Craig Clarke reflects on his Hatching Residency

I had known about the Nest Residency for a while after attending creative co-working several times. It had been on my to-do list for a while however an email stating that they were about to close applications promoted me to stop procrastinating and finally sort out my application. A few weeks later I got the good news of being accepted and an exchange of messages found some suitable dates.

The first day felt a bit odd. My practice involves working creatively with technology, particularly sound, light and projection. I generally work with other artists and galleries so the chance of having time to explore my own ideas filled me with equal measures of dread and excitement. I went through all the housekeeping information with Charlie, who issued keys and showed me to my space. Wow this room is big and empty! 

For some reason I had been thinking about neurons probably activating my own neurons in the process. Do they make a sound? How do you detect them? I start digging and find out about theta waves and the theta rhythm which is a strong oscillation that can be observed in the hippocampus. Sounds interesting, how do I capture this sound? So further research reveals that I need an EEG (Electroencephalography) sensor. Oh, these are a bit expensive! I look at DIY options but no luck, so I decide to shelve this idea as the outlay is too much at this stage.

Next day I had to attend an Event in London. I had been working with an Artist on a Piece called ‘Decoding Difference’ which was funded by Kings College, London. The piece was installed in the Kings Pavilion at the London Design Biennale at Somerset House. The event involved a tour of the show and drinks reception. It was nice to walk around the show and see the vast range of different work on display.

 

Arriving at the Nest for my next day I am informed that the ‘Nestival of Ideas – War & Peace – can civic society make a difference?’ event is taking place and I’m invited to join. I found this very thought provoking and was glad I could attend. After a brief lunch I return to my space. I had spent much of the previous day on the train so was able to do some more thinking about a new direction. I had looked to see if similar networks exist in nature and inevitably stumbled across Mycelium but decided to avoid this area as I know others have already explored this.  Perhaps organisms? I dig further and find refence to an interesting book ‘On growth and form by D’arcy Wentworth Thompson’ He was a mathematical biologist, and the book is a study of the way things grow and the shapes and forms that develop. I find an interesting water-based organism called the ‘Hydra’ which reproduces a version of itself which detaches once formed. My thoughts are to create an interactive version with camera tracking. Better get my Kinect camera’s out.

The next week I get a message from Talking Birds stating there has been a flood and the space is not available! This delays the residency until the Thursday. I arrive on that morning and start turning these ideas and themes into a piece of work. Whilst waiting to get access I had started looking at using ‘Touch Designer’ to generate organic growth patterns. The day turns very techie working out the nuts and bolts of creating convincing organic growth pattern animations with the software. After much trial and a lot of error I mange to achieve the desired effect.

Due to the flood the final two days are the following week. Unfortunately, due to the time of year my hay fever had well and truly arrived over the weekend. I felt a little fatigued but had received a spark of inspiration via ‘Springwatch’ They had done a feature on Slime Mould! Showing time lapse sequences of it growing. This is the organism I had been looking for. I had also brought my Kinect cameras and spend most of the day working with touch designer to create some motion tracking to interact with the growth animations.

The final day arrives. I know that there was no pressure to create a piece of work but thought it would be nice to have something to show. I continue to tweak the organic growth animation and how it interacts with my body movements. Charlie appears with a card which contains a lovely message and I give her a quick demo of the work. 

So, my time comes to an end. It had been a very useful exercise to switch off making work for other people and concentrate on developing my own ideas. I really wish I could have had the space for longer.