News

Hello everyone!  

I think I should start by introducing myself. My name is Rebecca Davies. I am an intern at the Pervasive Media Studio working on communications. Some of the tasks I have been involved in are social media content creation, research tasks and writing this mini-series of articles! 

I was given the pleasure of interviewing two of our newest residents, Nat Whitney (she/they) and Geraint Edwards (he/him). Nat and Geraint are, in my opinion, very different artists in terms of how they present their work. I would summarise Nat’s work as being heavily centred around creating interactive, multi-sensory experiences for audiences to explore, combining tactile materials such as wood and fabric with technology to create these experiences. On the other hand, I would sum up Geraint’s work as art that makes you think about things that you would not normally think about. His concepts often dictate the medium, as he selects the medium that he feels would appropriately convey his intended message. However, Nat and Geraint are both motivated by human interaction and our relationship with the space around us.  

During this residency, Nat and Geraint focused on the overall theme of “Actual Reality”!   

About the theme: 
When the Pervasive Media Studio was founded in 2008, the founders were excited by the possibilities of mobile technology. They viewed it as “taking computing and media beyond the computer screen’’ and they imagined pervasive media to be delivered outside in the real-world using location-based technologies. However, in 2025, this hasn’t exactly been the case, as technology is a much bigger part of our lives and more device centred, than imagined back in 2008. As a result of this, the Pervasive Media Studio sought creative ideas that took computing out of the computer and into the physical world.  

The first interview in my mini-series is with Nat, read on to learn more about their work and ideas: 

Rebecca: Introduce yourself. 
Nat:  I'm Nat or the overload project. I'm an audio-visual participatory artist, and I work with Creative Technologies to construct interactive objects and spaces, with the aim of inviting curiosity and play.  Multi-sensory and tactile spaces really interest me, particularly how they balance co-creative experiences with feelings of overwhelm or sensory overload. I'm really intrigued by social interaction and the interplay between what's controlled and what's left up to chance in these types of participatory spaces. I work by combining creative technologies, particularly physical computing components such as microcontrollers, buttons and sensors with more tactile materials like wood and fabric, along with a fair bit of cardboard and prototyping as well. By doing this, I aim to facilitate accessible environments for human-tech co-creation.  

Rebecca:: Tell me about your current project that you are working on. 
Nat: The project I'm developing as part of the residency is exploring the history of communication technologies. I'm looking at what futuristic, playful interfaces of communication could look like, and how they might shift away from screens to more tactile, present or shared experiences. I'm also interested in how and where people might engage with these new systems of connecting and what inviting, accessible and playful spaces for these interactions could look like. This has involved a deep dive into the evolution of communication technologies, including the mobile phone, telephone boxes, video calls and acoustic Tin Can telephones. Alongside this, I've been researching and exploring how e-textiles could be used to facilitate conversations through playful, soft and tactile communication objects. I'd like to explore how the technology could support a responsive relationship between a participant and a tactile object or being.  

Rebecca:  What would be your typical work process, when you're creating a piece of work?
Nat: It varies project to project, but I usually start with lots of drawings, scribbles and research, then often over time, these develop and begin to link together, and I start to visualise how they might become curious objects or spaces. Once I've done lots of scribbling on paper, I'll move on to physically making material tests and small maquettes.  Usually, if I'm fortunate enough to be around people who are happy to play-test, the next step is to take the objects and prototypes out into the world and learn about them from other people. After they've had some participant testing, they go back to construction, and this can look like all different sorts of things. If I'm making with wood, I might be using  a jigsaw and sanding, or I might be working with fabric and using a sewing machine or I might be going out and collecting sounds. The process changes depending on the project, but it generally starts with drawings and gets to a point of having prototype objects that evolve through participant testing.  

Rebecca: What are you enjoying about this project/ residency so far?  
Nat: Something I'm really enjoying is having the time to let myself go down lots of research rabbit holes and really follow whatever sparks my interest without having to worry about sticking to a set outcome or deadline, it is really refreshing. It's very exciting to see how both my curiosities and the project develop from what I initially thought. These changes happen as I research, scribble and begin to prototype out ideas. Currently, my interest has been consumed by the world of e-textiles, exploring possibilities and the wonderful temperamental and unpredictable nature of DIY sensors. 

Rebecca: Who are your biggest influences for your work? 
Nat: Overall, I would say my biggest influence is people’s curiosities and what happens when people and interactive technology come together. I learn so much from being a part of the spaces I share work in, how the objects are approached, played with and shared. These observations always strongly influence where my work goes next. 


Play strongly influences my work. I got a fantastic book recently called the Art of Play by Emmy Watts, which is filled with several examples of incredibly colourful, playable and gigantic sculptures. I find the construction of these playable spaces really intriguing. I was introduced to the wonderful world of adventure playgrounds while on a residency last year exploring sustainable structures and was really fortunate to have Adventure Playground creator Lizzie Fleming mentoring and making with us.  

Other artists:  

• Akeelah Bertram - whose work has always stayed with me since I first saw their audio-reactive light installation and performance, Ultiverse, at The Tetley as part of Leeds Light Night in 2018. I’m not a huge fan of the word ‘immersive’ but I would use it to describe my experience here. I was completely consumed by the patterns of light, movement and voices travelling around me in the space.
• Naama Tsabar - I only came across their work last year when I saw their installation and performance, Estuaries, at Berlin Art Week. How the audience were collected and intertwined with the performers who naturally led us in a seamless flow between sculptures, sounds and movement was incredibly intense and emotive.
• A continuous influence closer to home, is the creative maker community both in and around East Anglia, where I am based, and on Instagram. I am incredibly grateful for people’s generosity in sharing their time, knowledge and in creating supportive spaces to chat through ideas. Magical things happen in collaborative creative spaces.   

Rebecca: What would you say is your favourite material to work with? 
Nat: I work with a whole range of materials, and so I don't know if I have one favourite, but generally, I really like to be surprised by materials and push the boundaries of what their expected properties and purpose is by combining them with other usually conductive materials. For example, on a recent project, I combined wood with copper plates, and textiles with conductive thread to make a playable Sonic sculpture, that was a little bit like a giant Marble Run. 

Rebecca: What would you like to achieve from this project? 
Nat: I don't think I came into the residency with any specific goals, as I wanted to welcome the space to research and let the project naturally develop. In a previous residency, I had created a prototype for two interactive talking beings and this is where the idea for this project originated from. I had some ideas on how I might like the interaction of that to progress, to make it more responsive and more of a two-way conversation between the tech being and the human being. I think my initial thoughts with that prototype also align with more overall practice goals around expanding my knowledge working with particular physical computing components and exploring new and exciting areas. 

That’s a wrap on a recap of my wonderful conversation with Nat. It was a pleasure speaking to them! As well as interviewing Geraint, I had the wonderful opportunity of attending Nat’s “Work in Progress” event a couple of weeks ago. I got to find out more about their project and even test and give feedback for some of their prototypes. I found it very fascinating to play with and I look forward to seeing how they implement this feedback into their project! I am also very intrigued in how Nat will invite communication between people that could act as a preferred communication method over modern technology such as mobile phones.  

To find out more about Nat’s work, you can give them a follow on their Instagram @theoverloadproject, or check out their website here: theoverloadproject.com/about 

Nat is also leading a free family creative tech workshop in the easter holidays on the 9th and 10th of April in the Pervasive Media Studio, designed for 8-14 year olds and their grown ups. The workshop will be  centred around exploring sound and technologies and to investigate the sonic world around them through sampling and editing sounds, building noisy buttons from everyday materials, to build interactive talking creatures. Find out more and buy tickets here.

To see how my chat with Geraint went click here: https://www.watershed.co.uk/studio/news/2025/04/04/part-2-conversation-geraint-edwards