my post this week is being written on a wet, windy and warm sunday following yesterdays first figment festival to happen in europe. a festival where i showed the re-imagined snee snaw.
the director of the silk mill development project had totally embraced what figment is and brought it to the uk and specifically to the silk mill. yet another first for this historic site.
the re-imagined snee snaw caught the imagination of visitors and i saw numerous methods of playing on the snee snaw.
today as i reflect upon the work i have a sense of an evolution within the way it works to further enhance the experience. it’s connected to something i wrestled on tuesday.
it wasn;t until i saw the work being fully realised and played with that what it was came into focus.
it’s been a very focussed week actually. beginning on monday with the bare essentials to finish the work.
the week included making a structure to contextualise the led and some covers for he seats. i think it’s been the first time on a sewing machine and i have to say with excellent guidance from staff at the silk mill really enjoyed myself.
there was a maker camp in the mill this week too. i contributed to the camp in small ways and on the last day the children at the camp were let loose on the snee snaw to test it.
something as not mentioned about the snee snaw is that it runs off battery.
the original plan was to have the work outdoors. with the weather being so changeable i ended up inside along with many of the other contributing artists. part of the testing process was to ensure that i could run the work for 5 hours on battery. the maker camp testing showed me that the led would only go for 4 hours. when i considered this i remembered that i was driving the led at full power to get maximum light output for being outside. with the news of being inside i made the connection to running the led at reduce brightness to maintain battery life. i’m so happy to say i achieved this.
running the snee snaw yesterday was again a very informative process. being with the work, playing with it again giving visual information for new players worked well and also being away from it let the really curious discover what happened with the work.
i’m looking forward to a little more headspace to be able to reflect about what happened yesterday and also about the entire residency as i’m soon going to be at the end sessation of it.
with this post i reach the deadline of the maker certificate programme and i hope that those of your reading it in connection with that have enjoyed reading and got something of the joy and pleasure at being a resident maker at the derby silk mill, the museum of making. a place that has made many safe opportunities for me to throw myself into trying something new.
i look to the future and hope i can continue this relationship in some way …
