Emotional Mapping workshops in Lisson Green

Last week FreqOUT! hosted the artist and innovator Christian Nold who ran a series of Emotional Mapping workshops with young people from the Fourth Feathers and the Marylebone Bangladeshi Society youth clubs in Lisson Green.

The workshops were a great success. They gave the young people aged between 13 - 21 years old, the opportunity to try out Christian's bio-mapping devices which consist of a galvanic skin sensor linked to a GPS unit. The equipment monitors the wearers sweat levels and plots their geographical position over time as they walk around their local environment



The data collected from the young people's walks were downloaded and visualised using Google Earth. The resultant images became the focus of debate around the diversity and similarities between individuals experiences; their relationship to their local environment; the transformative power of technology upon our lives and data protection and interpretation issues.



All photographs by Jake Nowak/FreqOUT!
Huge thanks go to Vertex, particularly Tim Lonsdale, Mario Tsavellas and Rajiv Kumar whose generous support facilitated these educational events.

You can read more at:
Christian Nold's Bio Mapping web site
Vertex's Corporate Social responsibility Strategy

NESTA's 'Making Innovation Flourish'

FreqOUT! went to NESTA's 'Making Innovation Flourish'conference at London's Business Design Centre today. Amongst the exciting innovations on display we particularly liked the Schizoporotica 'Melody Shredder', and the Futurelab team, who pioneer many exciting mobile learning applications for young people in partnership with creatives and private bussines. We'll be contacting the immenently for further discussions.

Tessa Jowell made a particlarly interesting speech about the need to empower this countries young people - especially those from deprived backgrounds - for careers in the IT and innovation industries where communication, collaboration and creativity meet.

You can look them up at:
Futurelab
Troika's Schizoporotica

Things we like: The Phillips Magic Brush

Rajiv Kumar of Vertex has highlighted a 'Magic Brush' as his new favourite invention which merges art and technology.

Earlier this month Phillips Electronics unveiled several new and innovative products based on its ‘sense and simplicity’ brand at their 2006 Philips Simplicity Event. Amonst them where Drag & Draw where the entire home becomes a virtual canvas for expression and play for young children, thanks to a magic brush, a magic eraser, a magic wand, and a laser projection bucket. The images here shows Andrea Ragnetti, Chief Marketing Officer of Royal Philips Electronics, showing a child how simple it is to use.

You can read more about it at Phillips Simplicity

FreqOUT! visits BBC Blast

FreqOUT! was excited to visit BBC Blast at their White City HQ last week and learn about their touring truck which provides inspiration and advice for those wanting to get involved in music, art, dance or film.

The truck tours the UK and acts as a mobile classroom. The Blast team have have agreed to host a group of young FreqOUTers when the truck is next parked in Trafalgar Sqaure next Spring time.

To find out more about BBC Blast go to:
BBC Blast

Why I got involved with FreqOUT! - Steve Lau

Steve Lau is Westminster Youth Service's Service Manager, and he sits on the FreqOUT! Steering Group. We asked him a few questions about his invlovement with the project:

Why did you get involved with FreqOUT!?:
I carry a number of portfolios for the Youth Service, which include both the Arts and information Technology. I was therefore the natural link to the youth service when the concept of a wireless technologies/youth arts project was first put forward. Having said that, it has always been one of the more interesting projects to have come across my desk, simply because it lies ‘outside of the box’ for so much of the time.

What do you think it can offer to young people?:
So much, and perhaps best illustrated by what young people got out of FreqOut last year. What was very clear from last year’s presentation at the ICA was that the young people had had so much fun in the workshops. The Youth Service is about having fun. But equally there were some very important issues which were touched upon, issues which have a very real impact upon young people’s lives on a daily basis, whether issues of privacy and the introduction and use of CCTV, or society’s judgement of people on first impressions. I’ve no doubt that FreqOut offered young people the opportunity to learn about these and similar issues in a meaningful and fun way. Then there’s all the practical skills which young people acquired - mainly around information technology, but also some of the social skills of team work, of making a first impression count and so on.

The importance of your contribution to FreqOUT!:
I’m not sure this is entirely a question for me to answer. I can say I bring a professional youth work dimension to the management committee, with a strong focus on putting young people first, empowering them, education and safeguarding young people. I think these are important aspects of a strong management committee that needs to encompass robust technical, creative as well as educational elements.

What would you like people to know about WYS?:
Westminster Youth Service sits within the Lifelong Learning Directorate of the Children and Community Services Section of Westminster City Council. The Service is part of a wider package of Services aimed at young people, including Connexions, Positive Activities for Young People, Sports Development and the Play Service, all of these are services which we are working ever closer with. Our aim is to provide young people in Westminster with positive out of school activities that are fun and meaningful, and which contribute to our young people being healthy and safe, enjoying and achieving in life, making a positive contribution to society, and preparing them for a prosperous life.

You can find out more about the Westminster Youth Service at:

'TAGGED' - RFID art at Space

FreqOUT! would like to draw your attention to Five new works by artists working with RFID technology as part an ongoing project produced by [ space.media.arts ] in Hackey, East London.



You can see Richard Barbrook (Westminster University and Cybersalon - see links: The Class of The New and Imaginary Futures)in the picture above testing out iTag by the artist collaborative Louis-Philippe Demers and Philippe Jean. Using a portable music device, available to pick up from the exhibition, shoppers can listen to music generated from the grocery aisles at local shop Hollywood Convenience. Items are electronically tagged allowing the grocery items to produce the artwork .



RealSnailMail is a project in development by Boredomresearch, using RFID technology to enable real snails to carry and deliver electronic messages on their own time, despite growing expectations of instant communication.

Mute-Dialogue (Yasser Rashid and Yara El-Sherbini have created the interactive installation, Origins and Lemons. Arranged as an East End market stall the installation invites you to pick up RFID-tagged items and scan them to receive clues as to their history and origin.

In SWAPOId, evoLhypergrapHyCx (C6)implement RFID technology in the Antisystemic Distributed Library Project, an alternative library of shared books, videos, and music with venues in community centres and bedrooms worldwide, and through this acting as but one site of resistance against a de-humanising, de-dimensional agenda.

Arphield Recordings by Paula Roush records the sound of citizens scanning their Oyster cards in London Underground stations, and outputs them in live performance, installation and public intervention.

A new essay by Armin Medosch, The Spychip Under Your Skin, accompanies this exhibition and is published on a new [ space.media.arts ] website: www.spacemedia.org.uk

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Email: exhibitions@spacestudios.org.uk
Web: http://www.spacemedia.org.uk
Telephone: 0208 525 4339

TRAVEL
Bus: 26 & 48 from Liverpool Street
106 & 254 from Bethnal Green
55 from Old Street

Tube: Bethnal Green
Train: Hackney Central Silverlink

EXHIBITION OPENING TIMES
Opening Reception: 6 October, 6 - 9pm; continuing until 21 October With a performance by Paula Roush
Open Wednesday - Saturday, 1 - 6pm

//FREE ADMISSION FULLY ACCESSIBLE//

Things We Like - Tina Gonsalves' FEEL Series

Today FreqOUT! went to a lecture at the University College London's Institue of Cognitive Neuroscience and Functional Imaging Unit to hear artist in residence Tina Gonsalves talk about her work.

Tina has been collaborating with emotion neuroscientist Dr. Hugo Critchley to create a series of video installations that react to viewers emotional states. Wearing bio-sensors that dectect heart rate, perspirance, movement etc, viewers are invited to watch videos that externalise their emotional state and attempt to control that state.

Tina has also produced reactive Jewelery which incorporate tiny video screens displaying images that express feelings that the wearer may be working hard to conceal on the surface. We were shown documentary footage of Tina wearing the jewelery during at a public intervention at the ICA in 2004 where people strangely ended up taking to her jewelery rather than her face - creating intimate and often highly emotional scenes!

You can find out more at:
Tina Gonsalves
Greenwich Hugo Critchley / UCL

Peninsula Launch

Last night FreqOUT! Project Manager Amy Robins and FreqOUT! friend and representative of the Finish GPS company Pointer Jaimie Palmer went down to the launch of the Greenwich based project Penninsula. The launch presented five of the new media arts projects they have been nuturing - from Christian Nold's, 'Greenwich Emotion Map', to Daniel Belasco's, 'Peninsula Voices' - both of which use GPS to operate, and Lottie Childs', 'Accidental Holiday'. We also met up with Rob Dyke of Comwifinet whose project Peninsula.me.uk was also featured.

Peninsula is an exceptionally well curated project that matches locative, wireless and new media to community concerns, memories and future wishes. I won't explain them all here - you can look them up at the following links:

Peninsula Projects / Independant Photography
Greenwich Emotion Map / Christian Nold
Peninsula Voices / Daniel Belasco
Accidental Holiday / Lottie Child
Gasworks to Dome / Rib Davis & Tom Keene
Peninsula.me / Comwifinet

Plus Jaime Palmer's Finish GPS links:
Pointer GPS Solutions
Pointer for Pets

Artful Gaming at the Dana Centre

As part of the London Games Festival Fringe, Cybersalon and Select Parks have been hosting 'Artful Gaming' at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre this week - a one-day forum and week-long exhibition that spotlights innovation and platforms new work, new developments and new thinking in gaming culture.


FreqOUT! went along today and two works caught our eye due to their experiential learning potential for young people.

The first was 'Chit Chat National Park' (see above), a live MUD (multi user domain) by Toshi Endo, where individuals can take on avatars, and communicate with corresponding emotions in a utopian environment. We think this would be extra interesting if played between two youth communities on different estates across London - allowing young people to communicate on a level, without judging each other on dress/voice/skin colour/age etc.

The second was 'EdgeBomber' (see above below right), by Susigames - a german art colletive. EdgeBomber is a pervasive video game installation, where the creation of the game world is an active part of the game. The player uses tape, stickers and scissors to create his own playground on a blank wall. The system then grabs the scenery and creates a virtual level for our jump-n-run video game. The newly grabbed playground is extended and finally projected back to the original scenery. Thus a mixed media/augmented reality level is created. This seems like an exciting way for palyers to gain control over the way their interactive gaming environment looks and works - rather than just being a consumer.

You can find out more about Artful Gaming at:
CyberSalon / Artful Gaming

Pay by phone parking launched

Yesterday we heard that as Westminster Council's wireless service grows they have launched a Pay by Phone Parking scheme in a large part of the West End and around Harrow Road, as part of a 6-month trial.

We're not sure yet how we could utilise this service as the basis for an arts or education project, but we're sure its possible! Leave a comment here or email arobins@cwh.org.uk if you are an artist or technologist with any ideas!

Find out more about the scheme at
Pay by phone parking in Westminster

Sign up to the service at:
Sign up to pay by phone parking

Things we like! - Sascha Pohflepp

Rajiv Kumar, our FreqOUT! Steering Group delegate from Vertex has come across an art project by Sascha Pohflepp which combines a Sony Ericsson k750i with a black case to let you take other people's pictures. The design works by recording what time you click the button to "take" a picture, then later on connects to the internet to scope out shots other people took with that same timestamp.

Have a look at it at the following link:
Blinks and Buttons