Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Oxford Street mobile phone takeover


Project Manager Jenny Irish and Artist Melissa Bliss worked with young people from the Cardinal Hume Centre during the VIP event on Oxford Street during its pedestrianisation on the 1st of December. The FreqOUT! group were part of a range of acts and performances that lined the streets during the busiest day in the shopping calendar. The young people filmed the event and made short films on mobile phones that could be Bluetoothed to the crowd- to spread the FreqOUT! message.

Friday, November 30, 2007

FreqOUT! visits ITM Grande Finale


The ITM (Inclusion Through Media) project ran in collaboration with Goldsmiths and worked with FreqOUT! during the 'Hidden Homeless' Film Project at the start of 2007. The Grande Finale was held at the BFI and included talks from The Uk Film Council, Nesta, Musicians In Focus, BBC and Real Time Video.

Adnan Hanzi worked with the young people from the 'Hidden Homeless' Project to teach them how to upload their films to The Broadcast Machine. This open source method of distribution enables free distribution online and has proven to be a successful way of distributing the fantastic projects created by the young people. FreqOUT! worked with a young person from the project to upload a database of films and sound work from Vital's history. You can view the films here: student films

FreqOUT! intends to incorporate this into future projects to empower yong people to get their work seen by the masses!

Thursday, November 01, 2007

New FreqOUT! Project Manager Appointed

Following an interview series by the FreqOUT! Steering Group, Jenny Irish has been appointed as the new FreqOUT! Project Manager. Jenny takes over responsibility from Amy Robins who has successfully driven the project since its start in 2005. Jenny trained in MA Communication Design at Central Saint Martins and has a background as an Installation and Media Artist. Jenny has been an instrumental part of the Vital Regeneration Team since 2005, "I am looking forward to the exciting new challenges that FreqOUT! brings and the impact the project will have on the educational aspirations of the young people we work with." To contact Jenny e-mail jirish@cwh.org.uk

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Museum of the Moment- Harrow Road showcased on ITV London News

Museum of the Moment- Harrow Road volunteers were interviewed by ITV London News crew on thier experiences on the project. The footage was broadcast on Monday and reported on the life time of the project. This media coverage further raises the profile of FreqOUT! and our work with local young people to improve social cohesion and quality of life and explore new possibilities for the arts.

So watch this space for further developments.







FreqOUT! attends NODE London

Acting Project Manager Jenny Irish attended the NODE.London subscribers meeting at the Gasworks Gallery this week to discuss the direction of NODE over the coming months.

In order to raise the visibility of media arts practice in and around the capital, NODE.London [Networked, Open, Distributed, Events. London] has worked as an open organisation, using consensus decision-making and pooling ideas, resources and even people. It has sought to fortify existing media arts networks and to encourage production and experimentation, whilst assisting in the articulation of such innovative artistry to a wider audience.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

FreqOUT! explores the implications of Web 2.0

This week Acting Project Manager Jenny Irish visited the Arts Council to attend a presentation and debate that discussed the implications of the web 2.0 phenomena. Saul Albert (FreqOUT! Steering Group member) and colleague Mikey Weinhove presented 'Who Wants to Be..'. Based on the ask-the-audience feature of the popular TV game show 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' The project helps large groups of people to make suggestions, discuss an issue, and to vote on each step in a creative decision-making process. The discussion between panel members and the audience explored the implications of the web 2.0 with Andrew Keen author, broadcaster and entrepreneur, commenting on implications for the music industry and journalism in the future.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Futurelab Covers FreqOUT!























As part of the Museum of the Moment- Harrow Road project- Futurelab has included FreqOUT! on its website as part of their Digital Inclusion review. You can find out more on the Futurelab website.

Future Lab Digital Inclusion

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

FreqOUT! groups visit music studios

As part of FreqOUT! Museum Of The Moment - Harrow Road summer project in collaboration with artist Jennie Savage, young people from Westside Independant School visited two music studios in West London this week.

The trip to Eastcoates and Kensal Town Studios was organised to show the young people what career opportunities may be open to them if they wanted to pursue the sound recording activity they have begun with Jennie Savage. The group prepared questions to ask Studio Managers, Assistants, Engineers and Producers.

Many thanks go out to Phillip from Eastcoates whose stories about late night working and soldering irons were hugely entertaining and insightful, and to Nici and Iain from Kensal Town who backed up the message of the day which was if you want something and you are prepared to work hard, you can make it happen.

To find out more go to:
Eastcotes Studios
Jennie Savage

Friday, June 08, 2007

FreqOUT! Film Screening at the ICA



Spring time at FreqOUT! this year involved delivering two documentary film training projects with young people at the Cardinal Hume Centre in Victoria and Churchill Gardens Youth Club in Pimlico. The projects were led by film makers Tanya Harris and Lucy Williams who did a fantastic job of organising, inspiring and cajoling the young people to complete the short films titled Hidden Homeless and About Bullying.

We were delighted to be able to screen the films for the first time at the Institute of Contemporary Art's (ICA) cinema last Wednesday night. You can watch the films and find out more about them at www.vitalregeneration.org

We would like to extend a big thank you to FirstLight Movies and UK Film Council funding who made the two projects possible, and to thise people who contributed their time to make the project a success.

FreqOUT! presents at SCIRIA



FreqOUT! Project Manager Amy Robins spoke at Camberwell College of Arts Research Department's SCIRIA meeting yesterday. SCIRIA, or the 'Sensory Computer Interface Research & Innovation for the Arts' is headed up by Director Dr. Angela Geary and the talk was programmed by Research Fellow James Fuare Walker.

SCIRIA aims to challenge and develop the nature and role of the computer interface in the arts. The Unit explores and develops the potential applications of emerging tangible interface technologies, including haptics and biometrics. It aims to foster an interdisciplinary arts and science collaborative network to achieve outcomes of core relevance and usefulness in the fields of art, design, craft and cultural heritage interpretation.

Amy spoke about the aims of FreqOUT! and the challenges associated with introducing innovative technology to young people in a educational and creative context. The discussion that insued covered the future direction of public art and the potential of young people to teach artists and their teachers about technology.

To find out more about SCIRIA go to:
SCIRIA
Camberwell College of Arts
University Of The Arts, London

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

FreqOUT! comissioned by the BBC



FreqOUT! has been comissioned to run 8 mobile phone video making workshops for the BBC Blast tour this summer. Leed artist Melissa Bliss and her supporting team wll be travelling around the country to BBC Blast events in Cambridge, Leeds, Bournemouth, Londonderry and more.

We will be hosting up to 15 young people for half day or day log workshops in the fold down Blast bus. There is capacity for 10 young people to borrow phones, and 5 more to join in if they can bring their own. The final films made will be upoaded to the BBC Blast web site and will enter a competion. The lucky winners will be able to take part in a 'money can't buy' experience by having their movie shown at a Film Festival in the UK or Europe. We'll keep you posted when dates are confirmed!

Find out more about:
BBC Blast On Tour
Melissa Bliss

Museum Of The Moment kicks off



FreqOUT!'s flagship summer project 'Museum of The Moment' has just completed is first phase. Masterminded by artist Jennie Savage and contributed to by the community in and around the Westminter section of the Harrow Road (NW9/NW10), the project will act as a showcase for the talents, voices and sounds of the Harrow Road.



For the last month young people from youth clubs based along the Road have been gathering information on ambient sounds and interviewing the local community. The recording phase completed this saturday with a ClashUp! on the Harrow Road in which singers, guitarists, flautists, rappers and DJ's performed along the road as the team recorded the sounds.

The project will complete in September when six radio broadcasts are transmitted by local shops. Passers by will be able to hear the sound by listening on their mobile phone radios or wireless headphones that will available from nearby collection points.

We would like to say thank you to Capgemini, Creative London and London Westside who have generously supported the project, and to the volunteers, young people, technical specialists and other contributers who have made the project happen to date.

If you would like to be informed of, and invited to the final event contact the FreqOUT! Project Manager arobins@cwh.org.uk.

Julie Freeman at Kinetica



'Specious Dialouges' - a work by artist and Chair of FreqOUT!'s Steering Group Julie Freeman, is currently on show at Kinetica.



The exhibition focuses on artworks that explore, warp, collect and manipulate sound. Collaborating with the Cybersonica Festival, the show presents the work of prominent and pioneering U.K and European artists and features 4 new commisssions. The show runs from 18th May - 29th June 2007. The gallery is at the SP2 Pavillion, Old Spitalfields Market, London, E1 6AA.

Julie's previous projects have included tracking natural biological motion via electronic tagging systems implanted in fish. Julie brings her knowledge of interactive and technologically driven art practise to The FreqOUT! Steering Group alongside other specialist input from Westminster City Council, Capgemini, Vertex, CityWest Homes and fellow artist Saul Albert.

To find out more about Kinetica and Julie's work click on the links below:
www.juliefreeman.co.uk
The Lake
Kinetica

Saturday, April 21, 2007

FreqOUT! at Common Work - a Socially Engaged Art Conference by the University of Stirling



At the end of last week FreqOUT! joined forces with Isabel Lily the Artistic Director of Independent Photography to give a joint paper at a conference entitled ‘Common Work’ – a forum for those in the field of socially engaged art. The pair detailed several of the media arts projects their respective organisations have commissioned in the last few years and discussed, “Artistic quality & socially engaged practice: tensions, compromises & successes”.



Highlights of the conference were presentations by Choreographer Bill Shannon - whose displays of skateboarding/streetdance works are viewed by audiences and DJ’s on buses were music is relayed to the performer using wireless technology - and Quarantine theatre company Director Richard Gregory who works with untrained performers or ‘experts in the everyday’ to create events which rarely allows an audience feel confident about what might happen next. Find out more about them at the links below.

Thanks to Professor Heather Lynch at the University of Stirling for organising the event.

Independant Photography's 'Peninsula Projects'
Bill Shannon's performances and writing
Quarantine Theatre / Richard Gregory

Monday, April 02, 2007

FreqOUT! Wins National Award

FreqOUT! is delighted to announce that we have been declared the winner of the 'Most Innovative Use of ICT' category at this years National ICT Hub awards. The award recognises the ground breaking work delivered by FreqOUT! since its inception in 2005.

The ICT Hub support ICT use within the voluntary and community sector and you can find out more about them at ICT Hub

FreqOUT! Project Manager Amy Robins collected the Award after the London Regional Conference last week. Thanks go out to the young people who take our courses and keep us going an to our partner organisations and funders for their hard work and belief in what we do.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

My Territory – a showcase at the Hayward Gallery


Films created by young people from The Living Space in Waterloo were showcased at The Hayward Gallery last Saturday Night as part of the end of their Digital Dialogues Season to an audience of digital artists and local community members.

Photo by workshop participants

My Territory - making videos with mobile phones


Over March 2007 FreqOUT! ran the first of three workshops commissioned by The Hayward Gallery as part of their "Digital Dialogue" seasons. Young People from the SE1 United run Living Space in Waterloo, joined artist Melissa Bliss to storyboard, shoot and edit short films using mobile phones.


The films were created in tributes to local places where the young people go to meet, have fun, think, or watch the world go by, giving them an opportunity to explore their relationship with the built environment. Each workshop will create 5-8 films between 1 – 10 minutes long, which can be shared using Bluetooth.

Photos by Melissa Bliss, Daniela Boraschi and Petra Hudcova

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Things we like

"...Perplex city is one of a number of alternate realty games that blur the boundaries between the real and the virtual worlds . It uses real world events and clues planted on the Internet, television and newspaper to guide players on a real-life treasure hunt ..."

Players from 92 countries have been trying to solve the clues on the web and around the world in search of the "Receda Cube", an "artefact" hidden in a secrete location.
Recently a man from UK, after almost a year play, following clues of a real life event, tracked the "Receda Cube" down to Wakerly Great Wood in Northamptonshire, winning £ 100.000 as prize.

A new Perplex City game will start later this year, so...eyes open and good luck !

Read the whole story from BBC news here

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Creative mapping with InIVA and RGS



IniVA, the East London based gallery and arts reference library is launching a three year (2007-10) education, events and multimedia initiative exploring the politics, ethics and aesthetics of map-making through the lens of contemporary artistic practice.

This week artists and educators interested in creative mapping met at The Royal Geographical Society to swap notes on their practices and plant seeds for future collaboration. FreqOUT! curator Amy Robins gave a presentation on the work of FreqOUT! and her own practise - see below a film still from Drawing In Time - a map of the sonic activity under Waterloo Bridge, July 2006.



InIVA has created a fantastic blog in which they aim to upload one map a day. Have a look at InIVA Creative Mapping Blog to see how they are doing... or

InIVA to find out more about the gallery
or the Royal Geographical Society to learn about the RGS's fantastic library of resources.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Total Regeneration Symposium at cSPACE

This week FreqOUT! took part in the Total Regeneration symposium at cSPACE studio, a conference and round table discussion on roles, agendas and impacts for cultural practitioners within socially engaged and collaborative art practice.

Of particular interest was the presentation of the artist and researcher Aida Sancehz de Serdio from the University of Barcelona about Artibarri, a online network of community art projects. For Artibarri, participation and collaboration between artists, politicians and communities is the corner stone of socially engaded art practice and evaluation is the biggest challenge.

The question, "is it possible to evaluate objectively the outcome of socially engaged art practice?", was debated extensively amongst the attendees. Artibarri's position was that artists, politicians and communities should be engaged in a constant reflection, analysis and dialogue, and that the creation of these networks of experience can and should inspire new practices but that community art projects, "should not be evaluated by any measuring processes but by constructive criticism". Thier philosophy received general agreement amongst the symposium public, which was mainly composed of artists and politicians involved in community practices.

There was also unanimity at cSPACE that a future challenges lies in the consideration of external viewers approaching community art projects and their relative outcomes.

Article by Daniela Boraschi
For more information go to: cSPACE studio

Sunday, January 21, 2007

FreqOUT! visits Dorkbot



FreqOUT! spent a very enjoyable evening at DORKBOT last Wednesday Evening.

Held at alternatively at Sate51 near Brick Lane or Limehouse Town Hall, Dorkbot is a monthly event at which 'people who do strange things with electricity' meet and show each other what they are up to. We heard Sampath Jagannathan showcase his 'Homebrew rule based particle model' and Yoshi Introduce 'one of the rarest botanical specimens - “Dendro Cacalia Intoxicum” AKA Drunken Leaf' which turned out to be a leaf modelled out of a beer can rotating on a tiny, credit card sized motor.

We're hooked, and will be back next month for more.

You can find out more about Dorkbot London at Dorkbot London

Monday, January 15, 2007

FreqOUT highlights of BETT conference


The BETT conference is a leading educational technology event showcasing companies and businesses operating worldwide .

Highlights of the day were a presentation by Dan Sutch, Learning Researcher for FutureLab, at the Tomorrow's Learners Today Stand. He tackled the subject "...What if we could re-design our education system from scratch?...What if we made the technology do what we wanted?..." FutureLab is a blue-sky thinking IT & educational reserach group working on projects creating answers to the questions above.

Some of their exciting projects are as follows:
Enquiring Minds - a personalised learing project.
Create-A-Scape - a personalised learning tool that enables young people to learn while discovering their surronding through the potential of wireless and mobile technologies.

Information collected by Ed Whyman
Article edited and posted by Daniela Boraschi