s q u i d s o u p . o r g

We had fun at this year’s SIGGRAPH in Downtown LA. We showed Glowing Pathfinder Bugs in the Art Gallery – it was interesting to present a sandpit at a heavily tech-led event, and seemed to go down well. We also presented a conference paper on the project, published in a special issue of Leonardo (vol 43, issue 4). And we did an artists’ talk.

More images here, and the project was also covered here by Core77.

Pest Control came into being at dawn today in the Shangri-La area at Glastonbury, on the eve of the festival starting.

Above, graffiti inspired by the project, and below, a piece of found graffiti that we rather liked…

Glastonbury at dawn on the eve of the festival.

More images here.

BUGS GET A NEW LEASE OF LIFE AND HIT THE FESTIVALS CIRCUIT!

We are developing a new iteration of our Glowing Pathfinder Bugs project for this year’s Festival season, called Pest Control. Like the original piece, Pest Control consists of autonomous multi-legged virtual creatures that respond to each other, and any physical objects and real people in their way. But this time, the bugs get nasty…

Pest Control will be on show at the GLASTONBURY Festival, in the Shangri-La area, and also at the SECRET GARDEN PARTY Festival and WALTHAMSTOW Festival – with thanks to Up Projects and Arts Council England.

ALSO, the original Glowing Pathfinder Bugs is being shown in a few venues this Summer, including the SITE Festival (Stroud, late May, see previous post), SIGGRAPH (LA, in late July) and Le Cube (Paris, September). A fun Summer!

We’re very excited that Ocean of Light has been nominated for Brazil’s FILE PRIX LUX for Interactive Art. It’s an impressive list, with many high profile and excellent projects from across the globe. We would love your support! If you can, please vote for us.

Go here, select PAGE 4, then choose Ocean of Light and follow the instructions.

The SITE Festival, “a festival of artist led projects in stroud gloucestershire”, will be showing two of our pieces as part of a long list of interesting local, national and international artists’ work.

Glowing Pathfinder Bugs will be on show at SVA (Stroud Valley Arts), Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th May.

Freq2 will be on show on the 5th June (11-6) in Union Street. You might also catch it at Bar Nine a bit later in the week.

More details at www.sitefestival.org.uk

Kinetica has been good to us.  In addition to the coverage on the BBC and Telegraph mentioned below, we were featured in numerous publications including DigiMag, UK Features, and this from BigShinyThing.

Thanks to James Lane for putting the video together.

ALSO, Glowing Pathfinder Bugs is still finding its way through customs to us, having spent a joyous week or so in Montreal, as part of Technofolies at the Montreal Science Museum. And Bugs is also being shown at Grizedale Forest (Cumbria) as part of Abandon Normal Devices. And we think that yet more outings for the Bugs will be announced soon.

We have just emerged from six days in a black box at the Kinetica Art Fair, nurturing Surface, the first project on the Ocean of Light 3D LED grid. It was an intense period, with apparently some 10,000 people passing through in three days.

Surface is a responsive virtual eco-system that occupies physical space.  It uses a room-sized 3D grid of individually addressable points of light to simulate movement in physical space. The space is dominated by a surface – the boundary between two fluid virtual materials.  The materials are affected by sound – nearby noises create waves that ripple across the surface.  The surface is, however, unstable: the turbulence caused by noise also triggers luminous blasts. Abstract insect-like autonomous agents, aware of their surroundings, also navigate and negotiate the environment and the surface.  The result is a series of interconnected spaces and environments, overlapping physical and virtual spaces that coexist and are aware of each other.

For us, it was also an intense learning experience.  The first outing for the Ocean of Light, a hardware project supported by the Technology Strategy Board, was a litmus test for whether this kind of 3D visuals work on the uninitiated – whether people “get it”. It seems that they do – responses were very positive. We’ve also had a lot of ideas – our own and suggested by others – about future directions and options.

Press coverage included this on BBC News and this on the Daily Telegraph.

The images here are taken from a forthcoming documentary on the project by James Lane – details to follow.

Been busy in Oslo of late. Two talks about various aspects of Squidsoup’s work during Kedja and gRIG conferences, and another outing for Freq2 during Kedja. The Kedja conference, on Dance and New Media, also features a 96 page publication on various aspects of interdisciplinary dance and new media. Contributors include Johannes Birringer, Ghislaine Boddington (body>data>space), Stuart Jones and Anthony Rowe. The cover (see above) featured Freq2. Hard copies available from Lise Amy Hansen, and a PDF will be available soon.

Glowing Pathfinder Bugs and old favourite Ghosts are both to be shown at iDesign, part of London Design Week, on THURSDAY 24th SEPTEMBER – and also a short talk in the afternoon.

Bugs is also being shown in Liverpool on SATURDAY 25th SEPTEMBER, outside FACT, as part of AND (Abandon Normal Devices).  More here.

Onedotzero at the BFI also went well last weekend – the sand made a nice mess of the carpet… images below and more here.

more video documentation from The Stealth Project at ISEA.