Experimental Lockdown Remote Project

Cybernetic Serendipity

Sometimes there are things that we read, go to, explore or otherwise encounter that change our course  in life. Pivotable points that can be looked back on. Cybernetic Serendipity was one of those for me and I thought at its 50th anniversary (Really, that long?!?), I would have a pause and reflect.

Cybernetic Serendipity was the first international exhibition devoted to the relationship between the arts and computers. It showed what artists could do with computers, and what scientists were trying to do. The exhibition ran from 2 August - 20 October 1968; I was 13 at the time, and I attended on a number of occasions.
At the time, I didn't know if I wanted to be a scientist or an artist. Probably somewhere in between. At 13, I hadn't realised how much maths was involved in science - and maths was easily my worst subject. In fact I had to wait until I was 59 to get my maths GCSE..! I was an avid reader of Practical Electronics through and it was through that magazine I became acquainted with Cybernetic Serendipity. 
I recall the first time I went in. A long gallery, on the left were some tortured televisions by 
Nam June Paik, and Bruce Lacey's robot actors. On the left were exhibits of computer graphics from IBM and Honeywell. In the middle, what was to become one of my favourite objects, SAM (Sound Activated Module) a device that listened to you and turned to face you. Surprisingly, the same object, much battered turned up at the Science Museum's Robot show in 2017.

Further down on the left were spherical pods that you could sit in and listen to electronic music, something I was, and still am, a fan of. At the end was a mini cinema showing computer generated films. Swirling dots forming intricate patterns.
Somewhere while at this show, I decided that this was the way for me to go. Computers could help artists generate things that were not possible in other ways. Robots could be entertaining and film need not be passive. Art wasn't just in stuffy galleries visited and run by people who used long words.
Somehow I wanted to be part of this new revolution, but it would be some years.
Of course now the computer is almost invisible; we interact with software. As long as it doesn't get in the way the hardware is not much thought about, and we use the software most times as consumers and are bound by it. I guess most times that's always going to be true however hard it is delved into, but I hate it when people tell me about 'digital natives' when in fact these natives are just consumers of information. The only difference between them and perhaps their great grandparents is that the digital native carries the telly in their pocket. Not a huge box rented from Granada or Radio Rentals.
Cybernetic Serendipity wasn't the only time a computer changed my life, that happened a couple of times later as well; but it was the first and the most forceful.

References:

An unofficial archive: http://cyberneticserendipity.net
Bruce Lacey's robot (also tons of other Robots): http://cyberneticzoo.com/robots/1965-rosa-bosom-bruce-lacey-british/
Computer art: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/exhibitions/serendipity/images/1/
SAM: http://www.senster.com/ihnatowicz/SAM/sam.htm
http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/serendipityaisb18/papers/paper_9.pdf
http://www.senster.com/ihnatowicz/SAM/sam2.htm
Studio International: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/cybernetic-serendipity-history-and-lasting-legacy
SAM at the Science Museum Robot show: https://twitter.com/tillyblyth/status/833845557659594753
Catalogue online (or I have a copy): https://www.flickr.com/photos/tinrocket/sets/72157625225644742/with/5107991945/ It's bit expensive if you want to buy one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cybernetic-Serendipity-Computer-editor-Reichardt/dp/B0007JAI5Q/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
There's even a convention this year: http://ccg.doc.gold.ac.uk/serendipityaisb18/#about
Looking back with Jasia Reichardt : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSwovB28B34

Accidental Castles (Experiments with distressed paper and drawing ink.)

These are really almost doodles. The first drawing in brown ink was a doodle I did after walking up from hospital to the top of Clifton. The buildings sprouting out of the walls and hillsides was the inspiration. Except, of course they didn't really much look like this. It was also an experiment with distressed paper (Stained with tea leaves and old tea bags.) and then drawn on using a dip pen and W+N coloured drawing ink.

I don't usually put my name on these things, but I got bored drawing all the little lines so the box cut down the work a bit. (I tried to count them, about 2500...)

This was the second drawing. Now I'm just making it up. This was a dip pen with W+N Blue drawing ink. The original showed stains from the other side where I used too much fixative (See post) and soaked through. Much to my surprise the blue dip pen ink bleed lots.

The bottom one is the last one I did this morning. Still experimenting, this time fountain pen ink - the luminous blues - and Intense water colour pencil, the darker blues. Did mean to colour some other bits in, but haven't so far. I'll post them if I do. Probably I'll add colour and further distressing digitally. Also considering drawing in black ink and then doing the colours completely on the computer. Will give me more control.

Do you think the blue or the brown works better on the distressed paper? Do add a comment. Also, if anyone knows better ways of distressing paper I'd like to know.

Building the Dalek spaceship, thoughts on imagination.

So, for the princely sum of £2.99 I got a 480 piece Lego knock-off construction toy that built a Dalek spaceship. It also included two small Dalek figures to make up the crew.

 

My first attempt at construction met with disaster. The saucer simply collapses under it's own weight. Not surprised. It got lousy reviews on Amazon - mainly about being difficult to assemble.

This is the start of the second attempt. Decided that I would use glue to hold it together. I know for die-hard Lego users this is heresy, but I don't care. I don't suppose I'm ever going to "play" with the model - in fact I imagine I won't have a clue what I'm going to do with it once it's make.

Here you can see the base drying slowly.

For the record it's pipe cement for joining PVC and ABS plumbing components that I'm using.

Two small Daleks look on. Somewhere I have some others this size. I realised at this point in my mind I was consulting them on their spaceship.

If I did this again I would lay out all the parts in order before starting. At least I hope I would. Finding the parts became a major exercise and I began sorting them out for each spread once I was half way through.

More sorting, I'm onto the smaller parts - the laser guns, internal parts etc. I'm beginning to realise that the box version (see below) isn't quite the same as the version in the box.

This is the more-or-less completed insides of the spaceship. There's a similar sized Dalek from somewhere else inside there and there's a Cyberman and a Lego nudist.

Overall it's quite a satisfactory feeling. I thought the lack of detail would make this a bit boring. In fact it's been the opposite, part of me went back and I found that the small blocks - like making something with large pixels actually acted as a vehicle for the imagination - imagining things that were there rather than having them very explicit.

This is the completed top. Notice that there are bricks missing. I'm not sure if I have put the wrong bits elsewhere on the model or if they were never there.

I went back through each stage, obviously, having glued it together disassembly wasn't going to happen; but I couldn't see where they might have gone.

I had four other bricks left over, which would imply that somewhere the bricks were wrong - but if they were they were well hidden. Someday, if I'm lucky or can be bothered I'll find something to fill in those gaps.

Here's a close-up of the Cyberman and the Lego nudist. She was a joke I played many years ago on a friend who worked for Lego's model making department at the time. Originally there were three of them.

Below is the finished thing. Like most project like this, what do you do with it now? Guess it will sit around for a bit and then be consigned to a box somewhere...

If I did this an I would use the left-over holes around the middle to put some lights in. Probably I would start from the outside and then build the insides as well. But I have no intention of building another, although I might try something similar if it was sufficiently cheap.

Home Bargains, a local discount out let is where this came from and where other stuff like it has come from. I always think of it as somewhere that unsuccessful toys go to die.

This is the box cover. There's several differences between the finished project and the illustration on the cover. 

Clever Colourful Coffee House

So, I saw this at a coffee shop/bar in Weymouth recently. I thought this was a very clever way of having a menu and a guide to various drinks that were available.

I also thought that the illustrations of how the coffee was made were informative and clever. Too bad they only did two that I could see.

Here's the tea menu, coloured to show how you should expect your tea - excellent for pointing out what you wanted as well - given that Weymouth is a cross-channel port and possibly the arrivals' english is as bad as my attempts at their language.

This is the coffee menu - note two shot as standard and fine drink it was as well.

You can see smaller versions of the cup diagrams on it; but I must admit I have no idea why the Chocolate one is a bit bigger. The bar staff didn't know either.

An idea about toys and making stuff

Not sure if this is even the right title, but I think the idea might have something.

I was at my school reunion yesterday and I stood next to a wall where I made one of the great discoveries of my school days. The 1960s spy movies were all the rage and we decided to make our own. Unsurprisingly, I guess, I was the only one who made anything. Crude approximations of tiny spy tvs and the suchlike. But the brought toys wouldn't have been that much more sophisticated.

Now days you can buy a quality of modelling and interactivity in the toy isle that only the best hobbyist could aspire too. And it's cheap.

For example:

Current 5 inch Dalek toy (October 2010)

12 inch figure 1965 http://www.skaro.org/toys.htm

Two Daleks and a Mechanoid - slightly better I had the one on the right, and that was the pinnacle of available toy Daleks - these are all about 7" tall. http://www.skaro.org/toys.htm There's an advert for them I found here: dalek ad 

You can see the difference in quality in these toys. The blue Dalek could easily be duplicated with  cardboard and a bit of imagination. The others are more accurate but still fairly simple. Cost of the grey 1965 Dalek: 4 shillings and sixpence. (Or 14 copies of the 1965 Beano) Cost of the 2010 Dalek, £10 (Or five copies of the 2010 Beano). Not quite sure if comparing the cost of the Beano is relevant. But it is some kind of yardstick.

So we deny people the chance to make things for themselves; by making stuff so well we set the entry bar too high. By setting the price so cheap there is no financial motive to make it for yourself. Finally by making it so explicit we deny the imagination.