Here’s a little film of Mr Underwood at the end of a very busy Theremin Day at The Edge last Saturday, looking tired but happy. He’d teamed up with the fizzPOP crew to help people build their own optical theremins during the day, a selection of which are here:
The star of the day was most definitely Julia Gilbert’s big apple:
I didn’t make the theremin-making workshop but there’s a great write-up by genzai·chi (Nikki Pugh), who also talks about the concert later that evening, which I did go along to. As Nikki says, it started off with ‘a selection of short films exploring the historical, technical and fun sides of the theremin’ including this brilliant one of Super Mario Bros. theme tune.
Then we got a set from from 8bit Pete and his Thingamagoops, of which Antonio Roberts took some nice photos:
8bit Pete by hellocatfood
I particularly liked the fact that it was as much a light show as a music set of bleepy-bloppiness. Pete managed to capture on film the performance that followed his – what Nikki describes as ‘Mr Underwood’s performance of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music for optical theremin’ actually seemed to be a giant Newton’s Cradle office toy made out of torches, that emitted an increasingly intense hum which reverberated inside your ears. It was pretty amazing.
Last but by no means least was Ms Hypnotique playing her live theremin set, giving us nice informative introductions to the instrument, its history and the pieces she performed. It was great when she told us how Simon Cowell described her theremin playing as, “Who would buy this shit?…He kind of missed the point of what makes the theremin special.” I’ll bet he did.
Entry is free, but we really need you to bring some random stuff to help make the contraption truly great….Whatever evolves out of this crazy idea, the end results will be highly influenced by your contributions. Bring random stuff and a willingness to tinker with things until they work. All are welcome. We might also try and sell you cake.
genzai·chi » fizzPOP enters its second year – fizzPOP celebrated its first birthday at The Edge on Wednesday. They celebrated with chocolate brownies, jammie dodgers and a humidity sensor LED candle. As you do.
There are big plans for our second year – look out for more in the way of events and workshops, as well as continuing to develop the hacksessions that form the core of what fizzPOP is about.
Double bill of workshops! | fizzPOP – Fancy making a completely useless machine, like the one above? Or a cool thing with microcontrollers (whatever they are)? Look no further than the fizzPOP workshops at The Edge on Cheapside on Sat 6th and Sun 7th March.
It’s mainly a chance to get people together to talk game stuff, but in particular we’ll be looking to get people involved in making a Central Library project happen and programming some playful things for Shenanigans on Saturday 27th of February.
It’s completely free and all are welcome. It’s 7pm on Mon 15th Feb at the back of The Lamp Tavern, 157 Barford Street, Birmingham, B5 6AH.
howduino / fizzPOPHowduino – fizzPOP Howduino is a hack-and-play type event at VIVID on Saturday 21st November, 10am – 5.30pm.
It’s a free event that will bring together 40 people from different backgrounds to work individually and collaboratively on various projects based around the Arduino platform.
Arduinos are small microcontrollers designed for easy prototyping of things that have electronics/data that respond to things in the physical world and vice versa. In their own words: “It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.”
The event will cater for people of all skill levels (we’re running introductory workshops for beginners too) with the main aim being to get people combining components – be they electronic or cardboard – and ideas to produce cool stuff.
This looks like a day of seriously fun fiddling and tinkering and I’ll definitely be taking part in one of the Beginner’s Workshops.
genzai·chi » Uncertain Eastside presentation for Performance Fictions symposium – Nikki Pugh explains the whys and wherefores of her Uncertain Eastside project about the area, taking the opportunity to point out ‘how closely the borders of the City Council’s Eastside regeneration area are linked to the major traffic routes in and around the city’.
There’s some great pictures of the team of walkers taking the time to ‘walk, touch, climb, dare’.
On Sunday afternoon, after my last stint on Rhubarb Radio’s Sunday Local show, I joined Nikki Pugh and the sizable gang she’d recruited on an Eastside Walk along the area’s boundary, which she’s been wandering repeatedly around with GPS devices for the last few weeks.
But there were no GPS devices this time. This walk was dedicated to taking the time to explore, examine and record our discoveries in whatever way we saw fit. I particularly liked Pete Ashton’s film and photo hybrids (with his homemade Flip/camera contraption). Here he is in action getting the shots in the film above:
I’d been contacted the previous week by Katy, an art student at Birmingham City University working with found objects, so thought I’d collect some items for the DiGpuss shop to pass onto her. Here are the things I found – my favorite item was the double pushchair, which became a useful receptacle to collect and carry the finds in.
Although I’ve given up presenting Sunday Local regularly (I’ve decided to stick with what they taught me in school and make Sunday a much-needed Day of Rest), Michael Grimes is carrying it onwards and upwards and will be presenting it this Sunday with Pete Ashton. So tune into Rhubarb Radio 12-2pm!
Weather permitting, we will meet at the Old Crown pub 2pm for a 2.30 start. We will then walk once around the perimeter of the regeneration area taking great care to stop, investigate, prod, document, tell stories about and explore things along the way. A no-frills walk takes about 90 minutes, so be prepared for this one to last 2 or more hours….Kendall mint cake optional.
Nikki will be popping by Rhubarb Radio Sunday Local show on (12-2pm) to talk about her Eastside drawings and make last-minute weather announcements, so tune in and hope rain doesn’t stop play as it could contribute to something pretty special:
I have the beginnings of an idea that I might collate the photos, GPS drawings and other documentations into a printed magazine so that there is some sort of a record of what things are like now (and how we remember them being in the past) that we can look at a few years down the line when everything will have changed beyond recognition.
