Inspace: Artist Residencies

As part of the Space and Satellites Artist Residency programme we are running a series of Work in Progress events for our research webinar series. Over the next 5 weeks you will get to hear from each of the artists alongside an academic/scientist in to how the collaboration is progressing and hints as to what is to come for our exhibition in July.

Look out for more details on each of the talks over the coming weeks in our event listings but dates for the diary are:

• 11 June Cécile Simonis (illustrator and visual artist) Book a ticket here
• 18 June Julia McGhee (dance artist), Geoff Robbins (science lab technician) and John McGeoch (multi-media artist) Book a ticket here
• 25 June Elaine Ford (multidisciplinary artist and wildlife biologist) Book a Ticket here
• 2 July Victoria Evans (contemporary artist and PhD researcher)
• 9 July Stacey Hunter (design curator) and Ben Hymers  working with Weaver and Rug Tufter Ben Hymers.  

All taking place at 4pm on a Zoom webinar, places are free but you will need to sign up via Eventbrite in advance (email link to be sent out one week before)

The Space and Satellites residencies are funded by the DDI and supported by EFI. The residencies will create a space for exploration and aim to create genuine collaborations between science and creative practice. The residency started on the 1^st of May and will culminate in an on-line exhibition from the 13^th of July on the Inspace website with the aim to be shown in Inspace later in the year. https://inspace.ed.ac.uk

Image by Cécile Simonis as part of her work on the residency programme.

Selected Artists:

VICTORIA EVANS

Victoria Evans is a contemporary artist and practice-based PhD researcher within the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art. She graduated with a master’s degree in fine art practice from Glasgow School of Art in 2015, and in 2019 was awarded a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship by the Scottish Graduate School. Her work has been exhibited widely in Glasgow and Edinburgh and she has attended international residencies in Scotland and abroad.

Victoria works across a shifting combination of moving image, sound, sculpture and installation. Her PhD studies explore how the theories of agential realism and distributed cognition can be employed to expand the field of creative research, within the practice of moving image installation. One of the strands of this research involves the sonification of data to create novel audience experiences relating to man-made and environmental cycles. https://victoriaevans.space

Project Summary:

Deep Space Call and Response is a proposal for an audio work that asks: ‘‘What might a collective conversation across the solar system sound like?’

Using a process of data sonification (the use of audio to perceptualise information) I will work with data from the European Space Agency’s network of nine ground stations and twelve space missions (ESTRACK) to create an atmospheric, multi-layered sound piece. May aim for the work is that it will allow audiences to approach, in a poetic sense, an embodied understanding of how these complex global networks allow for the extension of human perception into the far reaches of the solar system.

Deep Space Call and Response will be a sonic meditation on the desire to reach out over distance and the importance of cooperative networks for human survival.

ELAINE FORD

Elaine Ford has produced multidisciplinary artwork using glass sculpture, installation, and painting.  With a BSc in Biology with Ecology (integrating MSc Tropical Biodiversity), and a BA in Fine Art with Digital Crafting in Glass from Edinburgh College of Art.  Elaine is exploring the interplay between science, technological innovation, biodiversity conservation and adventure. Her work focuses on the creation of immersive experiences that transport the viewer to remote locations, to engage with wild landscapes, diverse cultures and rare species. In collaboration with Wild Immersion, she has exhibited immersive content in Paris, Los Angeles, at Burning Man and at home in Edinburgh.  These film and photographic techniques are developing her practice in time-based art. Elaine is currently developing a long-term project exploring the application of 360 film-making techniques in the Okavango Delta, to help diverse communities around the world experience wildlife up-close and engage with the latest conservation issues. https://planetrewild.com

Project Summary:

STACEY HUNTER & BEN HYMERS

Dr Stacey Hunter curates, writes and produces within a design context; her collaborative exhibitions and projects are known and appreciated for their unconventional approach and broad appeal. She is committed to the development of contemporary design culture in Scotland and enlivening design and craft discourses. In 2015 she founded Local Heroes to present the work of outstanding designers working in Scotland. She collaborates with a diverse range of organisations from airports and art hubs to hotels, hospitals and business associations. In 2017 V&A Dundee named her one of their Design Champions; in 2018 she won Creative Edinburgh’s Leadership Award and in 2019 she was selected by Cove Park to visit Japan for 2 months as design curator in residence at Arts Initiative Tokyo and Creative Residency Arita. Her PhD was awarded by The University of Edinburgh’s Architecture School in 2015. http://www.staceyhunter.com

Ben Hymers is a Weaver and Rug Tufter who has worked on several high-profile projects, designs and exhibitions for Dovecot. He holds an MA (Hons) History of Art degree from the University of Edinburgh, studied Classical Painting Techniques at the Michelangelo Institute in Florence, and time-travelled in Channel 4’s BAFTA nominated 1940s House. Interested in the classical and the magical, Ben is also a Close-up Magician and his work champions the importance of traditional arts and crafts practices in an increasingly digital and distant society. See more in this Video where Ben describes the ideas behind his first piece Penelope.

Everyone: Making data tangible through material cultures

This project sits at the intersection of craft, science and the decorative arts. As the global and local events precipitated by Covid19 override our familiar routines and preoccupations, it seems timely to use this opportunity to consider the rich stories and insights that data from space and satellites has to offer.

Everyone begins in Edinburgh, examining data sets derived from NASA Worldview and the Sentinel EO Browser, to elaborate on the impact made by the Covid19 pandemic over a 50 day period. We will translate this into a large scale woven tapestry design that tracks and maps changes in atmospheric gases, air quality, and air traffic congestion.

Everyone is a new collaboration between Dr Stacey Hunter, a design curator known for experimental formats of presentation and cultural engagement; Ben Hymers, a Tapestry Weaver interested in how traditional arts and crafts practices can be a data-driven medium; and the University of Edinburgh’s Bayes Centre – an innovation hub for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

JULIA McGHEE, GEOFF ROBBINS & JOHN McGEOCH

Julia is a freelance dance artist who lives and works in Inver, a remote, rural community near Tain in Highland.   She creates work in response to her local environment and the people who live in it.  She collaborates with other artists to create live performance, dance film and participatory events.  Her career as a dance artist spans 12 years working as a performer, choreographer and teacher.  As well as her own independent classes, she regularly teaches for arts organisations, community groups and schools.  Julia is a member of The Work Room, is a Dance North Regional Artist and in 2017 she was awarded the Janice Parker Projects & Saltire Award. www.juliamcghee.co.uk

John McGeoch has been working in the arts since the early 80`s progressing through street theatre to touring theatre to multimedia. He is currently mostly involved in animation and mapped projections. He ran Arts in Motion and its performance production space for over fifteen years. He particularly enjoys collaborations and work with artists of many disciplines. He also runs a steampunk venue at Belladrum Festival and runs the sets and projections for Inverness Halloween on the Islands. Currently in lockdown he is working on a few small projects with Australian artists and creating an archive of past work. https://vimeo.com/user2338864

Geoff Robbins is the school science lab technician at Tain Royal Academy.  He has a background in astrophysics, web development and a broad range of scientific and technical subjects.  He builds data bases and provides web development support to a range of artists.  His work with data includes a project that searched the first 50 million digits of Pi to find valid ISBN numbers, cross-referencing this with Google Books to find the first three books in Pi.  As a coder (Python/Java Script) he will support the team in downloading and interpreting satellite data from EOS Worldview and Sentinel Online.

Project Summary:

In collaboration with Geoff Robbins, science technician at Tain Royal Academy, and John McGeoch, multi-media artist, I plan to follow a line of enquiry to find ways of representing different layers of satellite data through creating movement scores which interpret distinct data sets.  Geoff will provide support in using programmes such as NASA EOSDIS Worldview to download and interpret the data.  John will lead on presenting the layered movement scores through digital media.  This presentation will be through film, animation and projection and part of our enquiry will be in experimenting with different mediums for the output.

We have already begun looking at satellite data by using EOSDIS to zoom in on the North of Scotland.  We are all based in Highland and looking at satellite data specific to our local area has highlighted long and short term changes to the area where we live, which we may not have noticed at a local level.

CÉCILE SIMONIS

Cécile Simonis is an illustrator and visual artist who has lived and worked in Edinburgh, Scotland, since 2011.  She was born in 1984 and grew up in the countryside in the south of Belgium.
She studied in Liège, Belgium and Perugia, Italy and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in illustration from Ecole Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc Liège and a Master’s degree in illustration from Ecole Supérieure des Arts de la Ville de Liège (Académie Royale des Beaux Arts). She has taught drawing and illustration in Belgium, Canada and Scotland, including Edinburgh College of Art and the National Museum of Scotland. She makes zines and artists books, drawings, prints, and 3D objects.
Her work has been shown in Scotland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands and has won multiple prizes and awards. https://cecilesimonis.be

Project Summary:

During this residency, Cécile plans to create zines and posters whose visual stories use satellite data as well as the science and processes behind the gathering of the data. She would like to use the data in the context of creative narratives, rather than simply providing a literal translation of a set of facts. She doesn’t aim to create obvious educational objects, or propaganda zines, but the facts would provide the baseline for a narrative, valid in its own right. By referencing the data at the end of the zines, the story or stories would fulfil their role as vessel for the facts. The zines will be printed on recycled paper using the risograph process (an eco-friendly printing process using vegetable-based ink with no plastic content).

The programme launches on the 1^st of May and will culminate in an exhibition in July with works in progress events and talks throughout June. Due to the restrictions of Covid19 these events and the exhibition will now take place on-line but it is hoped that a physical exhibition will be able to take place in Inspace later in the year when it is safe to do so.

The project is funded by the DDI (Data-Driven Innovation) programme and supported by Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI).

Thumbnail image is from Ray Interactive who will be supporting the artists through their journey.

Inspace website https://inspace.ed.ac.uk/

Victoria Evanscredit Siyao Li

Victoria Evans - credit Siyao Li

Ben Hymers24 Lengths - Collaborative Piece_Image by Dovecot Studios

Ben HymersMagical Transformations Image, Ben Hymers by Dovecot Studios

Ben HymersPink & Gold, After Anni Alber 2019 by Ben Hymers_Image by Dovecot Studios

Stacey Hunter 2018

Stacey HunterMade In Glasgow Photos by Christina Kernohan

Stacey HunterTreasure exhibition Photos by Suttie Art Space

Stacey HunterTreasure exhibition Photos by Suttie Art Space

Cécile SimonisThe-Stars-screenprint by Cécile Simonis

Cécile Simonisheatwave1-the river-gouache on paper

Cécile Simonisheatwave2-the-gardeners-gouache on paper

Elaine FordFlight of the Dandelion

Elaine Fordglass 2

Elaine Fordwild dog sc

Julia McGheeInteractive Experiments - shot by Robbie Synge

Julia McGheeTwo - shot by Robbie Synge

4 March 6-8pm, Inspace, 1 Crichton Street

More details on the Residency can be found here by following the link.

Inspace is part of the Institute for Design Informatics; commissioning and producing creative activity that unlocks digital technology and explores its role in society. Our public programme will connect data, research and creative talent.

In our first season of programmed activity we will be focussing on the theme of Space and Satellites data and we are looking for artists (including designers, architects, musicians, dancers, writers, curators etc) to explore this theme through a short residency programme.

We are looking for engaging data driven public works that enable people to understand developments in Space and Satellite technologies being led by Scotland whilst also raising public awareness of how datasets represent change on planet earth as well as the solar system.

We will be launching the programme on the 4th of March with an evening of talks and drinks where you can find out about some of the work that is taking place at the University and beyond and have an opportunity to ask the team any questions about the residency programme.

Speakers Include:

• Professor Murray Collins, Chancellor’s Fellow for Space and Satellites within DDI. Murray also runs Space Intelligence, a company which turns satellite data into actionable information, helping you make better informed decisions. Murray will talk thorugh his research with a focus on using satellites to track deforestation.
• Asad Khan is an architect, computational designer, data designer, academic, educator and a researcher. Asad’s work featured as part of our Data Lates programme for the Fringe where we showed UR Black Using LiDAR and SAR from NASA and ESA, Khan’s work animates extra-terrestrial terrain and a dormant volcano through visualisation and simulation.
• Terry McLarney runs the Space Technology Scotland meet ups and Envisage Space Ltd, a leading edge technical developer with expertise in satellite applications and development.
• Brendan McCarthy and Sam Healy from Ray Interactive, an Interactive Art & Design Studio with a focus on generative design, creative coding and live interactive experiences. Ray Interactive’s latest commission from Alt-W tracked the starts and used their positions to spawn generative art forms and will be projected during the event.
• Hosted by Caroline Parkinson, Sector Lead for the Creative Industries for Data-Driven Innovation Initiative.

Everyone is welcome to attend the event but please do sign up in advance.

More details on the residency:

The University of Edinburgh (through the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal) is setting up a new Space and Satellites Centre at Bayes. This will host a number of different companies and researchers analyzing satellite data to help track life on earth from weather conditions to climate change and deforestation through to transport.The residency will take place between May-July 2020 and comes with a £4,000 budget which is inclusive of all fees and production costs and can be claimed by an individual artist or collective. Technical support will be provided by Ray Interactive who will be available to work with artists to turn data into a creative output, so no previous technical skills are required. Applications will be open from the 4th of March until the 1st of April, to find out more follow the guidelines UPDATE Space and Satellites Residency Call Guidelines

The progamme is fully funded through the DDI Programme.

Image is taken from Ray Interactive’s You are Here artwork.

Victoria Evans
Victoria Evans is a contemporary artist and practice-based PhD researcher within the School of Design at Edinburgh College of Art. She graduated with a master’s degree in fine art practice from Glasgow School of Art in 2015, and in 2019 was awarded a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship by the Scottish Graduate School. Her work has been exhibited widely in Glasgow and Edinburgh and she has attended international residencies in Scotland and abroad.

Victoria works across a shifting combination of moving image, sound, sculpture and installation. Her PhD studies explore how the theories of agential realism and distributed cognition can be employed to expand the field of creative research, within the practice of moving image installation. One of the strands of this research involves the sonification of data to create novel audience experiences relating to man-made and environmental cycles.

Matthew Reed
Matthew Reed is ESTRACK Planning Officer at the Network Operations Centre at the European Space Agency (ESA) in Darmstadt, Germany. His role is to ensure that ESTRACK, the network of ground stations used to communicate with space craft, are configured correctly for all ESA supported missions, including those for external agencies such as NASA, JAXA and ISRO etc..

Ray Interactive
Interactive Art and Design Studio with a focus on generative design, creative coding and live interactive experiences. Ray Interactive have been supporting all of our artists throughout the residency process in both getting to grips with the data and helping with visualisations.

About
The Space and Satellites residencies are funded by the DDI and supported by EFI. The residencies will create a space for exploration and aim to create genuine collaborations between science and creative practice. The residency started on the 1^st of May and will culminate in an on-line exhibition from the 13^th of July on the Inspace website with the aim to be shown in Inspace later in the year. https://inspace.ed.ac.uk

The team includes Dr Stacey Hunter, Ben Hymers, data visualisation designers Sam Healy and Brendan McCarthy of Ray Interactive, environmental geophysicist Prof Roy Thompson and air pollution modeller Dr Massimo Vieno of UKCEH.

Dr Stacey Hunter
Stacey curates, writes and produces within a design context; her collaborative exhibitions and projects are known and appreciated for their unconventional approach and broad appeal. She is committed to the development of contemporary design culture in Scotland and enlivening design and craft discourses. In 2015 she founded Local Heroes to present the work of outstanding designers working in Scotland. She collaborates with a diverse range of organisations from airports and art hubs to hotels, hospitals and business associations. In 2017 V&A Dundee named her one of their Design Champions; in 2018 she won Creative Edinburgh’s Leadership Award and in 2019 she was selected by Cove Park to visit Japan for 2 months as design curator in residence at Arts Initiative Tokyo and Creative Residency Arita. Her PhD in Architecture was awarded by The University of Edinburgh in 2015.

Ben Hymers
Ben Hymers is a Weaver and Rug Tufter who has worked on several high-profile projects, designs and exhibitions for Dovecot. He holds an MA (Hons) History of Art degree from the University of Edinburgh, studied Classical Painting Techniques at the Michelangelo Institute in Florence, and time-travelled in Channel 4’sBAFTAnominated 1940s House. Interested in the classical and the magical, Ben is also a Close-up Magician and his work champions the importance of traditional arts and crafts practices in an increasingly digital and distant society.

Prof Roy Thompson, FRSE
Roy taught geophysics at Edinburgh for 35 years; established the Geophysics & Meteorology degree; set (and marked!) more than 1600 different exam questions; and published two books and 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers before retiring from GeoSciences in 2008. Over the years his research interests moved steadily outwards from the Earth’s core to its atmosphere. They began with the geomagnetic field (generated in the core), followed by plate tectonics (driven by mantle convection); surface processes (particularly environmental magnetism); palaeoclimate (lake-sediment records); and more recently atmospheric modelling. His current interests focus on interpreting the iconic carbon dioxide time-series taken atop Mauna Loa; on the key global warming parameter of climate sensitivity; on developing a new climate-economics model; on air-pollution, on fracking; and on Geddes’ vision of the evolution of cities.

*A term used by weaver and tufters for the detailed design used to plot out a tapestry or rug. Weavers traditionally work from a design known as a cartoon. This is painted on cloth or paper at full scale and either attached to the loom or hung behind it.

Running Order

16:00 – 16:05 – Welcome by host, Dave Murray-Rust

16:05-16:15- Introduction to Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI), Dr Patricia Erskine

16:15 – 16:30 – Talk from artists Dr Stacey Hunter and Ben Hymers

16:30-16:45- Talk from Prof Roy Thompson, School of Geosciences

16:45 – 17:00 – Q&A

* Please note that this webinar will be recorded*

Tickets are free but you must register in advance and a Zoom link will be sent to you to join the event. Register HERE

This is the last talk in the series but you can listen to the previous talks here https://inspace.ed.ac.uk/past-talks/ (more will be added)

About
The Space and Satellites residencies are funded by the DDI and supported by EFI. The residencies will create a space for exploration and aim to create genuine collaborations between science and creative practice. The residency started on the 1^st of May and will culminate in an on-line exhibition from the 13^th of July on the Inspace website with the aim to be shown in Inspace later in the year. https://inspace.ed.ac.uk

Elaine Ford
Elaine has produced multidisciplinary artwork using glass sculpture, installation, and painting. With a BSc in Biology with Ecology (integrating MSc Tropical Biodiversity), and a BA in Fine Art with Digital Crafting in Glass from Edinburgh College of Art. Elaine is exploring the interplay between science, technological innovation, biodiversity conservation and adventure. Her work focuses on the creation of immersive experiences that transport the viewer to remote locations, to engage with wild landscapes, diverse cultures and rare species. In collaboration with Wild Immersion, she has exhibited immersive content in Paris, Los Angeles, at Burning Man and at home in Edinburgh. These film and photographic techniques are developing her practice in time-based art. Elaine is currently developing a long-term project exploring the application of 360 film-making techniques in the Okavango Delta, to help diverse communities around the world experience wildlife up-close and engage with the latest conservation issues.

Connie Tremlett, RSPB
Puffins are an iconic and much-loved UK seabird, but sadly are vulnerable to global extinction. One likely factor causing population declines is changing food availability, but there is little data on puffin diet that spans the whole of the UK. Project Puffin was launched in 2017 to help fill this knowledge gap, asking the public to submit photos of puffins carrying fish, which are then identified and counted by a team of volunteers. GPS tracking data was also collected from some puffin colonies. The combination of the diet data and the tracking data gives a valuable picture of what food puffins are finding, and how.

The Space and Satellites residencies are funded by the DDI and supported by EFI. The residencies will create a space for exploration and aim to create genuine collaborations between science and creative practice. The residency started on the 1st of May and will culminate in an on-line exhibition from the 13th of July on the Inspace website with the aim to be shown in Inspace later in the year. https://inspace.ed.ac.uk 

Cécile Simonis
Cécile Simonis is an illustrator and visual artist who has lived and worked in Edinburgh, Scotland, since 2011. She was born in 1984 and grew up in the countryside in the south of Belgium.

She studied in Liège, Belgium and Perugia, Italy and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in illustration from Ecole Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc Liège and a Master’s degree in illustration from Ecole Supérieure des Arts de la Ville de Liège (Académie Royale des Beaux Arts). She has taught drawing and illustration in Belgium, Canada and Scotland, including Edinburgh College of Art and the National Museum of Scotland. She makes zines and artists books, drawings, prints, and 3D objects.

Her work has been shown in Scotland, Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands and has won multiple prizes and awards.

Dr Keiko Nomura
Dr Keiko Nomura works as a Senior Analyst at Space Intelligence. Keiko has a unique expertise combining policy analysis and remote sensing /earth observation. Before coming to Edinburgh, she worked for UNDP and UNEP on REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) in Southeast Asia, where she assessed the readiness of countries participating in REDD+ and provided technical assistance in developing national strategies and communication tools. She was also part of the team that created the REDD+ academy, a capacity development initiative by the UN-REDD Programme, and directly contributed to several modules in the curriculum.

Driven by the urgent need for better data in forest monitoring, Keiko left the UN and spent three years in PhD research and successfully developed methodologies to detect forest loss and identify drivers of deforestation with high accuracy and at low costs.

At Space Intelligence, she is applying and further developing her skills in land use monitoring as well as for other sectors related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

The Space and Satellites residencies are funded by the DDI and supported by EFI. The residencies will create a space for exploration and aim to create genuine collaborations between science and creative practice. The residency started on the 1st of May and will culminate in an on-line exhibition from the 13th of July on the Inspace website with the aim to be shown in Inspace later in the year. https://inspace.ed.ac.uk