SYNTAX: Coding for Writers
At the end of June Mercy will deliver a new iteration of “Syntax: Coding for Writers” in the form of a two-day intensive skills-based workshop, which will be presented as part of FACT’s Open Curate It programme. SYNTAX was originally devised in 2011 by John O’Shea and Nathan Jones as a framework for writers and...
Experiments in Time
At the last outing for a small cinema, there was a lovely selection of short films, one in particular Luminaris, got me thinking about trying some stop motion, which I’ve never really done seriously, just tinkered with. This film inspired me to look at it from the perspective of travelling light, so I’ve been waiting...
Liverpool Ships and Sailors
Although our Mapping and Memory project has close, we’ve kept in contact with some of the participants, particularly the group known as the ‘Retired Merchant Seafarers’. It turns out that the group used to run a website www.liverpoolsailorsandships.com where they had collected lots of stories and photographs and quite a large following. But, as happens,...
Project Triangle
In September 2009, 12 young Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender people from Merseyside took part in a five-day cultural exchange trip to Auschwitz and Warsaw working with a group of young Polish LGB & T people from the Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH). The exchange provided the group with an appreciation of the Holocaust and fate...
SYNTAX (Mark 1)
SYNTAX: A speculative 1-day workshop, looking to explore how poet/writers and coder/artists can bring their skills together to make new experimental work. or Coders and Poets Unite! This initiative was a collaboration between Re-Dock and Literary Arts Collective Mercy, prompted by conversations between John O’Shea and Nathan Jones about the potential for overlaps and interesting discourse...
A Small Cinema Recipe
Well, the bow-ties are off and the posters are taken down after our latest manifestation of “A Small Cinema” If you missed it then you can watch a video all about the event over on our Small Cinema blog (where you’ll also be able to view some of the films and read all about the...
Read, Write, Re-Imagine
In the last week before Christmas John, Sophie Bower and I, delivered a new course in Hume Manchester called ‘Read, Write, Re-imagine’ . The course focused on developing the facilitation skills of creative new media practitioners, so that they would be able to deliver top quality creative new media activities in Schools across the North...
No Photocopiers!
Rule #1 – No Photocopiers (And no Albatrosses!) From the very beginning of our collective work as Re-Dock we have attempted to adhere to a simple rule “No Photocopiers (And no Ablatrosses!)” What this means in practice is that we try to stay “light on our feet” whilst also being equipped to develop projects and...
Restrictions 2
This blog post continues on from the last posts theme of ‘Restrictions Make Us More Creative’ looking at ways that people can be enabled to teach themselves to program, exploring limited sub-sets of commands within StarLogo TNG… So, I’ve spent the past year working with young and old people, helping them explore the programming of...
Restrictions 1
Revisiting the Canal& Map. The idea that ‘Restrictions make us more Creative’ will probably ring true to anyone who has seen what George Lucas did with a budget of millions, once he was able to ‘fully realise’ his original vision for the Star Wars Saga. I’m not suggesting an absolute rule here, but this is...
Foregrounding Context
Cultural Heritage Network workshop and presentation: The process of collectively mapping and modelling, memories and ideas forms a core strand of Re-Docks methodology, and, over the past few months we have been contributing to a series of discussions relating to landscapes, memories and cultural practices, co-ordinated by Liverpool University. A workshop in February aimed to...
Culture Lab, Newcastle
Between 27th and 29th of November we spent some time at Newcastle University’s Culture Lab, examining our four major projects from 2009 and undertaking a very rigorous end of year review. We took 3 strands of enquiry: 1. Collaboration and Collaborative Tools 2. Organisation, Organisations and Agendas 3. Art – Inspiration, Doing/Making/ (Re)presentation These 3...
