Last week I joyfully extolled the virtues of the Pervasive Media Studio , and today it seemed about time to tell you why it’s so important to my creative process these days.
Pervasive Media Studio and all who sail in her: I love thee:
Doing a Good Turn:. If you’re working at the PM Studio, you make a commitment to be available to be professionally interrupted. So in an 8 hour working day, you might donate two hours to helping others, but in return you can always Ask the stupid questions. The Studio and it’s community offers you that rare safe place to learn, enquire and acquire new skills, ideas and passions. Be open, and be inquisitive.
There comes a point as a resident when you realise that you are sat at a desk in a positive, supported, collaborative learning environment where your success in consequence of all those stupid questions are cherished and rewarded by everyone who saw your journey and helped (from the briefest of playful waves, to the sharing of skilled coding expertise) . You find your work being championed by others like it was their own, and that you can’t help but shout your colleague’s successes from the mountain tops.
Today I was really just going to link to the Guardian’s article about Heidi Hinder‘s Money No Object project. This is a stunning project about the future of the physical financial transaction. I was completely drawn in by Heidi’s fantastic Petri dish images, and then joyfully came across my tap dancing feet!
You see, this is how a true story starts:
Heidi had been told I was a choreographer, and crouching beside my desk one day, asked me whether I knew any tap dancers (being professionally interrupted in action) I admitted that I was a tap dancer and asked whether I could help (doing a good turn). By the end of that week (or so it felt) I was dancing on tables and giant pound coins for Heidi’s project film and photo shoot.
Note: By now the whole of the PM Studio had seen, and heard me tap dance, and thought it was good. I didn’t really tell anyone I tap danced – I was known for other dance work, and didn’t feel confident surprising people with tap (though I have been doing it forever and quietly wanted to make an Augmented Tap Show). It’s amazing what happens when the cat is out of the bag: Skip forward six months- and I made an Augmented Tap show. Well two in fact, which performed to audiences of 7,000 people. The shows went down so well that I’ve been invited back over to Indonesia to perform this June. Members of the studio believed in the idea, came to test performances of the show, and helped show me how to make the automated visuals, critically engaged with my artistic concerns, and championed the success (You’re getting the supportive community bit, aren’t you?).
4 months on from this, and through the help of the studio in the last week I’ve:
Learnt how to make LED animations, programming Processing for Arduino,
Learnt Max MSP and made Max4Live Patches,
Run a late night EL wire photo shoot (all for the new tap show Kicking the Mic!)
Completed a huge funding application with the support of one of internal organisations.
Ran an entire day seminar on Augmented Dance,
Planned a project using the PM Studio’s giant white board, with landscape architects, sustainability engineers and myself.
(That’s the being open, and inquisitive)
In return I’m presenting to a Chinese Delegation on Monday, helping user test someone else’s event tomorrow, advising someone on buying a boat and going to a Roller Disco on Friday (barter economies in action).
What I really want to say is: When I went to link to the PM Studio at the top of this blog: I found my own new exciting Augmented Tap show Kicking the Mic on the home page. I started this to Champion Heidi, and found out that others were championing me.
That is the value in collaborative working spaces. In action.