On tuesday 22nd of September Rob Canning and Claude Heiland-Allen of GOTO10 will give a short workshop on puredyne as part of the OpenLab London series of workshops http://openlabworkshops.org/ This workshop will introduce the participants to the live distribution, giving an overview of the system and its applications as well as a brief look into the scripts behind the scenes showing how it is possible to fork the distribution for your own purposes. This workshop will be paired with the short workshop Animation and Livecoding through Fluxus with Dave Griffiths and Evan Raskob

When: Tuesday 22 September, from 6pm-10:30pm
Where: The Roebuck pub (upstairs room), 50 Great Dover Street, SE1 4YG
Nearest transport: 5, 133, 343, 21 buses, Borough Tube (Northern line)
About 8 minute walk from London Bridge Station (Northern and Jubilee tube, rail, and bus station: 48, 47, 149 buses)
Cost: £15 for the entire night, or per workshop (see below).
How to pay: At the door, or via Paypal to be guaranteed a space (limited to 30 people per workshop). There will be a few spaces for people who show up on the night. Please email reserve@openlabworkshops.org to reserve a space in any workshop.

folly and GOTO10 are pleased to announce the latest articles to be added to the Digital Artists’ Handbook at http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org

The handbook is a reliable and accessible source of information that introduces artists to different tools, resources and ways of working related to digital art. With a focus on Free Software and Open Content, the handbook covers topics such as working with graphics, sound and digital video, software art, developing your own hardware, collaborative working and publishing your work.

The first of two new articles, “Video editing with open source tools”, has been written by Valentina Messeri and Eleonora Oreggia.

Valentina Messeri studied Philosophy of Technology and has been living in Spain since 2002. She is an advanced GNU/Linux user and video-maker, an expert in video streaming, teaches multimedia and works freelance in post production and live audio/video streaming.

Eleonora Oreggia is a media artist born in Milan and based in Amsterdam. She worked as editor and researcher at Netherlands Institute for Media Art (NIMK) in Amsterdam, and is currently Researcher in Design at Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and PhD in Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The second new article is by UK-based Sumit Sarkar, a visual artist whose character based artwork takes the form of digital and canvas paintings, digital sculpture, and aerosol art.

Sumit was invited to write “Blender: working in 3d” having spent 2008 as artist in residence with folly and Lanternhouse International. During his residency he used Blender to create Ananta, a new exhibition expressing his vision of the Hindu religion and spirituality.

Launched in early 2008, the handbook developed out of ongoing consultation with artists working with technology, which has shown a need for removing the barriers for artists to use digital tools. The project is supported by Arts Council England.

Brought to you by leading digital arts organisation folly, the Digital Artists’ Handbook has been edited by Marloes de Valk and Aymeric Mansoux of GOTO10, a collective of international artists and programmers.

In 2009 folly and GOTO10 embark on a new partnership to take forward the development of this unique and valuable resource. The two organisations are committed to working together to realise an ambitious development programme which will enhance the handbook, build on its international networks and maintain its relevance in a rapidly changing sector.

About the Digital Artists’ Handbook:

The Digital Artists Handbook is an up to date, reliable and accessible source of information that introduces you to different tools, resources and ways of working related to digital art.

The goal of the Handbook is to be a signpost, a source of practical information and content that bridges the gap between new users and the platforms and resources that are available, but not always very accessible. Articles are written by invited artists and specialists, talking about their tools and ways of working. Some articles are introductions to tools, others are descriptions of methodologies, concepts and technologies.

When discussing software, the focus of the Handbook is on Free/Libre Open Source Software. The Handbook aims to give artists information about the available tools but also about the practicalities related to Free Software and Open Content, such as collaborative development and licenses. All this to facilitate exchange between artists, to take away some of the fears when it comes to open content licenses, sharing code, and to give a perspective on various ways of working and collaborating.

http://www.digitalartistshandbook.org

About folly:

folly is a leading digital arts organisation developing and delivering an inclusive programme of online work, live events, presentations, learning, research and consultancy work, offering rich and engaging arts content to artists and audiences in North West England and online.

We are specialists in the creative use of technology and arts participation online, and seek to explore how society makes sense of the world through art and technology.

http://www.folly.co.uk

About GOTO10:
GOTO10 is a collective of international artists, musicians and programmers, dedicated to Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) and digital arts. GOTO10 aims to support and develop digital art projects and tools for artistic creation, located on the blurry line between software programming and art. With its projects GOTO10 is stimulating the reflection on and the use of open source tools within artistic practice. GOTO10 is also supporting individual artists, like-minded networks and organisations with services such as an IRC network, code repository, web hosting, mailinglists and streaming services.
http://goto10.org

Your Machines is a collection of tutorials and resources for working creatively with Free and Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and related practices. It brings together contributions from artists, activists, community workers, and Linux advocates, all of whom use it within their work. Your Machines presents FLOSS not simply as a set of tools and applications but also as a way of working, which is reflected in the approach of many of the contributions.

The project was initiated by Simon Yuill and we are now keeping an archive of this excellent resource in the hope it will be brought back to life in the future :)

The article has been published in Volume 28, Issue 1, 2009 of the Contemporary Music Review journal. This issue, “Generative Music”, has been edited by Nick Collins and Andrew R. Brown. It features other articles from Karen Collins, Andrew R. Brown, Andrew Sorensen, Robert Rowe, Palle Dahlstedt, Margaret Schedel, Alison Rootberg , Paul Berg and Nick Collins.

You can purchase the journal here or preview the article online on Marloes’ website. For full abstract click on :)

Tools to Fight Boredom: FLOSS and GNU/Linux for Artists Working in the Field of Generative Music and Software Art.
Keywords: software art, generative music, Free/Libre/Open Source Software, artistic practice, artistic toolkit, GNU/Linux

This article takes a look at the impact the operating system, programming languages and software, as a whole, have on the practice of artists working in the field of generative music and software art. Proprietary operating systems lack the openness needed to create an environment that fulfills the specific needs of artists and musicians who program and programmers who produce art and music. “Hackability”, the possibility to take things apart, modify, adjust, and improve, is an ever more important aspect that software artists and electronic musicians seek to include in their production environment. GNU/Linux and Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) possess this feature, and many more, providing artists with a truly creative and open environment, free of unnecessary technical limitations, predetermined interaction, lack of control over the work environment and dependence on software companies.

Marc Garret invited two members of the pure:dyne team, Heather Corcoran and Aymeric Mansoux to discuss about the project on the Netbehaviour.org list.

The discussion took place between October 16th – 23rd Oct 08. An interview and an open discussion was joined by other list members of Netbehaviour.

Read the full interview on the Furtherfield site!

Here it is! The Digital Artists Handbook!

WHAT?
The Handbook is a new, up to date, reliable and accessible source of information that introduces artists and students to different tools, resources and ways of working related to digital art with a strong focus on the use of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS).

HOW?
The goal of the Handbook is to be a signpost, a source of practical information and content that bridges the gap between new users and the platforms and resources that are available, but not always very accessible. The Handbook will be slowly filled with articles written by invited artists, theoreticians and practitioners from a wide range of media art and media design fields.

WHO?
The artists and practitioners who participated in the first stage of writing the Handbook are: Kristina Andersen, Frank Barknecht, Tom Betts, Florian Cramer, Phil Chandler, Olga Goriunova, Kathryn Lambert, Olivier Laruelle, Thor Magnusson, Nicolas Malevé, Aymeric Mansoux, Iman Moradi, Jon Phillips, Tom Schouten, Marloes de Valk, Peter Westenberg, and Simon Yuill.

The Handbook has been edited by Marloes de Valk and Aymeric Mansoux. The project is brought to you by folly and supported by Arts Council England.