Sam is an artist and videosmith based in the North West. His interests range from cinema ecology and projection design, to video hardware and digital archiving. Tools of choice include interactive video softwares such as Isadora, analogue video titlers, and, er, spreadsheets. He is also an associate lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University on the Graphic Arts BA.

As part of Re-Dock, Sam has developed temporary cinema spaces in communities, digital arts workshops in libraries, documentary films and collaborative mapping methods.

Associated projects:

• A Small Cinema
• Library of Dreams
• Constellation of Signs
• Mapping Memory
• Open Source Swan Pedalo

website – www.sammeech.co.uk

blog – www.smeech.co.uk

At the end of June a new iteration of “Syntax: Coding for Writers” will be presented by Mercy in the form of a two-day intensive skills-based workshop.   The sessions, led by Tom Schofield, will take place at FACT and will introduce the ‘Processing‘ programming environment to experienced writers and poets who may never have worked with code before.

SYNTAX was originally devised by myself and Nathan Jones as a framework for writers and coders to work together and it’s really great to see this initiative moving forward!

The idea came out of conversations about existing approaches to network enabled poetry and the different practical options for using the internet to create dynamic relationships between texts and real-world factors eg. “the weather”, “news stories”, and “twitter”. Over a few chats we both realised that whilst there were many possible approaches there was not any kind of space in the Northwest specifically for creative encounters between writers and coders.

We set up the first SYNTAX event at MadLab in Manchester at the end of last summer with the idea that it might be valuable to do a kind of survey of what tools and resources are available – and the workshop setting meant that we could actually do this experimentation and investigation in a public context. We wanted to create a fun gathering and work with our peers to find out what overlaps exist between coding and poetry and what barriers exist to these two fields working together.

Beyond this, it really was an open ended experiment – we didn’t know what kinds of outcomes to expect or we would learn.

The day was broken into two parts: In the morning we had a series of presentations by various individuals and groups which we had invited.  Each shared something they had built which worked in an interesting way with language and online data.  Presenters included:  Tom Schofield, Nick Holloway, Daniel Rourkend and Scott Spencer.
In the afternoon we mixed together coders and poets to see what kinds of creative dialogues would emerge and there was a kind of round up at the end to see what avenues and blind alleys people had taken.

Several different sketches had been developed (to varying levels of functionality) demonstration interesting interactions between written language and the internet and we found out peoples different perspectives were regarding thinking about and working with code.

In terms of the nuts and bolts of what we did and any specific outcomes and resources I have put together an additional post as a placeholder for the project here:

SYNTAX Mark 1

We are nearly a year on from this and I think it is worth reflecting:

Working directly with Mercy as another partner organisation and choosing to run the session at MadLab in Manchester represented a couple of interesting new departures for Re-Dock – joining forces with another creative network and expanding our reach outside of Liverpool.

SYNTAX also planted a seed in terms of Re-Dock engaging “overtly” with technology and perhaps this can be seen to be already bearing fruit:

• Sam and Nathan continued to work with Daniel Rourke’s Glt.ich project to host a telematic Glitch Karaoke event simultaneously in Liverpool and London
• Tim is currently developing a new film commission – @SoDamnTrue – which draws on the untapped and potentially misunderstood audience potential of twitter followers
• Neil has just launched a Processing Meetup which takes place on the last Monday of each month

More broadly, from the perspective of our research as a collective SYNTAX established a very useful open working practice for initiating research, and developing communities in new areas of technology or specialist expertise.  We all reflected afterwards how valuable a workshop such as SYNTAX would have been at the start of some of our larger scale project (for example Mapping and Memory) in order to get a fuller picture of what lies ahead.  For a relatively small input of energy we were able to map out a variety of interesting areas to explore and identify many associated technical challenges whilst at the same time having fun and connecting with some really interesting people.

Manchester Meetup
Tuesday 22nd of May 2012 (6pm-8pm)

Mad Lab
36-40 Edge Street,
M4 1HN Manchester
United Kingdom

Please register here: http://swandeliers.eventbrite.co.uk/

On March 18th, Grace completed an extraordinary feat, pedalling the 127 miles of the Leeds – Liverpool canal. It was a massive achievement for Grace, and of course for the BBC Radio Leeds team who seconded her on this crazy mission, and between them they raised over £50k for Sport Relief.

The project was remarkable in other ways too though…

Firstly, it realised a blue-sky idea that had come up in early discussions around the Swan Pedalo. Whilst none of the swandeliers ourselves were able to pedal her 127 miles, many of us supported the project with hands on deck for maintenance, launching, retrieval and documentation. It was hard work, but it means the level of ambition is kept high.

Secondly, her journey from Liverpool to Leeds symbolically galvanised the link between the two groups of swandeliers that have formed around Grace. Though she may have been raised in Liverpool, she is just as at home in Leeds now.  We have truly gone Trans-pennine!

What next then? Well, we’re going to meet half way, in Manchester. We are big fans of MADLAB and AND festival, and are beginning a Small Cinema project in Moston, It seems timely that we now bring Grace into the midst of all this. We want to start a Manchester Society of Swandeliers.

So, if you live in Manchester, like geeting involved in creative shenanigans, or just want to ride a swan pedalo, come along to Manchester Meetup.

The event felt like a very important part of the project, as it crystallised a lot of the work done so far, and enabled us to share it back with the library users and staff. I was really keen to give them a memorable experience, something that reflected their contributions, but in a format that would blow them away. Or send them to sleep in this case. Someone afterwards commented that it was the kind of thing youd expect in London, not in St Helens, which pleased me greatly, but not nearly as much as the chap who said it reminded him of taking LSD 15 years ago in a field. Now thats an interesting response for a family friendly event!

The format of the show was developed from the orginal Music For Sleeping events created by composer and collaborator Tom Rea Smith. The aim is to create a meditative experience, a journey to lull the audience to sleep, focussing them on what they are hearing and seeing. The key trick in this is lying the audience down, bypassing the usual social awareness of a conventional music event, and focussing each person on their own internal journey.

The video above gives a great sense of the event, and also highlights some key themes that seem to run through our projects

1. Changing a space / using a familiar space in an unusual way. We brought in lights to dress the space, mats for people to lie on, and the computers were now an interactive dream installation. Lots to explore in this library!
2. Allowing the public to behave in a different way in the space > library users and staff are used to the everyday transactions that occur within the institution, but here the normal rules were temporarily suspended to create a sense of theatre.
3. Sharing contributions from the public > we spend a lot of time collecting material (dreams in this case) and facilitating people in expressing them creatively. Events like this allow us to share them back and again express their value.
4. Teamwork > drawing on a range of individual skills to create key roles in delivering the event, from sound design, poetry, illustration, stage management, technical support, interactive design, front of house support, and documentation.

projection design > Sam Meech
composer / arranger > Tom Rea Smith
illustration > Chris Rodenhurst
poetry live writing > Nathan Jones

Archive film used with permission from St Helens Local History and Archives Library, and support from the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University

I’m not quite sure where this will go, but it’s made me think about our work practice in a slightly different context relating to time, as in, without enough of it, you’re in trouble.

Independently, I’m often working on something that has little time for research and development, just a relatively quick output is required. I think what we try to do with Re-Dock is really have the time to do justice to a project, as well as thinking about it long term. There’s lot’s of examples, now I come to think of them, a small cinema, the Open Source Swan Pedalo, Funstella’s, Project Triangle, Mapping & Memory. They’re all still out there even after any initial funding has finished. We’re often asking ourselves, ‘is this a Re-Dock project?’ and this can often be decided on available time.

It’s also worth mentioning that making Re-Dock as ‘organisation free’ as possible gives us greater choice and control. We don’t have to take on projects just to sustain ourselves, but we do need time to invest our ideas into what we want Re-Dock to be and how to get there. It’s a difficult balance – but sharing ideas and supporting each other is at the crux of this, and that’s something I feel we’re getting right.

At the beginning of March I made a trip up to Barrow-in-Furness to meet with Glenn Boulter and the rest of the team at Octopus Collective in Barrow-in-Furness to discuss our shared challenges of running a small art organisation.

Re-Dock worked with Octopus last August when they commissioned “Swan Pedalo Broadcasts” (a new collaboration between myself and fellow artist and tinkerer Dave Lynch.)  We had amazing few days, building and operating a pirate radio station from the lake in Barrow Park and creating a temporary space for dialogue and performance within the FON (Full of Noises) festival.  That week was also the beginning of Rebecca Mulvaney’s “two week” residency with Re-Dock – a baptism of fire!  Since Becky is still working with us it was fitting she should come along too.  Also present were Hwa Young Yung (Director of MadLab Manchester) and Ross Dalziel (Soundnetwork).

Octopus Collective, as a newly appointed “National Portfolio Organisation“, have recently received a 3 year funding package from the Arts Council and we talked about the kinds of planning and framework of activity Octopus has put in place to qualify for that kind of investment. It seems, in any organisation (or indeed for any individual artist) there are balances to be struck between freedom in the short term and a sense of longer term sustainability.

Each of us discussed our own relationships with funding organisations and institutional partners and how these links connect to the overall aims of our projects and individual practices.

Regarding SoundNetwork – an important point Ross has identified is that the nature of “networks” has changed since SoundNetwork began in 2007.  Also, the type of work and activity which Ross is interested has broadened too (his Crazy Golf Hack collaboration at FON included audio, but also electronics, participation and play were key elements.)

Madlab is a much newer organisation and Hwa Young discussed its origin and explosive growth in the last two years (much more than the four directors had anticipated – they just wanted a space to make things.)  Madlab offers a bookable space for experimentation and this open remit has led to an astonishing number and variety of groups who operate at Madlab resulting in numerous unexpected synergies across Manchester where the city centre context brings a diversity of niches.  At the beginning the space was used by lots of developers and coders (eg Linux user group) and this is still the case to some extent (and Madlab now generates a small income through training courses in these areas of expertise under its Omniversity strand.)  Over time though, other types of “maker” and niche social groups have emerged including “girl geeks”, “lock-sports” and “DIY-BIO”.  On top of this Madlab has become a choice venue for unusual one-off events and conferences.

I spoke about Re-Dock’s collective approach, and how we try not to talk in terms of “organisation” – instead we see what we are doing as trying to develop a methodology for working relationships in art.

The challenge, as we see it, is how to develop and share collaborative working practices, which involve people, technology and art in public contexts.  How can we do this with the simplest and lightest organisational infrastructure.

From the beginning we have tried to limit constraining institutional factors (no photocopier, no staff, no premises) whilst taking advantage of the benefits which a collective approach can bring: I noted large organisations treat you differently as an organised group; where before we would be hired in at the last minute to “deliver” a project (and struggle to get a meeting for any project which we wished to initiate) Re-Dock now we regularly collaborates as a project partners and tries to be involved in as much of the overall project architecture as is appropriate – recognising that lines cannot easily be drawn between the “content” of a work and the “context” within which it is operating.

The question of what resources an organisation can offer was considered and we all talked about passing trends and the latest gadgets that we’d purchased or tried to get our hands on: radio transmitters, sound recorders, projectors, edit suites, DVD burners, vinyl cutters, makerbots, laser cutters, bench drills, workshops, hot desks – what are the facilities that are in demand? How can you share them?

In Barrow of course, Octopus find themselves working in a very specific local context – Barrow Park – and we began to discuss the park environment as a resource in itself.

Through previous projects, (experimental music performances, workshops, bandstand interventions, festivals) some self-identified audiences clearly already exist: “music people”, “art people” etc. However, following Madlab’s example – who are potential unidentified audiences?  (And they even identify themselves as such?) Re-Dock’s “Swan Pedalo Broadcasts” and Sound Networks “Crazy Golf Hack” during last years FON Festival attracted interest and participation from a very broad range of people, many of whom had not even heard of FON, but instead, were active visitors to the park – and this raised the question who actually uses Barrow park?  Well, lots of different people: crazy golfers, photographers, model boat makers, wildlife enthusiasts, walkers, joggers, skateboarders to name but a few.

Having returned from Barrow, this mode of enquiry might also be reflected back onto Re-Dock – Who are our potential unidentified audiences and collaborators? What (given we don’t have a traditional organisational infrastructure) are our true resources?  And how can we identify, maintain, share them?

For the Merchant Seaman, we’ve unofficially started a new simple WordPress website www.liverpoolshipsandsailors.com, with multiple editors, so it, in thoery shouldn’t be one person’s responsibilty to maintain. They’ve started to post information and archive material from the previous site as well as collecting new memories and stories from people in the group or people they know. This week, I helped them by filming their interview with Ronnie Swain who told us bout his experiences in Operation Pedestal – the convoy to Malta in 1942. Amazing stuff and again, this personal story, this piece of history, could so easily be lost.

I’ve often heard people talking about wanting to record their stories, back them up, share them, before it’s too late. Didn’t the Dalai Lama saying something about sharing knowledge being a way to acheive immortality? Well, at least, that is until your hard drive fails.

The young people took part in making a short 30-minute film documenting their experiences and thoughts around the themes of the project, along with ideas and aspirations for the future.

The resulting film has been developed into an educational resource pack for schools and colleges, enabling teachers to tackle homophobia and all forms of hate crime in schools. The pack has been endorsed by NUT, Sir Ian Mc Kellern and Chief Constable of Merseyside Police.

Since returning the group have provided hate crime workshops for teachers, pupils, youth workers, young people, housing associations and other employers. In the summer of 2010 they produced their own film “Sex Drags and Rock n Roll” documenting their efforts to raise awareness of homophobia and hate crime and promote equality and diversity. Directed by 19 year old Jess Wignall, the film has been chosen for the 2010 BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

In February 2011 the group returned to Warsaw for four days to attend the “Equal Right to Love festival” organised by the Campaign against Homophobia’s youth group.

You can see more at the Project Triangle Blog here

2011 has been an incredibly busy year for Re-Dock, and we’re only just getting the chance to take stock and reflect on the work we’ve developed. One of the biggest projects we’ve ever undertaken was completed in September this year – the Mapping Memory project. I’m going to briefly talk about the two major outputs – the 1950′s Google Map, and the 40 minute documentary.

The project was a partnership between Liverpool University History Department, Merseyside Maritime Museum, and ourselves. We worked with Graeme Milne and Laura Balderstone to develop a series of filmed consultations and mapping exercises, exploring various peoples’ memories of the Liverpool’s central waterfront and the city centre in the post war period.

The Map

Detail from the online map of 1950's central waterfront

One of the key outputs of the project is a google map interface, skinned with a map of 1950s Liverpool, and populated with various video interviews, archive film and photos, as well as text and objects.

The consultations, spread over a year, provided a huge amount of information including buildings and businesses that no longer exist, and some fantastic personal experiences of the area in the 50′s 60′s and 70′s. This then informed further research for archive images and film, as well as objects from the Maritime collection. The real challenge in terms of the map was to curate the content. There was no way everything could fit on there, and in fact there was a bigger responsibility to create something that represented the research but remained accessible and engaging. The map tries to show a range of content over various districts of the city centre, and drawing upon and balancing the input of each of our participants, from sailors to engineers, office workers to market traders. The result is a map that is not comprehensive but does give an interesting and fair insight into the people, connections and spaces that made up L1 in the post-war period.

a menu of content accessed via the Albert Dock pin

As each pin is accessed, it brings up a menu of content associated with that place, such as video interviews and archive images. Individually the contributions are very interesting, but collectively they become incredibly rich, revelaing connections between industries and people. Supported by the archive film and other media the map becomes very layered, combining personal testimony with historical documents.

The videos themselves also reveal the methodology – as people discuss their experiences, we also see them mark they key places on a map. Their navigation of the map is at times as important as the pins they place on it. This way of collecting information with a map is useful for a couple of reasons:

• It sets the field of enquiry – one that we agree on
• As information is contributed it is archived, building on previous points – rather than just an oral record that is temporal, the map grows –  information becomes ‘sticky’.
• Existing points and the search for places both encourage new connections – people remember other experiences in the search for places.

You can see the final map at the Mapping Memory project website:

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mappingmemory

The Film

Whilst the online map had a responsibility to represent a wide range of voices and experiences, the 40 minute documentary allowed us to tease out a few strands from the research, and produce something with a bit more creative freedom. The film was just as much concerned with looking at the waterfront as it is now, than representing spaces as they were. It also focused on the unique personalities and interests of the contributors as they explored the modern day Liverpool through the lens of the 50′s 60′s and 70′s.

The film benefitted from being informed by a years worth of interviews and research, and so we were pretty sure to begin with who we wanted to film, the specific places we wanted to explore, and the memories we wanted to share. The people and experiences in the documentary overlap, as if these people have unknowingly brushed shoulders for decades. Stories compliment each other or create serendipitous connections across space and time.

The power of the film isn’t just from the information or the connections drawn between places, but from the emotional honesty and creativity of the people in the film. Myself and Tim had already worked with them as part of the consultations, and this developed a good foundation for us to go further and be a bit more creative in their expression – in the case of Phil this manifested with him role-playing his experience of being a business commuter on the Mersey Ferry – right down to the bowler hat!. Taking people back into a space also really helped them communicate their experiences, stimulating their memories, and their accounts more vivid and spontaneous.

The production also luckily coincided with the reinstallation of the Sailors Home gates on Paradise St, and the Seaman’s Remembrance Day, which feature in the film and help to give it a resonant modern day context. The final scene of flags being rolled up symbolizes this idea that the shipping industry as experienced by the seamen in the film is now long gone.

Finally, we made some lovely discoveries about how some of the participants have been creatively exploring the city for years in their own way, such as John’s kite photography, and Angus’s film-making. We tried to include these methods explicitly where possible, giving a sense of continuity with our own practice today.

You can see the whole film below, or on the Mapping Memory website

We were asked by the Museum of Liverpool to run an activity that would get people working creatively with archive video, so we invented a time machine.

This time machine was in reality, a musical keyboard that through the magic of Isadora, could be used to trigger video, sound effects and audio memories relating to the Liverpool Pier Head.

Although we were aiming to appeal to people from 8 to 80, for the most part the people that really got into it were either 8 or 80.

I exaggerate here, but it did spark the interest of both young people and older adults at the same time, which is rare.

To older people we could ask,

“Have you got any memories of the Pier head that you’d like to share with us?”

As the Pier Head is such a well loved and iconic space we weren’t short of takers on this.

To young people we could say,

“Would you like a go of our time traveling keyboard?”

Obviously they said “Yes.”, so we then showed them which keys would trigger videos to play in which building, and which would overlay those videos with audio memories and sound effects.

It seems to be a bit of an inter generational few weeks for Re-Dock, as John  has been supporting young people in West Kirkby conduct video interviews with older members of their community as part of the ‘Honouring Our Elders’ project.

As I’m writing this I have just had an idea for a project that would synthesize the approaches of in depth interviews and VJ-ing, ‘Re-mixing Our Elders’

An Example of videos made using the ‘Pier Head Time Warp’ keyboard.