Category: Events

Material Matters Talk

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I am giving a lecture on Thursday evening at the Bartlett School of Architecture as part of Ruairi Glynn and Xavier de Kestelier‘s Material Matters series.

Ant Ballet

An entymological adventure coaxing choreography from a company of obstinate insects

As humans, we are used to hierarchical control systems. Ants are different – they use pheromones to communicate and connect with each other, building complex networks from simple feedback loops.

Working with a team of chemical scientists and entomologists, Ant Ballet is an attempt to ‘hack’ the communication protocols of ants. Witness the trials and tribulations of the first attempts to create choreography, and intercontinental ant colony communication through the use of synthesised chemical compounds.

The Bartlett School of Architecture
Royal Ear Hospital
21 Capper Street
London WC1E 6AP
Thursday 17 January 2013, 7pm

Bio
Ollie Palmer is an artist and designer. Based at the Bartlett School of Architecture, he is a tutor in RC3 on the Graduate Architectural Design course. He has travelled around the world, hitchhiked across Iceland and taught IT skills in the heart of the Amazon. He is a collaborator with Open_H20 (developing open source oceanic technologies) and a Getty Images contributing photographer.
www.olliepalmer.com

Wilderness Festival

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I have been invited to give a talk about dancing ants at the Natures Stage of Wilderness Festival, taking place between 10-12 August 2012 in beautiful Oxfordshire. I can’t wait to get there and take in a wealth of music, talks, food and country air!

More information and tickets available at the Wilderness Festival Website.

UPDATE: I’ll be on the Natures Stage on Saturday at 4pm. There are some other top-notch presentations there too, including Alan Moore and the New Dawn Traders.

FutureEverything in not-quite-3D

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I know not everyone can make it to Manchester for FutureEverything, so took a couple of panoramic photosynths so that everyone can join in the fun. The exhibition is in the world’s first railway warehouse, so it’s a nice contrast between the peak of 1830’s physical technology and 2012’s (mostly) virtual!

First up is the elevator that takes people from the ground floor to the exhibition:

It’s been designed by Jörn Röder and Jonathan Pimay. Called fbFaces, it is the result of a script that trawled the web for public photos of people from and related to Manchester. There’s something of a Philip K Dick novel/Keiichi Matsuda experience in being surrounded by so many little avatars…

Secondly, here’s my Ant Ballet installation:

It has four screens showing documentary footage and theory about Ant Ballet, and a floating circular screen in the middle of the space with a robotic arm and simulation of ant trail following and disruption.

On the other side of the room is Brendan Oliver and Kasia Molga‘s The…. Based around David Bohm‘s philosophy that no human thought can be original, but rather a result of other thoughts in the world, it presents visitors with poetic (and non-Justin Bieber-related) Twitter feeds that are sent from one viewers’ shadow to another.

Unfortunately I didn’t have exhibition features numerous other works by artists such as Lawrence Epps, Jeremy Hutchison, Daniel Jones + James Bulley and more. It is open from the 18th May – 10th June at the Museum of Science and Industry

Dorkbot 79

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I’ll be talking about ants, machines and ballet at dorkbot 79 next week.

When

19:00-21:00, 28 March 2012

Where

MAT Lab, Room G2 Engineering Building, Queen Mary, University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Nearest tube: Stepney Green / Mile End
Walk up or down Mile End Road until you’re between Bancroft Road and The Queen’s Building. There’s a glass storefront with orange benches and people milling about looking studious. That’s the entrance. There should be a ‘dorkbot’ sign there.

Lineup

See you there!

Facebook event

Ant Ballet at FutureEverything

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My Ant Ballet installation is featured in FutureEverything‘s art show this summer, from the 16 May to the 10 June 2012.

The festival was recently listed among the top 10 ideas festivals, scattered in a plethora of interesting venues around Manchester. My installation is be in the world’s first railway warehouse building in the Museum of Science and Industry – a showcase of the future, from a building that built Britain’s past.

Entry to the art exhibition is free! Visit FutureEverything’s site for details.

The exhibition at FutureEverything has been gaining a lot of press recently – see the Press page for more.

DorkBot Cardiff

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I’ll be talking about Ant Ballet at Dorkbot Cardiff as part of the Cardiff Design Festival on the 13th October 2011. Anybody with a curious sort of a nature is welcome – it’s free! If there’s any more incentive I can offer, it’s that they do a mean cocktail and probably the best selection of bottled beers in Cardydd.

More information about the roster of speakers available at the Dorkbot Cardiff website. The Facebook-inclined may also like to click here.

Bartlett M.Arch Show 2011

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The Bartlett School of Architecture M.Arch show will be opening on the 27th September at Wates House. Amongst the myriad of interesting and bizarre projects will be an Ant Ballet machine, and some related films.

GAD 01 Adaptive Blink Trial from Chiachi Yeh on Vimeo.

Opening times
Tuesday 18:00 – 21:00
Wednesday – Friday 10:00 – 18:00
Saturday 10:00 – 16:00
(The opening is probably the best time to come, but it’s open to the public for the rest of the week too.)

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The Facebook-inclined may wish to gleam their infomation from this page.

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Talk – Camden School of Enlightenment

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Ant Ballet

An entomological adventure coalescing choreography from (somewhat) obstinate insects

On the 13th September, I’ll be giving a 20 minute talk on the Ant Ballet – the madcap road trip to Barcelona to shoot a film about tiny ants following suspicious-looking trails. It will also be the first public outing of the Ant Ballet film. What’s more, it’s free, and the other people talking are pretty interesting too.
More details here

ZSL Teachers and Biodiversity Day

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I gave a talk on ants and ballet at London Zoo‘s Teachers and Biodiversity Day in October 2010.

This involved a few conversations about pheromones, a demonstration of bug-tracking software I’ve built (using a very passive cockroach), and an adaptation of this experiment for classrooms.

Thanks to Seirian Sumner and Ruth Desforges for inviting me, the ZSL staff for being welcoming and accommodating, and all of the teachers for engaging and showing patience with a passive cockroach!