Creative Director of Ludic Rooms Dom Breadmore and the first Random String Fellows joined us to talk about the programme and share their recent explorations with creative technology. Ludic Rooms is a post-digital arts organisation, making no preference between digital and analogue or online and offline. Ludic Rooms makes playful participatory work in public spaces. The Random String Fellowship programme invited 6 artists to explore how they might embed technology into their practice. The programme has no set output or expectations on delivery, allowing dedicated time with a mentor to play and experiment and see if anything sticks.

The Random String Fellows are:

David Armes is a letterpress artist specialising in prints. He is interested in the language and surface pattern of printmaking. During the fellowship, David experimented with new printing techniques and GPS to capture location-specific data to inform his work. He also spent time interrogating letterpress technology dating back to the fifteenth century. 

Jo Roberts is a fine artist specialising in drawing and hand stitching. She said the fellowship was the scariest thing she has ever done, taking her out of her comfort zone and exposing her to a new language of technology. Jo learned that when it comes to technology, what she really needs to know is “”if THIS happens then THAT happens’.

Nicola Richardson is an artist and designer who creates sculptures, costumes and installations through her company Vortex Creates. Using a sculptural costume, Nicola explored how she could take the movement of a performer and use technology to transfer the spin and tempo of the movement onto the costume. Nicola would like to continue to develop this exploration with a composer.

Jamaal Burkmar is a choreographer. During the fellowship, Jamaal decided to explore lots of different technologies, rather than focus on a specific project. He is interested in how the affordances of technology could affect the choreography, composition, and structure of a dance piece. During one experiment, Jamaal used a Fitbit tracker to record breath data to use as a choreography tool. 

Anna Francis explores cities, public spaces and language. She uses forms of intervention, drawing, mapping, guided tours, performance and consultation to investigate the impact artists can have on their environment. The fellowship gave Anna an opportunity to explore how her practice, which is often time and location specific, might leave something behind through technology. Anna is exploring how conductive glazes and gold banding can create circuitry on ceramics and share the stories of Stoke-on-Trent’s community and industry. 

Rosemaria Kostic Cisneros is a Flamenco dancer and dance historian. During the fellowship she explored the relationships between Flamenco, storytelling, digital technologies and shadow puppetries in relation to vulnerable groups, in particular the Romany community.

You can read more about the fellows and their journey on the Random String fellowship through their blogs: http://randomstring.co/fellowships