I’ve been off the web radar for several months. The later part of 2009 saw many changes and, despite being extremely busy with several interesting projects and personal studies, I have somewhat neglected this blog.

Without wishing to bore anyone with the details, I may still post a summary of what I am / have been working on recently – at some point – though for now it will suffice to say that I’m broadening my horizons – getting deeper into Processing and OpenGl and learning C++ with OF, as well as Objective C and the Cocoa Touch framework. As more projects using these technologies arise I hope to share this learning experience with you.

Design

With regards to the re-design; this is by no means the finished article, however I felt it best to push the current theme live so that I can start posting again. I hope that you find it more user friendly than the last edition, and please do leave any suggestions for improvement – it is like most things simply a work in progress.

Objectives

My aim is to continue posting content on a much more frequent basis, though with the philosophy that quality precedes quantity. That said, I will be adding tools to help aggregate my more continuous online activity in an attempt to share more of the work and ideas of others who inspire me, with you.

Now that the site is live, I will post a few catch-up entries over the coming weeks and from there hopefully find a more natural rhythm.

So, for those of you kind enough to listen, that is the egocentric chatter over! I look forward to resuming the dialogue with you – see you around.

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I just got back from Flash on the Beach 07; A Flash conference in Brighton. It would be an impossible task so sum up what a fantastic 3 days it turned out to be, suffice to say the speaker line-up was near perfect, and I left feeling inspired to play more, create more and dig out some of those old ideas from the back of my hard drive and see where they take me.

Having never been before, I thought I was in for an educational but dry few days of indulgent nerdiness; however I was proved very wrong. FOTB had its fair share of inside tips from Adobe and technical tutorials, but also a lot of inspirational talks which encompassed Flash but that were really more generalised observations about creativity, industry, art and computer science.

For me, the highlights were definitely Jared Tarbell and Robert Hodgin, who are both masters of their crafts as well as thoroughly interesting and grounded people.

If you didn’t go, make sure you book a ticket next year and I’ll see you there.

www.flashonthebeach.com

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http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Photography/

Oh Tony, Tony Blair, how wise and infinite in wisdom. We all know that everyone with a beard must be a terrorist (it seems a watertight argument), and now it is apparent that everyone with a camera is plotting some kind of attack on our civil liberties. Of course, having surveillance cameras all over the place is acceptable and right – the authorities need to see us buying carrots and walking the dog. However it appears that soon, if we wish to take a photograph of our beautiful planet or indeed anything that exists in a public space – we will be committing an offence.

Thankfully, you can do something to stop this. There isn’t yet a petition to make the government admit some responsibility for several hundred thousand dead Iraqi civilians, however there is one which may grant you use of a camera.

Here is a quote from the creator of the petition:

“There are a number of moves promoting the requirement of ‘ID’ cards to allow photographers to operate in a public place.

It is a fundamental right of a UK citizen to use a camera in a public place, indeed there is no right to privacy when in a public place.

These moves have developed from paranoia and only promote suspicion towards genuine people following their hobby or profession.”

So there you go! The link bellow will take you to the petition, get your name down!

Sign the petition to stop the ban of photography in public places

Update

Ok, so for those of you who didn’t sign the petition against banning photography in public places (and therefore wouldn’t have received this email) there is an update. Apparently, everything is better than we thought. The government, apparently, and at least not yet, WONT be banning photography or anything quite so ridiculous. There were motions to introduce ID cards, which is still an outrage, however this may simply be enforced around schools etc and only by local authorities, not government.

This is the response I received…

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During my research for Experiments in the Revival of Organisms, my tutor Matt Johnson handed me a newspaper clipping which he had saved concerning an experiment conducted by Dr Beaurieux in 1905, in which he quite reliably proved that a severed head (That of convicted murderer Languille) remains conscious and alert for some time after being separated from the body.

What is reported stands to reason really, though I found it quite interesting to imagine what ‘the head’ (I should call it Languille really) would have been thinking. The reflex actions described by Dr Beaurieux are similar to those of the disembodied dog’s heads documented in the original film ‘Experiments in the Revival of Organisms’, but although it is easy to explain them as nothing more than reflexes, it is equally engaging to assume that a level of conscious thought would have existed, though of course gone without vocalisation due to a lack of attached lungs or voice box. We say that the eyes are the window to the soul, and here Dr Beaurieux describes quite clearly the striking looks he observed in Languille’s eyes.

Here is the original Article:

From A History of the Guillotine by Alister Kershaw. His source is Archives d’Anthropologie Criminelle, 1905

I consider it essential for you to know that Languille displayed an extraordinary sang-froid and even courage from the moment when he was told, that his last hour had come, until the moment when he walked firmly to the scaffold. It may well be, in fact, that the conditions for observation, and consequently the phenomena, differ greatly according to whether the condemned persons retain all their sang-froid and are fully in control of themselves, or whether they are in such state of physical and mental prostration that they have to be carried to the place of execution, and are already half-dead, and as though paralysed by the appalling anguish of the fatal instant.

The head fell on the severed surface of the neck and I did not therefor have to take it up in my hands, as all the newspapers have vied with each other in repeating; I was not obliged even to touch it in order to set it upright. Chance served me well for the observation, which I wished to make.

Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck…

I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. The face relaxed, the lids half closed on the eyeballs, leaving only the white of the conjunctiva visible, exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to see every day in the exercise of our profession, or as in those just dead. It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: “Languille!” I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions – I insist advisedly on this peculiarity – but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.

Next Languille’s eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. “After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.

It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. The there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement – and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.

I have just recounted to you with rigorous exactness what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted twenty-five to thirty seconds.

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