Manchester Day 3

Today was the first day of the FutureEverything conference. It's being held in the Manchester town hall which is an incredible Neo-gothic building. The presentations were held in the most majestic room - I felt like I was at a church service all about technology and the future. I loved the juxtaposition of the old school architecture and the new school ideas being discussed.

The photo below was definitely not supposed to be so orange. There's something going with the color profile between my computer and the blog server. Kind of a happy accident, though - you can see the architectural detail better this way.

The presentations were wonderful - they were structured a lot like TED talks. The crowd was generally nerdy and eager about technology and ideas surrounding the future. During the coffee break I had - out of complete chance - a great chat with someone who works (self-employed) with architecture/construction firms to made housing more sustainable. It was a great collection of people/ideas to be a small part of. The conference has really opened my eyes to how many people are actively engaged with developing and using technology to positively impact the world; people are developing tools in innovative ways - often with the help of Kickstarter (which was very widely mentioned today). I noticed that there was a theme of crowd-funded projects for the people, by the people.

Here's a good toilet in the hostel. A fine basin.

Day 2 in Manchester

My second day in the city started off at a 3D-printing presentation/workshop, directed by an American artist, educator, engineer, and designer named Golan Levin. He was very knowledgeable and gave us a well-rounded presentation on 3D printing and all related topics. He briefly introduced us to some basic 3D-modeling software in which we created our initials (very simple, like stacking blocks. Much like Minecraft, apparently).

This is a MakerBot 3D printer. The green and grey spools on the right are kind of the equivalent to ink cartridges in a regular inkjet printer; the spool supplies a long, thin, strand of plastic which, when heated in the printing nozzle, melts and is extruded like writing with icing on a cake. The nozzle moves back and forth, building up thin layer after layer of plastic on a metal platform until you get a 3D object. It's just a very mechanized way of sculpting from bottom-up.

Here it is printing the letter 'M' I made. You can see in the photo below how the 'M' is on a base of plastic which you peel off once it's finished printing (the printer lays that down initially as a support for the actual object).

There's my 'M'! I purposely made it look pixelly but it will print any kind of shape - rounded, square, anything. I included a little loop on the top so I can wear it as a necklace. This took about 20 minutes to print. It's about an inch wide. You can make an object as large as the printer's dimensions allow, though it takes quite a long time to print. This MakerBot model was one of the older ones but apparently they've gotten much quicker.

Later that day, I took a train to Liverpool to see an exhibition and also just to check out the city. At one point, I heard music (again, rock/metal) coming from inside some church walls which was a sensory experience I really enjoyed. There was a music video being shot inside.

Neat architecture all over the place

Some Mercer ladies' names 

Popped into the maritime museum for a gander. Found the Titanic

River Mersey from the Albert Dock. The Tate Liverpool is also found here.

I had a sleepy train ride back to Manchester. I went to a restaurant called the Soup Kitchen for an amazing meal of minty lamb pie, roasted potatoes, braised red cabbage, and a half pint of Guinness. Some of the tastiest food I've had yet!

Day 1 in Manchester

When I arrived in Manchester yesterday, the first thing I saw when I left the train station was a woman in an inflatable penis costume. Onwards I went to my hostel. I'm staying in a private room (instead of the shared sleeping space) which is nice although no quieter - last night's sleep was punctuated by noisy guests but also loud cheers from the streets below that I imagine were football related. My room is cozy, kind of has a view, and smells like old wood. You can't tell in the photo but the wallpaper is glittery.

The building is old and comes fully equipped with a cool elevator. I think they only use it when guests staying on the upper floors have heavy luggage.

Manchester is all about steel and brick.

After checking in, I went for a walk and my nose led me to street food. The pick of the day was italian tapas (the red stuff is REALLY TASTY chorizo sausage).

An ironic tree

My ears led me to this. Most street performers play guitars or other small instruments. This guy had a full drum kit, which is not an easy thing to lug around; my experience as the tag-along little sister of a drummer can confirm that. He was playing metal (as much as one can with just the drums).

After I was fully fed, I headed to the FutureEverything headquarters to check out some art.

This thing is one of many BUQS (Ubiquitous Electronic Life forms) placed around the city. They have an electronic computer part inside of them which allows them to chirp and beep and make noises (like birds) and communicate with each other. They're actually programmed to respond to each other. The person who was making them told me that "they use the city as an instrument" to break up the monotony of the typical city sounds.

Another one lurking

This one was newly constructed

The innards

Barely noticed this little cigarette wedding on my way down the road.

A view from my room

I treated myself to Thai food for supper. I opted for a veggie green curry with jasmine rice - it was the tastiest of its kind that I've ever had, and the serving size was big enough to reasonably split between two people. Paired it with a lovely Thai beer. The service was incredible. Overall great dining experience.

Night lights

Selfie in action

Future Everything!

I haven't been posting much because I've been busy doing school work and haven't been going on any adventures worth blogging about. Next weekend, however, I'm heading up to Manchester to go to the Future Everything Festival. There's lots of cool art to see, music to hear, and there's a conference taking place that is part of the festival. The theme is Tools for Unknown Futures. They summarize it on their website:

"FutureEverything will look at how we can collaborate on new tools, devices and systems to transform our lives, from the arts to democracy, business and governance. 

People taking control of tools to shape the future has been a familiar trope within digital culture. Drawing on powerful currents in today’s design scene, such as speculative design and design fiction, FutureEverything will debate our fascination with tools as the most natural path towards social change, and open up new ways to question, imagine and make the strange, troubled thing called the future. 

The festival will bring together artists and designers who make art and change reality by collaborating on new protocols, languages, systems, strategies and even infrastructures. Art and design projects will create new, less conventional readings of tools and technologies through the use of scenarios and fictional objects. The aesthetic and symbolic dimensions of groundbreaking fields, from New Materials to Synthetic Biology, will be explored by figures working across the boundaries of art and science."

So hip to the beat of my art! The work I see, talks I attend, and workshops I take part in are going to be so informative and thought-provoking; my entire body of work for the past year or so has been focused on developing a fictional tool for use in a hypothetical future scenario that is designed to improve a devastated future. I could hardly believe my luck when I learned about this festival and saw that it was happening not only in the country I happen to be in at the moment, but also within the timeframe that I'm here. So - I'm heading up next weekend, and feeling very fortunate and excited about it all. There will likely be a long follow-up blog post (or I may even do a daily blog post while I'm there)!

Here's a sneak peek at what I've been getting up to in the printshop. It's part of the body of work that I just mentioned. ZPOR Brighton reconnaissance mission 2014!

I'm flying home TWO WEEKS from today. This gives me an intense feeling of mingled excitement and stress (I have a LOT of writing to do). I am looking forward to rugged landscapes, real bacon and toutons for breakfast and supper, the 4th year exhibition, summer-time adventures, and my people.

At least in Monopoly the banker is your mate

Outings

I went to London yesterday to check out some art. It was a beautiful day in the city, warm air and blue skies. First stop was the Tate Britain to see Ruin Lust. It was one of the most enjoyable exhibitions I've seen, ever (though I think this could be partly because I just really like ruins). I bought the accompanying publication, which I only do when it's a really good show. Photos weren't permitted so I don't have any snapshots from the exhibition, unfortunately! 

Next stop was a little, tiny gallery that I walked by the first time. Usually when I hunt down these places I only have basic directions memorized so it sometimes turns into a bit of a scavenger hunt. Anyway, I read about this exhibition online and thought it'd be worth checking out. The artists are Mark Dennis and Chris Gommersall and they've basically written a piece of music entitled 'Hymn to the United Federation of Planets' "for string quartet and synthesized voices, in celebration of the constitution of the fictional interstellar federal republic from the television series Star Trek. The work tries to imagine the creation of a piece of music from the perspective of a utopia in which the sole purpose of the arts lies in the promotion of the species-capacity for perfection." 

Earlier in the week they did a live performance (would have been neat to have seen), and now they have a recording of it looped with video on two tv screens. Clip below.

I went to see an exhibition at a Siobhan Davies Studios which is actually a kind of venue for dance classes, workshops, and art - a sort of creative hub, I think. I found out about the exhibition there online, however it sounded more interesting in its description than it was in person. The art was placed throughout the building (near stairwells, on a landing) which definitely detracted from it. The artist's name is Christian Kerrigan, and on the handout the artwork is described as "a series of sculptures that are inspired by the linden - or lime - tree growing outside Siobhan Davies Studios that fuse digital technology, scientific methods and organic matter." It was exactly that but sounds cooler in writing.

By then I was peckish so I headed to the Southbank area to hit the amazing food market that's always there on the weekend. I had some kind of moroccan wrap and it was delicious! Topped it off with a cone of salted caramel gelato. One of the tastiest treats ever. 

I strolled along the footpath. The crowds were thick!

I headed back across the Thames via Waterloo Bridge and made my way to the train station. 

~

It was a grand day in Brighton today. People were out in shorts. I sheltered myself from the rays/avoided the beach madness and did some research at the library. The window was open and happy city sounds were floating in. It was nice.

On my way home I went to my new favorite place to eat - a Japanese restaurant called Pompoko. Inexpensive, quick, and REALLY tasty. 

 I don't think you can find a roomful of people as happy anywhere else as you do in a densely-packed gelato shop.