The "Letters and Bridges" telematic performance took place at the Interact Gallery yesterday. Vocalists in Leicester and Mexico City performed a number of pieces together over a distance of 5,400 miles via a high-quality internet audio link.

There was one hick-up when the connection dropped, but on the whole the link worked very well and the audience was treated to an interesting, experimental, and very personal performance.

It was the result of a number of workshops and rehearsals led by Ximena Alarcón as part of her Networked Migrations project. Pictures and video from the project can be found on the Interact Gallery website at /interactgallery/networkedmigrations.html.

I popped in to see the latest exhibition at Two Queens in Leicester today. The show is based on their recent live online event 'The News'.

When you arrive you are greeted by a large pink 'shamanic' figure. I saw this being made when I tuned in to the live broadcast and he looks even more impressive in the flesh/plaster. There are then assorted props and detritus (or rather 'archival materials') from the event, plus video and projections.

Make of it what you will. I rather enjoyed it. I particularly like the fact that emerging local artists have taken the initiative to create a space like this. 'The News' is on for a week. Go to the 2queens.com for more information and directions. Here are some pictures from the show.

I gave a talk at the Computer Arts Society in London earlier in the week. It was a good opportunity to present some of the work I have created during my PhD research and the small, but appreciative, audience seemed to like it.

For those who don't know, the Computer Arts Society was established in 1968 and can list many illustrious past and present artists and theorists amongst it's members.

Talks are normally held in London, but I have been keen on running events under the CAS banner in Leicester. To this end we have two talks at Phoenix Square coming up - one next week by Genetic Moo about their work and another towards the end of May by Dr Nick Lambert, current chair of the society.

Information about the society and the forthcoming talks can be found on the new Computer Arts Society website at http://www.computer-arts-society.com/. Membership of the society is free and basically involves joining the CAS email list.

I'm pleased to say that we got the UK/Mexico audio link working today at The Interact Gallery using the SoundJack software. This gives us a high quality audio connection that can be used for the Networked Migrations project. The first actual performance will take place next Saturday (5th May). I'll try to post recordings here after the show.

Last night was a good one. At 6pm Simon Faithfull gave a talk at Phoenix Square about his "An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity" exhibition. He talked about the motivations behind his work and discussed the Limbo app he now uses that was developed by Cuttlefish.

At 9pm things moved to The Interact Gallery where an exhibition of Simon's recent drawings will be running for the next six weeks. Then at 9:30pm Muted Fnord played downstairs at Fabrika with visuals by myself.

I hope to upload a video of Simon's talk towards the end of the week. Pictures from the Muted Fnord performance be found here.

I've put together a series of events for April/May 2012 with the support of Phoenix Square, The Interact Gallery and the Computer Arts Society. If they go well I'll look to do something similar in October/November 2012.

23rd April 2012
An Expanding Atlas of Subjectivity
Simon Faithfull
Phoenix Square, 6pm FREE
www.simonfaithfull.org
http://www.facebook.com/events/119318501533942/

Simon Faithfull currently has an exhibition at Phoenix Square and The Interact Gallery. Learn more about his work and his exhibition at Phoenix Square in this fascinating talk from the internationally renowned artist. During the talk, Faithfull will discuss the development of his iPhone app and web based artwork Limbo and take part in a Q & A with members of the audience.

Muted Fnord
The Interact Gallery, Fabrika. 9pm FREE
http://www.facebook.com/events/308985445836589/

The talk will be followed by a visit to The Interact Gallery (2 minutes walk away) to view Simon's most recent drawings plus a performance by local musicians Muted Fnord.

9th May 2012
Genetic Moo
Nicola Schauerman and Tim Pickup
Phoenix Square, 7pm FREE
www.geneticmoo.com
http://www.facebook.com/events/407917592554209/

Genetic Moo's Nicola Schauerman and Tim Pickup will discuss their interactive video installations where mutated human-sea-life forms both disgust and delight audiences. They will explain their inspirations, the technologies used, and possible future directions. To contextualise their practice, the talk will start with an introduction to computer-driven interactive art work, identifying a number of key works and concepts.

Genetic Moo have been creating interactive art since 2006. Virtual creatures are constructed from choreographed video clips, combining elements of the human and the animal. They respond in a variety of life-like ways to audience motion, sound and touch and vary in size from the tiny Animacules to the all encompassing Mother. The works are driven using Open Source and Flash Software utilizing a variety of interactive interfaces. The programming behind the work is just complex enough to make the creature appear more believable. The audience should be unaware and unencumbered by the technology. The audience asks "What am I looking at?", not "How is this working?". They ask "Is it Real?"

29nd May 2012
The Computer Arts Society From 1969 to the Present
Dr Nick Lambert
Phoenix Square, 7pm FREE
http://www.facebook.com/events/357604224280650/

Although digital art is considered to be a recent phenomenon, it has its roots in the 1960s with Art and Technology and Cybernetics. The Computer Arts Society, founded in early 1969, acted as a catalyst for British and international artists experimenting with computers and set up several exhibitions of its own. It also fostered collaborations, discussed new developments and hosted heated arguments in its magazine PAGE. The CAS is still active today and its current Chair, Nick Lambert, will review its history and explain its current mission to develop a new appreciation for the digital arts in Britain.

Dr Nick Lambert is Lecturer in Digital Art and Culture at the VASARI Research Centre, School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London.

I did some new visuals for the band Muted Fnord on Thursday night. It's not something I do so much of these days, but they asked and I like their sound so thought I'd say yes. It also gave me an opportunity to experiment with some new visual ideas that I plan to incorporate in to some future interactive artworks.

i went back to a visual style that I used to use when I did live visuals for Zion Train ten or so years ago - that is, mixing line drawings and schematics with live and processed video. It always appealed to me aesthetically, and it still seems relevant to my current work, which is often about the different ways we can see the world - be it in a reductionist way (where everything is broken down in to parts and labled) or in a system-like way (where the world is seen a unified whole of interacting parts).

The raw materials I used included a sequence of video clips I recorded at Leicester market, slowed down and abstracted until only the colours and rhythms of the movement remain, plus botanical drawings of plants, anatomical drawings of the human skeleton and schematics of machines. I then added an image of the Emperor Julian II that I scanned from a 1,500 year-old roman coin and a quote about the world being "one living thing" that came from a translation his writings. The whole lot was then mixed live using one of my sound responsive Max/MSP/Jitter patches.

Of course, I didn't expect anyone at the show to pick up on all of these elements, but I think it make for an interesting visual mix and the feedback seemed positive.

I think that the next versions of my Memory Mirror artworks will include some of these elements, indeed I've already been surreptitious placing the image of Julian around Leicester so that when I come to use it in a installation piece it will have a subtle familiarity! Get a free badge from here if you like.

A collection of stills can be found here on Flickr and there is a 15 minute video clip of Muted Fnord playing accompanied by the visuals here on YouTube.

If you're heading to the QUAD in Derby any time soon make sure you download the new Quad Exhibition Explorer app for iPhone and iPad. It was developed by my Cuttlefish colleague Jude Venn and provides background to exhibitions in the QUAD's galleries.

At the moment it features the Hijacked III exhibition (on until the 6th May 2012). Using QR codes around the exhibition you can trigger audio, video, see text and additional images. You can download the app for free from the Apple App store here or by searching for "Derby Quad Exhibition".

Throughout April 2012, in a joint exhibition with Phoenix Square, the Interact Gallery in Leicester will be showing work by internationally renowned artist Simon Faithfull. Using an iPhone app created in collaboration with Cuttlefish, Simon creates highly detailed black and white drawings of his day-to-day travels. The complete set of over 800 drawings so far will be shown at Phoenix Square with new drawings being shown at Interact as they arrive.

Simon will also be giving a talk about his work at Phoenix Square on 23rd April 2012 at 6pm that will be followed by a live at event at Interact from 9pm to 11pm.

You can download Simon's iPhone App via his Limbo website at limbo.simonfaithfull.org. You can also subscribe to his drawings via Twitter and Facebook.

This year marks 100 years since Alan Turing's birth. Turing is seen by many as the father of artificial intelligence and modern computing and his work on decrypting German Enigma codes in world war two undoubtedly saved thousands of lives. He was also gay in time when this was regarded as "illegal". He was persecuted for his homosexuality to the extent that he took his own life at the age of just 42.

Amongst the tributes to Alan Turing in this centenary year is a touring exhibition of artwork inspired by his life and works. The most recent destination of the exhibition was the Workstation in Sheffield as part of the LoveBytes festival. I managed to make it up and spent a couple of hours looking at the work on display.

It was an interesting collection that included interactive and responsive work, robotics, sound art and prints. A robotic "artist" that made drawings of visitors seemed to get particular interest from the general public. I personally enjoyed seeing three of Roman Verostko's prints at close quarters - the level of detail is amazing.

I took quite a few pictures and have uploaded them to my Flickr page. I'm hoping to bring the exhibition to Leicester later in the year. I'll announce this on my website as soon as everything is confirmed. For more information about the exhibition visit the website at http://turingcentenaryarts.eu/.