I've been doing some more studio work with computer controlled laser beams. It's mainly in preparation for an installation I will be doing at this year's Shambala Festival, but I also have some plans for some gallery based laser work.

Previously I have used a DMX device to control the laser. This gives a fair amount of control, but doesn't allow the animation capabilities of more powerful lasers to be accessed. For this I've started using an ILDA controller. It sounds technical, but basically this allows me to precisely control the beam and to send animations files to the laser. This allows for some amazing effects.

My next task is to try to use Max/MSP to send ILDA information to the laser. This will allow me to synchronise sound, video, lights and the laser animations.

I've produced a presentation with voice over for my MA. It was produced for a Colloquium next week, but may be of general interest to people wanting to know more about my artwork. It is in Flash format and can be found here Send any feedback to me at seanclark@gmail.com

I've come up with the phrase 'The Art is in the Interaction' to describe what I an trying to achieve with my Digital Art-Systems work.

This aims to capture the idea that is not the 'physical' aspects of my artwork that are intended to be the primary manifestation of my 'art'. Instead, it is in the 'process of interaction' where the art lies.

I think that this is quite a significant realisation for me. It certainly gives me a useful thing to focus on for my forthcoming MA presentation...

The East Midlands based Digital Arts Forum has launched a new Web site. It's a considerable improvement over the previous version and well worth looking at. The new manually-checked registration process should also stop the spam problems that plagued the old site. Registration is free.

I went to see Japanese noise musician Merzbow playing with the Dirty Electronics Ensemble.

It was an hour of quite intense "noise" made with 25 "sudofuzz" boxes and various laptops an other strange electronic instruments.

For something that could have been perceived as a racket(!) it was actually rather engaging and had a definite sense of composition.

I can't really claim to be a noise devotee as such, but I can now see where the interest lies. There is both a breadth of sound and temporal quality in the music which - to me - compensates for the lack of obvious melody and rhythm.

It also has a great "full-on" sensibility which resonates with my liking of anarcho-punk artists like Crass. Saying that, I can't guarantee Mr Merzbow is going to end up that high up in my last.fm statistics. More occasional listening I think :-)

I've been doing some work on the MA degree show Web site this week. The domain has been registered (www.ma08.org.uk) and I've created the Web site template. This week I have added the back-e3nd database that will be used to store student and project information. The idea is that individual students will be able to manage their own entries on the Web site via a username and password.

I'm managed to find the source for this quote by Sol LeWitt:

The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the system. The visual aspect can't be understood without understanding the system. It isn't what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.

The original source would appear to be an interview published in BOMB at www.bombsite.com/issues/85/articles/2583.

It's a great quote and a very interesting interview in general.

The past month's activities have very much focussed around my exhibition as part of Phoenix Digital. For this I've installed two ArtScanners, run my 'We Are Not Alone' piece in two venues and have had 'Anonymising Webcam' running for almost four weeks.

The work has been well-received and the comments - especially at the two launch events - have been very positive. The next step for me, at least in terms of my MA research, is to learn from this exhibition in order to finalise my main MA piece.

I've already started this process of analysis and am already pretty clear how the 'Autopoiesis I' piece will work.

Firstly, it will use a similar environment to 'We Are Not Alone' (see above). This took place in the Phoenix theatre space, giving very good control of the lighting, as well as providing a wide stage area for user interaction (the stage was basically lit with a single spotlight in the centre).

The work will also use the same video camera/screen configuration as 'We Are Not Alone', allowing the user to interact with the piece via their own life-size image.

Unlike 'We Are Not Alone', the image on the screen will consist of images of the users *plus* pre-recorded images. These images will be video sequences in the style of my 'People Walking' images. I plan to re-record the sequences though this weekend.

Two sources of recorded video images will be combined with the live footage in order to give the viewer a sense of walking, and interacting, with a crowd. Each video stream will respond both to the viewer and the *other* video stream, providing an environment in which three elements interact to create the art-system.

I probably won't make use of face tracking in the MA peice itself (as I had originally planned) but I may use it in the interactive presentation of the work at Camberwell Collage. Alternatively, I may use barcode scanning to drive this presentation. I *really* liked the whole ArtScanner aesthetic of using the barcode scanner to retrieve 'art' images. It's something I want to explore more.

I now need to produce the new piece of work and show it towards the end of April, or early May. I am planning an invitation-only showing of the work. Ideally in a theatre or large gallery space with good lighting.

I ran a second installation of 'We Are Not Alone' at the Phoenix Offsite launch. Interestingly (as I knew would be the case) the very different lighting of this space, compared to the Phoenix Theatre was quite challenging.

The deep, dark space of the theatre was replaced by a much smaller room-size space with while walls which reflected alot of light.

In the end of had to change the work so that it composited the video layers on *white* rather than black. This lead to a very different visual look for the piece, but it still had the playfullness of the Phoenix installation.

An ArtScanner pod has been installed at The Depot at Rutland Street in Leicester. Go to www.artscanner.org to upload your work to the site.