• Andrew Sorensen - The physics playroom
• Ella Sergeant - Synaesthetic art
• Martyn Eggleton - Visual Minecraft Hacking on the Raspberry Pi

Plus! An exciting paper-based auction! Have a look between talks, and up the bids. All to help launch an urgent Access Space fundraising drive. If you’ve got some interesting bit of kit you have lying around, why not bring it along and add it to the auction? Pledged so far:

• A nanode, ethernet-enabled arduino!
• Your very own custom-built DronePhone!
• A new and exciting AlgoRave t-shirt!

For those new to the international phenomena Dorkbot, each meeting consists of around 3 presentations by “people doing strange things with electricity” – a purposefully loose definition for what you might call electronic or digital art. People come to dorkbot because they’re an engineer who wants to be an artist, or an artist who wants to be an engineer, are something in between, or otherwise interested. It’s free entry and beer is always available.

Raspberry Jam is also the same time and night as dorkbotsheffield this month, so we’re having an informal hangout together. They’re just down the road, upstairs in the Workstation (conference room 2), and will be doing various experiments with the Raspberry Pi, including with sensors, motors, steppers and servos. This is a bit of an experiment – we’re not sure exactly how this will work – but but feel free to move between the two events, and we will all end up in the same pub at the end.

Be sure to let us know if you would like to present something at a future dorkbot!

When: Friday 3rd August, 2012 from 6pm (Access Space) / 7pm (Site)
Door tax: Free entry, refreshments available
What: Another healthy evening of presentations and demos by people doing strange things with electricity, this time across two venues.  You’d be welcome at either, but why not come to both?

We start at Access Space (3 Sidney Street, S1 4RG) for a dorkbot prelude at 6pm, to visit their current artist-in-residence:

• Refab Space artist in residence, the Juneau Brothers (Juneau Projects and Joseph Welden), will discuss their latest project and the materials, technology and techniques behind it. They’ll give an overview of what the group does and where the residency idea comes from.
  The Refab Space houses a laser cutter and other equipment for creating a host of two and three dimensional objects. The residency involves creating sculptural midi controllers from, audio triggers and circuits boards for live performance. You can get hands on and try out the new instruments too.

Then we stroll a few metres down the road to Site gallery (1 Brown Street, S1 2BS) by 7pm for more:

• Susanne Palzer will talk about switching electricity off and going on in context of her interest in ‘performing technology without technology’. Following a period of R&D and the project RAM/RAR/RAA+RAP(s) - A Random Process Experiment at Access Space she will present recent findings: how she uses electricity for research and to learn about technology, her attempts to translate what she has learnt into physical performance – e.g. an ‘analogue hack of presentation software’ – and the temptation to switch electricity back on and use altered software in the future.
• Alex McLean will talk about Live Coding, using programming languages to make live music.  Alex has been writing software to make music to drink beer to for over ten years in Slub, succeeding in making rooms full of people dance to algorithms on several occasions.  He makes increasingly broken techno, writing code live in self-built languages.  Lately he has been collaborating with Jake Harries to make statistically improbable pop music as Silicone Bake.  Alex will talk a bit about how live coding has developed over the past ten years, show some of the live coding environments he has made, and look to a future of interactive programming languages based on visual and tangible interaction.
• Plus! We hope to have a representative from the Audacious Art Experiment to talk about their work with respect to their day-to-night festival taking place at Site gallery the following day (Saturday 4th August).

Plus more TBC!  If you would like to talk about something strange involving electricity in some way, please do get in touch at dorkbotsheffield@lurk.org

Dorkbot is an evening of informal talks/demos for people doing strange things with electricity.

Time: 6:30pm for a 7pm start, Friday 8th June 2012
Place: Access Space
Door tax: Free, but please register so we know about quantities of seats and beer

Dorkbot returns, after a nine month journey around venues along the street, to Access Space , just around the corner from Sheffield Station and opposite the Rutland Arms . It’ll be the usual format, people presenting the strange things that they have done with electricity.

This month’s presenters:
* MzTEK is a London based organisation which provides a learning community in technology and arts for women. They will be talking about how they got started, the kinds of things they get up to and how they’d like to spread the word outside London.
They will also be running a fun intro to Arduino workshop for women the following day.

*Stretchyboy (aka Martyn Eggleton) will present the “Steam Punk Organ” collaborative project, an interactive marvel of the contemporary Victorian Age created with a laser cutter, sensors and a some recycled junk electronics

*Flying Monkey TV. Media artist, Richard Bolam will talk about this open, collaborative project that uses low-impact methods to capture events. This can be time-lapse, video clips and stills, but the aim is to develop a technical framework that can be used to automatically compile, cross reference and deliver the media quickly.

* Writer and broadcaster, Leila Johnston will be bringing along a couple of the things that she and James Jefferies have been exploring during the Happenstance technology residencies at Sheffield’s Site Gallery.

*Iain Sharpe  is developing a modular synth that won’t break the bank and looking for volunteers to try it out.
He’s bringing one along to dorkbotsheffield and will be giving a short presentation.
Iain’s blog entries about it:
http://lushprojects.com/blog/2012/03/mod-synth-concept-part1/
http://lushprojects.com/blog/2012/03/mod-synth-concept-part/

Access Space is an open access media lab, computer recycler and art space running on the power of Open Source Software and trash technology. It has recently opened Refab Space, a DIY fablab, next door where it is installing tools like a 3D printer, CNC router and laser cutter.

GISTLab

Coming up, the fourth installment of dorkbotsheffield!

Dorkbot is an evening of informal talks/demos for people doing strange things with electricity.  [more info]

Time: 6:30pm, Thursday 10th May 2012
Place: GIST Lab
Door tax: Free, but please register or we might not get enough beer in

This time dorkbot surfaces in the GIST Lab, a couple of minutes away from the train station.  It’ll be the usual format, some people presenting the strange things that they have done with electricity.

Featuring the bright and breezy:

• Kate Sicchio works at the interface of dance and technology. She will present her work on video tracking systems and choreography and her new project on ‘hacking’ choreography.
• Aaron Ibbotson will deliver the Young Hitckhiker’s Guide to the Self-Replicating Machine Odyssey
• Simon Blackmore of the Owl Project will talk about recent work involving wood and electricity.
• Duncan Rowland will present “Pure Flow”, a collaboration with Katy Connor that generates live, moving imagery and sound from the satellite data flows in the Global Positioning System

GIST host all manner of other activities of interest to dorks, including Open Lab, their monthly hackers/makers/tinkerers workshop.

When: 6:30pm, Friday 23rd March, 2012
Where: Showroom Cinema, Sheffield (Half a minute’s walk from Sheffield train station)
Within: Lovebytes: Digital Spring – a festival of art, science and technology
Door tax:  £5/4, tickets now available from showroom
Antisocial: Facebook, twitter, lanyrd

Presentations and performances:

A cabaret of performances and talks from among the UK’s (and Catalunya’s) dorkiest, to entertain and amaze:

Paul Granjon - Paul Granjon will present a mix of thoughts on humans and machines and a selection of robots, including good old Mofo the little humanoid and some crude EEG human robot communication.

Patrick Tresset - talking about his drawing robot called Paul
(on show at the Intuition and Ingenuity exhibition in Lovebytes)

Daniel Jones and James Bulley - talking and demoing their new Maelstrom installation

Sarah and Jenny Angliss - playing robot Spacedog music from past futures

Sergi Jorda - talking about the Reactable tangible tabletop music playground
(which you’ll be able to try out at Lovebytes)

Dan Stowell - Demonstrates his use of the Risset illusion in techno music

Silicone Bake - Live coded pop songs about love, death and counterfeit watches, where all lyrics are taken from spam emails.

Dorkbotsheffield#2 featured four strange dorkbot presentations 
involving electricity in some way, in particular:

 -> IAIN SHARP talking about his legendary arcade machines including
    CYCLEPONG and his mechanical remake of LUNAR LANDER
    http://lushprojects.com/

 -> JO ARMITAGE showing her HANDMADE MUSIC INTERFACES, in particular
    a neat touchscreen arduino hack and a melodica style app.

 -> BEN DORNAN talking about his experiments in MIND CONTROLLED
    MUSIC, which may require some explanation.  Luckily, he sent this
    info:

    "While it may not be the most obvious pairing, for over 50 years
    composers and scientists have been probing how the brain can be
    used to create and manipulate music. Over time this has developed
    from simple sonification to complex control systems, and has
    moved from the lab into the home thanks to consumer grade EEG
    technology. An outline of this progress will be traced, along
    with a demonstration of how accessible the technology and
    techniques have become."

 -> JAKE HARRIES will be walking round the corner from his base in
    Access Space to talk about the ZERO DOLLAR LAPTOP project.
    Here's some info from Jake:

    "Zero Dollar Laptop Workshops have been running in London since
    January 2010, the first project was with St Mungos Charity for
    the Homeless in London. We recycle computer hardware and install
    Free and Open Source Software to build media laptops and create
    music, graphics and video for distribution over the Internet."
    http://www.furtherfield.org/zerodollarlaptop/
    http://www.access-space.org

• Jennifer Rich talking about sound walking,
• John Mosely showing us his homebrew sequencer for the arduino/auduino and
• Sam Freeman introducing his physical model of a gramophone
• Plus! Hopefully we’ll have a microtalk from Eva and Franco Mattes, with a hook-up with their highly recommended new exhibition at Site Gallery…