Drawing and 2015 Virtual Futures Salon | F**king Machines

November has been crazy busy. The Robot Sex discussion at the Virtual Futures Salon is now accessible as an edited playlist on youtube, the first (the whole session) of which is above. Special Thanks to Luke Robert Mason for all his hard work!

This session has proved to be very interesting in that there are several points that I wish to develop as written papers - and will certainly aim to be involved in at least two future-tech oriented events in 2016.

In the meantime, I have discovered that two of my drawings have been pre-selected for the Mall Galleries - so will have to get the work up to London in January, and at the beginning of the month I went to Scotland for a beautiful wedding - managed to do a little drawing whilst I was there - oh and of course.. I'm always drawing Ed...

Lochinver landscape...

A small drawing of Ed sleeping on the sofa...

. Short blog this month - am planning lots of things for next year....

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Robot sex and all that....

One of the main interests I have (apart from figurative drawing and painting!) is exploring our understanding of and our representation in virtual and digital spaces. My initial degree in London encompassed notions of the body in terms of traditional figurative approaches in art, along with sexuality and new technologies (a later blog will cover this...) - Virtual Reality  (VR)in particular. I eventually did my PhD on it.

I was part of the early VR and' Digital Revolution' in the early 1990s, when VR was clunky and hyped - but the internet (1.0) was just entering our homes. I worked with a company called Virtual S as a work placement during my degree - and we worked on the the first sex themed immersive virtual world in 1991/92. It was pretty awful and clunky (it was gamified about using condoms...) - but it was fab at the time, and contested some of our understandings and ethics of reality and the body. I looked at the idea of body suits with Mark Bennett (who also took the black and white photos below of actress and TV presentet Margi Clarke ) that were connected to technology, and wrote for his publication 'Black Ice'.

The following images were taken from the original VR experience.

 It was a wild time, with the work being shown as part of the emerging underground sexual sub-cultures of the time that were developing in London.  I had lots of fun and met some incredible people at conferences and events where I gave talks and presentations about my work - a few are listed below (links to some Wikis and personal web sites...):

Leigh Bowery  Sandy Stone  Stelarc  William Gibson  Bruce Sterling Sadie Plant  Rosi Braidotti  Orlan Kevin Warwick

I was lucky enough to give a talk at one of the Virtual Futures sessions at the University of Warwick during the 1990s.

http://issuu.com/lukerobertmason/docs/vf95programme/1?e=0

 I am pleased to say that the nature of those conferences has been revived by Luke Robert Mason - and I gave a presentation at Virtual Futures 2.0 in 2011 - so it was great to see him again and some other familiar faces when I was recently invited on a panel to discuss 'Robot Sex' by Luke - for one of his Virtual Futures Salons in London.

I am currently still looking at the digital body, as well as doing my more traditional drawings and paintings using pencil, paint, canvas and paper. More on this later.... in the meantime.. here's another 'selfie'....

Created in Portsmouth Art Trail

Haven't been contributing to this blog for a  little while. Had to think over the loss of my brother, and my partners dad over the summer, and had to get back to some teaching - and also doing all sorts of other creative things (like going to a drumming workshop with Carl Palmer from the '70s prog rock band Emerson Lake and Palmer!) Our POISE events have really taken off - with some great poetry, music, installation and traditional arts, and has been ongoing every month.

Our facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/POISE-Events-1480785755547750/

Here's our big group painting for the POISE event BLANK CANVAS

But - I am writing this today because the Created in Portsmouth Art Trail is on and landscape painter Colin Merrin has kindly given me a corner of his studio to show some of my work. So please do come along to the Waverley Road Studios in Southsea over this weekend (17th 18th October 2015) Work is for sale - so do come and pick up something original for the coming holiday season if you are in the area.

I will be returning to writing this blog more frequently now - so watch this space!!

LIFE....

Well.. I was going to write about drumming... but things happen. Over the last couple of months I lost two people in a very short space of time - one to old age, and one to cancer...

 My partner's Father, and then my dear Brother.

..and I never drew either of them.

I'm just going to have to draw everyone who is dear to me. The experience of drawing and observing the living person is an intimate process of memory as practice; and I need to get that practice under way.

I keep drawing (the lovely) Ed.. and will start to invite friends and family to sit for me. I encourage anyone reading this, and who has an interest in drawing and painting, should make such a connection with their loved ones if they haven't done so already.

The lovely Ed (as usual!)

But onto other things...

Poise

Myself and my musician partner Ed and violinist Catherine Ward, along with artist Colin Merrin and poets Sam Cox (Poet Laureate of Portsmouth 2012-13), Paul Valentine and Stella Bahin created one of our evening experiences of creativity in Colin's studio - a further development from our early research into the concept of the 'mash-up' - as a way of getting cross creative and interdisciplinary work into action and into the locals!

Using our various synaesthesias, we played music to paintings, whispered and performed poetry, painted and drew; we drank wine; I beat the drums and we had a great time with an invited audience. We will be doing more of this so please contact me if you would like to be on our invite list for future events.

Stella whispering poetry

Drumming to Sam's words

Drumming with Catherine 

Ed playing to Colin's paintings

Those of us left at the end of the evening! (Colin's taking the photo!)

Courses over the summer.

I am about to take my summer leave from University, but will be running six one day courses at the local Forge during my break, as well as continuing my regular 'Drink and Draw' sessions at The Golden Eagle (we hope to have our first fun 'Summer Exhibition' at the Pub this year!).

Here's the details of  my portraiture courses:
http://yurtsummercourses.weebly.com/figurative-portrait-studiesportraiture-in-the-age-of-the-selfie.html

.. and three one day sessions of this course for general arts:
http://yurtsummercourses.weebly.com/art-for-the-individual.html

Please do sign up - but places are limited.

We have the America's Cup sailing competition this week (23rd-26th July) in Portsmouth - so I aim to have a small stand at the Southsea Night Market this week with my work on show. Please do come along and say hello!

Finally...

Life is short... make the most of it - get out there and do your stuff with your favourite people.. don't wait... do it now!!

This simple short post is dedicated to the memories of Jack and John - about living life to the best that you can, whilst you can. 

Thanks for reading this.