Leicester AV is a group of artists, VJs, musicians, writers and other creative people who are looking to develop interesting audiovisual projects in Leicester. We are currently meeting once a fortnight and have created a Facebook Group and web page to share information. If you're interested then please get involved.

Jupiter (or Jove) was the Roman king of the gods. It was quite a treat then that he paid such a splendid visit to Shambala this year. I took this picture on my iPhone and you can clearly see the giant planet to the lower right of the moon, above some illuminated tulips!

I presented a short paper and demonstrated the latest version of my "I See You" artwork at the UK Systems Society in Oxford last week. If you are interested in reading the paper then e-mail me at seanc@cuttlefish.com and I can send you a copy. The abstract of the paper is shown below:

The Digital Artwork As System

Sean Clark
School of Art and Design, De Montfort University

Can an artwork be seen as a system and can a system be an artwork? What is necessary for an artist to be able to manipulate a complex of interacting elements in such a way that result can be considered art? Additionally, is it useful to bring ‘systems theory’ to the creation and interpretation of art? This introductory paper examines these issues and introduces a systems-oriented approach used in the creation and appraisal of the authors own digital art work. The approach is supported with an analysis of the artwork “I See You”, a digital installation created by the author that constructs itself using images of the people who interact with it.

Shambala is the perfect small festival. Creative, lots of smaller bands to discover, free of corporate sponsorship and plenty of great food and drink! As I have done for a few years now, I contributed laser projections to Modulate's area in the "Wilderness Woodlands". See my pictures from the weekend here on Flickr.

I went on a bit of a break to Derbyshire this weekend and took a few panoramic photographs of stone circles using the Autostitch App on the iPhone. The results were pretty good.

Leicester's music festival Summer Sundae celebrated its 10th birthday in 2010. A typically varied line-up included both new and established artists such as Mumford and Sons, Stornaway, The Woodentops, The Fall and Tinchy Stryder. Despite being a rather wet weekend, it was a great event as per usual - and at least you could go indoors in to De Montfort Hall to get away from the mud!

The best bit, of course, was Cuttlefish's iPhone App for the event :-) The feedback from users of the App was great and over 1,200 music fans downloaded it in little over a week. It's still in the App store if you want to have a look.

Pictures form the weekend can be found here.

Another Summer Sundae means another Summer Sundae Fringe. Cuttlefish has helped organise this festival for five years now and this year we also ran a series of events at Fabrika in Leicester for the week before the main festival. The highlight of the Fringe is, of course, Fringe Thursday where we organise 9 events around the city with open top buses connecting them. This year the Thursday helped raise over £5,000 for local hospice charity LOROS.

Pictures from the Fringe Thursday event at Fabrika can be found here.

Thanks to those who attended and performed at Stenchival this year. Pictures and videos from the event can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seancuttlefish/sets/72157624675178312/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuD7lTMtaJQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPHPBGyEznM

Sat 7th August to Sun 8th August, 2010 @ The Independent Arts Centre, Leicester

7th / 8th August 2010

The Second Annual Stenchival.

Join us for a weekend of experimental music, performance and digital arts at Fabrika Independent Art Organisation (on Humberstone Gate, Leicester). There will be multimedia installations in the café from local artists, plus workshops and two nights of great music and visuals.

See http://www.stench.org.uk/ for more information.

Saturday 7th August

1pm - 6pm - Exhibition
Exhibition of work from local multimedia artists.

Entry - FREE

2pm - 6pm - Atari Fuzz Console Workshop
Electronics workshop with Stu Smith (A.S.M.O)
Build your own stepped tone generator with in built fuzz/distortion, a self contained noise instrument. Limited to 12 places.

Entry £15 (includes entry to evening show) + £8 for materials

8pm - 1pm - Bathysphere/PVC Present
Auxilec - http://www.myspace.com/steveauxilec
Threep - http://www.myspace.com/threepspace
James Kelly - http://www.myspace.com/minimaljames
Myoptik - http://www.myspace.com/myoptik
Roy of the Ravers - http://www.myspace.com/royoftheravers3000

Entry £6

Sunday 8th August

1pm - 6pm - Exhibition
Exhibition of work from local multimedia artists.

Entry - FREE

3pm - 6pm - VJ Workshop
VJ Workshop with Tony Coleman (theLAB), VJ Bridd (theLAB), Tempus, Sean Clark (Cuttlefish). Learn about producing live visuals from professional VJs. Bring your laptop (Mac or PC).

Entry £15 (includes entry to evening show)

8pm - 12midnight - Electronic Umbrella.
Triax - Live electronics and hurdy-gurdy.
Ferret & Badger - Electronic percussion, electronics and guitar.
Synchropha - Voices, electronics, and cello.
Bridge - Theremin, voices, bass, samples, & electronics.
Qwire - Improvised choir with and without electronic treatments.
Memory Wire - Systemic and ambient duo.

Entry £6

Weekend ticket £30. Includes entry to both workshops (limited places available) and evening shows.

E-mail Sean Clark on seanc@cuttlefish.com to book workshop places or to buy advance tickets by PayPal, or you pay on the door (subject to availability).

Part of the Summer Sundae Fringe Festival
http://www.summersundaefringe.com/

See http://www.stench.org.uk/ for more information.

Friday 16th July 2010 saw Sawako (pictured) and Annelie Nederberg play at St Nicholas' church in Leicester. Sawako is on 12k Recordings and plays lush soundscapes with haunting vocals. Annelie Nederberg is a DMU graduate who samples live vocalisations to create complex sounds and audio structures. Both performed excellently and suited the venue extremely well. I provided lighting for the event and produced some video and pictures. The event was put on by Bathysphere.