Digital Maker’s projects, building on ideas & lessons learned to create…. something!
Martin Evans & Phil Thompson
We’d planned on turning this page into a “weekly update” on projects, which started out great! but, it was proving difficult to constantly invent a “new thing to explore” every week – so, we’ve converted this page to “Projects” and aim to update / add as often as we can – We’ve also been using our “Blog” to post projects, forgetting to link them here! (Blame Phil & his disdain for wordpress & the constant updates & changes to the CMS… (said Phil)).
Oor Monsters / Oor Future (interactive Art Exhibition for the Aberdeen Music Hall March2023 – September 2023)
Our Phil (Thompson) and his Wife, Gabrielle Reith (Small Stories) were commissioned by the Music Hall / Aberdeen Performing Arts in December 2022 to make an art exhibition to engage with the public on climate change & the issues that surround climate action. With their “Ad Hoc Collective Project” called “Oor Monster” (started in 2009 as a way of proving the married couple could work together, after being told in a failed bid that they had no experience of working together, despite being married for 8 years & having a child together!) they decided to make wooden sculptures (recycled wood) & add “fun & engaging interactivity” to them. Their previous work had been proven to engage & break down preconceptions of art engagement through childlike play, “cute” look & feels and simple ways of getting the attention of viewers & participants.
The “two headed monsters” created addressed eight key issues the couple identified as the most pressing & easiest ways for individuals to question what they can do to help combat climate change, and create discourse around those issues – in order to speak to / inform / question and challenge politicians & businesses resistant or sceptical of climate action. You can visit the Oor Monsters website for more details & historical content here
Out of the 16 “two headed monsters” Phil used Raspberry Pi Pico & Pimoroni Tiny 2040’s in 4 of the works to create engaging, electronics based interaction. Using Ada Fruit‘s “CircuitPython” environment, their work has since been featured on the CircuitPython newsletter as “Project of the week” .
Phil has started to document & upload the code for each project & we will post them in the blog & link here.