Low Residency Part 2 –

This is part 2 of the Low Residency.  This blog covers the second week of activities.  To see what happened in the preceding week please see Zoom Session 19.

Low Tech Photography (Monday 10.00am with Felix Loftus)

I was very torn about taking this workshop as opposed to the printing workshop.  Printing is something that I’ve always been very interested in, but I’ve never really had the opportunity to explore it to any great degree.  However the pull of photography coupled with tech had way too much of a ‘pull factor’ for me.  Indeed, having taken the workshop I knew I had absolutely made the right choice for me!  It was nice to see both Trisha and Ester at the workshop too.

When we entered the classroom there were a variety of Rasberry Pi processors on the table.  these were hooked up to a variety of lenses.  Some were native to Rasberry Pi and some were off the shelf smartphone camera lenses.  I hate to admit it but I was in tech heaven!  Although I was sad to miss printing I don’t think anything could ‘top’ me messing around with programming and kit.  The gallery below is a great visual representation of the types of equipment that we used including a couple of shots of the final images shown on screen.  We created a computer program to layer up one image on top of another with varying opacity.  The whole process from start to finish absolutely fascinated me! I hope to work with Felix in the future and maybe collaborate with the department as I can see how this might fit nicely with my work going forward.

Low Tech Equipment

Below are images of some of the technical equipment available for us to try.  I would love to go back at some point with my camera and macro lens because I felt some of the circuitry was intriguing.  I could certainly be used to make some very interesting images.  My son has a Rasberry Pi computer and over the summer holidays I hope to try out in more detail what I learned in this workshop.

V&A Visit 3rd Floor Early Pioneers of Computer Generated Art with Melanie Lenz (Tues 10.00am – 12.00 noon)

Certainly one of the highlights of the Low Residency for me was the visit to the V&A.  We travelled right up to the third floor to have a talk with Melanie Lenz about the early pioneers of computer art.  I am really interested in all forms of computer and digital art so I was really excited to learn what the talk was about.  We were also very privileged to actually see some of these artworks ‘in the flesh’.  I tried to capture as many as I could and I have created a small gallery of the works below.  Unfortunately at this time I can’t find my notebook which I used to list each artist.  However I will update this gallery with artist names as soon as I can.  In the meantime please enjoy some of the early computer generated images.

Small Group Tutorials (Tuesday 2.30pm – 5.00pm

Once we had returned to Central Saint Martin’s and had some lunch we were once again placed into groups and tasked with asking each other a series of questions.  I did have these questions typed on a piece of paper but I’m not sure what happened to them.  I was placed in a group with Tim, Delphina and Rachel.  It’s a couple of weeks now since we did this exercise and my memory of the questions is somewhat patchy.  However, I can remember having some very useful feedback from all members of the group and I hope that they felt the same way.  Tim made me realise that I really don’t need to prove anything regarding programming. It is not essential for me to be some kind of ‘whiz kid’ programmer (although I’d love to be), to create great art. I came away from the session feeling very uplifted. It was a nice way to round off the day and essentially the Low Residency week for me.  All of the planned afternoon activities for Wednesday except one talk had to be cancelled due to strikes.  I can honestly say that I felt quite sad leaving everyone.  There was one last activity that I was able to attend on Wednesday – a talk by artist and lecturer Kaori Homma.  Sadly I couldn’t stay for the final gallery tours on the Thursday.  On realising this I slowly walked around parts of the college with my smartphone capturing a few last memories before leaving the building.

Below is a small gallery of farewell shots that I captured on my way out.

Farewell to CSM

I was really sad to be leaving the CSM building.  In many ways I wished that I lived closer so I could visit on a more regular basis.  However, just before leaving the building, for possibly the final time this year; I took some photographs as a memento.  I particularly like the architecture of the building. Had I had my DSLR, I could have spent a full day there just looking at the lines created by the architecture.  Unfortunately I only had my smartphone.  However, I still think that the images portray a sense of scale and hopefully some of the atmosphere.

Visiting artist talk with Kaori Homma (Weds 10.00am – 12.o0 noon)

The talk with visiting artist Kaori Homma was very powerful.  She showed us some of her beautiful artworks and how she felt compelled to burn some of them. Currently I am writing this away from home and I have more detailed notes on her talk. I will add these as soon as I return.

London City Centre Visit (Weds 1.30pm – 6.00pm)

There were a number of strikes happening on the Wednesday so unfortunately the afternoon session of the Low Residency had to be cancelled. Therefore we decided to walk into the centre of London from our Travelodge near Kings Cross.  Below is an image of some striking PCS union civil servants.

Outernet London

On our return from town I stumbled across the Outernet London.  This is an amazing space and I have devoted a full blog post to it which can be found here.