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an ongoing programme enabling residents at Proboscis studio to create eBooks and StoryCubes for their own projects.

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Articles by Giles Lane

Giles Lane is founder and co-director of Proboscis. He conceived of and developed the Diffusion eBook format with Paul Farrington and designed the Proboscis StoryCube.

A New Chapter for Diffusion
October 15, 2012 – 5:44 pm | 2 Comments
A New Chapter for Diffusion


Its been 12 years since we published Performance Notations, the first series of Diffusion eBooks, and launched our unique publishing format on an unsuspecting world. In that time, we have commissioned and facilitated hundreds of original eBooks and StoryCubes by an incredibly diverse range of people from all kinds of disciplines and backgrounds. In that time we also began to evolve our own free and online software platform for people without professional design skills to be able to create their own eBooks and StoryCubes. Our first proof of concept prototype was made in the summer of 2003. We then spent a few years building a fully working version – the Diffusion Generator – which was online between 2006 and 2009. In September 2009 we launched bookleteer, a whole new set of ways for making and sharing eBooks and StoryCubes.

A New Place for Future eBooks & StoryCubes
This summer we made a series of technical changes to bookleteer that allow users to share their own publications directly with others via a Public Library. Each user has their own personal profile page listing all their shared publications (for instance, here’s mine) and each publication has its page listing both the downloadable PDFs and the bookreader online version (for example, see Material Conditions: Epilogue). We have further exciting developments in the pipeline too.

To continue our long tradition of commissioning and publishing new work, we have created a new Curated by Proboscis library which will, from now on, be where all new commissions and featured eBooks and StoryCubes will be listed. This website (the Diffusion Library) will remain online indefinitely as an archive of more than 12 years of pushing the boundaries of what we think of as publishing and creative practice.


As part of these changes we are also launching a new monthly publication – the Periodical – which will select, print and send out to subscribers some of the most exciting, experimental, imaginative and insipring eBooks created and shared on bookleteer. Anyone can take part – just sign up, make and share something on bookleteer. Each month we’ll pick one eBook to print and send out. We are also devising special projects, like Field Work, that will enable people to participate in other ways. And we are developing partnerships and collaborations to commission new series that will also be distributed as part of the Periodical’s monthly issues.

Subscribe to the Periodical and get bookleteering!

Nature In Exile by Hazem Tagiuri
July 16, 2012 – 3:44 pm | One Comment
Nature In Exile by Hazem Tagiuri

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About : A collection of fleeting poems that give voice to nature, in all its fine and savage guises.

Hazem Tagiuri is a writer and member of Proboscis. He blogs for bookleteer.com, co-runs and contributes to City As Material, and is a commissioning editor for the Material Conditions series alongside Giles Lane.
www.cargocollective.com/htagiuri

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Soho Food Feast : We Are All Food Critics, The Reviews
July 6, 2012 – 11:19 am | One Comment
Soho Food Feast : We Are All Food Critics, The Reviews



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We Are All Food Critics : The Reviews –  A3 | Ledger PDF 6.1Mb Read Online
We Are All Food Critics (eNotebook) – A3 | Ledger PDF 1.6Mb Read Online

About : Proboscis supported the children of Soho Parish Primary School at this year’s Soho Food Feast – a community fundraising event held for the school at which many of London’s celebrated chefs and restaurants provide signature dishes to raise money for the school. We designed a special eNotebook alongside Fay Maschler, Restaurant Critic of the London Evening Standard, encouraging the children themselves to become food critics and experience the food through all the five senses. After the event we scanned all their reviews and made a sample selection to be printed in a compilation eBook, which has forewords from both Rachel Earnshaw (Head Teacher) and Fay. Everyone’s already looking forward to next year’s Food Feast and more budding food critics.

Published by Proboscis for Soho Parish Primary School in 2012

Authors : Children of Soho Parish Primary School, Forewords/Introduction by Rachel Earnshaw & Fay Maschler, Illustrated by Mandy Tang, Photos by Stefan Kueppers, Designed by Giles Lane.

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Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition
May 30, 2012 – 6:40 pm | 3 Comments
Professor Starling’s Thetford-London-Oxford Expedition

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Book 1 – PerquisitionsA4 | US Letter PDF 4Mb Read Online
Book 2 – CongeriesA4 | US Letter PDF 15Mb Read Online
Book 3 – SpeculationsA4 | US Letter PDF 2.3Mb Read Online

About : In February 2012 England was graced with a visit from the perambulating Canadian scholar, Professor William Starling of DodoLab, who is conducting research into the disappearance of the European Starling specs in contrast to the continued expansion of its North American cousin. An expedition of inquiry was mounted by members of DodoLab and Proboscis, visiting Thetford in Norfolk, central London and Oxford, where great murmurations of starlings were known, until recent years, to gather. These three books comprise their investigations, observations and musings.

Published in the City As Material series, May 2012

Authors : Leila Armstrong, Lisa Hirmer, Andrew Hunter, Giles Lane, Josie Mills & Hazem Tagiuri

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If London Were Like Venice by Somers L Summers
May 23, 2012 – 6:13 pm | Comments Off on If London Were Like Venice by Somers L Summers
If London Were Like Venice by Somers L Summers

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About : found on the extraordinary retronaut site, a mad vision of London flooded and become Venice, from 1899.

First Published August 1899, Harmsworth’s Magazine

Sourced from retronaut & Forgotten Futures

A Conversation Between Trees by Active Ingredient
December 15, 2011 – 10:15 am | Comments Off on A Conversation Between Trees by Active Ingredient
A Conversation Between Trees by Active Ingredient

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About A Conversation Between Trees is our latest project, a touring artwork that connects forests in the UK with forest regions in Brazil. This book is a literal exploration of the Materials needed, Conditions set, Research conducted and Audience involved, creating a series of snaphots  – new conditions of practice – to share with those interested in our work.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

Active Ingredient is an award winning artist-led group founded in 1996, creating interactive artworks that merge art, technology and science, bringing together location, social networking, bio and environmental sensing, data collection and play.
www.i-am-ai.net

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Reflections on the city from a post-flaneur by Ruth Maclennan
December 14, 2011 – 10:00 am | One Comment
Reflections on the city from a post-flaneur by Ruth Maclennan

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About : This is a polemical and personal exposé of the place of children in the city and in the art world. The artist examines the experiences of being a mother and an artist in the city, and the reactions of others to artists with children. Maclennan calls for new thinking and action, and the confidence to transform society and the street, taking on board the radical potential of children, and inspired by the experiences of being an urban artist-mother.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

Ruth Maclennan is a visual artist whose work includes video installations, photography, bookworks, drawings, live events, and curatorial projects. Her work often begins with her own encounter with a place â a neighbourhood of London, a futuristic capital city, a derelict building, a ruined railway station in a desert. Her single and multi-channel video installations focus on overlooked moments, material remains and fragments of stories that reveal unresolved conflict and suppressed realities.
www.ruthmaclennan.com 

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The Show by Desperate Optimists
December 13, 2011 – 9:46 am | Comments Off on The Show by Desperate Optimists
The Show by Desperate Optimists

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About : We admire people who can keep the show on the road. The show, of course, could be anything: a marriage, a business, a career, even an outlook or philosophical stance which might fly against the prevailing winds. The show, in a creative and specific sense for this book, is the artist in pursuit of the work they are creating or the work they feel they need to make. What motivates and inspires us? What does it take to bring our ideas to the screen? How do WE keep the show on the road?

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

Born in Dublin, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (Desperate Optimists) have made a circuitous route via theatre, visual art and writing to arrive at film-making. Over the past 8 years they have produced, written and directed 10 acclaimed short films under the title CIVIC LIFE, and a feature film HELEN, all screened extensively around the world.
www.desperateoptimists.com

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He Who Sleeps Dines by London Fieldworks
December 12, 2011 – 9:36 am | Comments Off on He Who Sleeps Dines by London Fieldworks
He Who Sleeps Dines by London Fieldworks

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About : Extracts from notebooks and photo documentation evoking the strategy within nature of torpor or hibernation as a way of surviving limited resources and inhospitable environment; the speculation that hibernation is a latent ability in humans.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

London Fieldworks was formed in 2000 by artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson as a cross-disciplinary, collaborative practice working across social engagement, installation, video and animation, situating works both in the gallery and in the landscape. Recent projects have created speculative works of fiction out of a mix of ecological, scientific and pop cultural narratives.
www.londonfieldworks.com

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Something More Than Just Survival by Janet Owen Driggs & Jules Rochielle
December 11, 2011 – 10:25 am | Comments Off on Something More Than Just Survival by Janet Owen Driggs & Jules Rochielle
Something More Than Just Survival by Janet Owen Driggs & Jules Rochielle

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About : Citizen movements like “Occupy” indicate that the boundaries between government, business and civil society have been blurred to such an extreme extent that the “voice of the people” is no longer a factor in the equation. What makes this movement different from others is that through advocacy, activism and technology we are able to connect with one another quickly to amplify a transnational “people’s voice” generated through social media, citizen journalism and grass root community collaborations.

As long as we stand together we are strong together. Finding ways to stand strong together across our differences is where we need to put our energy. Our “together work”  is to compassionately deconstruct the oppressions that have divided us so we can become reconnected through actually listening to one another. This process of listening and sharing is the bridge that can help us create an new awareness of one another and our shared global society. We need to commit to the belief that standing strong together over the long term is our life work and pathway.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

Janet Owen Driggs is a writer, artist and curator who, along with Matthew Owen Driggs, frequently participates in the collective identity “Owen Driggs”.
www.performingpublicspace.org

Jules Rochielle is a socially and politically engaged artist interested in innovative public practices and collaborations.
www.julesrochielle.com

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Remix Reconvex Reconvexo by Karla Brunet
December 10, 2011 – 10:01 am | One Comment
Remix Reconvex Reconvexo by Karla Brunet

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About : Music, Collaboration and Place are important to me in terms of creativity. I’ve combined my photography with the lyrics of “Reconvexo” by Caeteno Veloso, which speaks of an identity rooted in a place and it’s culture, as well as collaboration and remixing during the creative process. This booklet is about the place I chose to live. The place I call “home”. A place I can return to after being away.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions Series

Karla Brunet is an artist, researcher and university professor. She has participated in many photography and digital arts exhibitions in Brazil, Europe and the USA, and is interested in projects where art, science and technology intersect.
www.karlabru.net

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Making Do by Jane Prophet
December 9, 2011 – 10:04 am | One Comment
Making Do by Jane Prophet

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About : making/do: big idea, small budget, can do is the story of making my first piece of “land art” and reflects on two years during which I moved countries, shifted from an urban to rural environment, and re-calibrated my art practice in order to keep on making work despite a lack of funding.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

Jane Prophet is a British artist living in the US. She has worked with new media for two decades and integrates it with traditional materials to produce ‘surprising and beautiful objects’. She makes photographic pieces, temporary installations, objects and video.
www.janeprophet.com

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Knowing Where You Are by Sarah Butler
December 8, 2011 – 10:04 am | Comments Off on Knowing Where You Are by Sarah Butler
Knowing Where You Are by Sarah Butler

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About : A ‘poetic biography’of my relationship with writing, and with working as a writer and project manager in the creative industries. I am interested in, and discomforted by, my self-defined categories of paid ‘work’ and unpaid ‘writing’, and how these relate to my motivation, my relationship with space, and how I allocate my time. Knowing Where You Are is an examination of how I find value in the work I do.

Published December 2011 in the Material Conditions series

Sarah Butler writes novels and short fiction. Her work, which explores themes of home, place and family, has been published in anthologies and journals, and online. She runs UrbanWords, a consultancy which develops literature projects engaging with regeneration and urban renewal.
You can find out more at www.sarahbutler.org.uk and www.urbanwords.org.uk.

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Agencies of Engagement by Proboscis
November 16, 2011 – 10:00 am | 2 Comments
Agencies of Engagement by Proboscis

  

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Project AccountA3 | Ledger PDF Read Online
Method Stack –  A3 | Ledger PDF 7Mb Read Online
Drawing Insight  – A3 | Ledger PDF 9Mb Read Online
Catalysing Agency –  A3 | Ledger PDF 5Mb Read Online

About : Four books exploring the process, methods, observations, insights and recommendations from a collaborative research project by Proboscis, the Centre for Applied Research in Education Technology (CARET) and the Crucible network at the University of Cambridge.

Published November 2011

Proboscis is a social and cultural innovation studio. The creative team for these books was : Alice Angus, Giles Lane, Frederik Lesage, Haz Tagiuri and Mandy Tang.

Picnic : order, ambiguity and community by Kevin Harris and Gemma Orton
November 15, 2011 – 10:00 am | Comments Off on Picnic : order, ambiguity and community by Kevin Harris and Gemma Orton
Picnic : order, ambiguity and community by Kevin Harris and Gemma Orton

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About : People interact around food. Conventional mealtimes are ordered occasions when social relationships are reaffirmed. But picnic is different, often characterised by a wobbly combination of conviviality and disorder. So what does it tell us about the way we think of ‘community’?

Buy a physical copy printed with Bookleteer’s Short Run Printing Service

Published November 2011

Kevin Harris is an author and community development commentator, and has written the Neighbourhoods blog since 2003. He is also the founder of consultancy, Local Level.

Gemma Orton is a visual artist – visit her website.

Project 18 by Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service
November 14, 2011 – 12:42 pm | One Comment
Project 18 by Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service

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About : A project about being 18 now and what it was like to be 18 in the past. We have looked at changes in people’s homes, work and entertainment as reflected in their oral history testimony and material culture. We have also explored the challenges young people face today and the challenges they have faced in the last 60 years. The project has been a collaboration between Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service and MAP, a youth charity providing free and independent advice, counselling, youth work and education to young people.

Published November 2011

Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service | MAP

Sites and Strategies by Gair Dunlop
October 28, 2011 – 1:04 pm | One Comment
Sites and Strategies by Gair Dunlop

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About : Sites and Strategies, selected artworks 2003-2011 contains short texts and images of recent artworks and projects by artist Gair Dunlop including : Atom Town, The Tomorrows Project and Century 21 Calling.

Published by Gair Dunlop October 2011

Gair Dunlop makes artworks which explore entropic Modernism: the New Town, the military airfield, the film archive and the memory of progress. Beginning as a photographer in London, he gained a degree in photography from the Polytechnic of Central London, and now has an MSc with distinction in Electronic Imaging from Duncan of Jordanstone College, Dundee. He is interested in combining elements of site-specific practice with digital technologies.

Visual Essays by Elena Festa
October 21, 2011 – 11:58 am | One Comment
Visual Essays by Elena Festa

   

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Place/Space/City A4 | US Letter PDF 1.8Mb  Read Online
Citizen A4 | US Letter PDF 700Kb  Read Online
Storytelling A4 | US Letter PDF 1Mb  Read Online
Mapping A4 | US Letter PDF 2Mb  Read Online

About : These eBooks are extrapolated from the visual essay I composed at Proboscis during my four months internship, loosely based on their work and projects.

First it developed as a concise mind map which outlined the fundamental design underpinning Proboscis’ long journey. It then evolved and bloomed in different and unexpected directions, drawing on my past knowledge, feeding on fortuitous connections and new sources of inspiration. It was elaborated following different paths even if I found myself juxtaposing pictures or quotations, originally designed for separate ‘themes’, pleasantly coming together. The lines I have drawn are just some of the infinite possible threads I could have kept to.

This is my own series of allusions, suggestions, relations and reflections about citizenship, storytelling, the mapping process and space, place, city.

Published October 2011

Elena Festa completed a PhD in Comparative Literature and Culture in Rome and after that worked as an intern at Proboscis. Her main interests are postcolonialism, literature and issues concerning cultural dynamics and urban imaginary.

announcing a new series : Material Conditions
October 3, 2011 – 6:04 pm | 2 Comments
announcing a new series : Material Conditions


This Autumn, as part of our Public Goods Programme, Proboscis is inviting contributions for a new series of eBooks to be published in the Diffusion Library – Material Conditions. It will offer diverse insights by professional creative practitioners on how they see the future trajectories of culture, creativity and practice emerging. We are experiencing a turbulent period of change at fundamental levels of our society; social, political, economic and cultural changes are taking place all around us, and we face adapting our practices, routines, rituals and methods to continue to be creative and effective.

Material Conditions aims to explore what it means and takes to be a professional creative practitioner – from the personal to the social and political. How and why do people persist in pursuing such careers? How do they organise their everyday lives to support their practice? What kind of social, political, economic and cultural conditions are necessary to keep being creative? What are the bedrocks of inspiration that enable people to continue piloting their meandering courses through contemporary society and culture? We are inviting contributors to share some aspects of their own practices as well as to reflect on the wider social and cultural conditions necessary for maintaining a creative practice.

  • What now are the material conditions for being creative?
  • How do we continue to be creative and productive everyday?
  • What methods and practices do we use to shape our creativity?
  • What motivations govern our continued drive and desire to make things?
  • What are our own personal libraries of inspiration?

This series aims to create a library of responses to these urgent questions: which can inspire others in the process of developing their own everyday practices of creativity, that can guide those seeking meaning for their choices, that can set out positions for action around which people can rally.

Through the Public Goods programme we are seeking to map and share different kinds of ‘intangible assets’ that are precious aspects of what binds us to others, to our communities and environments; to map and share new values and ways of valuing those things which are often considered ‘small beer’. This library of inspirations aims to become a beacon for others in shaping and directing their own creative endeavours, built on top of a free-to-use platform for self-publishing (bookleteer) that in itself is a model and tool for ‘public authoring’.

Commissioning Editors : Giles Lane & Haz Tagiuri

Short Run Printed Edition
In addition to publishing free downloadable PDFs and bookreader versions in the Diffusion Library, we plan to print a case-bound set of each series, which will be available to pre-order online once the line up of contributors has been confirmed.

Submissions & Publication Dates
We aim to publish the first series in early December 2011. If you would like to submit a proposal, please contact submissions editor Haz Tagiuri (haz at proboscis dot org dot uk) with an outline. We’re looking for contributions that explore these questions from different perspectives and through different forms such as : diaries, manifestoes, visual essays, poetic speculations, selections from sketch books, comic strips/cartoons, photograph albums, recipes or instruction manuals.

 

The New Worker’s Songbook Songwriters’ Workbook for New Worksongs! v2 by Tor Lukasik-Foss with DodoLab
June 24, 2011 – 9:19 pm | Comments Off on The New Worker’s Songbook Songwriters’ Workbook for New Worksongs! v2 by Tor Lukasik-Foss with DodoLab
The New Worker’s Songbook Songwriters’ Workbook for New Worksongs! v2 by Tor Lukasik-Foss with DodoLab

Download A4 | US Letter PDF 880Kb Read Online

About : Created by Hamilton (Canada) artist and musician Tor Lukasik-Foss as part of DodoLab’s New Worker’s Songbook project, this publication is a simple graphic guide to writing and performing your own work song. The project was first developed in collaboration with the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (Hamilton) followed by collaborations with The Print Studio (Hamilton) and SACY (Sudbury Action Centre for Youth).

Published June 2011

Tor Lukasik-Foss (Tiny Bill Cody) is an artist, writer, musician and performer interested in the ways in which art becomes a public language or a publicly shared experience. His visual work employs the idioms of conventional sign making, and is frequently designed for site-specific purposes. His performance work explores the notion of the public concert, and tries to deliberately tamper with the relationship between the performer, the stage, and the audience.

DodoLab is an art and design based program that employs experimental and adaptive processes to spark positive change and resiliency. We work collaboratively with a diversity of emergent thinkers/doers to imaginatively and critically repurpose familiar tools of the social sciences, marketing and activism to engage with the public in public. Our focus is the complex relationships between people and their surroundings and how communities define, and are defined by, their environment. DodoLab puts the creative process at the heart of confronting social and environmental challenges.

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Sketches in the City by Radhika Patel, Mandy Tang & Hazem Tagiuri
May 25, 2011 – 11:15 am | Comments Off on Sketches in the City by Radhika Patel, Mandy Tang & Hazem Tagiuri
Sketches in the City by Radhika Patel, Mandy Tang & Hazem Tagiuri

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Sketches in the City 1 A4 | US Letter PDF 1.4Mb Read Online
Sketches in the City – British Museum A4 | US Letter PDF 1.4Mb Read Online

About : An offshoot of City As Material, Sketches In The City is an occasional series of observational expeditions in various locations across the capital. Mandy, Radhika and I sketch, take photographs and write poems and prose to form a collaborative eBook with underlying themes. Focusing mainly on people and interactions in public places – places that shape, and are in turn shaped, by the people in them – we’ve produced two books so far, and are working on a third.

Sketches In The City was our first attempt, created as a result of visiting the busy Victoria and Waterloo train stations – places which reveal an interesting insight of the human character when bored or stressed. Highlighting the material we collected on the day, this tidy scrapbook was an playful experiment with little interpretation or narrative, letting us take the time to view hectic environments from a different perspective than usual and refine our creative processes.

Sketches In The City: British Museum showcase the unique architecture and exhibits in the British Museum, looking at how visitors observe and interact with them and one another, as well as their grasp on the intangible knowledge that exists amongst that which we can see and touch.

Published May 2011

Radhika Patel is a marketing assistant at Proboscis. Having completed her Future Jobs Fund placement with Proboscis (Nov 2010-April 2011) she is working on developing new marketing strategies.

Mandy Tang is a creative assistant at Proboscis. Having completed her Future Jobs Fund placement with Proboscis (July 2010-Jan 2011) Mandy’s work is focused on visual notation and illustration of projects, ideas and activities, as well as developing a special StoryCube game, Outside the Box, for encouraging outdoor play.

Hazem Tagiuri is a creative assistant at Proboscis.Having completed his Future Jobs Fund placement with Proboscis (July 2010-Jan 2011) Haz’s work involves blogging on bookleteer.com about zine culture; assisting with planning and running the City As Material project and working on a research project with the University of Cambridge.

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Hard Hearted Hannah by Cartoon de Salvo
March 28, 2011 – 9:30 am | Comments Off on Hard Hearted Hannah by Cartoon de Salvo
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Classics From Nowhere A4 | US Letter PDF 1Mb Read Online
Music A4 | US Letter PDF 1.5Mb Read Online
Mysteries A4 | US Letter PDF 1.7Mb Read Online
Silent Characters A4 | US Letter PDF 1.5Mb Read Online
Tangled Relationships A4 | US Letter PDF 1.2Mb Read Online
The World of the Strange and the Bizarre A4 | US Letter PDF 1Mb Read Online

About : Cartoon de Salvo are now publishing four more books recording some of what is now over 100 improvised stage stories (and two updated books). Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories is a brand new, entirely improvised adventure. To begin we elicit a ‘simple title of, for example, a movie that’s never been made’ from an audience member. Then they choose a few songs from a playlist of our band’s repertoire. We think for a few seconds and then we start, working in those songs and the show lasts between 50 mins and up to 2 hours. We never limited ourselves to any place, genre or time. We place implicit trust in each other’s narrative instinct. The idea is, having been exposed to stories all of our lives, we all have a very developed sense of what should happen next.

This series of Diffusion eBooks explores some of the patterns that came randomly out of the air, as told by Brian Logan and illustrated by Alex Murdoch. The first two books were Classics from Nowhere’ – where we tapped into story structures from myths and fairytales and ‘World of the Strange and Bizarre‘ where our unconcious minds led us into some very odd situations indeed. Now we are adding four books looking at how Music we play influenced stories, how Mysteries created more complex storylines. Two more explore how Silent Characters and Tangled Relationships made for surprising turns in our yarns. The idea of course is these stories existed in their moment over the past two years; but when I discovered that Brian was writing them down the following day I thought I’d put them together with my illustrations that I was getting down in the van after each gig.

Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories is created by Cartoon de Salvo.
Co-commissioned by Farnham Maltings and the Lyric, Hammersmith

Published March 2011

Cartoon de Salvo are of the few companies in the UK working with whole story, rather than sketch-based, improvisation formats. Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories went on to become the Telegraph’s Top Ten Comedy Shows of 2008 and following the British Council Showcase in Edinburgh we were invited to take it to Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. We’re now working on a new long-form impro format called Made Up, in which we collaborate with a band; we’re next performing that at Pulse Festival in June 2011.

Read more about the artistic process on their blogs at www.theatrevoice.com and visit www.cartoondesalvo.com

Cartoon de Salvo is Rebecca Hurst, Brian Logan and Alex Murdoch and this show also involves performer Neil Haigh and musical director Paul Kissaun. Ed Collier is the producer and can be contacted on ed@cartoondesalvo.com

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Systems/Layers by Nurri Kim & Adam Greenfield
March 21, 2011 – 12:57 pm | 6 Comments
Systems/Layers by Nurri Kim & Adam Greenfield

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About : Around the world, urban form and metropolitan experience are being transformed by the presence of networked computation. The urban fabric and discrete elements in it are newly empowered to capture, process, transmit, display and even act on information. At the same time, our daily tactics of doing and being — practices of citying that have remained invisible throughout recorded history, and have generally been lost to that history — are now being rendered explicit and gathered up by that same network.

Nurri Kim and Adam Greenfield of Do projects have run “walkshops” devoted to exploring these transformation and their consequences in cities worldwide. Through the Transformations series, they offer Systems/Layers, a quick guide to running a walkshop for yourself, covering the particulars of choosing a terrain, knowing what to look for, recruiting participants, and promoting your event.

Published March 2011 in the Diffusion Transformations series

Nurri Kim, co-founder of Do projects and author of Tokyo Blues (2009), is an artist who is interested in exploring the narratives hidden in the ephemeral routines of everyday life. You can see her work at nurri.com.

Adam Greenfield, managing director of New York City-based urban systems design practice Urbanscale, is author of Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing (2006) and the forthcoming The City Is Here For You To Use.

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The Thetford Travelling Menagerie by DodoLab
March 11, 2011 – 12:03 pm | One Comment
The Thetford Travelling Menagerie by DodoLab

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About : This publication was produced for DodoLab’s program in Thetford, Norfolk, UK, commissioned by Deborah Smith as part of Thetford Art Projects and funded by Breckland Partnerships. The project took place in March, 2011, and featured community collaborations along with interventions and installations in public spaces. The project used a collection of images and stories of local creatures (past and present, real and imagined) as fables or parables to encourage reflection on the state of Thetford today.

Published March 2011

DodoLab is an art and design based program lead by Lisa Hirmer and Andrew Hunter that researches, engages and responds to contemporary community challenges, with a particular focus on the natural world, social systems, the built environment and cities in transition. They employ creative public interventions that are truly collaborative, encourage and evolve out of dialogue and critical reflection, and that strive for tangible and meaningful outcomes. DodoLab is consistently interested in the barriers to adaptation and change and engaging the public in public through projects that involve individuals and organizations who bring a diversity of experience and expertise. DodoLab’s always evolving methods of engagement reflect Hirmer and Hunter’s backgrounds in art, design, architecture, education, writing, image making and installation. Both DodoLab principals are Adjunct Faculty and Researchers at Waterloo Architecture (University of Waterloo School of Architecture).

DodoLab is a program of Waterloo Architecture funded by Musagetes and enhanced by commissioned collaborations with individuals and organizations in Canada and Internationally (including universities, municipalities, social service organizations and the arts). Since its launch in the spring of 2009, DodoLab has worked across Canada, in the United Kingdom and Croatia. Current active projects include work in Waterloo/Wellington Region, Greater Sudbury, Rijeka (Croatia), Lethbridge (Alberta), Prince Edward Island, Norfolk (United Kingdom) and in Toronto (with Harbourfront Centre and the Textile Museum of Canada). DodoLab works on an ongoing basis with such like-minded collectives as BrokenCityLab (Windsor) and proboscis (London, UK) and has been actively engaged with the Musagetes Cafe´ program.

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City As Material, An Overview by Giles Lane & Hazem Tagiuri
February 24, 2011 – 2:15 pm | 2 Comments
City As Material, An Overview by Giles Lane & Hazem Tagiuri

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About : This eBook presents an overview of 5 City As Material events run by Proboscis in Autumn 2010 and the collaborative eBooks created by the participants : Streetscapes, River, Skyline, Underside and Sonic Geographies. It is the 10th eBook in this initial series (other individual books were created by Tim Wright, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Ben Eastop & Simon Pope) – which will be published in a special limited edition slipcase set (using bookleteer’s Short Run Printing Service) in Spring 2011.

Published February 2011 in the City As Material Series

Giles Lane is the founder and director of Proboscis. He is an artist, researcher, designer and teacher and leads many of Proboscis projects including bookleteer.

Hazem Tagiuri is a writer and Creative Assitant at Proboscis.

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Library of Traces by Cambridge Curiosity & Imagination
February 21, 2011 – 2:25 pm | 2 Comments
Library of Traces by Cambridge Curiosity & Imagination

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Creative Connections, Wisbech Museum for Leverington School Facilitated by Idit Nathan A4 | US Letter PDF  775Kb
What is a reflective practitioner? A CCI workshop for ReFocus Cambridge Early Years Educators led by Sally Brown Pat-a-cake Nursery A4 | US Letter PDF 670Kb
Enabling Creativity, A workshop for educators led by Susanne Jasilek Kettle’s Yard A4 | US Letter PDF 3Mb
Slow Time, A workshop for educators led by Sally Brown Kettle’s Yard A4 | US Letter PDF 670Kb
Imagination and empathy, A workshop for early years educators at Homerton Nursery, Cambridge facilitated by Sally Brown A4 | US Letter PDF 1.3Mb
Out and About, An Ignite workshop for educators at Fields Children’s Centre Cambridge A4 | US Letter PDF 670Kb
Re-Imagine Training, A Day for Members of the Re-Cap Partnership Monday A4 | US Letter PDF 510Kb

About : These booklets offer participants at our professional development workshops a visible trace of their experiences. Bringing together some elements of narrative from the workshop facilitators, images from the session, and personal reflections and observations, these Traces offer us a playful way to continue a dialogue with the groups we work with.

We seek to continue to inspire and challenge the groups by offering back to them evidence of their learning experiences with us. Before discovering bookleteer, we had used an A4 format for our Traces but have been delighted to find this ingenious format as it offers a much more playful response. Like Proboscis, we know from our own work that taking part in the process of making can influence your thinking and attitudes. Inviting workshop participants to make their own Traces which they can keep as a record of their work with us, offers an ideal continuation of many of the ideas we have explored with them in the workshop itself.

Published February 2011

Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination (CCI) is a not for profit organisation working creatively with communities in a whole range of settings – we work in schools, hospitals, museums, galleries, forests, gardens and most recently with a waste treatment centre. We help make ideas grow by looking, making, exploring and discovering together. Our role was recently described by an enthusiastic scientist colleague as a ‘yeast’ enabling new possibilities for creativity to bubble up in a variety of settings.

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Skylines & Sightlines by Simon Pope
February 10, 2011 – 9:30 am | One Comment
Skylines & Sightlines by Simon Pope

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About : Even when high above the city, the eye’s true desire is to be in the throng, far below.  In this edited version of Pope’s City As Material photo essay, Skylines & Sightlines tells the story of its fall, the brute force rallied in order to regain its omnipotence and where it meets with an equally determined resistance.

Published February 2011 in the City As Material Series

Artist Simon Pope (1966. Exeter, UK.) lives and works in London. Recent work includes A Common Third at Danielle Arnaud, London (2010) and the film Memory Marathon (2010). He represented Wales at their inaugural exhibition at the Venice Biennale of Fine Art (2003) and as part of the artists’ group I/O/D, produced The Web Stalker (1997). More details at http://tinyurl.com/simonpope

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The 2nd Book of Urizen by Tim Wright
February 7, 2011 – 9:45 am | 2 Comments
The 2nd Book of Urizen by Tim Wright

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AboutThe 2nd Book of Urizen is a work in progress by Tim Wright. He prefers to call it a walk in progress. This booklet represents a sketch of a larger, richer work which will take the reader along the south London stretch of a longer L-shaped walk. See http://goo.gl/VQeYe

In the final production, it is imagined that a full ‘broadcast quality’ geolocated rendition of the Blake’s Book of Urizen will be available – peppered with the imagined sounds of Lambeth in 1794 with music provided by Haydn, who was composing & performing in London at the time.

The whole project is meant to conjure up the sense of Blake striding around his home patch, composing and declaiming – perhaps even singing – one of his great ‘prophetic’ works. Tim Wright continues:

“I’m hoping to explore what it’s like to walk around London alone with one’s thoughts and ideas; to be considered different or perhaps even mad.

I also want to explore a pet theory of mine that birth, miscarriage, childlessness and the pain of children growing up and apart from their parents were all things on William’s mind at that time – if even he didn’t quite know it.

By focussing on this theme it may also be possible to develop the voice of Blake’s wife, Catherine, who never had children, but instead dedicated herself to Blake, working ceaselessly as his creative partner to help produce great works such as The Book of Urizen. What was life like for her? And what discussions took place between William and Catherine about the prospect of never having a family?”

Published February 2011 in the City As Material series

Tim Wright is a digital writer, a cross platform media producer and a director of XPT Ltd. See www.xpt.com or follow @moongolfer on Twitter.

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Towards Psychonutrition by John Hartley
January 25, 2011 – 5:12 pm | 2 Comments
Towards Psychonutrition by John Hartley

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AboutTowards Psychonutrition considers the behaviours that feed growth and transformation of identity and aspiration. Departing from the practice and insights of psychogeography, the essay looks at other potential psychodisciplines, including psychonutrition and its major food groups, in a search for new playgrounds in which we might address who we are and who we might become.

Published January 2011 in the Diffusion Transformations series

John Hartley is an artist interested in contemporary myth and creativity. Recent projects include the Poundbury Robot Society; La Orquesta Tonta (the idiots orchestra); and Reading the Waves, a research publication looking at cultural and ecological resilience in Shetland and North Uist. He is co-director of the Difference Exchange, an agency using cultural and disciplinary difference as a driver for innovation and worked for Arts Council England as Arts and Ecology Strategy Officer.

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River Gap by Ben Eastop
January 19, 2011 – 2:40 pm | Comments Off on River Gap by Ben Eastop
River Gap by Ben Eastop

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About : I live and work on a barge at Bow Creek. This ebook tries to sum up my fascination with the partial disjuncture between the land and a floating vessel – both connected and disconnected at the same time, creating a one-step removed relationship with the city. You can see this ‘gap’ expressed all along the river – interrupted glimpses between buildings and riverside structures that both obscure the river and provide moments of promise.

Published January 2011 in the City As Material series

Ben Eastop is an independent art consultant and curator working predominantly in the public realm. He has worked collaboratively with a range of institutions, local authorities, museums, architects and commissioning agencies, with both emerging and well established artists and arts practitioners.

His work has ranged from permanent and temporary commissioning, to cross-disciplinary research projects and site-specific events, often in challenging and unconventional locations. He is co-founder of a new London based agency, Difference Exchange www.differenceexchange.com which seeks to use the notion of difference as a driver for collaborative, international projects linking contemporary art with academia and industry. River to River is an international, inter-disciplinary research project in partnership with TrAIN research centre examining cultural responses to climate change and the socio-political implications of globalisation as defined by rivers.

Recent projects have involved experiential engagement with specific landscapes, seeking to unfold new understandings of the social and political meaning of landscape resulting from human intervention. In partnership with artists and curators, these projects have evolved a hybrid practice, blurring the boundaries between artistic production, curation and event management in which the audience is seen as an essential element of a new work. Projects include Grain, with Tim Eastop and Andrew Dodds. www.grain244.com

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