ARTIST OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE WITH 3D PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

Exeter Phoenix has teamed up with the University of Exeter’s Centre for Additive Layer Manufacturing (CALM) to offer artists the opportunity to explore the possibilities of making work in the emerging technologies of 3D printing.

WHAT IS 3D PRINTING?
Also known as rapid prototyping, desktop fabrication or additive manufacturing, this is a manufactoring process whereby a real object is created from a 3D computer-modelled design. The digital model is sent to a 3D printer that can print the design, layer by layer, in a variety of materials to form a real object.

We are looking for:
Artists currently working in any medium who are interested in investigating ways that this technology could be used to develop or bring new possibilities and ways of making into their practice. No previous experience is required but basic computer skills will be beneficial.

This opportunity will include the following stages:
• A day long workshop which will introduce artists to the technology, software and potential uses of additive layer manufacturing.
• A further workshop will develop skills in the relevant design software to create a 3D design.
• All participating artists will then get the chance to develop and produce a new piece of three dimensional work at CALM
• All works will go on display and artists may submit a further commission proposal
• One artist will be selected to develop a further commission and exhibition opportunity

TO APPLY: Please read the attached Guidelines before applying. Applicants are asked to send a CV & short artist’s statement about your current practice to Digital@exeterphoenix.org.uk

DEADLINE: Friday 18 May 2012

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDELINES

You can find out more about additive layer manufacturing at CALM here:
http://emps.exeter.ac.uk/engineering/research/calm/http://makerblog.anat.org.au/3d-printed-artworks/

Connecting the creative industries Exeter Phoenix Digital is hosting...

ARTS MATRIX LIVE

ArtsMatrix Live is a series of events run by ArtsMatrix to encourage networking, partnership and sharing knowledge between artists across the South West.
About the Events
Networking and partnership are essential for many creative businesses but achieving this in a dispersed region such as the South West can be extremely difficult. ArtsMatrix Live is specifically designed to address this by using interactive and digital technology in an innovative way to connect the Regions Creative Industries through a series of Live events broadcast throughout the South West.
Events will be broadcast to and from; Exeter Phoenix, Plymouth College of Art, Spike Island in Bristol and Pavillion Dance in Bournemouth. Learn more about the events »
How to Use Social Networks to Achieve Your Creative Ambitions -
with Mark McGuinness

Tue 27 March, 6pm-8pm

Come join us for Artsmatrix LIVE and Networking where we will be streaming Mark McGuiness sharing How to Use Social Networks to Achieve Your Creative Ambitions

If you're using social networks aimlessly, they can easily become a time suck and a distraction from your creative work. But if you take a more considered approach, they can not only provide you with creative stimulation, but also bring you opportunities that can further you creative career.

Writer and creative business coach Mark McGuinness has been using social networks for the past six years as part of his online marketing strategy, while still writing thousands of words a week. He now has a global network of contacts that brings him inspiration, support and new business opportunities. In this talk he'll show you how to build a network that will do the same for you.

Come to this event to learn:
* 5 Ways social networks can help your creative career
* Why you still need your own website
* The essential elements of an effective profile
* What not to share
* How to attract the right kind of followers
* Scheduling social networking so it doesn't interfere with creative work
* Which social networks are most important for creatives

An Artsmatrixlive event offers you a free opportunity to hear a renowned creative speaker, ask questions and then network either face to face or via our interactive link. Book now to secure your place, all sessions can only be attended via booking in advance.

More about Mark:

Get new skills New Digital Workshops for 2012

New season of Phoenix Digital Workshops
APRIL TO JUNE- NOW ON SALE

Find out more>>>

EXETER PHOENIX DIGITAL IS NOW HOSTING DIGITAL MEDIA COURSES IN PLYMOUTH

From April 2012 Exeter Phoenix will be partnering with The Media Innovation Network to offer one day Digital Media workshops in Plymouth, covering Abobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop. Discount rates will be available to Plymouth Media Innovation Premium Users. More>>>

WHAT WE HAVE BEEN UP TO...

INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES FOR FILM EXHIBITORS
As part of a new initiative to develop film and Cinema at Exeter Phoenix we have been taking part in a new scheme called Cinovate.

Cinovate is a training programme designed to help film exhibitors, film festivals, art centers and cinemas meet current and future challenges and seize new opportunities available to the independent film exhibition sector.

Phoenix Digital, has joined with 9 other independent film exhibitors to share and explore new ways of approaching film. Meetings have taken place at Soundtrack Film Festival in Cardiff, Ffresh film Festival in Newport and Flatpack in Birmingham.

Other exhibitors have included Roxy Bar and screen, Curzon Community Cinema, City Eye, Sci Fi London Film Festival, Porstmouth Film Society, Zoon Cymru, BAFTA Wales, The lost Pictureshow and Gloucester Guildhall.

Find out more about Cinovate, and what we have been up to by watching the film above, and loook out for new and exciting changes to Exeter Phoenix Film.

Moped Safety Film Shooting Update #4

More filming last week took place in a kitchen and a Hein Gerkin bike wear shop. I've never seen so much bike kit in one place.

More soon...

Moped Safety Film Shooting Update #3

So - we've been to Minehead and filmed on the sea front.
Filming went really well with some great 'eating chips' acting as well as some marvelous 'sitting on the sea wall' performances.
Production is going really well so far as we enter the final stages of production.

More to follow...

Moped Safety Film Shooting Update #2

So... We've done our second major shoot, mainly at Huish woods as we could close the road for filming. We were lucky enought to get a professional media makeup specialist all the way from Oxford for this day's filming which included some lovely gravel-imbedded-in-face shots and having-been-dragged-along-the-road stuff as well.
The footage looks great.
Watch this space...

Simon

New Budget Home Computer - it's the 1980's all over again!

The Raspberry Pi computer goes on general sale


From the BBC web site:

Raspberry Pi computer: Can it get kids into code?

By Julian Joyce BBC News

Dr Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi Foundation explains how it works

Related Stories

• Raspberry Pi goes on general sale
• ICT victory for coding campaigners
• Raspberry Pi bids for classroom success

The hope of Britain's future computer science industry is gathered around a tiny device in a school classroom in Cambridgeshire.

The pupils of Chesterton Community College ICT class have been invited to road-test the long-awaited Raspberry Pi computer.

A projector throws the image of what the Pi is generating - a simple game of Snake (available on any Nokia phone near you) - onto a whiteboard.

The atmosphere is feverish as the 12 year olds compete for the keyboard.

Crucially, they are not just playing the game - they have created it by writing their own computer code.

For Eben Upton - the smiling man in the midst of the throng - it is a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to long years of thinking and planning.

"We have been working on the Pi for six years, but we have never tested it with children - the target market," he says.

"In the event, I couldn't have asked for better... they couldn't wait to try it out themselves."

Now his ambition - to provide every child in Britain with their own cheap, programmable, credit-card-sized computer - seems close to realisation.

The Pi's makers want an end to this - traditional ICT lessons spent working on word processors

But what's the fuss all about? After all, the Pi is not that revolutionary in design. It's small - a green circuit board about the size of a credit card.

It has a processor - similar to the one used in many smartphones, so not particularly fast by modern PC standards. It has a memory chip, an Ethernet port to connect to the internet and a couple of USB ports to plug a keyboard and mouse. And that's about all.

You need to supply the keyboard and mouse yourself, and the screen. However, the truly revolutionary thing is the price.

From today you'll be able to order one for just £22 (excluding VAT) - although if the demand is as high as anticipated, it's more likely you'll be on the end of a (very long) waiting list.

Costs are kept down because, according to Dr Upton, there's a lot of goodwill toward the non-profit project. The software is (free) open-source, chip manufacturers have kept their prices low, and all members of the charitable Raspberry Pi Foundation have given their time (and in some cases substantial amounts of money) for free.

The vast majority of the profits will be ploughed back into more devices, improvements and incentives to get children programming.

Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent

For many children, £22 is affordable. Twelve-year-old Peter Boughton, who says he wants to write computer games when he grows up, says: "That's eight weeks pocket money for me," he calculates. "I'm definitely going to get one."

Price and scale
Other, what are called, "bare-board PCs" have been available.

The difference with the Pi is that today's licensing deal with two firms appears to have solved the problems of price and scale: realising the foundation's ambition of providing a unit for anyone who needs one.

The first thousands on release today were funded largely out of the pockets of Dr Upton and his five fellow foundation scientists.

Now they will receive royalties on every Pi sold, and will be able to focus on their main concern - improving what is widely seen as the woeful state of Britain's computer science curriculum.

That was underlined last summer by American Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who said the UK - the country that invented the computer - was "throwing away its great computer heritage" by failing to teach programming in schools.

The Pi has changed in development, as the members of Raspberry Pi Foundation demonstrate.

"I was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn't even taught as standard in UK schools," he said.

"Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made."

Dr Upton believes the Pi could provide part of the solution: "We just want to get kids programming. The goal here is to increase the number of children to apply to university to do computer science, and to increase the range of things they know how to do when they arrive."

At Chesterton Community College, Mr Schmidt's criticism might be seen as unfair, because ICT head Paul Wilson is not a typical example of an information and communications technology teacher.

Unlike many of his colleagues in the field he knows how to code, and once did it for a living. He also runs a popular programming club after school.

But even he admits the current ICT school curriculum means most of his lesson time is spent in learning how to use software rather than teaching his pupils how to write the code that makes that software work.

He estimates just a tiny fraction of the students he teaches will go on to study computer science at a higher level.

His hunch is backed up by research carried out by the Royal Society which last month pinpointed a 60% decline in the number of British students achieving an A-level in computing since 2003.

And the Pi itself is very much an academic project - most of its members are, or were, Cambridge University academics, who noted a "marked reduction" in the number of students applying to read computer science from the mid 1990s.

But does it matter? The consensus is, very much so, as Google's Mr Schmidt put it: "If the UK's creative businesses want to thrive in the digital future, you need people who understand all facets of it integrated from the very beginning."
Squashy rubber
Being a former programmer, Mr Williams has kept his first computer - a 30-year-old ZX Spectrum with squashy rubber keys - and brings it out to demonstrate.

"That's my childhood in a box," he says. "It cost my parents £200, I played the games, but then I wondered what would happen if I changed the program, and altered the game. That's how I started."

It's familiar territory to Mr Upton, who now combines his Raspberry Pi activities with his day job as UK technical director of the computing firm Broadcom.

He says: "We have a theory that, back in the 1980s the computers that people had in their homes were programmable.

Alternatives to the Pi

The Pi has some fierce competition from other super-cheap school-friendly computers:

• Omnima MiniEMBWiFi: uses Ralink RT305x wi-fi 320MHz system on a chip, and is ideal for robots etc where wi-fi connectivity required. Cost: £28.37 (excluding VAT)

• Beagleboard: uses ARM Cortex-A8 processor with 256KB L2 cache running at up to 600MHz. HD video capable. Price: £93 (inc VAT)

• 7in tablet PCs running Android with resistive or capacitive screen. Price: Approx £85 (inc VAT)

"People would buy computers like the ZX or the BBC Micro to play games or do word processing - but then they would find themselves being beguiled into programming.

"That's gone away, because of games consoles and because desktop PCs hide that programmability behind quite a large layer of sophistication."

His theory is backed up by 12-year-old Emily Fulcher who uses her mum's laptop, but wouldn't dream of opening it up, or using it to code, "in case she broke something".

For her and millions of other would-be young coders, modern computers are mysterious multi-functional devices, pre-loaded with expensive proprietary software and sometimes fraught with problems.

Children like Emily are terrified to use the family computer for anything other than its pre-ordained function as a costly consumer device.

A Raspberry Pi, on the other hand, is a different prospect: "It's so cheap and you wouldn't be worried about doing different things with it. And if you broke it you could buy another one," says Emily.
'Demotivating and dull'
The Pi launches at a propitious time for Britain's budding computer scientists. Last month, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced he was tearing up the current ICT curriculum, which he described as "demotivating and dull".

He will be replacing it with a flexible curriculum in computer science and programming, designed with the help of universities and industry.

Mr Gove even name-checked the Pi, predicting that the scheme would give children "the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of programming with their own credit card-sized, single-board computers".

Pride and joy: Mr Williams recalled programming on his ZX Spectrum as a child

Teacher Paul Williams cannot wait: "It (the Pi) is going to bring an affordable device to students, so they can look at developing something themselves. They will have a device they can hold and feel and look at.

"I can imagine them saying: Let's see we if can get it work. How does this work? How can I get it to do this? It's brilliant. It really gets them thinking how to do stuff for themselves."

But the Pi does have its doubters, like technology journalist Michael Rockman who recently wrote: "Today's kids aren't interested (in coding). The world has moved on…what makes their applications work or what is inside the black box is as interesting as the washing machine or vacuum cleaner.

"I've long thought that there is a bubble of tech; people of my age are more techie than their children."
Coding incentives
Dr Upton remains unfazed. Now the Pi is launched, he and his colleagues are already looking at new ways to incentivise children into coding. There are plans to offer "very significant" prizes - perhaps totalling £1,000 or more - to children who impress the foundation with original programming.

And the foundation is already talking to exam boards and educational publishers about incorporating the Pi into lesson plans.

Dr Upton is convinced, Britain's macro-economic agenda aside, that the Pi will prove to be fun.

He says: "This is about getting kids to engage creatively with computers: doing interesting things. And to be fair that doesn't even have to be programming: it can be art, it can be design, using computers in a creative way.

"What we saw at the school was that as soon as the children were given access to something they could play with they started playing with it without direction, without someone trying to lead them by the hand.

"Often they what they tried would go wrong, but they learnt something, from whatever mistake they made."

Copyright BBC 2012