May-June projects and ideas

[leila johnston]

Hello,

I'm not really sure what's happened this month, or where it's gone. Or where it came from. Or where... yeah. That's enough of that. 

What's happened? 

I was involved in a big meeting in London with my Site Gallery peeps on the 25th, and a big brainstorm with my Caper peeps on the 26th. 

I'm a mentor on the Dot Forge accelerator programme here in Sheffield, and did a day of "mentoring", such as it is, at the end of April. It's a start-up incubator, and Sheffield's talent continues to surprise and impress, even if, as a mentor, I didn't.

I am of course still editing The Literary Platform. Indeed, I wrote something about comics for the site just last week. If you're half-way through writing me something, now's the time to do the other half.

James Hogwood interviewed me about London vs Sheffield, Shift Run Stop, making stuff, hacking, broadcasting etc etc on his blog. I let rip.

Tim, Paul and I had a workshopping session on the Minotaur musical last week, which was brilliant. More on that in my NEWLY REVIVED weeknotes. You remember the Minotaur Musical? It's been in the works for nearly a year now but we neglected it while we wrote the Inner Head book over the winter. It's back!

On Friday I was filmed at the Artomatic office in London talking about the CONTAINER project that Tim Milne is organising, and what I'm going to be making for it. I'm one of the 'artists' (really need those scare quotes) contributing to the curated collection of objects which have all been inspired by the theme 'hot and cold'. You'll be able to buy your own 'container' of art, delivered through your door like a Grazebox. Here's what that's all about.

I've been experimenting with BBC BASIC graphics again in my free time. Nothing really worth sharing yet, but I'm hoping to get something into shape to use as a 'making things fast' proof of concept by the time I host my MTF workshop in Bath on July 17th. It'll be part of the Mix conference Making Day at Bath Spa University and I'm being sent by The Literary Platform collective. Which brings me to...

What's coming up?

I'm organising a mini Hack Circus for a private Caper event in June and have a few great people coming to show off their inventions and perform. Hack Circus was an hour of geeky fun I put together for Russell Davies's 'Interesting' a couple of years ago. This will be a slightly redux version of that.

I've been asked to attend a digital storytelling workshop run by Unlimited in Leeds on June 13th, and will be writing it up for a new Nesta-funded magazine about everything "digital and arts". You know the kinds of things.

Roo and I are aiming to get a new Shift Run Stop into your life THIS WEEK. It's a good one, trust me, I was there. Watch for the symbol in the sky, as usual. 

Having said all that, I am trying to do fewer things. Not sure I've succeeded yet but let's all keep trying OK? You first yeah?

See you on the other side,

LJ

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