Many Internet Miles with this Modem

For various reasons personal and work related Karen and I are spending a lot of time going through old boxes. The ones in my loft have been there for 10 years, before I got them out I thought "I haven't seen these things in 10 years - how much can I need them". As I took this modem back out of the bin tonight I thought "quite a lot it seems".

The trouble is what to most people might look like loads of boxes of redundant technology looks to me like the much loved friends with which we explored the early alleyways on the Internet. I have dialled up from bed and breakfast all around Scotland on this modem during some of the happiest times in my work career to date. I can hear the sound it makes just looking at it's grey form. It even features in the Horizon documentary about 'A Hypertext Journal' - directed & shot by a team we'd then never met but who are now close friends and often our sound and camera team!

At the risk of becoming boring on this topic it might become a series over the next few days ... I just found our first digital camera, the Apple quicktake and my 'Cyberia Women in technology Award' for "Internet Woman" - I'm not joking. It's a heady mix the combination of re-digitising your archive, lots of dust and random ephemera that is working from home when you're a hoarder.

Posted Monday 30th January, 2012 at 7:00 pm by Nina

National Garden Scheme Open Day/s 2012

We're superproud to announce that our What Will the Harvest Be? garden at Abbey Gardens in East London opens this year under the charity banner for the prestigious National Garden Scheme.

The date is Saturday Sept. 8th, there will be loads to see and do, and much excellent cake, of course, so please save the date - more details here.

Karen's own garden up in the Lake District is also open under the NGS this year - on Sunday Sept. 2nd. A bit tricker to get to than Abbey Gardens but well worth the journey, it's a mountainside utopia of pigs, bees, fruit and veg with a lot of rain and some art thrown in for good measure. More details here.

Posted Saturday 28th January, 2012 at 12:05 pm by Karen

Welcome to Somewhere, Anne

2012 has brought us a lovely new intern, Anne Carlin, a film student from the US. Anne is taking a class in London and will be with us two days a week till the spring. She's taking on all manner of Somewhere jobs from media management to transcribing to  - most impressive of all - willingly going to the Hackney post office for us.

Posted Tuesday 24th January, 2012 at 9:40 am by Karen

Happy 2012! - The Somewhere Round Robin

Mercifully blogged to you, not emailed!

2011 was quite busy for the Somewhere girls...The year was dominated by the unexpected delight of the Floating Cinema, working for the first time with the wonderful Up and Studio Weave Architects. The transformed barge became a summer hit (well, unless it was pouring with rain) and travelled as far as the canals would allow it with great films, performances and talks. It was a time to (occasionally) despair at the technical meltdown a cinema on a boat can produce, and also to meet some longstanding heroes such as Iain Sinclair and Richard Mabey, and to screen some rare artists films and doc gems. The website - by our longterm collaborator Dorian Fraser-Moore is a delight and very clever too BTW. We remain in deep negotiation to bring the Cinema back for 2012 - wish us luck.

We also showed some work relating to our ongoing pedigree cat project at the Beijing International Design Triennial and the Wellcome Trust in London. We got involved with the brilliant Doc Alliance, where you can now download our first film Bata-ville, and our installation Home-made Heroes was returned home after a marathon 9-year international tour by the Barbican! We had a few almost-rans with nice collaborators public works and we made that and hope we can work together in the future tho' twas not to be this time round.

2012 holds some big stuff  - the premiere (we don't know where or when but watch this space) of Jaywick Escapes, our third documentary film, and then we'll be releasing it on Download and DVD. Perhaps a 2012 Floating Cinema ?! Some nice smaller stuff too is happening - kicking off with a January screening in Manchester by the fabulously-named Loiterers Resistance Movement of our first film, Bata-ville, on January 26th at the Manchester Metroplitan University. If Karen has the technology she might do a Skype Directors Q & A after.

The Finnish Institute is revisiting our 2002 webcast TV swansong in a new publication that re-contextualises artists' TV ten years later and in the Youtube / iPlayer world we now inhabit.  We are also welcoming an American intern to our desks in 2012, so all our pencils will be sharp and our diaries well organised. 

There's also apparently some big sports thing happening right by the garden (What Will the Harvest Be?) that we designed in East London, so that's no doubt going to bring a few more visitors and gardeners our way during what will be our third harvest there.

Good luck with all your own endeavours this year, and remember you can sign up for occasional and witty e-news here or visit us via Facebook here.

Posted Tuesday 3rd January, 2012 at 12:54 pm by Karen

Floating Cinema - Micro doc

You can now see the very nice short film Britt Hatzius has put together of our summer with the Floating Cinema here.

Posted Wednesday 28th December, 2011 at 6:50 pm by Nina

Star screening success

We recently enjoyed showing our finished 'Jaywick Escapes' film privately to contributor Mac and his family - they were all very happy which made us very happy!

Posted Saturday 3rd December, 2011 at 4:37 pm by Karen

Duncan McLaren - Putting the I in biography

This week we had a nice email from Duncan McLaren - a writer we've now known, it seems, a long time - although we never get to see him now as he lives up in Scotland, close to his parents and with Kate - their partnership formed some seven years ago now on the Bata-ville bus. 

Anyway, he has just launched a new website covering much of his work. I cannot recommend highly enough the section called 'Mabel and Ian' which is about Zimmersong A Lifelong Love Story. This is essentially a blog that Duncan has been writing about his time spent with his aging parents, much of which reflects on his mother's life. He draws from her diaries and their current conversations, which are often given a surreal and at times deep intensity by her dementia.

Whenever I go to the blog I think I'll just read a couple of entries and before I know it I've spent a couple of hours reading back through the story of their times together. There is something very touching about the calm and precise way Duncan recounts their excursions. For anyone who has spent time with an elderly relative or certainly in a carehome environment they are very familiar - they are about his mother's life but they are also about much more than this.

I looked today for a picture of us all on the bus, instead I chose this image of Duncan's (much discussed) contribution to the communal bunting - hanging bold in biro clarity amongst the other jaunty felt and stiched contributions.

Posted Friday 2nd December, 2011 at 6:57 pm by Nina

Design Philanthropy

Invited by local resident Christina Burnett (and familiar Sheffield film festival face!) I was invited this year to come up with a project for my Students from the Design Interactions Department at the Royal College of Art for Vauxhall in London. Tomorrow night they will be showing what they came up with back in Vauxhall at the Tate South Lambeth Library from 6.30 onwards.

The students were asked to spend three weeks thinking about propositions for a future Vauxhall and to consider what the term philanthropy meant to them personally and to the Vauxhall area. What in the broadest sense might it mean to ‘give’ to an area or community, or indeed, how might it feel to receive gifted time, money, objects or ideas from individuals?

The students were encouraged to consider past examples of philanthropy pertinent to Vauxhall as well as to meet many local people who donated their time to talk about current projects, initiatives and changes.  

They thought about what the term philanthropy could mean today and imagined what they might ‘contribute’ to Vauxhall using their own skills and personal riches.

Through the work we tried to address the term ‘Design Philanthropy’ - more as an inviting question than a definition of practice. You can see the project Blog here.

We are massively grateful to all the local people who have generously contributed their time and energy to the students’ projects. These are not finished projects, but an invitation to join us in considering what forms philanthropy might take in Vauxhall and the role designers might play in a changing community.

* In 1893 Henry Tate established the Free Tate Library on South Lambeth Road. Four years later the Tate gallery opened - sugar cube philanthropy?
* In the 1630's John Tradescant's personal botanical collection and home of curiosities 'The Ark' becomes so large he opened his house to the public becoming one of the first museums - 'Musaeum Tradescantianum'. 
* In 1890 the last wish of blind postmaster general Henry Fawcett was carried out by his wife Millicent Garret Fawcett, Octavia Hill & the Kryle Society and Vauxhall Park was created.
* In the 1980's the Bonnington squat cafe opened to provide food for those in the square without working kitchens, it still runs co-operatively in the square’s Community Centre. 
* In the future the 'Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea' (VNEB) development is planned to transform this 'opportunity area' with 16,000 new residential units, offices, hotels, shops, student hostels and the new American Embassy.

Posted Monday 21st November, 2011 at 9:57 pm by Nina

Winter Chill at Abbey Gardens

As usual we'd like to extend the Freinds of Abbey Gardens' winter invitation to our Somewhere readers! 

Winter Chill at Abbey Gardens
Saturday 26 November - FREE
4.30pm - 6pm Abbey Gardens, Bakers Row, London E15 3NF

Homemade soup and a glass of mulled wine
Local choir by candlelight
Mince pies, tea and cakes for small donations for the garden
Honesty Stall and produce
Festive craft activities for all ages

Activities are free of charge. Food, drink and honesty stall produce are available for donations.

Posted Monday 21st November, 2011 at 9:44 am by Nina

The Cats went to China (we stayed home)

The image and short film we made this year for the Wellcome windows carried on their exhibition life with 'What If? abroad' as part of the Beijing International Design Triennial. Somewhere stayed home, but lots of my ex-students went along (it was a really big show!) and Zoe kindly sent me some pictures of the (apparently) thousands of people who visited. 

Posted Tuesday 25th October, 2011 at 4:50 pm by Nina