News & Events June 2010

WIRAD Team Appointed

A small team has been tasked with moving the development plans for WIRAD forward. Gavin Cawood (PDR, UWIC), Jo Hare (PDR, UWIC) and Professor David Smith (UWN) will work together over the next few months to identify institutions built on collaboration around the UK and arrange visits to understand in more detail the workings of the most successful similar models. With this insight a revised Expression of Interest for the application of Reconfiguration & Collaboration Funds will be developed and discussed with the wider partners in WIRAD.

Dr Natasha Mayo: Making the Creative Process Visible

This film-based resource developed by Dr Natasha Mayo (Centre for Ceramics Research) is the result of year-long project which aimed to devise the means of teaching fundamental structures at work in the development of ideas in the practice of ceramics.

Supported by an ADM-HEA Learning and Teaching grant, the resource comprises of five short films documenting the development of ideas in the work of a cross-section of students from CSAD's BA and MA ceramic programmes. The films render visible negotiation of thought and seek to illustrate tendencies and patterns in the ways ideas are developed. Whilst a key concern for students is innovation, the ways in which they negotiate ideas often employ common traits akin to the relationship between thought and language. Within an educational context, the identification of these modes of development can provide a toolbox of possibilities to be altered or rejected at any stage in the development of a given body of work but always present to generate and keep ideas mobile. The full project report, Making the Creative Process Visible: An account of strategies that can be used to facilitate the development of independent, creative thought is available from the HEA website.

ReacTickles 2

ReacTickles 2, developed by the Sensory Design research group, is ready to launch under a new manufacturing and distribution agreement with TAG Learning in the UK and has been doing well in Australia and New Zealand with distributors Spectronics and East-West online. ReacTickles has also been selected for development of bespoke software for SmartTable, the first UK published 3rd party application for this innovative multi-touch technology platform. Early reviews of prototype have been excellent and Wendy is to be interviewed for a series called ‘The Innovators' on www.Agent4Change.net.

Future developments for ReacTickles include: work with Martyn Ware at Three Ways School in Bath; visit to Delft University to meet potential partners from a number of other European Universities (supported by Wales European Collaboration Fund); Wendy Keay-Bright to present at Autism Europe, Sicily in October 2010 and deliver a keynote at the Design for Everyone conference, Belgium in June.

Finally, the new ReacTickles website is ready to launch with OpenFrameworks following successful workshops at Decode in the V&A museum and CultureLab, Newcastle. New ReacTickles are open source.

Dr Gill at Prototype: Craft in the Future Tense

University of Dundee and Dundee Contemporary
June 10th-11th 2010

Dr Steve Gill (PAIPR) will join twelve inspiring speakers from across the globe to explore innovative use of prototypes.

Co-convened by the Victoria & Albert Museum and Duncan at Jordanson College of Art & Design, the event will create an opportunity for participants to listen discussion the importance of prototyping and how prototyping can be used to enhance understanding and collaboration between disciplines. It is hoped talks will stimulate unusual conversations and debate to fully explore the radical and multiple ways that people are experimenting with and sharing ideas.

Dr Gill will be attending Prototype as an industry expert. Other speakers include: Michael Schrage, Business Innovator at MIT; Stuart Brown, Biomedical Engineer at the University of Dundee; Simon Starling, Turner Prize winning Conceptual Artist; Constance Adams, Space Architect, and musicians, Chicks on Speed.

PAIPR website

The new PAIPR website is now available to view online. The site includes news on the group's progress, demos of prototyping tools developed by PAIPR and novel combinations of other prototyping systems, information on projects, publications and researcher profiles.

Peter Watkins-Hughes wins BAFTA

Watkins-Hughes won the Best Film / Drama award at the 2010 BAFTA Cymru awards for his film A Bit of Tom Jones. The film, written, directed and produced by Watkins-Hughes, follows the fortunes of Henry, who, in a late night bar, is approached by a mysterious woman who offers to sell him the severed "manhood" of Wales' greatest vocal entertainer... Believing he can make a fortune selling the infamous appendage on to obsessive fans, Henry stumps up the cash. More information on the film is available here.

Exhibitions

Helen Sear: Beyond the View

Klompching Gallery, New York
28th April - 11th June

In this new series of work, Dr Helen Sear (eCPR) continues her investigation into the sublime-and an engagement with the retinal and digital-through her innovative use of image superimposition and erasure. Beyond The View is an ongoing exploration, with the photographs originating in and around the agricultural lands south of Milan. The images are a response to the 'hidden' presence of women in this rural environment on the edge of the city.

Andreas Rüthi: Double page paintings

Duckett and Jeffreys Gallery, Yorkshire
29th April - 5th June 2010

Andreas Rüthi's solo exhibition looks at the relationship of high and low art through a series of still life paintings. This latest series of work is an expansion of this concept. More objects, figurines and fruit are laid out on a variety of surfaces and levels. Now, there are two or more reproductions in the picture: blurring the boundaries between high art and the vernacular both with the choice of subject and process of painting.

David Ferry: Belligerent Rock Intrusions

WoodFinch Gallery
Wednesday 12 May - Friday 4 June 2010

The exhibition, curated by WOODFINCH / Simon Finch Rare Books in association with The National Print Gallery, consists of a series of books of collages and a suite of prints based on the book Belligerent Rock Intrusions by Professor David Ferry (CFAR). Each book is an adjusted copy of a pictorial guide of the British Isles from the innocent post war years of the 1950's and 1960's, which he has deftly subverted using donor material from the same period to deconstruct the notion of British national identity and heritage.

Archived News Items