Taking flight

Three pigeons, 127 seconds | Laser sintered nylon 20 x 25 x 6cm

Three beautifully printed models arrived on Thursday. All part of Solid Air, my Arts Council funded project to capture bird flight using specialised data loggers and 3D printing. Take a bow Ogle Models and Prototypes of Letchworth. I've learnt the hard way that not all rapid prototyping companies take as much care as they do. 

Listen to Easterbrooks

Listen to Easterbrooks | 2014 | 50-minute sound sequence, looped, with digital imagery

I'm sharing some work in progress at Devon Open Studios.  Listen to Easterbrooks is an experimental transcription, in sound, of temperature data collected from Easterbrooks, a warm, south-facing pasture on West Town Farm, near Exeter. Five different sensors are represented by five different sampled sounds, which are played so that each semitone represents a difference of 0.5°C in temperature reading. Higher pitched sounds represent warmer temperatures, while lower pitched sounds correspond to cooler temperatures (usually at night). Readings were taken every 30 minutes over 40 days in July and August 2014, and each 24-hour cycle takes about 75 seconds to play as sound.

These measurements of soil and air temperatures were made as part of a collaboration with Dr Jonathan Bennie, an Associate Research Fellow at Exeter University’s Environment and Sustainability Institute. The project, Foreign Soil, asks what it means to eat local food, through a documented attempt to grow edible dessert bananas (Dwarf Cavendish) outdoors in Devon. 

It's on just for one week at OrganicArts, West Town Farm, Ide, nr Exeter, Devon EX2 9TG.  11am-6pm daily.  It's installed in a stable in the farmyard, but you can also listen on mobile devices in Easterbrooks itself.

Foreign Soil is supported by the ESI/RANE Creative Exchange Programme and OrganicArts. Technical Consultant: Tim King. 

http://www.organicarts.org.uk 

Art night in Plymouth

AA2A show at Plymouth's Civic Centre

There's a final show by the artists who took part in the Artists Access to Art Colleges (AA2A) scheme at Plymouth University 2013-14: Tabatha Andrews, Sally Hall, Kayleigh Hill, Gabrielle Hoad and Lee McDonald, plus the three student reps who've supported us: Rachael Allain, Jamie Morrison and Luke Walder.

I'll be showing three working drawings from my digital visualisation/bird flight project 'Solid Air'. It takes place at the Plymouth City Council House, Civic Centre, Armada Way, Plymouth PL1 2AA. The exhibition is open to the general public every Friday in August (1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th) between 12.00 and 2.00pm. There will be a closing event 4.00pm-5.30pm on 29th August as part of the city-wide Open 4 multi-venue arts event organised by Visual Art Plymouth.

Part of Plymouth's Civic Centre Precinct, The Council House dates from 1954. Its post-war interior is of national significance and provides a fantastic backdrop for a rolling programme of exhibitions by contemporary artists with a connection to Plymouth. The programme is supported by Plymouth City Council.

You can find out more about The Council House exhibitions programme here:
http://councilhouseart.wordpress.com/about/

Foreign Soil Field Trip

"Throw a hoop to pick a random patch of ground. Log, describe and count everything you find there." Field Trip - 29/06/14.

Nine people came for today's walk at West Town Farm organised by OrganicArts. Five stayed on and generously shared their observations of Easterbrooks, my potential banana-growing site. 

Textually Active with Driftingspace

Gabrielle Hoad  - Data roll

Textually Active took place at Karst, Plymouth on 10 April 2014 with contributions from Tabatha Andrews, Sally Hall, Jason Hirons, Gabrielle Hoad, Rosie King, Holly Knowles and Steven Paige. Fifty-five people attended.

For the event, I considered source data from my flight mapping project (generated by glider pilot Rowan Smith and research scientist Dr Steven Portugal) as text. This included transcribing two seconds of pigeon flight data through automated text-to-voice software and presenting it alongside animated archive images of bird flight by E.J. Marey from the early 1890s.

The session focused on seeing, hearing and holding data (printed out as a roll) which allowed us to appreciate the its rhythms, its sheer quantity and density, and also its narrative qualities (it describes a connected series of events). But, despite their precision, numeric co-ordinates are too abstract for ordinary human comprehension when presented this way. They have to be translated and contextualised. 

Common themes emerged from the evening around data, surveillance, linear progression (narratives), digital processes (binary states), rule-based works, and measurement of space and time.  Details of the other artists' work can be found here.

Textually Active provides a critical space for debate and performative practices in Plymouth and the South West of England. Curated and run by Driftingspace, a collaborative art practice, it's an ad hoc, nomadic event running cultural activities that incorporate art, performance, installation, and writing.

Art that isn't looking away #4

Emily Speed Littoral Zone - Plymouth Arts Centre

I had a bit of a moan a while back about the art world's seemingly wilful attempt to distract us from the big issues confronting the planet. However, there are two excellent exhibitions in Devon galleries at the moment that run counter to this trend.

S Mark Gubb's 'History is Written by the Winners' at Exeter Phoenix (28 March -10 May 2014) draws widely on the social and political culture of the 1980s and 1990s -- from fake Libyan hit squads (supposedly sent by Colonel Gaddafi to assassinate President Reagan in 1981) to conspiracy theories about the assassination of President Kennedy. The most prominent work (possibly because its familiar smell pervades the entire gallery) is A New Physics Based on Nightmares. This invites you to prepare Pot Noodles while timing your snack against the four-minute launch protocols for a nuclear attack.

Reading the gallery blurb is a must to get the best from this show - it's definitely art that needs commentary. Amusing yet pointed, it encourages a healthy scepticism about the structures of modern power.

Emily Speed 'Littoral Zone' at  Plymouth Arts Centre (22 March - 25 May 2014) is a much gentler, subtler show that takes its name from the unstable, liminal space between the high and low tide marks. Exploiting a small, gloomy gallery space to maximum effect, Speed uses projections, sound, sculpture and airstreams to create a space reminiscent of the drippy, dark, decaying spaces under a British seaside pier. There's a sense of shelter but also of vulnerability.

An improvised structure of timber and draped fabric (with feet of clay) is used as a rippling, unstable canvas for film of people doggedly erecting windbreaks on a bleak and breezy South Devon beach.  It's matched by images of sea defences and empty sands, and suggests our noble yet ultimately futile struggle against time, tide and the elements.

With the main railway link to Devon and Cornwall only recently re-opened after catastrophic sea damage, this work seems perfectly timed and perfectly placed.