.
For more info click here
Tommaso Dolcetta is studying for a PhD in anthropology/performance art at Goldsmiths on pervasive games, as spaces of creativity and experimentation in social/cultural interaction. He is in residence at 20 Wellington Road until the end of May.
During the residency he will work on the development or a pervasive game based around players constructing situations which may improve and transform the environment they are living in.
Blast Theory artist Ju Row Farr will be guest lecturer for the third year and MA students at The University of Sussex on Thursday 24th February.
Blast Theory artist Ju Row Farr will be giving a presentation to the final year students of the Performance and Visual Art course on Friday 18th February.
Blast Theory artist Matt Adams is taking part in The Story at The Conway Hall, London on Friday 18th February.
The Story will be a celebration of everything that is wonderful, inspiring and awesome about stories, in whatever medium possible. We’re hoping to have stories that are written, spoken, played, described, enacted, whispered, projected, orchestrated, performed, printed – whatever form stories come in, we hope to have them here.
For more information click here
Students currently studying their scond year of Critical Fine Art course are setting up a bar in the gallery of Brighton University on Grand Parade and have invited a number of artists to come and give informal talks on their work for the week of 14th to 21st February. Blast Theory artist Nick Tandavanitj will be joining them on Friday 18th February for a drink.
For the last two years Blast Theory artists have provided support and mentoring to emerging Brighton based artists company Me and The Machine. In February/March this continues with Blast Theory providing studio space to Me and The Machine to undertake development work.
www.meandthemachine.co.uk
A season of Rider Spoke will be presented by University College Falmouth (incorporating Dartington College of Arts) on March 4th, 5th and 6th.
The venue is The Performance Centre, University College Falmouth, Temough, Penryn and session times are 3pm - 7pm daily (session times every 15 minutes). Tickets prices are £12.50 full/ £9.50 concessions includes bike hire/ £6.50 with own bike.
Bookings through the Hall for Cornwall in Truro on 01872 262 466 and www.hallforcornwall.co.uk
Blast Theory is extremely pleased to welcome new Board members Julien Boast and Verity Slater.
Julien Boast is an arts leader from the private and public cultural sector. From 2002-2010, he worked for the international company, the Ambassador Theatre Group, (ATG), initially as Chief Executive of the award winning Theatre Royal Brighton. In 2009, he was additionally appointed Chief Executive of Churchill Theatre Bromley. In 2011 he will take up the position of Director at Hall for Cornwall, Truro.
Verity Slater is an independent arts consultant and producer. With over 10 years of management experience in the arts and cultural sectors, she brings experience and expertise in policy, fundraising, development and interdisciplinary practices.
"Signal to Noise" is the moniker of Brighton based artists Oliver Wilshen and Niall Quinn. They will be in residence at 20 Wellington Road for the month of February 2011.
Our current practice investigates the creative potential that obsolete media technologies have to offer, specifically the magnetic audiotape format.
The residency will see further development of an interactive sound installation based on a previous work entitled “Analogue Tape Glove”.
For more information click here.
We've just got back from presenting A Machine To See With at Sundance Film Festival as part of the New Frontiers Programme. We got some great feedback from everyone who took part and here is a selection of reviews of the piece:
Guardian Games blog by Keith Stuart
New York Magazine by Kyle Buchanan
Sundance Festival blog by Eric Hynes
Entertainment Careers article
Saltlake Finest article
LAist blog by Lisa Brenner
Jake Orr's Younger Theatre blog
Jon Reiss Blog
Riders Have Spoken is currently included in Growing Knowledge: The Evolution of Research exhibition at the British Library. The work is a playful graphic and audio archive of recordings from Rider Spoke, created by Blast Theory with designer Jon Sutton. Riders Have Spoken has been developed by Blast Theory with the support of Horizon Digital Economy Research.
For more information click here.
Playmakers is a groundbreaking documentary about the emerging phenomenon of Pervasive games.
The film features those at the forefront of the pervasive games movement, it includes games designers such as Blast Theory's Matt Adams and Claire Reddington from the Pervasive Media Studio alongside technology heavyweights such as Howard Rheingold and anthropologist Mike Wesch.
Watch the film here.
Blast Theory's newest work 'A Machine To See With' is included in the New Frontier Programme of the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah from January 20th - 30th.
'A Machine To See With' is a work for pedestrians and their mobile phones and is the inaugural 'locative cinema' commission awarded in 2009 by partners ZER01: The Art & Technology Network, Sundance Film Festival‘s New Frontiers Initiative and Banff New Media Institute at The Banff Centre.
"As filmmaking rapidly evolves through the creative marriage of technology and storytelling, New Frontier opens a window into the future," said Robert Redford, Sundance Institute Founder and President."It's a thrill for me to provide these unique artists with a new platform, a departure from their traditional art venues, and to watch Festival audiences challenge their preconceived notions about visual expression. And, as I contemplate the role the Institute can play in this evolution, I challenge my own notions as well."
Sundance New Frontiers
Sundance Festival
Matt Adams will lead a two day workshop on games design for Patching Zone on 27-28th January as part of the Digital Art Lab project
www.patchingzone.net
Ketih Stuart on A Machine To See With at Sundance Film Festival.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology
Blast Theory welcomes our latest intern Emilie Giles. Emilie completed an MA Interactive Media: Critical Theory and Practice at Goldsmiths in 2010. She is working with us on projects including A Machine To See With and the Rider Spoke Archive.
Blast Theory artist Matt Adams is participating in the Channel 4 Convergence Lab on January 25th and 26th. The Lab is for independent producers and freelancers interested to work with Channel 4 in devising, developing and producing cross-platform projects for the TV, web and mobile platforms.
www.crossoverlabs.org/
Blast Theory Executive Producer Julianne Pierce has been selected for the Creative Producers Development Programme.
Co-ordinated by iShed, Arts Council England and The interdisciplinary Digital Cultures Research Centre, the programme will bring together 10 producers working across art-forms to attend SXSW (South by Southwest) music, film, and interactive conference in Austin, Texas in March followed by a Summer School in June.
www.ished.net/2011/
A new 20 second video work will premiere on 17th January as part of the Smile for London project. An initiative by Meme Partnership commissioning works for the London Underground.
www.smileforlondon.com