Documentation of the R&D process for The Common Line project March-September 2018. A partnership project between Blind Ditch, Controlled Frenzy, and Geography at University of Exeter with support from Rural Recreation. Funded by AHRC-EPSRC this R&D was kindly supported by University of Cumbria.

The Common Line - AHRC-EPSRC R&D

The Common Line

The Common Line R&D process

A participatory arts project developed from crowd-sourced creative writings by bus passengers about their journies on the D bus in Exeter. Commissioned by University of Exeter, Arts and Culture 2018 in partnership with Stagecoach.

D-tour: thoughts looking sidewards

D-Tour: thoughts looking sidewards

D-Tour: thoughts looking sidewards – single channel video

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Colourful interactive map of Buckland estate in Newton Abbot

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Happening Here!

An interactive map of Buckland

Culture & Review On Phonic Fm: August 2015: Culture Hour – O-B-A-F-G Special

O-B-A-F-G

Collaborative audio work and radio documentary

A short edit of This City's Centre, 3. Here Now, a performance incorporating live video streaming, staged between a third-floor office space in Princesshay, Exeter and the streets and homes of the city. This City's Centre was a digital triptych for Exeter. Developed by Blind Ditch in 2013 in partnership with Exeter Phoenix, RAMM, Exeter College and funded by Arts Council England, Exeter City Council and Arts and Culture at University of Exeter.

Performers in order of appearance: Phil Smith, Katy Villa, Jonny Rowden, Students from Exeter College, Jane Mason, Lizzy Humber. Music is from Consort of Fower Parts composed by Matthew Locke in Exeter 1660 ca. played by Cat Radford on accordian outside Exeter Cathedral. Camera by Philibert Patricot. Edit Volkhardt Müller.

This City's Centre 3. Here,Now

This City’s Centre

This City’s Centre 3. Here, Now – video trailer

Volkhardt Müller (Blind Ditch) and John Wylie (Cultural Geography, University of Exeter) discuss This City's Centre 1. Window

Private Views and Public Art

A long journey through the city centre shopping centre livens up the morning (August, 2008).

Global Player - the long play

Global Player

Global Player – the long play

A 24 minute documentary on the process and impact of the project including interviews with partners and collaborators. Filmed in 2007 in PAL!

VANLAND Documentary

VANLAND

VANLAND documentary about our working process 2004-07

Short video work using 'home movie' footage created to be used in the performance and installation 'Who Wants to be a Hero Now' in 2006. Edit Volkhardt Mueller, sound John Levack Drever, words Natalie Mcgrath performed by Cat Radford. Child Lena Mueller.

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Who Wants to be a Hero Now?

Divine – video used in the 2006 installation

Young graffiti artist Spike gives our caravan a face-lift. Too many people on country fairs have been suspecting we're selling caravans. No more of that from now on!

VANLAND Trailer 2006

VANLAND trailer 2006

A collection of documents and media produced over the course of 20+ years.

A series of artist commissions, exhibitions, workshops and film screenings curated to support the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://dev.blindditch.org/project/museum-of-contemporary-commodities/" data-type="project" data-id="297" target="_blank">MoCC project </a>in Exeter.

Curation

Participatory

Interdisciplinary

Workshop

This series of art and cultural events offered more opportunities for publics to get involved in activities and discussions on Museum of Contemporary Commodities project themes of data, trade, place and values. We also hosted some exciting national and international visitors in Exeter.

Using the GSR sensor gloves in 'Cuppa Data' by Autonomous Tech Fetish

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Using a playful and critical approach to digital data and new technologies, Autonomous Tech Fetish created DIY wearables to explore how we consume data and how it consumes us. Partnering with Libraries Unlimited and St Sidwell&#8217;s Community Centre, they presented a series of artworks &#8211; ­ ‘data dishes’ and ‘cutlery contraptions’ ­ produced from local data as part of a new work called Data Buffet: All You Can Input. This was the culmination of two months research in Exeter and in London. The result was a selection of artworks that reimagined the digital in the context of our day-to-day lives.

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From health records to supermarkets, benefit monitoring to data-driven dairies, the processes that data systems enable and require affect and impact on our bodies in countless ways. The three projects served in the Data Buffet used locally sourced data and materials generated by everyday activities in Exeter cafes and eateries. Each work was an experiment that treated data as something embodied in everyday life and capable of effecting change in the world, even if we cannot always see or hear it. By reclaiming data from unlikely sources and creating new flows and processes with it, we can begin to sense the power of data to change our bodies and environment – creating new forms of economic, social and political value.

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Re-making the Internet by Louise Ashcroft

Re-making the Internet workshop participant

Ready to begin re-making at St Sidwell's Community Centre

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In May 2016 artist <a href="https://www.louiseashcroft.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Louise Ashcroft</a> set off a rumour that the internet was going to be re-built from scratch, in the unlikely tech-hub of Exeter. A <a href="http://remakingtheinternet.weebly.com/trailer.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">video trailer</a> was exhibited at Exeter Phoenix to catalyse discussion about how and why we might want to remake this global information network in a local, fairly rural context. The idea of a community reaching a consensus and cooperatively remaking the Internet was a contrast to the way the Internet itself evolves disparately; a cacophony of discordant international voices fighting for clicks.

StSidwells internet

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The project worked with different local community groups: tech-savvy children from <a href="https://www.codeclub.org.uk/clubs/531f1d639d200f755b0008ad" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Code Club</a>, the artist collective <a href="https://www.facebook.com/prestonstreetunion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Preston Street Union</a>, students passing through a foyer space at <a href="http://www.exeter.ac.uk/forum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">University of Exeter</a>, drop-in participants at Exeter Phoenix, and the people of <a href="http://www.stsidwells.org.uk/sidsnew/cafe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">St Sidwell’s</a> community centre. By thinking about how we could remake the internet, we considered what it is about digital culture that we value, and what we want to change.

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Louise translated the notes she made in the workshops into a series of diagrams which can be viewed <a href="http://remakingtheinternet.weebly.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HERE</a>. Concepts such as adding eyeholes to all the screens, a Netflix for dreams, a local yodelling subculture, ‘eye-contact walks’, or an experimental ‘front-door theatre’ where people peer into one another’s private spaces; use humour to explore complex subjects such as voyeurism, loneliness and empathy. The diagrams are recipes for ways of being and relating to one another, perhaps parodying Internet culture as a means of understanding the primal, core human traits that technology appeals to, accentuates and transforms.

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A work from Art-Articles on display at TOPOS

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Curated in partnership with TOPOS Exeter, Art-Articles by <a href="https://www.galerie-eigenheim.de/exhibitions/art-articlescom-konstantin-bayer-solo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Berlin based Konstantin Bayer</a> is an exhibition that invites you to follow the artist’s plans to build your own installation out of things bought off Amazon. The exhibition at TOPOS was accompanied by an evening discussion event on material cultures, digital systems and socially engaged art practices. Funded by University of Exeter Geography Department.

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Project curated and produced by Paula Crutchlow and <a href="https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Ian_Cook" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ian Cook</a> in collaboration with Exeter Phoenix, Fab Lab Devon and Libraries Unlimited, St Sidwell&#8217;s Community Centre and Volkhardt Mueller/TOPOS.
Funded by Arts Council England Lottery Fund, Economic and Social Research Council, and University of Exeter Geography Department.