Buying Time

Commissioned essay for Eye looking at how the controversial increases in tuition fees will pave the way for alternative forms of education, particularly the increase of short, vocationally-orientated courses. The potential impact of such courses and of the general shift towards a culture of 'student as consumer' is considered, and how this is in conflict with many of the values that hold a genuinely creative education together

'In Celebration of Grass Roots and Grass Widows: Women's Art Collaborations in Glasgow'

This article for Map magazine's inaugural online issue, takes the all-woman DIY group exhibition, Strohwitwe (2012), as a starting point to map women's art collaborations in Glasgow from the late 1980s to today, contextualising these in relation to international feminist art practices. In particular it argues that the domestic space - used by many artists in Glasgow's DIY art scene - provides a politically germane environment for showing work by women artists, the roots of which can be traced back to the groundbreaking Womanhouse exhibition of 1972, one of the earliest public exhibitions of feminist art

Computer aided material selection for additive manufacturing materials

The ease at which products can be manufactured directly from digital data in one step removing the need for tool design or manufacturing set up leads to a scenario where highly individualised and complex products can be created that avoid cost and time penalties, enabling products that are competitive with mass produced equivalents. The reality of this scenario is that, although additive manufacturing (AM) offers a real solution to the problem of producing complex or customised products that are competitive with mass produced equivalents, information regarding available AM material and process capability is fragmented and difficult to generate. This stands as a suitable barrier to adopting AM strategies. This paper presents a knowledge system contained within an existing CAD environment, in this case SolidWorks CAD software, which can be accessed within the existing graphical user interface, enabling the selection of appropriate AM materials and process technology from user generated model data

The Hut on the Garden Plot - Informal Architecture in Twentieth-Century Berlin

In Berlin, self-built huts and sheds were a part of the urban fabric for much of the twentieth century. They started to proliferate after the First World War and were particularly common after the Second World War, when many Berliners had lost their homes in the bombings. These unplanned buildings were, ironically, connected to one of the icons of German orderliness: the allotment. Often depicted as gnome-adorned strongholds of petty bourgeois virtues, garden plots were also the site of mostly unauthorized architecture and gave rise to debates about public health and civic order. This paper argues that the evolution and subsequent eradication of informal architecture was an inherent factor in the formation of the modern, functionally separated city. Modern Berlin evolved from a struggle between formal and informal, regulation and unruliness, modernization and pre-modern lifestyles. In this context, the ambivalent figure of the allotment dweller, who was simultaneously construed as a dutiful holder of rooted-to-the-soil values and as a potential threat to the well-ordered urban environment, evidences the ambiguity of many conceptual foundations on which the modern city was built

We All Live in a Virtual Submarine

Our seas and oceans hide a plethora of archaeological sites such as ancient shipwrecks that, over time, are being destroyed through activities such as deepwater trawling and treasure hunting. In 2006, a multidisciplinary team of 11 European institutions established the Venus (Virtual Exploration of Underwater Sites) consortium to make underwater sites more accessible by generating thorough, exhaustive 3D records for virtual exploration

Not Untitled.

This chapter situates my own practice within an emergent field of urban intervention. It discusses the process, value of and inherent dangers in reframing interventionist practices and generating critical discourse around the 'invisible' and 'unofficial,' in interventionist practice. From the introduction: Cultural hijack is a term that cropped up in conversation with the editor, Ben Parry, in a bar in Glasgow some time ago. I was referring to that moment of being taken unawares by an experience – by something that stops you in your tracks, that redirects your thoughts, actions, attitude; something uninvited, unannounced, perhaps unnamed. The writing that follows is an attempt to sharpen my own thinking around the term. My intention is to frame cultural hijack and to discuss its recurrence and relevance in my own practice. in the process, I want to weigh up its value to artists and activists – partly to argue for its place in the canon of contemporary art and particularly to explore its various functions as a tool in the critical resistance toolkit. Sometimes like the benign stuff of day-to-day serendipity, this hijack can be a gentle gift; more often it’s a type of deliberate misdirection, like that practised by the magician to pull off a trick, by the conman to separate you from your money and by the artist to ‘wilfully disrupt’ your day. Cultural hijack doesn’t ask to be engaged with, cultural hijack doesn’t wait patiently to be consumed. Cultural hijack works against your best interests because it thinks it knows better. With the most provocative cultural hijack, you never escape without being perturbed, altered or otherwise redirected

Virtual Exploration of Underwater Archaeological Sites : Visualization and Interaction in Mixed Reality Environments

This paper describes the ongoing developments in Photogrammetry and Mixed Reality for the Venus European project (Virtual ExploratioN of Underwater Sites, http://www.venus-project.eu). The main goal of the project is to provide archaeologists and the general public with virtual and augmented reality tools for exploring and studying deep underwater archaeological sites out of reach of divers. These sites have to be reconstructed in terms of environment (seabed) and content (artifacts) by performing bathymetric and photogrammetric surveys on the real site and matching points between geolocalized pictures. The base idea behind using Mixed Reality techniques is to offer archaeologists and general public new insights on the reconstructed archaeological sites allowing archaeologists to study directly from within the virtual site and allowing the general public to immersively explore a realistic reconstruction of the sites. Both activities are based on the same VR engine but drastically differ in the way they present information. General public activities emphasize the visually and auditory realistic aspect of the reconstruction while archaeologists activities emphasize functional aspects focused on the cargo study rather than realism which leads to the development of two parallel VR demonstrators. This paper will focus on several key points developed for the reconstruction process as well as both VR demonstrators (archaeological and general public) issues. The ?rst developed key point concerns the densi?cation of seabed points obtained through photogrammetry in order to obtain high quality terrain reproduction. The second point concerns the development of the Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) demonstrators for archaeologists designed to exploit the results of the photogrammetric reconstruction. And the third point concerns the development of the VR demonstrator for general public aimed at creating awareness of both the artifacts that were found and of the process with which they were discovered by recreating the dive process from ship to seabed

Courbet's Crime

An essay examining the phenomenon of Lame Art

Artist In Residence 2010: Small Communities, Small Worlds

Created by Stills, Edinburgh in partnership with Fondazione Fotografia (Fondazione Casa di Risparmio di Modena), AiR was a pilot progamme of residencies and exchanges held in 2010; it included six artists-photographers (three from Scotland, three from Italy) to work with curatorial and critical support to develop their practice by exploring the theme of 'Small Country / Small Communities.' AiR presented a unique opportunity to conduct a series of discussions throughout the residencies, which would take place during the process of making new work. In my role as artist-writer, I conducted a series of exploratory interviews with the artists during their AiR residency. The interviews were informal and structured in relation to their work-in-progress. As an artist myself, I thought the AiR residency exchange presented a unique opportunity to talk to other artists. Usually when we hear artists speak about their work, it is in the context of a final public exhibition, rather than during the process of developing new work. Therefore the interviews and meetings with each artist during this residency scheme were crucial as a way of focusing on their thoughts, working processes and aspirations rather than speaking about works that are completely resolved. My report, and extracts from these interviews was incorporated into the publication

Cultural Hijack: Rethinking Intervention.

Peter McCaughey researched, curated, contributed to and archived the exhibition Cultural Hijack: Rethinking with Artist and Researcher Ben Parry From the creation of insurgent public spaces to the playful disruptions of public life, Cultural Hijack – curated by artists Ben Parry and Peter McCaughey – explores the role of art and the artist in contemporary society and offers the opportunity to rethink the growing field of intervention in relation to cultural activism and social change. Cultural Hijack presents a survey of provocative interventions which have inserted themselves into the world, demanding attention, interrupting everyday life, hijacking, trespassing, agitating and teasing. Often unannounced and usually anonymous, these artworks have appropriated media channels, hacked into live TV and radio broadcasts, attacked billboards, re- appropriated street furniture, subverted signs, monuments and civic architectures, organised political actions as protest, exposed corporations and tax loopholes and revealed the absurdities of government bureaucracies. Exhibition: Cultural Hijack: Rethinking Intervention. AA Gallery, Front Members’ Room and in Bedford Square at the Architectural Association, 36 Bedford Square, London. Accompanied by a series of temporary public artworks, events and performances, a conference called CONTRAvention and a comprehensive websit