VIP Room by 8gg
Space4, Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery, Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF

folly's immersive installation "VIP Room" - commissioned last year from Chinese artists 8gg - is touring to Peterborough this month and next as part of the national "China Now" festival.

This is the fourth venue that the project has toured to, starting at Manchester's Cornerhouse in September and including workshop performances with Urban Screens in Manchester and HTTP in London.

Audiences in Peterborough will experience V.I.P. Room's array of huge computer keys and projected imagery, where changes in sound and vision are controlled by the actions of visitors. Sitting on each key causes a different sound or video clip to be played on the big screen. The work is fun, visually-sumptuous, hands-on, technological and thought-provoking.

read more

 

 

- a micro-festival of open source practice in the production of media art and music

folly and SoundNetwork are kicking off the Summer with an exciting collaboration bringing a micro-festival of art and music to Liverpool, as part of the European Capital of Culture.

Liverpool has a strong history of doing innovative things with electricity, from the birth of the power grid (Sebastian Ferranti) to the early computer games industry (Psygnosis, Ocean, and ZTT). Liverpool also has a formidable musical legacy inevitably centred around the pop phenomenon of The Beatles but which spans every musical genre from classical to electro.

Open Source City tips its hat to Liverpool’s pioneering spirit by offering a programme of art, workshops, masterclasses, talks and concerts that shed light on the growing impact of Free/Libre Open Source Software on the creative practices of today, in particular in media art and music.

read more

 

 

Northwest digital art charity folly is delighted to be presenting the f.wish “wishing tree” artwork in Spanish at this month’s Digital Media 1.0 art festival in sunny Valencia, home of paella, Las Fallas fiesta and of world class architecture. The digital art festival and symposium starts today and last until the middle of May.

The online artwork “f.wish” – which involves participants casting their wishes up into a virtual tree – was created for folly by digital art duo boredomresearch in 2006. The Spanish version of the wishing tree that will be available at the Festival is the third iteration of the tree, with one version being kept in a digital art archive at Cornell University that will be maintained in perpetuity.

read more

 

 

folly is looking for volunteers.

Specialists in the creative use of technology and arts participation online, folly is committed to enabling new audiences to explore art through technology.

Volunteering for folly is an excellent way to gain experience within a creative and exciting arts environment.

folly is currently looking for a volunteer able to commit one day per week on an ongoing basis. The post would suit recent graduates, higher education students, or anyone interested in starting a career in the arts or charitable sector. Click the read more link for more information and application details.

read more

 

 

folly, alongside fellow Northwest arts organisations FACT, Cornerhouse, Liverpool John Moores' University and ICDC, (the International Centre for Digital Content), has completed an exciting new project working with young people from the Northwest. The project culminated in the exhibition of two "Body Language" suits at FACT, at folly's follyplay event in Burnley in February and at Manchester's Cornerhouse last month. The suits were part of an artwork commissioned and conceived by the young people themselves.

read more

 

 

A virtual beacon of creative excellence:  North West digital organisation’s drive for artistic leadership

Embracing the challenge of a digital future, folly - the North West's leading organisation for digital culture - will set about making 2008 a significant year of change. folly are in the process of ‘putting into place far sighted plans that will contribute towards transformational change for the region’, says Chief Executive Taylor Nuttall.

At a time when the Lancaster-based charity is alive with ideas, and fresh from the success of VELOCITY – its festival of digital culture set in Morecambe Bay last autumn - folly has gathered audience statistics that reveal the extent of its success: an overall 250% rise from 2006. Successful projects such as What’s Cooking, Grandma?, the highly acclaimed ‘digi_club’ for the under-16’s, the virtual wishing tree ‘f.wish’, and the ‘Digital Artists Handbook’ saw 74% of folly's audience participation taking place online.

Chief Executive, Taylor Nuttall says: “This is a very exciting period for us".

read more

 

 

A contemporary take on the pantheon of Hindu gods is launching a new international digital artist residency programme at the national Creation Centre in Cumbria.

Manchester-based, Sumit Sarkar (whose work is pictured), is the first artist to benefit from the pioneering programme created by one of the UK’s leading digital arts agencies, folly, and groundbreaking arts events company, Lanternhouse International.

The latter is based at the Creation Centre in Ulverston in picturesque South Lakeland and forged a dynamic partnership with folly, its near neighbour in Lancaster, to encourage and foster the development of internationally significant digital artists via the residency scheme.

read more

 

 

A children's playground for the 21st century

folly has announced an important and ground-breaking new project, which is set to have national - possibly international - significance: the Portable Pixel Playground.

The project has succeeded in gaining funding from the Big Lottery Fund, and folly is the only North West organisation to have won a bid under this round of the Big Lottery Fund's "Playful Ideas" programme.

folly's Portable Pixel Playground is an innovative and physical new play space that is intrinsically digital. By connecting children's experiences of technology with play and creativity, folly hopes to unleash and re-energise childen's ability to express themselves in the ever-more-important digital world.

read more

 

 

You’ve experienced the art, now for the stats.

We’ve been collecting and collating feedback from all our audience members, artists and partners for this autumn’s VELOCITY festival of digital culture, and we’ve got some things we’re glad to shout about.

Comments from audience members about VELOCITY have included "wonderful opportunity to see arts here in the North West" and "superb".

In total, over 20 000 people visited and took part in VELOCITY’s events, exhibitions and activities, and over 6000 people have engaged with VELOCITY’s online projects to date, with that figure rising every day. You can check out the VELOCITY microsite at www.folly.co.uk/velocity

read more