Thinking beyond the screen and mouse

With live demos of Clara 2.0 (a theremin-playing robot doll) and other curiosities, Sarah explores her own approach to digital arts. Her work may use computers and embedded microprocessors - but Sarah aims to create interactive objects with a tactile and convincing quality that extend beyond the computer screen and mouse. Sewer pipes, car park technology and roboticised toys are just some of the items she’s appropriated over the last few years to create novel experiences. Sarah shows some of the thinking that goes into her work and reveals how she shamelessly mines ideas from cognitive science, stage magic, ancient music and other areas to come up with new ideas. She also briefly discusses her latest work, inspired by an Edwardian funfair illusion, that’s currently interesting researchers of human perception.


About Sarah:

Trained in electroacoustics, music and a little evolutionary robotics, Sarah Angliss specialises in creating original sound installations, exhibits and live performances that mix cutting-edge science with vintage sound technology and little known stories from the history of science. An experienced creator of one-off installations and exhibits, Sarah is also a regular performer, particularly known for her skills on the theremin and musical saw.
Sarah Angliss and Clara 2.0

Regularly featured in the national press, Sarah’s solo and collaborative work exploring infrasonic music, Category 4 diseases, cyborgs, extreme reverb, the uncanny valley, genetic privacy, evolutionary music, dogs in space, hurdy gurdies, Swinging London and a host of other topics has been seen and heard at venues throughout the UK. These include the Brighton Festival, Cheltenham Music and Science Festivals, Final Cut, the Eden Project, Edinburgh International Science Festival, Glasgow Science Centre, London Zoo, South Bank Centre, Science Museum, Soho Theatre, Southwold Pier and Winchester Festival of Art and Mind.

On Radio 4, Roger Highfield described Sarah’s electroacoustic cabaret act at Cheltenham as ‘the most surreal and memorable moment of the festival’. Two of her recent, interactive sound shows, Senster and The Haunt, were shortlisted as ’standout shows’ of Brighton Festival 2006.

IOCT Director, Professor Andrew Hugill, said: “IOCT colleagues have been working with Howard since the Institute was opened in 2005 and we have greatly appreciated the time and energy he has put into helping us attend to social media in all its forms. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with Howard as he develops his Social Media Classroom sponsored by HASTAC and the MacArthur Foundation.”

DMU’s graduations take place at De Montfort Hall, Leicester. Vice Chancellor Professor Philip Tasker said: “Our graduation ceremonies are the highlight of the academic year when we mark and celebrate the achievements of our students. Their success is a source of pride not just to the University, but also to the city of Leicester. De Montfort University has a long history and tradition of being an academic institution at the very heart of the city, of its businesses and industry and of its cultural life and it is a tradition the institution and its students hold dear.”

• Community Arts Practice MA
• Creative Writing and New Media Online MA
• Dance and Professional Practice MA
• Music, Technology and Innovation MA
• New Media Publishing MA

To find out more or to make an application, please contact:
Promotion & Recruitment Centre
T. 0116 250 6470
E. Pghums [at] dmu.ac.uk
W. dmu.ac.uk/humanities

If you would like a hard copy of the Journal of the Institute of Creative Technologies please contact lmcnicoll [at] dmu.ac.uk .

http://lebusque.com/drawings/thisyear/buy.html

I wouldn’t normally post up things for sale, but this one is a definite exception. It’s a 30″x20″ Poster Print (76cm x 51cm) of Toni Le Busque’s ‘Saucy Bird’. Toni was a student on the Creative Writing and New Media MA at De Montfort, and one of her many talents is creating these amazingly dense and intricate black and white drawings. This is the first one available for buy - I have it on my wall and it looks fantastic. And no, I don’t earn any commission on them! See more of Toni’s work at lebusque.com .

£29,138 - £41,545 pa (pro rata)

Humanities

Department of English & Creative Writing

You should be a published creative writer with teaching experience, who can contribute to the development and teaching of our lively and innovative creative writing programmes, particularly at undergraduate level. Interested in a range of forms and genres, you will be sympathetic to experimentation and be able to help students acquire a range of craft and practical skills. Expertise in prose fiction and familiarity with digital/new media writing would be an advantage, as would an ability to contribute to teaching in genres not currently covered by the teaching team. It is anticipated you will start in September 2008.

http://www.jobs-dmu.co.uk/academicmoreinfo.asp?JID=1849

Creative Writing and New Media MA showcase

The Online MA in Creative Writing and New Media at De Montfort University is designed for writers interested in experimenting with new formats and exploring the potential of new technologies in their writing. This first annual CWNM Salon is a unique opportunity to enjoy the best work from the first two years of the course with installations and talks from the following authors:

Claudia Cragg http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ccragg/ “If you build it, they will come”. To what extent does this apply to Facebook and MySpace sites and, if no one comes, just exactly what can you do about it? Claudia will discuss this and other questions in relation to her Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma) Lab research Participatory Media project ( http://108presentsforsuu.googlepages.com/home ).
Toni Le Busque http://www.lebusque.com Miffy Johnston’s Toenails and Other Stories - a combination of fiction and non fiction 100 word stories using Sophie ( http://www.sophieproject.org ), an open-source platform for writing and reading rich media documents in a networked environment, created by The Institute for the Future of the Book.
Chris Meade http://www.chrismeadeoverleaf.com Presenting his work drumming - becoming - forgetting ( www.drummingandme.blogspot.com ), a ‘blunder… a cross between a weblog, a ponder, a wander through time and a terrible mistake.” This one is about the role of percussion in his life.
Kirsty McGill Discussing her ongoing project to develop a next-generation rich-media tour for the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bath.
Alison Norrington http://www.alisonnorrington.com Showcasing Staying Single, Alison’s first cross-media work of fictional blogging which gave readers a variety of ways to engage, participate with and receive the story, including fragmented chapters emailed to subscribers, SMS alerts through Twitter, mini documentaries of real-life stories, meet-ups in Second Life and Machinima films. She will also offer a sneak-preview of her plans for her second cross-media fiction I ♥ NY.
Christine Wilks http://www.crissxross.net Fitting the Pattern: or being a dressmaker’s daughter - a memoir in pieces (embroidered) Cutting through the memories, stitching up the fabrications, pinning down the facts, unpicking the past… An interactive memoir, created in Flash, exploring aspects of my relationship with my dressmaking mother.

Applications for entry in Autumn 2008 are currently being considered.
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/pg/ma/cwnm.jsp

Course Website: http://www.creativewritingandnewmedia.com

by Chris Meade of if:book ( http://www.futureofthebook.org.uk )

This report, commissioned by the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, is now available to download from: http://nlabnetworks.typepad.com/digital_livings/ where you can also find a transcript of all the questionnaires sent in.

From Chris Meade:

“Thanks so much to all those who gave me their time and ideas. The response has been excellent so far and I’m personally very excited about the potential for new media writing in the years to come.

I look forward to hearing your further thoughts on the topic. Please let me know what you think, either by emailing me direct or posting on the digital livings blog or www.bookfutures.blogspot.com, the blog of if:book london.”

Toni Sant at the Institute of Creative Technologies (IOCT), De Montfort University, Leicester, UK on 28th February 2008. Supported by the Arts Council England.

A SECOND LIFE FOR ONLINE PERFORMANCE HISTORY

Toni Sant is exploring the 3-D online virtual environment called Second Life as a venue for performance by looking at examples of theatre groups performing online within Second Life. In addition to activities presented as theatre he is also observing broader performance activities within this online space. Additionally, this project involves an attempt to use Second Life as a pedagogical tool for generating an archive of work related to a history of performance on the Internet by relating it to previous work on other online virtual environments, such as IRC, MUDs, MOOs, and 2-D graphic chat networks like The Palace. Presently, the work revolves around a planned Second Life production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in one of three simulations of The Globe in this popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

DR TONI SANT

Toni Sant is Lecturer in Performance and Creative Technologies at the University of Hull’s School of Arts and New Media on the Scarborough Campus. Since 1998 he has served as executive editor for the Applied and Interactive Theatre Guide. His writing has appeared in TDR: The Drama Review, Leonardo, the Encyclopedia of Politics, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and other scholarly publications, as well as in the popular press in New York and Malta. He is currently writing a book called A History of the Future: Franklin Furnace & the Spirit of the Avant-Garde. His blog and weekly podcast are available at tonisant.com and he can be found on Second Life as Not Merlin.

Links:

Dr Toni Sant - tonisant.com
Second Life - secondlife.com