The eclectic backgrounds and experiences of Soda's flexible crew of associates typically bridge business, artistic and technical divides. Their personal art practice and research reflects this breadth of interests and enriches the culture of creativity that Soda supports. Led by Fiddian teams are dynamically formed to meet the requirements of each project.
Recent entries by team members more
Post Me_New ID 30 October 08
Fiddian’s off to talk Robotics and Avatars in Dresden at the International media art festival CYNETart_08. The Post Me_New ID forum will bring together interdisciplinary practitioners in art and technology to discuss in various formats, from keynotes to Quickfires, issues concerning contemporary and future forms of networked creations and multi-identities.
Fiddian gets Neurotic 16 April 08
In Fiddian’s performance Neurotic, giant pogo-ing robots attend 3 punk gigs. Neurotic questions how learning develops through the empathetic responses of the brain. The robots’ own neural networks are modelled on so-called ‘mirror neurons’ in the brain which stimulate mimicry. Each robot is exposed to punk records that Fiddian collected as a youth. The intention is that the robots develop their neural connectivity through ‘listening’. See www.fiddian.com for more details
Passing by 26 November 07
Soda friend and collaborator James Tindall brings us Passingby, a never ending video journey assembled from brief travel glimpses from around the world. Add your own clips via youTube or just sit back and enjoy.
Make way for play 8 October 07
On Friday 19th October I’ll be taking part in the 2007 Cinekid Festival, which is an annual Film, Television and New Media Festival for Children that is held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In the morning I’m promised to be providing brain-food for media/ICT creatives and in the afternoon I’ll make way for play.
b.TWEEN Users as developers 17 May 07
Fiddian is leading a panel entitled ‘Users as developers’ at the UK’s biggest interactive media industry gathering b.TWEEN07 on June 15th. The panel will look at what strategies can be employed to meaningfully involve users in content and application development. Sodaplay, Newtoon and Animoodle will be Soda’s key exemplars. Come along, say hello and contribute to the debate. b.TWEEN07 is… Innovation, Information and Inspiration for Digital Entrepreneurs… Turning Creativity into Cash
Secret Moovl fan? 17 May 07
One of my countless automated internet spys recently noticed a brand new moovl blog on the interwebs. Soda is clueless as to who is running it, but whoever it is - they are doing a good job promoting our much loved Moovl.
Bets are on our publisher being the culprit - but nobody really knows. A mystery!
Digitally Ours 30 March 07
Soda is appearing in Digitally Yours, an international digital art exhibition collaborated by Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova museum and The Regional Art Council of Southwest Finland. As well as featuring Sodaplay the exhibition has been an opportunity to work with Zach Lieberman on an all new version of Ed v Zach.
An architectual association 7 February 07
On the afternoon of Wednesday 14th February I’ve been invited to give a lecture at the Architectural Association. This open event has been organised by the AA’s New Media and Info Systems Research Cluster led by Joel Newman, Theo Spyropoulos and Vasilis Stroumpakos.
Is subscription the next search? 19 January 07
Richard Sedley, director of cScape‘s Customer Engagement Unit, asked Soda to contribute a few thoughts for a small end of year brochure reflecting on the space we are working in (or rather one of the spaces soda is):
Search is key to the internet - it has been for a while and it will be for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately the very nature of searching always requires the user to have quite detailed knowledge of what he/she is actually looking for. Subscription is an powerful alternative way to access the vast amount of information on offer. Rather then searching for specific information you subscribe to a trusted source of information. Just like search, subscription is well established and supported already. There are few online publishers left who do not yet offer their content for subscription via RSS, atom, or email.
The challenge lies in helping users to identify the trustworthy and valuable sources and more importantly, to manage and maintain a vast collection of these sources. The real danger we need to mitigate against is that of loosing control, not because there is too much noise but because there is a such colossal quantity of potentially valuable signal.
Soda Excites Minds 27 November 06
We were delighted to be invited to exhibit at Creative Partnerships’ Conference and Arena this week. In inflatable pods the Arena showcased some of the most innovative creative work currently going on in partnership with young people. Soda was honoured to be exhibiting alongside such company as The British Council, The Guardian, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Arts Council England, Futurelab, FACT, etc. etc. Groovy artist architects Muf were recreating a dramatic and colourful school installation they have been working on and grand verbaliser Mickey was heroically captaining Talkaoke The event was produced to inform creative teachers from around the country about the work of Creative Partnerships and engage them in debate about future best practice.