It's been a busy few weeks on my MA. I've had two reports to complete, as well as a "prototype" of my final piece and planning for the remaining six months. I'm pleased to say that I've managed to get everything done and it's been sent in to the staff at Camberwell College of Arts for assessment. To have a look at my recent work visit my MA site at www.autopoiesis.org.uk.

I went to see Janek Schaefer perform at Loughborough University as part of the RADAR series of events. It was a very good show consisting of an expansive soundscape of found and pre-recorded sounds. The next event in the series is towards the end of January.

I showed my new piece of work 'I See You' at the 10th anniversary of Trampoline in Nottingham at the Broadway. It was a very interesting opportunity to run this piece 'live' for the first time in front of a live audience. It worked well and was well-received and has given me a number of ideas for developing the work further.

See a video from the piece on YouTube.

I played live visuals with improvised musicians "Free Lab Rats" in Leicester last night. It was an interesting gig, a very different set-up to the bands I normally work with.

Check my pictures on Flickr and a video on YouTube.

Wow, what can I say? It may have been my first pantomime of the season, but it was amazing :-)

I went to see Steve Ignorant and band at the weekend doing a full set of Crass songs including a compete rendition of Crass' first album "The Feeding of the 5000".

For those who don't know, Steve was the lead vocalist of the most important band of the 70s and 80s - the punk artists Crass.

When Crass broke up in 1984 they stated that they would never reform or play together again. True to their word they have not shared a stage since, although they have occasionally performed as individuals on the same bill (most notably at the South Bank centre in 2002 as part of an anti-war gig. I was there).

So, when Steve Ignorant announced that he was to do a Crass set at Shepherds Bush Empire eyebrows were raised.

Still, as soon as I heard about the gig I had to get tickets. I really wasn't sure what it would be like though. Would it be a sorry representation of a magnificent past? Would it be the classic 'sell out' gig - nothing but a money raiser for the Mr Ignorant? Who would turn up? In fact, would anyone be there?

Firstly, the audience was great. Ranging from original punks and older fans, through to youngsters and an impressive selection of mohican wearing nu-punks. In fact, I estimate that half of the audience were probably not born when Crass started playing.

Then the music. I arrived at the start of a set by Conflict - an anarcho-punk band that started after Crass and have continued to this they. This was disappointing. The sound was poor and I didn't think the band was fully in to it.

After an interval Steve and band started up with the song "Do They Owe Us a Living". The place transformed instantly and it sounded great. What then followed was a series of classic songs, delivered with passion. The audience knew every word (even the youngsters) and there was a real feeling of celebration.

Yes, it probably was a 'sell out'. No, it was not like seeing Crass (I assume). But, it was such a positive evening. Dare I say it, it was great entertainment (is anarcho-punk allowed to be entertaining?) and I had a really enjoyable night.

Punk may be dead, but the corpse still knows how to party.

And yes, Steve, we do owe you a living.

Check out my pictures of the show on Flickr

I have produced my first piece of work that has been specifically based on my recent MA research. 'i see you' uses a video camera and face recognition software to produce dynamic a collage composed of viewers' faces. The image in turn aims to attract new viewers, whose faces are captured and so on. A detailed system-theoric analysis of this work will follow in the near future.

I've produced an interim presentation detailing the progress on my MA at Camberwell College. A copy of the presentation in PDF form is attached to this blog post.

I attended the National Secular Society's 'Secularist of the Year 2007' awards ceremony yesterday in London. This is an annual event which recognises individuals who have contributed toward secularism - that is the separation of religion and state and the end of religious privilege. I am a strong believer in secularism and it was a pleasure to attended the lunch as a guest of the NSS. This year's winner was Mina Ahadi an exiled Iranian who has campaigned tirelessly for human rights in Iran.

Pictured: Keith Porteous Wood addresses the audience to what might appear to be a musical accompaniment...

I went to the European Machinima Festival at DeMontfort University in Leicester. For those who don't know, machinima is a form of filmaking that uses video game footage instead of shooting video. My eldest son Nathan has been doing this sort of thing with his computer for a number of years and was up for an award in the "Best Student" category.

We attended some interesting discussions during the festival and went to the awards ceremony on Saturday evening. Nathan didn't win his category in the end, but got loads of useful and positive feedback about his file and had a great day. To have a look at his "Waterlogged 3" film that was shortlisted go to his YouTube page.

Pictured: Nathan and friend Lee flanked by the makers of the famous Red vs Blue machinima series.

I have now finished my 'Microcopic Life' video for my MA. The video can be found on my YouTube page and stills on Flickr. I should finish the third and final video shortly and will then do a major update of my Autopoiesis Web site in order to explain the next phase of work.