Lost Cuckoo: the video
We have put together this short video about our Lost Cuckoo project with artist Marcus Rowlands from the DVD produced by the Lakeside Art Centre, who hosted the event last year.
The project was great fun and we are looking forward to develop this concept in other art festivals this year!
Lost Cuckoo report
The Lost Cuckoo project culminated last weekend with an event at the Wheee! International Childrens' Theatre and Dance Festival at Nottingham's Lakeside Arts Centre. Nearly 1000 visitors participated in this live public art project, building imaginative and gravity-defying structures.
In the weeks leading up to the festival, we designed with artist Marcus Rowlands and families from three schools in Bilborough, a cardboard building “module”. In essence, a box with a “secret corner” that could be popped in to join boxes together at interesting and unpredictable angles.
We've blogged about the project before: You can read more about the process, the event, and catch up on our live blog from the event itself.
We really enjoyed working on this project and are very proud of the results. This is largely down to our brilliant collaborators: Marcus Rowlands, Ruth Lewis-Jones from the Lakeside and — most importantly of all — the children, parents and staff from Portland, Melbury and Brocklewood schools.
Thanks also must go out for the generous support given by the Lakeside Arts Centre, the Arts Council England, Faspak, Staples and Nottingham Education Improvement Partnership.
The Lost Cuckoo live!
Follow the event at the Lakeside Arts centre live on our event mini-blog.
The Lost Cuckoo this weekend
2hd and Marcus Rowlands would like to invite you, your family and friends to come and take part in The Lost Cuckoo, an exciting outdoor public art installation.
For the last four months we have been working with families from three schools inthe Bilborough area of Nottingham. Together we have designed a cardboard construction module that can be assembled to build unusual structures and forms. The families will be on hand to share ideas and help with your creations.
This event is part of the International Children’s Theatre and Dance Festival happening at the Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham, on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th June from11am to 5pm.
You can download this printable poster to spread the word. We are looking forward to seeing you there!
This project is being supported by the Lakeside Arts Centre, the Arts Council England, Faspak, Staples and Nottingham Education Improvement Partnership.
Mass observation
Our friend Colin Haynes, who worked with us on the Sneinton Trail project, has just introduced me to the Mass Observation movement.
Initiated in 1937 by anthropologist Tom Harrisson, poet Charles Madge and film-maker Humphrey Jennings, this project aimed to record the daly life of Britain through diaries or open-ended questionnaires filled in by hundreds of untrained volunteers. Recording everything, from everyday conversations to wall graffiti and jokes heard in public occasions, they created strangely detailed and offbeat snapshots of British society.
We love to share
At 2hD we work in close collaboration but generally a couple of thousand kilometres apart. While the gap between us can come and go, the work needs to flow on a seamless basis. We mash together a number of technologies to achieve this, but one tool has really helped us to crack our file sharing issues: SugarSync.
It is a cloud based backup that allows a fairly fine-grained control over which files get synced to where. We think it is, well... sweet.
If you would care to check it out, we can both benefit from free storage — 500 mb each if you sign up for a free (5 Gb) account, and 10 Gb each if you decide to move up to a paid account.
Just follow this referral link. Sweet syncing!
The Lost Cuckoo takes flight
In our first set of workshops we asked families to build with standard cardboard boxes and colourful tapes. They produced an amazing array of sculptures and spaces, pushing the boxes to do the unexpected and giving us plenty of inspiration to start the design of our special module.
Further workshops will run over the months until the Festival, on June 4th and 5th at the Lakeside Arts Centre.
This project is being supported by the Lakeside Arts Centre, the Arts Council England, Faspak and Nottingham Education Improvement Partnership.
Quieting the lizard brain
Remote model making
We've just had an exciting collaboration with artist Tristan Hessing on a public art installation for the Lincolnshire coast (more about this project very soon...). Tom and Tristan have been working together in Nottingham to develop the form of the structure, while I was handling the CAD modelling and 3D renders from Belgrade.
As part of the project, we also needed to produce physical models of the facetted shape that Tristan had come up with. With a 3D computer model in Belgrade and a physical model to be built in Nottingham, how to communicate to Tom all the information he needed to quickly fabricate a physical object perfectly matching the numerical one?
The first stage was to check the geometry of the folding pattern with a paper net, which could be printed onto card with our office A3 printer. The Flattery plugin for SketchUp came in handy to explode the facets of the object and generate the tabs to glue the different pieces together. The rather complex geometry required that the net was split into 8 foldable panels, each with a different form.
To simplify the assembly, I colour-coded and labeled the facets and tabs, with some 3D orientation views to explain how the different pieces were meant to be glued together. I emailed Tom a PDF version of this net.
A few hours later, Tom video-conferenced me with the assembled model. So far so good. This paper model would later be spray-painted black and used for one of our models.
We then needed a durable plastic version that could be handled by the public and we called on to the expertise at the workshops at Nottingham Trent University — we both teach there part-time and Tristan is a graduate from their Fine Art school. I generated an STL file from the 3D model and sent it to the workshop, to be fed to their computer controlled milling machine. The idea was to manufacture a strong mould onto which thin plastic versions could be formed by vacuum.
Four hours passed and Tom called me from the workshop with the mould ready, CNC-machined from a solid block of MDF. Nice!
Tom then laboured hard with the workshop team to produce two perfect vacuum-formed plastic shapes. I received the images by email straight from the workshop.
This beats having a 3D printer directly connected to my laptop! Many thanks to the team at the NTU workshops for their expertise and help!
Read more about this project in our portfolio...
Testing our new inflatable pavilion
We were commissioned last March by the Lille Métropole Museum of Modern Art, in France, to conceive an innovative pavilion to host the ceremonies celebrating the museum’s re-opening after five years of refurbishment and extension works.
Challenging the existing negative paradigm of event tents, we designed a diaphanous inflatable textile structure to create a mesmerising spatial experience for visitors to the Art Museum and a striking backdrop for its high-profile public events.
We have teamed up with Inflate, experienced makers of successful inflatable event structures, to produce the custom-designed pavilion that fitted within the tight budget of the not-for-profit art organisation, while being versatile enough to host the wide spectrum of events envisaged by the museum, from official receptions to dance performances.
We have just received the photos of the first inflation test of the structure at Inflate's workshop and we are quite thrilled! (Images: Inflate)
More on this after the installation of the structure in Lille at the end of September!
Update: for more information about this project, see our press release section and on our portfolio...
