NEWS [11 January 2008]

Helen Bendon: exhibition in France

Espace Croisé is a contemporary art centre in Roubaix, France which specialises in photographic images, still and moving, analogue and digital.

Helen's work is on show until 19 January.

NEWS [13 December 2007]

Lansdown Centre is the research leader for an Academy

The Lansdown Centre is in a consortium of three institutions awarded Media Academy status by Skillset. We are one of only 17 partnerships in the country to gain this recognition. More than 100 institutions applied. See the website of the consortium.

The partners include TV Production at Middlesex, SAE Institute and TopTV Academy. The Lansdown Centre’s role in the Academy is to contribute research exploring the future of media.

Skillset is the Sector Skills Council for the Audio Visual Industries (broadcast, film, video, interactive media and photo imaging).

NEWS [8 December 2007]

Another prize for graduate’s company

Cyber-Duck, founded by Danny Bluestone, a graduate of the Centre's MA Design for Interactive Media, has won another award for its work. In fact, they have won two awards for the same website, in the categories Medical and Science/Technoogy. See the awards and a link to the site. They also won prizes in June and September of this year.

NEWS [5 December 2007]

Ralf Nuhn: Solo exhibition and residency in France

Lansdown research fellow Ralf Nuhn will present a selection of his work in a solo exhibition at the Maison Folie de Moulins in Lille, France from 20th December 2007 until 6th January 2008.

Alongside existing pieces, the exhibition will also feature a site-specific installation which Nuhn will create in collaboration with Cécile Colle during a two week residency at the venue. This new installation will be based on defence systems literally incorporating canine alarms.

NEWS [25 October 2007]

UK universities best for international students

UK universities are the best in the world for teaching and supporting their international students, a survey of more than 40,000 students has found.

The findings, released exclusively to The Times Higher Education Supplement, conclude that the UK is a "world leader when it comes to international education", ahead of global rivals across key measures such as teaching, course content and student support.

NEWS [10 October 2007]

Ralf Nuhn: invited participation at Dunkerque

In the context of Dunkerque l’Européenne 2007 Ralf Nuhn was invited to partake in an international creation workshop during the first week of October 2007. Here he is pictured with his site-specific installation situated in an underground bunker at the Fort des Dunes - Leffrinckoucke. More documentation about the event will soon be available at: http://www.laplateforme1.com

NEWS [10 October 2007]

First prize at Nokia Ubimedia award
for project initiated at the Lansdown Centre

The mobile phone game Heartlands has won 1st at the International NOKIA Ubimedia awards, chosen out of 140 submissions from around the world. The prize is for innovation in the field of pervasive media.

Active Ingredient and the Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham developed it from the internationally succesful project 'Ere Be Dragons, created through a research grant from the Wellcome Trust and headed by the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts.

NEWS [4 October 2007]

Two centre graduates publish book on videogames and art

Grethe Mitchell and Andy Clarke, both graduates of the Centre’s MA Design for Interactive Media, have edited Videogames and Art, published by Intellect, who say:

The book provides a thorough yet accessible introduction to those interested and involved in the academic study of videogame art.

Also see http://www.transformreality.com

NEWS [20 September 2007]

Centre graduate’s company wins prize

The Web Marketing Association has presented its 2007 WEBAWARD Real Estate Standard of Excellence to Cyber-Duck, founded by Lansdown graduate Danny Bluestone, for outstanding achievement in website development.

NEWS [16 September 2007]

Lansdown Centre contributions to new game space book

Stephen Boyd Davis and Magnus Moar have contributed a chapter to a new book “Space Time Play” on the spaces of games. The publishers say:

Computer and video games are leaving the PC and conquering the arena of everyday life in the form of mobile applications (such as GPS cell phones, etc.) – the result is new types of cities and architecture. How do these games alter our perception of real and virtual space? What can the designers of physical and digital worlds learn from one another?

The book is available now from Springer.

NEWS [14 September 2007]

Sonic Arts book praised

Tony Gibbs’ new book on Sonic Arts (see below) has been highly praised.

Read the review.

NEWS [14 September 2007]

Kings' Wood Symphony – take two

Sunday 16 September 2007 at 3:00 pm

King's Wood Symphony by Matthew King has contributions from the Lansdown Centre's Nye Parry and others. The wood is used as inspiration, performance space and instrument in this piece which creates a dialogue between the ancient woodland space and the contemporary urban environment. The new work includes horns, percussion and digitally manipulated sounds of the forest and will be presented as a grand symphony in the forest itself.

More about the performance.

The Independent said of the previous performance: ‘Nye Parry's electronic score transformed the symphony's live music.’ See the review.

NEWS [10 September 2007]

Lansdown Centre graduate wins Eurographics award

Nicola Schauerman, who completed the MA Electronic Arts last year, has won the second prize in this year's John Lansdown Award Competition for her entry Becoming Starfish. The winners were announced at the close of the Eurographics 2007 conference last Friday. The first prize this year was awarded to Roland Schröder-Kroll and others, of the University of Hamburg for an installation entitled Granulatsynthese.

This is the second year in succession that this award has been won by a Lansdown Centre graduate. Jump to previous winners.

See Nicola's own Becoming Starfish site.

NEWS [30 August 2007]

Student film selected for TV

One of this year's first class graduating Film Studies students, Richard
Wilson has just had his third year production "Forevermore" selected to be
screened on the Red Carpet show on Propeller TV. Congratulations to Richard on this success. We look forward to seeing his new projects in September when Richard starts the MA Moving Image, also in the Lansdown Centre.

Forevermore can be seen on Propeller TV, Sky channel 195, on the following dates (UK times):

• Fri 31 Aug @ 2100
• Mon 3rd Sept @ 23.30
• Tue 11 Sep @ 23.30
• Wed 19 Sep @ 23.30

NEWS [27 July 2007]

A graduate's new book

Richard Colson, who graduated from the Lansdown Centre as MA Electronic Arts in 2000, and is now senior lecturer in Digital Art at Thames Valley University, is publishing a book The Fundamentals of Digital Art this Autumn.

Richard writes:

The book deals with quite a few different aspects including a historical overview. It is aimed at undergraduates but there will be things to interest students at other levels, I hope.
 
I received a great deal of help at different stages but the course at Middlesex was really important for me.

NEWS [19 July 2007]

Centre supports Senster site

The Lansdown Centre is supporting the development of the website www.senster.com which provides a unique record of the pioneering 1960s and 70s work in robotics as art by Edward Ihnatowicz.

The site is being developed by Alex Zivanovic, the Centre's current Visiting Scholar.

NEWS [19 July 2007]

Helen Bendon's work in new exhibition

CUBE is the Centre for the Urban Built Environment and is hosting its first annual OPEN Competition. Helen Bendon's piece is of one of only 14 chosen from 250 submissions.

The selectors comment: "The selection of artists made for CUBE’s first OPEN exhibition represents practitioners working across media that explore the urban built environment in fascinating and ingenious ways. The work presented offers a joyful celebration of the metropolis whilst simultaneously revelling in a dark dystopian vision; the resulting exhibition reveals the complex relationships that artists have with the city today."

CUBE
113 - 115 Portland Street
Manchester
M1 6FB

tel: +44 [0] 161 237 5525
email: info@cube.org.uk

Admission FREE

Opening times:
Mon-Fri 12-5:30pm
Saturdays 12-5pm
Sundays closed

Exhibition continues until 25.08.2007

NEWS [19 July 2007]

Interview with Tony Gibbs about his new book on Sonic Arts

Tony Gibbs, leader of the BA Sonic Arts programme, will talk about his new book The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Sound Design (see News for 16 May below) in an interview with Michael Rusenberg of "Real Ambient" broadcast on WDR3 (Germany) on August 4 at 23.05. It will be streamed online at www.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/hoeren.phtml.

NEWS [2 July 2007]

PhD success: Dr. Sama'a al Hashimi

On 2 July 2007 Sama'a Al Hashimi was awarded her PhD at the Centre. She had previously taken the MA Design for Interactive Media in September 2003 and graduated in 2004.

Her Director of Studies was Gordon Davies, with Dr. Magnus Moar and Dr. Stephen Boyd Davis as her other supervisors. Her research was funded by the University of Bahrain.

Her PhD is in the use of non-speech vocalisation to control interactive media, extending the boundaries of what is known in this little-researched area. As part of the research, she produced a series of playful, innovative projects and studied the way users interact with them. She has presented her work, in some case by invitation, at leading events around the world:

2005
16th International Conference for Advanced Studies in Systems Research, Informatics and Cybernetics. Baden-Baden, Germany.

2006
BCS HCI Group Conference, London, UK.
ACM Multimedia 2006. Santa Barbara, California, USA.
International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. 2,3.

2007
CHI 2007 workshop on non-verbal acoustic interaction
HCI International 2007, 12th international conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Beijing, China.

In 2006, Sama'a won a Europrix Top Talent award.

See also http://www.alhashimi.co.uk/biography.htm

NEWS [2 July 2007]

Ere be Dragons written up in Arts Council report

Ere be Dragons, the Lansdown Centre's internationally innovative project combinining location-aware gaming and health, has been written up as one of 12 case studies in Mapping Arts, Health and Higher Education, produced by the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise with the Arts Council and Goldsmiths.

The report is available as a PDF file here (2MB). See page 15.

NEWS [27 June 2007]

New Visiting Scholar at Lansdown Centre

Alex Zivanovic has begun a period as Visiting Scholar to the Lansdown Centre. With a background in medical robotics, he is a renowned expert in the work of Edward Ihnatowicz – one of the pioneers of electronic art who created the Senster in the late 1960s.

NEWS [27 June 2007]

The Role of the Reader

Stephen Boyd Davis, head of the Lansdown Centre and formerly Principal Lecturer, has been appointed Reader in Interactive Media.

NEWS [15 June 2007]

A Lansdown Centre graduate moves on

After completing the MA Design for Interactive Media in 1997, Brett Bennett started working for the University and became head of the University Web Team. The main site now has over 100,000 unique visitors per month while the intranet serves more than 2,000 members of staff worldwide.

He is now moving on to Debenhams as their Web Manager, looking after http://www.debenhams.com/    We wish him well.

NEWS [11 June 2007]

Helen Bendon's work in Fondation HSBC retrospective

The prestigious Fondation HSBC international photograpy competition is showing the work of its prize winners from past years including that of Helen Bendon and her collaborator Jo Rawnsley.

3 July to 26 August 2007. Eglise des Trinitaires (opposite Museon Arlaten), 38 Rue de la République, 13200 Arles, France.

An anniversary book [see Amazon.fr] was launched earlier in the year.

NEWS [1 June 2007]

Award for website design by graduate of MA Design for Interactive Media

Cyber-Duck, run by Danny Bluestone, a graduate of the Lansdown Centre’s MA Design for Interactive Media, won a Bronze Medal at the 6th Annual Horizon Interactive Awards Competition, a leading international interactive media awards competition.

Cyber-Duck were recognized for their excellence in interactive media production for the Company Identity category.

The 2007 competition saw nearly 1000 entries from 24 countries around the world.

NEWS [17 May 2007]

Babel starts Game Evaluation Service

Babel Media, cofounded by Anthony McGaw, a graduate of the MA Design for Interactive Media, is expanding into games evaluation. Babel is the leading international provider of specialist services to the global games and interactive etertainment industries. Founded in 1999, the company offers a complete post-production service for Console, PC, Handheld and Mobile content.

Babel has offices in Brighton and London, UK, Montreal, Canada and New Delhi, India which handle its already busy QA and localization services, mobile porting and testing, audio facilities and marketing services.

Order the book from Amazon

Read about the book on the publisher's website

NEWS [16 May 2007]

New book on Sonic Arts

Tony Gibbs, leader of the BA Sonic Arts programme, will publish his new book The Fundamentals of Sonic Art and Sound Design on 10 July 2007.

The book explores the worlds of sonic arts and sound design through their history and development, and looks at the present state of these extraordinarily diverse genres through the works and words of established artists and through an examination of the wide range of practices that currently come under the heading of ‘sonic arts’. The technologies that are used and the impact that they have upon the work are also discussed.

Additionally, the book considers new and radical approaches to sound recording, performance, installation works and exhibitions and visits the worlds of the sonic artist and the sound designer.

NEWS [7 May 2007]

Sama'a al Hashimi (centre), PhD student at the Lansdown Centre, was awarded free attendance and travel to CHI2007 in San Jose by the conference organisers, on the strength of her work in non-speech vocal input to interactive systems.

NEWS [2 May 2007]

Ralf Nuhn invited to show at Bourges festival

Ralf Nuhn, Research Fellow at the Lansdown Centre, is one of a handful of artists invited to present work at the Bandits-Mages International Video & Multimedia Festival in Bourges, France.

Among the pieces shown is his latest work Digital Communication (created in collaboration with Cécile Colle and Martin Robinson). In this installation the messages of a live, public Internet chat room are transcribed into a chat of mechanical fingers (see photo).

NEWS [24 April 2007]

Helen Bendon's work at Urbis

Being There: Detailing the City Experience is the latest work by Helen Bendon and Jess Thom showing at Urbis, Manchester on 23-29 April 2007.

Drawing upon research into city life, the exhibition celebrates the riches and the tensions of modern cities as places to work, entertain and live. The exhibition continues the work of video artist Helen Bendon and photographic artist Jessica Thom, working alongside three research teams: VivaCity2020, AUNT-SUE and InSITU.

NEWS [16 April 2007]

Pair of Lansdown Lectures 1 May and 2 May 2007 Lansdown Lecture [Details]

• Mechanising Art Paul Brown, international artist and visiting professor at Sussex University
• Radio is a new medium Ed Baxter of Resonance FM

NEWS [17 April 2007]

Bamber Gascoigne gave the Lansdown Lecture on 17 April 2007.

A distinguished television presenter and author, Bamber Gascoinge is best known as the first quizmaster of University Challenge (1962-87) and as the author-presenter of TV documentaries.

But his main working life has been as an author, in the past ten years for the internet.

He has devoted much of his time to establishing the online history sites History World and TimeSearch, exploiting to the full the potential of the Web to make accessible huge quantities of information in a way which is not only manageable but enjoyable to use.

NEWS [4 April 2007]

18 April 2007 Lansdown Lecture [Details]

Jennifer Sheridan
Digital Live Artist and Computer Scientist

iPoi: Accelerating Digital Live Art

NEWS [4 April 2007]

17 April 2007 Lansdown Lecture [Details]

Bamber Gascoigne Founder, HistoryWorld

The evolution of a digital idea - HistoryWorld and TimeSearch

NEWS [23 March 2007]

New Research Fellow appointed

The Lansdown Centre has appointed a new post-doctoral research fellow – Ralf Nuhn – who was chosen from among more than fifty applicants. Ralf has an impressive record of public outputs. See http://www.telesymbiosis.com/ for an example of his previous work.

His work in the Centre will involve both practice-based artwork and academic publication.

NEWS [16 March 2007]

Next Lansdown Lecture [Details]
in assocation with Design at Middlesex University

Per Mollerup, professor of design and practising designer

Simp!

As the world gets more and more complicated, simplicity becomes a quality in increasing demand. We all seek simplicity in smaller or larger measures. We strive to create simplicity at work and in our private lives. For shorter or longer periods of our lives we may opt for ‘the simple life’ as a relief from a complicated everyday. Per Mollerup discusses the whys and the hows of simplicity in design.

NEWS [5 March 2007]

Skirting in Iceland

Helen Bendon's film ‘Skirting’ has been selected for the 700IS International Film Festival at The Culture Centre of Fljótsdalshérað, Iceland.

It was chosen from over 500 submissions.

NEWS [27 February 2007]

Voix et Vues Planétaires (Planetary Voices and Views)

A talk and performance by celebrated Belgian composer Henri Pousseur (right) at the Conway Hall on 24 February 2007 combined sounds and digitally enhanced images.

For more information see the item below.

NEWS [29 January 2007]

Voix et Vues Planétaires (Planetary Voices and Views)

A talk and performance by celebrated Belgian composer Henri Pousseur combining both sounds and digitally enhanced images.

This is the UK première of the 'multimedial' composition by celebrated Belgian composer Henri Pousseur. Pousseur will give a brief introduction to the composition before diffusing the work 'live'. 'Voix et Vues Planétaires' combines both sounds and digitally enhanced images. Each of the five movements is preceded by a reading of a text written by Michel Butor - a long-standing collaborator of Pousseur's.

Location: Conway Hall
Date: 24 February 2007 at 7:00 pm
Tickets: £5.00 (£3.00 concessions)
Available from: John Dack, Lansdown Centre: j.dack@mdx.ac.uk

For more details see the Lecture List.

For more on Pousseur see our Scambi site.

NEWS [29 January 2007]

Lansdown Centre seeks Research Fellow in Electronic Arts
(3 year temporary appointment)

Application for this post is now closed (29 January 2007). Thank you to all who have applied.

NEWS [7 December 2006]

Leverhulme Trust Award

Prof. Nigel Foreman, of Psychology at Middlesex University, and Dr. Stephen Boyd Davis of the Lansdown Centre, have been granted a £70,000 Leverhulme Trust award to investigate the role of virtual environments in the learning of historical chronology.

NEWS [5 December 2006]

Next Lansdown Lecture [details]

John Lansdown and the Genesis of Computer Art
Dr. Nicholas Lambert, Birkbeck College

The Lansdown Centre, in association with the Computer Arts Society, presents a lecture celebrating John Lansdown's contribution to the field.

John Lansdown (1929-1999) was the pioneer after whom the Lansdown Centre is named. To date, the history of computer graphics has tended to be dominated by the record of American contributors, but in the CACHe project, Nick Lambert and his colleagues have revealed the history of the UK contribution in which John Lansdown was a key figure. An active early member of the Computer Arts Society, John pioneered the use of computing in architecture, dance, surface design, animation and in digital art per se, not just as a tool but as a generative system. He also led the group at Middlesex University to become the research centre it is today.

Nick will look at John Lansdown's thought in the 1960s-70s and reveal how clearly he foresaw the potentials and development of modern computer art.

NEWS [20 November 2006]

Earpieces is a showcase of Sonic Art by graduates of the MA Sonic Arts at Middlesex University, curated by Dr. Nye Parry of the Lansdown Centre.

Presented as part of this year's Deptford X festival it takes place at The Albany, Douglas Way SE8 from the 24th November to the 4th December. The show will include sound installation, sound poetry, interactive art and video works. For times see show site.

NEWS [17 November 2006]

Most recent Lansdown Lecture [details]

The next Lansdown Lecture “Information Technology: is it a fraud?” will be given by Prof. Harold Thimbleby of Swansea University.

He has a worldwide reputation for his provocative (but truthful) attacks on all kinds of technology ‘solutions’. Come and hear this internationally renowned computer scientist talk about what's wrong with information technology and how it might be put right.

NEWS [12 October 2006]

Lansdown Centre student projects selected for Enter06

Two projects Fireflies and Waiting by MA students Sang Gu Lee, Ryan Hope and Tharangie Kumburuhena have been chosen for exhibition in Enter06. All three students are now graduating from the Centre's MA/MSc Design for Interactive Media.

Both projects use sensor technologies in combination with interactive graphics and sounds to create an engaging experience which extends the boundaries of interactive media.

Enter06 is Watermans second showcase of the year’s finest work by South Asian New Media graduates working in the fields of interactive art, animation, design, fine arts, photography and typography. Enter06 features seven upcoming artists selected from the London region.

Tues 17 Oct – Fri 29 Nov
Open Daily 12 – 9 pm FREE

View the project Waiting on youTube

NEWS [5 October 2006]

The new season of Lansdown Lectures begins on Tuesday 31 October with a talk by Prof. Ann Blandford of UCLIC (University College London Interaction Centre) on Productive Creativity and Information Use.

An understanding of what knowledge workers do and the contexts within which they work can lead to the identification of requirements for tools to support that work. In this talk I will consider the information practices of journalists, lawyers, and other professionals whose work can be characterised as combining goal-directedness and creativity. In particular, I will discuss the nature of the ‘information journey’, in which information is acquired, interpreted, integrated and re-presented in a new form. By drawing out commonalities and contrasts between those professions, I will outline opportunities for new tools and systems to support the rich diversity of information activities across productively creative knowledge domains.

If you would like to attend this lecture, please email LCEAinfo@mdx.ac.uk.

The Lansdown Lecture series invites illustrious speakers to share their insights into a wide range of issues arising from the relationship between technology and creative work.

NEWS [1 October 2006]

Lansdown Centre head Stephen Boyd Davis with Helen Bendon and Nye Parry recently gave masterclasses based on the Centre’s research-led approach to learning, in London, Paris, Munich, Milan and Dubai. The tour was hosted by SAE Institute.

Left: the tour team with their hosts from SAE’s Dubai campus. Left to right: Stephen Boyd Davis, Helen Bendon, Jason de Wilde (SAE), Nye Parry, Eva Groetzinger (SAE).

NEWS [13 September 2006]

Three Lansdown Centre projects win awards

Two John Lansdown awards
Two of the three prizes in this year’s Eurographics John Lansdown awards have been won by projects created at the Lansdown Centre. Uncaged by Ralf Nuhn won second prize. Urban Scrawl by Sushma Madan and Neil Noakes won third prize. The first prize was won by Jon McCormack’s Eden. The prizes are awarded by an independent jury of the Eurographics Association in memory of Professor John Lansdown, former head of the Lansdown Centre.

Europrix Top Talent award
sssSnake, a project by PhD student Sama'a al Hashimi, has been awarded a Europrix Top Talent Award. Sama'a was formerly a student on the MA Design for Interactive Media. The project will be presented on the Top Talent DVD-ROM of Innovation in Multimedia.

NEWS [10 September 2006]

Opening of new work by Nic Sandiland on 14th September

Nic's latest installation, Benchmark (in collaboration with choreographer Yael Flexer and Bedlam Dance Co), a permanent artwork has been commissioned by artsdepot in North London. Also presented as part of the opening will be two other artworks also commissioned by artsdepot.

Venue Level 3 Pentland Bar area, artsdepot, 5 Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, North Finchley, London, N12 0GA

Bench Mark is a site-specific interactive video work for the long wooden bench on level 3. The public are invited to sit on different parts of the bench. From the bench a video can be seen projected on to the opposite wall showing an image of the same long bench seat but with a number of performers moving on or in front of it. These virtual performers react in different ways depending on where the viewer sits, how many viewers there are, and how close together they are sitting.

Nic Sandiland is a multi-media installation artist who has devised and lectured on site-specific installation and performance for the past 15 years. He has made work for the Royal Geographic Society and the Royal Institution lecture theatre. He has been commissioned by many organisations including the Poetry Society, where, in 2000, he made a series of permanent installations documenting the work of 100 poets. His interactive installations have been internationally acclaimed by both art reviewers and the general public. Jerwood award winner Yael Flexer, who choreographed the dancers for the video, has been creating critically acclaimed contemporary dance for the past 11 years. Bedlam Dance Company, originally formed by Yael as choreographer in residence, has gained considerable reputation for producing work that is honest, humorous and human as well as technically sophisticated.

NEWS [20 June 2006]

Computer Arts Animation Prize for Lansdown Centre student

Wei-Ting (Aqua) Hsieh, who is currently studying on the MA/MSc Design for Interactive Media, has been honoured with the student prize for animation given by Computer Arts magazine.

The animations are Deer Love and Submarine.

Aqua has also been offered a place on the Royal College of Art Post Experience Programme in Design for Products.