This week I am preparing for 'Many Coloured Days' at the National Space Centre this weekend. Together with Stuart Smith I will be providing 360 degree visuals for Chris Cousins' new surround sound musical piece. For more information about the event, which is being headlined by 'Threep', visit the Bathysphere website.

I hooked up with The End Blues band in Dobrich, Bulgaria and shot some footage of them rehearsing. It got me thinking, there might be a proper film in here somewhere. Will try to come up with an idea for next summer. Check out the video on YouTube.

I've just completed my "Transeurope National Express" trip. It was a 2,100 mile coach journey from my home in Loughborough to my house in northwest Bulgaria.

The journey took down to London and then by ferry to France, through Belgium, then Germany, with a break in Frankfurt, then through Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and to Bulgaria, with a short break in Sofia, before continuing to Varna and then up to General Toshevo near the Romanian border.

In in all it took almost four days, with three nights spent travelling. I've done the UK/Bulgaria journey by air many times, but this time I fancied doing it overland, in part to save on carbon emissions, but mostly just to see what it was like.

I think the most interesting thing was seeing autumn in full flow across the European continent. From the still mostly green trees in the UK I passed through the incredible fiery scenery in Germany to the more subdued tones in the Balkans. Going over the alps in Austria and Slovenia by moonlight was also impressive, especially with a lightening storm illuminating the night sky through Slovenia as I headed toward Croatia.

Passing through Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade reminded me that the last time I was in this part of the world I was a student and that these three capital cities were part of a single country, Yugoslavia. What an enormous amount of change has happened in the region since then.

Travelling from Serbia to Bulgaria the scenery becomes impressively mountainous again, leading up to Sofia (which I think is one of the highest capitals in Europe at around 500m). From there it was downhill all the way to Varna by the Black Sea and up to General Toshevo in the northwest of Bulgaria.

I have to say that I've never been so pleased to have arrived *anywhere*. The journey was *long*. Especially the Frankfurt to Sofia leg. The buses were fairly comfortable, but there is just so much time you can spend on them in one go. It hasn't completely put me off travelling by coach over long distances, but in the future I will plan more breaks in the journey.

Throughout the journey I took pictures and "geotagged" them with my phone's GPS. These pictures can be seen on a map on my Flickr page.

Finally, how did I do on carbon emissions? Well, according to the calculator on the Eurolines Web site by replacing a 1,500 mile East Midlands to Varna flight with a 2,100 mile coach journey I reduced my CO2 emissions from 282.3Kg to 97.99Kg. This is apparently equivalent to 4,000 boiling kettles or 5,000 hours of TV. I'm still deciding which option to take them up on.

I've just started a artistic residency with the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University. Over the coming months I will be working with a number of students helping them develop live visuals to go with their music. This should be an interesting project and I'm looking forward to seeing the direction it goes in.

As part of the residency I plan to develop my "polyp.tv" idea. This is something I've been thinking about since doing my MA. The core idea is to use live sampling of audio and video to "play" pre-composed tunes. The raw material will come from live television and radio broadcasts. Then I (or rather my computer) will scan the incoming signals looking for elements than can be used to play tunes that I, or others, have scored.

I've called it "polyp" because I envisage that it will operate a bit like a sea polyp - sitting in the ocean waiting for "food" to flow pass, which it then grabs and uses to maintain itself. If you've followed my "autopoiesis" work then the idea of creating self-constructing artworks that "feed" on their surroundings will be a familiar one.

polyp.tv, together with the student work developed during the residency will be showcased at an event in spring 2009.

These were the main areas I covered in my talk on Thursday:

1. What are Live Audiovisuals?
2. My previous work
3. Max/MSP/Jitter
4. Quartz Composer
5. DMX/ILDA Lighting
6. Embedded Video Cameras
7. MIDI/OSC Control
8. Modul8 / VDMX / Arkaos etc.
9. Events / Programme

Laser projections are very difficult to video in a way that captures their true effect, but this video on my mobile works quite well. It was from an event in Coventry city centre I was involved in on the 19th September 2008.

I've started an informal photography project that will document some of the changes taking place in Leicester's Cultural Quarter. I'm posting all of the pictures to a Flickr group called "Leicester's Cultural Quarter" and would welcome contributions from anyone else who wants to get involved. I plan to add new images every couple of weeks.

I am trying to 'geotag' all of the pictures using a GPS which means it will be possible to view the pictures on an interactive map.

I have uploaded the video 'Confluence' to YouTube at long last. I produced the film for Bathysphere's Nanoplex mobile cinema. It combines the photography of George Harris and Candice Moule with music by Bathysphere's Steve Gibbs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2VD6kSMF0M

I'm back from the Shambala festival. I built what became know as my 'laser tipi' in the woods as part of the Modulate Sound Cafe, as well as doing general illuminations over the weekend.

I was very pleased with the lasers. As well as being able to control some of them with the DMX lighting protocol I now have an ILDA controllable laser (and a Moncha interface) which means I can create more elaborate shapes and patterns. This laser was projecting in to the trees and the different layers of leaves gave the patterns a strong 3D effect.

My next development with the laser work will be to work out how to control the pattern generation with Max/MSP/Jitter, this would allow me to create some really impressive interactive laser installations. More information to follow in the future.

More pictures on Flickr.

I've booked an interesting trip for later in the year - Loughborough to Istanbul (or possibly Ankara) by coach! I'm trying to travel overland where possible at the moment, and thought that the 60+ hour journey would be a good test of my resolve. The journey will take me through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, and then to Bulgaria where I will base myself. I will then take a three day trip to Istanbul where I hope to meet up with my friends Metro-Boulot-Dodo who will be doing a show there. If time allows I'll also head to the Turkish capital Ankara for a quick visit. I plan to take geotagged pictures on the way and upload them to Flickr. More details nearer the time...