Cornwall “Let’s Get Digital” presentation

Here’s a presentation I gave at the end of last year at a Creative Skills Cornwall meeting at Falmouth University. I introduced the problems of a growing producer/consumer digital divide – the need for more public discourse in the politics of technology and how free software, codeclub, livecoding, algorithmic weaving and sonic bikes can indicate other relationships we can have with technology.

The talk went down really well, but the slides are a little minimal so it might not be super clear what it was all about based just on them 🙂

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Fluxus at Falmouth University

On Friday Cornwall Locative Arts Network, Cornwall Creative Skills and I took over The Academy for Innovation & Research at Falmouth University with a Fluxus workshop, teaching creative coding via recursive procedural 3D modelling for people new to programming. The thing I like most about Scheme as a programming language is that you can very quickly cover the fundamentals of programming (naming values and processes, recursion, and scope) in a 2 hour course with very little time spent on learning syntax or other fiddly things. We had a great spread of attendants, from local artists and designers to lecturers and PhD students, everyone ending up with their own animated procedural shapes.

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This was followed by the Cornwall Locative Arts Network meeting at which I presented with Tom Goskar, a digital archaeologist, who uses 3D graphics in fascinating ways to read inscriptions and patterns in ancient monuments. I talked about borrowed scenery, doris and sonic bikes and discussed using ushahidi and beagleboards in artistic and scientific projects.

Later on we were invited by Jowan Sebastian Parker to experience Falmouth University’s MakerNow Lab which is opening soon, providing laser cutters, 3D printers and an electronics workshop. I’m hoping to find time to make extensive use of the lab in the not too distant future! The photo above is of their ‘synths on postcards’ example project.