Richard Adams

A digital veteran, starting in the early 90’s as a computer artist, Richard has made numerous interactive things across all channels. He founded a Digital Arts Dept, held a Visiting Professorship and worked with Marc Lewis to open the School of Communication Arts. Creative Director, Product Development Head and more, at BBC, BSkyB, Aviva and Microsoft (Xbox). Currently at the RSC, he is also Senior Fellow at University of Lincoln.

Dd Davies

Dd is an international exhibiting artist. She works in a variety of mediums from sculpture to installations, from soft-circuits to video and textiles. Many of her pieces are responsive, reacting and changing in response to participants’ engagement with a strong focus on working with light. Recently, she has developed an interest in data-visualization and is currently working on a body of work around knife and gun crime statistics to be exhibited in late 2017, working with a robotic arm and automated paintball guns. She collaborates with technicians from many disciplines, including architects, data-analysts, hardware and software engineers.

Upcoming exhibitions: Burningman 2016, USA. Reno Playa Art Park, Nevada, USA 2016/2017.

Sponsors: Trotec, Chauvet Lighting, Travis Perkins, Nanode Design and Technology.

Bhavani Esapathi

Bhavani has over 5 years experience working within the digital teams of cultural industries in the UK and beyond. She has spoken at The British Museum, The Somerset House & WIRED Magazine to name a few alongside working with institutions such as The British Council, The V&A and The Goethe Institut. Her most recent venture is The Invisible Labs; a social good startup focussing on health & well-being.

Fiddian Warman

Fiddian is the Director and one of the founders of Soda. A digital artist with a background in furniture design, Fiddian is a specialist in electronics, robotics, screen display technology and a whole host of other good geeky stuff. When he’s not busy developing new business for Soda or talking digital strategy, Fiddian spends an unhealthy amount of time with his Arduinos.

Rachel Ara

Conceptual and Data artist Rachel Ara graduated with a Fine Art BA from Goldsmiths College where she won the prestigious Burston award. In 2016 she won the International Aesthetica Art Prize for This Much I’m Worth [the self-evaluating artwork]. Pulling on her experiences as a computer system designer, the digital sculpture draws on data and complex algorithms to calculate its own value in real time. Her work is nonconformist with a socio-political edge that often incorporates humour and irony with feminist and queer concerns.

Shelley James

Shelley trained in textiles in Paris and printmaking at UWE in Bristol before working as a corporate design consultant. She holds PhD by practice in ceramics and glass from the Royal College of Art and has just completed City and Guilds certificates in electrical installations and on-site testing. Her research-led practice is inspired by ongoing collaborations with scientists from many different fields from psychology to physics.

Nick Rothwell

Nick Rothwell is a composer, performer, software architect, programmer and sound artist. He has built media performance systems for projects with Ballett Frankfurt and Vienna Volksoper (choreographer: Michael Klien) and Braunarts, and interactive installations for Sonic Arts Network, TECHNE (Istanbul) and the Kinetica kinetic art fair (London). He has worked at STEIM (Amsterdam), CAMAC (Paris) and ZKM (Karlsruhe) and has composed soundtracks for choreographers Aydin Teker (Istanbul) and Richard Siegal (Laban Centre), and performed with Laurie Booth (Dance Umbrella, New Territories), and at the Different Skies Festival (Arcosanti, Arizona), the ICA, and the Science Museum’s Dana Centre.

Joe McAlister

Joe is a London-based computational artist and privacy advocate. Typically focusing on 'metadata' and the surprising details it can often reveal about the user. His work uses a mixture of programming, AI, machine learning and traditional art mediums including sculpture to realise his ideas. Creating coherent pieces that seamlessly blend technology with fine art containing powerful messages for the viewer to discover. Wherever possible his work is open source and available on Github. He has received commissions and awards from established universities including Goldsmiths, University of London and Kings College, London. Worked alongside London art collective FanSHEN and consulted on a number of works including those commissioned by Saatchi & Saatchi.

Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm

Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm is a young artist employing new media technology e.g. artificial intelligence technology (AI) to create immersive artworks. Cecilie’s artworks have been exhibited internationally and are the cornerstone in her practice-based PhD at Royal College of Art in London. Cecilie has been awarded the TECHNE Award 2017 and The Lumen Prize 2017 in the category Artificial Intelligence Award for her ARTificial Intelligence FRANK.

Jake Spicer

Jake is a sketch artist who also runs a drawing school in Brighton called ‘Draw’. In addition, he is a co-director of ‘The Drawing Circus‘, running themed drawing events in unusual locations.

Kate Kuhlmann

Kate leads the brand and marketing work for bespoke jewellery company Ruth Tomlinson. Ruth Tomlinson, based at Cockpit Arts London, pride themselves in creating one of a kind bespoke engagement rings and unique fine jewellery pieces.

Marcin Ignac

Marcin Ignac is a Polish data artist and computational designer focusing on data visualization and generative systems. Since 2012 he lives London where he started his own studio practice Variable in order to pursue his interest in blending design, software and the aesthetics emerging from data, processes and human behaviour.

A Teaser

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. In this first episode, Sam Fry introduces this new podcast which begins with a 6 part series.

Interactive Plays

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Sam Fry interviews Seth Kriebel about his process of creating plays where the audience decide where to go to next.

Art Practice

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Richard F Adams interviews Fiddian Warman and Dd Davies about how digital has changed the way that art is created and consumed.

Gaming

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Samuel Fry interviews Sumo Digital, Other Ocean and Upstream Arcade about the gaming industry.

Small Business

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Richard Adams interviews Andrew Roberts and Steve Taylor about how small businesses keep up with digital changes.

TwitterBots

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Samuel Fry speaks to his housemate, Tobias Phillips, after he has made a Twitterbot based on him.

Death of Painting

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Richard Adams speaks to Alison Jardine about whether we are experiencing the Death of Painting.

Future of Love

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Samuel Fry speaks to Ghislaine Boddington about using technology to create a sense of belonging and working with avatars in virtual worlds. Together they explore the topic of the Future of Love.

Sound Design

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Richard F Adams speaks to Paul Weir about sound design in video games, retail and theatre. Together they explore the history, present and future of audio.

Art and Dementia

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Samuel Fry speaks to Sonia Li about creating multi sensory artworks. In particular, they discuss Sonia's most recent art piece called "Movement", which is aimed at dementia patients.

Broadcasting the Arts

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Samuel Fry speaks to Martin Franklin about his own art work, broadcasting and archiving in the arts. They discuss Martin's role at organisations such as London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Place and South Hill Park.

Digital Storytelling

TECHnique is a podcast where artists talk about how technology is affecting them and their practice. Richard Adams speaks to Hazel Grian about her work as a producer, writer and digital storyteller. They cover various moments in Hazel's career, which includes working at the Pervasive Media Studio, at Aardman Animations and creating an Alternate Reality Game for JJ Abrams' Star Trek.

Magic

Richard Adams speaks to Stuart Nolan about his work as a magician, artist and technologist. During the episode, the pair talk about many aspect's of Stuart's work, including traditional sleight-of-hand, illusion, performance poetry, storytelling and bespoke technology.

Blockchain and Art

Samuel Fry speaks to Shaun Miller about his portraits, creativity and entrepreneurship. They go on to talk specifically about Blockchain, a technology that has the potential to change the world.

Data Privacy and Art

Samuel Fry speaks to Documentarian Brett Gaylor and Media-Maker Hằng Do Thi Duc about how they use art to explore the issues surrounding Data Privacy. Samuel speaks to Brett Gaylor about his process when creating the documentaries 'RiP!: A Remix Manifesto' and 'Do Not Track'. He then speaks to Hang Do Thi Duc about her project called "Data Selfie" which shows how Facebook can track your activity on their website.

Art Curation

Samuel Fry speaks to Doreen Ríos, a curator and researcher specialised in digital cultures. Doreen is the Director of [ANTI]MATERIA, a website and exhibition series specialising in Mexican digital art. Samuel speaks to her about digital art and the challenges of curating exhibitions.

Interactive Narratives

Richard Adams speaks to Krishna Stott. Krishna Stott is a story and technology pioneer, working with a focus on modern audiences. He runs the company Bellyfeel as a digital innovation partner for forward thinking universities, businesses and individuals. In addition he is currently launching Heroes Villains Gamers as an outlet for leftfield games and stories. (The first one being about divorce and snapchat.)

Creativity

Samuel Fry speaks to Leila Johnston about creativity, art, technology and comedy. Leila Johnston is a writer, artist, maker and consultant working at the intersection of science, technology and culture. She works as the Digital Art Curator of Sheffield’s Site Gallery and is well known for her podcasts, including 'Shift Run Stop', 'Hack Circus' and 'Site Sessions'. The pair discuss Leila's career, plus how being creative can be amazing but sometimes it can also feel like a curse.

Designing Cities

Richard Adams speaks to Professor Rachel Cooper. Rachel is also Director of ImaginationLancaster, an open and exploratory design-led research centre, and she is Chair of Lancaster institute for the Contemporary Arts. Her research covers design thinking, management and policy - all of which are discussed in this episode.

Creative Coding

Samuel Fry speaks to Matthias Dörfelt, a Los Angeles-based artist. Matthias is a Media Artist, who started life as an illustrator and who now produces art ranging from drawings, prints, animation, videos, robotics and interactive installations. The pair discuss how Matthias started learning to code, before discussing various artworks including Matthias' Lumen Award winning Blockchain art, Block Bills.

Art for the Stars

Richard Adams speaks to Jon Pettigrew. Jon was the Commercial Director of SSEYO in the 1990s, developing the Koan Music Engine which was a way of creating "Generative Music", a term popularized by Brian Eno to describe music that is ever-different and changing and that is created by a system. Jon has gone on to create other Generative Art, including Generative Cinema and Narratives. Currently, Jon is Producing Cosmos Art Data where he broadcasts art to the stars.

Dance

Samuel Fry speaks to Jayachandran Palazhy, Founder and Artistic Director of Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts. Jayachandran is an internationally sought after dancer and choreographer who works at the forefront of the contemporary Indian movement arts scene. The pair talk together in Bangalore about Indian dance, tradition and technology.

Artistic Process

Richard Adams speaks to Nick Rothwell. Nick is a composer, performer, software architect, programmer and sound artist. He has worked with Ballett Frankfurt, Vienna Volksoper, Braunarts, Sonic Arts Network, TECHNE, Kinetica, STEIM, CAMAC, ZKM and many other artistic organisations.

Ethics of Technology

Samuel Fry speaks to Clara Crivellaro. Clara is a Research Fellow at Newcastle University. She is also part of the team behind 'Not Equal', a national network that aims to develop practical responses to issues of social justice in the design and use of digital technologies in our everyday lives.

Creating a Community

Samuel Fry speaks to Ben Templeton and Sam Howey Nunn, the team behind Artful Spark. For those that don't know, Artful Spark is a quarterly event series about boundary-defying work and cross-discipline collaboration, packed with tech demos, discussion and inspirational keynotes. The trio discuss digital culture, creating communities and some of Artful Spark's recent events.

Digital Art

To celebrate our 25th episode, for the first time our two podcast hosts interview each other. Samuel Fry speaks to Richard F Adams. The pair discuss Richard's arts practice, digital art (including both the opportunities and challenges that it faces) and why they started doing these podcasts.

Audience Centric Theatre

Samuel Fry speaks to Dan Barnard and Rachel Briscoe, who together run fanSHEN. As a company, they create audience-centric experiences which involve elements of performance, game and installation. The episode also includes Joe McAlister, a computational artist and privacy advocate. Joe has collaborated with fanSHEN on 'The Justice Syndicate', a piece of interactive theatre that gathers 12 audience members to take on the role of jurors.

Technology For Sceptics

Richard F Adams speaks to Tim Kindberg. Tim is a digital technologist that works out of the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol. He founded the social video platforms Vorb and Nth Screen, alongside other technologies for people to act collectively and creatively. Alongside his project work, he is a researcher and lecturer that regularly gives talks about technology from a skeptical point of view.

Designing For Films

Sam Fry speaks to Ash Thorp. Ash is a prolific designer, who works as an illustrator, graphic designer, and creative director. He created the user interfaces and other design work for both the films Ender’s Game and Total Recall, plus he has been part of the design team for films such as Prometheus, X-Men: First Class and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Ash also hosts The Collective Podcast, where he talks to creatives such as visual effects artists, designers, illustrators, and programmers. Sam and Ash talk about his work and how he manages his creative output.

Immersive Experiences

Sam Fry speaks to Tom Chambers and Theo Papatheodorou from the creative technology company Random Quark. At Random Quark, the pair create immersive experiences that aim to bring a smile and some delight into people's lives. They have worked with organisations such as the NHS and Tommy Hilfiger, plus they create their own projects too - such as a mirror which reflects back your emotions and sends happy or sad Tweets out of your head. During the podcast, Sam, Tom and Theo talk about these projects, immersive technology, art hackathons and Random Quark's creative process.

Rituals And Storytelling

Richard F Adams speaks to Giles Lane, an artist and and designer that is fascinated by how people create and share knowledge. Giles is one of the directors of the independent, artist-led creative studio – Proboscis, alongside Alice Angus. There he works on projects that enable storytelling through engaging with different kinds of people in different places. The pair discuss storytelling, rituals and how we use data around the world.

Awards

Sam Fry speaks to Carla Rapoport and Jack Addis, the team behind The Lumen Prize for Art and Technology. The Lumen Prize celebrates the very best art created with technology through a global competition, exhibitions and events worldwide. During the episode they speak about the prize, how they are working with digital artists and state of digital art today.

Teaching Creativity

Richard F Adams speaks to Paul Carney, a former teacher who now works as an arts consultant. Paul is a big advocate of teaching creative skills and last year published a new book, called “Drawing for Science, Invention & Discovery: Even if you can’t draw”. The pair of them talk about arts teaching, education and the challenges that schools face today where they need to prioritise their efforts, often at the expense of encouraging the creativity of students.

Minecraft Art

Sam Fry speaks to Adam Clarke, a leading Minecraft artist and digital producer, responsible for some of the most innovative Minecraft projects in the world. Adam uses Minecraft, alongside other games, traditional art materials and technology to create entertaining and engaging work. His projects have involved him collaborating with organisations such as Tate Britain, Artichoke Trust and many others. Adam also produces his own a YouTube Channel, alongside starring as Wizard Keen in Stampy's Minecraft educational series Wonder Quest.

Materials

Richard F Adams speaks to Anna Ploszajski, a material scientist, engineer and communicator based out of the Institute of Making at University College London. By day, Anna is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Making, researching 4D printing and metamaterials. By night she communicates materials science on stage, on radio, on TV and on the page. During this episode Richard and Anna talk about a variety of making and materials-based topics – including materials science, the properties of slime, access to knowledge, recycling plastic and the need for a society that reuses materials.

Artificial Intelligence

Sam Fry hosts a series of talks from artists talking about artificial intelligence. Each talk was taken from Lumen Art Projects "Artists on Artificial Intelligence" event, hosted at IBM in London. The artists featured are Mario Klingemann, Dave Murray-Rust and Rocio von Jungenfeld. Between them, they cover a range of topics including people’s understanding of AI, how to create visual art with Artificial Intelligence and the “accidental” mistakes that you make along the way.

Light

Sam Fry hosts, as he introduces a talk from Maja Petric. This talk was taken from Lumen Art Projects "Artists on Artificial Intelligence" event, hosted at IBM in London. Maja is an artist that creates interactive light installations and sculptures. She’s interested in how light appears in nature - especially it’s ability to evoke the sublime. She is known for creating interactive installations and sculptures that combine light, sound and cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, and robotics to expand the multi-sensory apparatus through which art can be experienced.

Creative Business Coaching

Sam Fry hosts, as he interviews Ellen O'Hara. Ellen is a coach, a facilitator and a strategist that has done a host of work in the creative and cultural industries. The pair talk about a host of topics, from supporting businesses, what it means to be innovative, the importance of social change and why ‘just getting started’ is often the best approach to innovation.

BioArt

Richard F Adams speaks to Anna Dumitriu, a British artist who works with BioArt, sculpture, installation and digital media to explore our relationship to infectious diseases, synthetic biology and robotics. Anna exhibits internationally, is a renowned speaker and her work has been featured in many books including “Bio Art: Altered Realities” published by Thames and Hudson in 2016. During this episode Richard and Anna talk about various diseases, how they are presented in the media and her approach to working with them as an artist.

Digital New Media

Richard F Adams speaks to Alex May, a British contemporary artist whose practice forges links between art, science and technology through a wide range of digital new media. Alex is well known for his work with video projection mapping but, as you will hear, his work has also involved him exploring areas like biology, robotics and interactivity, plus much more. During the episode, the pair discuss Alex’s background and some of the challenges that digital artists face.

Philosophy

Richard F Adams speaks to Graham Harman, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. Graham is known for his work with the metaphysics of objects and in developing of "object-oriented ontology". His recent book, "Artful Objects" is about art and the business of speculative realism. During the episode, the pair discuss philosophy, art, virtual reality and - of course - object-oriented ontology.

Writing

Richard F Adams speaks to Rebecca Denton, an author that sometimes goes under the nom de plume Lizzy Dent. Rebecca Denton is an author and content creator. Her background is in worked in TV on a variety of interactive and digital concepts. These days, Rebecca has moved away from digital storytelling to focus on writing novels – including a trio of books under the title ‘This Beats Perfect’. Her first novel under the name Lizzy Dent comes out on Penguin next year.

Events

Sam Fry speaks to Helen Brady, a senior events manager that works for Events Northern in the North West of England. Helen is an amazing events manager, who runs a variety of corporate events in the UK. She is also one half of ‘Make Do Drink’ – a series of craft making events in Preston that she runs with Graphic Designer Nicola Darwin. We spoke about what it involves to run events, how the industry has been shaken up by the Covid-19 pandemic and about how the industry is blending the physical and digital.

Fashion

Sam Fry speaks to Sam Cotton, a fashion designer, consultant and artist. Sam Cotton is an Award Winning Creative Director, Designer and Fashion Innovation Consultant, who specialises in Material Innovation, Design Innovation, Philosophical Models, Anthropological Research and Sustainability. His clients have included Valentino, JW Anderson, Alexander McQueen, COS, LVMH, Richemont, Parsons School of New Design, etc. More recently, Sam has been drawn back towards his interests in art, philosophy and form – to create digital art. So, in the episode, the pair talk about the fashion industry, innovation and creating digital art using AI and 3D printing.

Design Fiction

Sam Fry speaks to Amina Abbas-Nazari: a designer, researcher and artist that works in Design Fiction. Amina uses Design Fiction to explore and design alternative interactions, systems and to create sonic fictions. As a graduate of MA Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, Amina is also embarking on a Techne NPIF funded PhD studentship in the subject areas of Artificial Intelligence and Voice, in partnership with IBM. In the episode, the pair talk about Design Fiction, alongside some experiments that Amina is involved in around the concepts of voice and Artitifical Intelligence.

Women In Gaming

Sam Fry speaks to Vik Bennett, a writer, poet and creative producer. Vik (known often in her writing as Victoria) is founder of the grassroots arts collective, Wild Women Press. As a result, she has spent the last twenty years curating platforms for women to share ideas, stories, inspirations, and actions for positive change. She also holds an MA in Creative Writing and has three decades experience working as a freelance writer and artist. Her writing has won the Andrew Waterhouse Poetry Award, the Mother's Milk Writing Prize, and a Northern Debut Award. In the episode, Sam and Vik talk about creative writing, about Wild Women Press, collaboration and about representation in gaming.

Rules of Engagement

Richard F Adams speaks to Antonio Roberts, Nick Briz and Hannah Redler Hawes about the 'Rules of Engagement' exhibition. 'Rules of Engagement' is an exhbition from the Open Data Institute's (ODI) arts programme Data as Culture. By seeing people as more than just data points, the exhibition asks those with power to reimagine how we engage with data, advocating for an ethical data future for everyone. 'Rules of Engagement' is curated by guest curator Antonio Roberts and features artists Nick Briz, A.M. Darke and Everest Pipkin. Through their work, the artists ask important questions that all of us should be considering, such as why could there be mistrust in current data practices or should data collection even be considered in the first place and who are the people or communities impacted by data misuse. In the episode, Richard speaks to Antonio, Nick and Hannah about the exhbition, about the ODI and their individual work. As well as about some of the broader ethical challenges that come with collecting and using data.

Copy That

Richard F Adams speaks to Alistair Gentry, Harmeet Chagger-Khan, Mr Gee and Hannah Redler Hawes about the 'Copy That?' exhibition. 'Copy That?' is an exhbition from the Open Data Institute's (ODI) arts programme Data as Culture. The exhibition asks how ‘true’ is the ‘data you’ and how many versions exist online? In the episode, Richard speaks to Alistair, Harmeet, Mr Gee and Hannah about the exhbition, about the ODI and their individual work. As well as about some of the broader ethical challenges that come with collecting and using data. For more information on the ‘Copy That?’ exhibition, please visit: culture.theodi.org/copythat/

New Media Art

Sam Fry speaks to Patrick Lichty, a New Media Artist who (at the time of recording) was based in United Arab Emirates. Patrick describes himself as a media “reality” artist, who works using a number of technologies to create his work. He works with machine drawings, 3D sculptures, video art and with artificial intelligence. With over two decades of experience exploring how media and mediation affect our perception of reality, Patrick also works as Assistant Professor of Animation at Zayed University. In the episode the pair speak about various projects that Patrick Lichty has created, including a recent project where he is using Artifical Intelligence to try and recreate his own creative sensibilities.

Humans And Technology

Sam Fry speaks to Eric Forman, an artist that works in the intersections between fine art, design, architecture, and technology. For nearly twenty years, Eric's work has used playful interaction to reveal issues of language, simulation, and perception. Underneath all is an investigation of the uncertain present of human and technological co-evolution: the overlappings of natural and artificial, real and simulated, person and machine. In the episode Sam and Eric talk about the relationship between humans and technology. They speak about Eric's background as well as a number of artistic and design projects he has worked on, including Heart Squared - a large installation that was recently displayed in the middle of Times Square.

Richard and Sam

It is episode 50! To celebrate, this episode features a chat between our hosts Richard Adams and Sam Fry. This is the first time that they have interviewed each other on the podcast since Episode 25, so they talk about what they've been up to for the last couple of years, their own artwork and future plans for the TECHnique podcast. To find out more about Richard and Sam, visit: richardfadams.com and samueljfry.weebly.com

Digital Vampires

Richard Adams speaks to Tim Kindberg, a writer, digital creative and sceptic. You may remember Tim, from 'Episode 27 - Technology for Sceptics', which we released 2 years ago. For those that don't remember, Tim's background is as a computer scientist. He founded matter II media which produced the platforms Vorb and Nth Screen, technologies for people to act collectively and creatively. Tim is also a writer and has recently launched a new book, 'Vampires of Avonmouth'. The book is a gothic science fiction story, which is an action-packed exploration of mental enslavement - by systems of oppression, and by parts of our own selves. In the episode Richard and Tim talk about 'Vampires of Avonmouth', its themes and Tim's process of writing it.

What can tech learn from the arts?

After almost 5 years of creating this podcast, Sam Fry summarises some of the lessons that he has learned. By day, Sam works as a technology consultant at IBM, where he helps large companies design and deliver compelling digital products. Now that he and Richard Adams have produced over 50 podcasts, he has concluded that when technologists work with artists, we create better experiences. So, in this episode he explains why, as someone that works with businesses, he plans to collaborate more with artists.