monome: open practice project

We found out recently that our monome: open practice project Arts Council England (ACE) Grants For The Arts application was unsuccessful. Feedback was that we scored strongly in all respects bar the ‘public facing’ programming aspects - i.e. reaching a potentially wide and general audience. And if its any solace, it seems that we were only one of many failing to win awards - with visual arts in general and media arts in particular really feeling the squeeze over the 35% cut in arts funding overall.

This is of course genuinely disappointing news - which we’ve been mulling over ever since. We have resubmitted an ACE application which responds to the feedback from the last attempt. We’ll find out if this has any more success by the end of June.

The project as it is conceived at the moment requires funding - we just can’t initiate the programme we’re proposing without it. So its with regret that we are once again postponing the launch event and follow-up sessions detailed below. And rather than reschedule another launch event date we’re just going to hold off until we know whether we can actually proceed.

We’re genuinely sorry for any disappointment… and once again for the short notice. Believe us - this is really not how we wanted to launch the project.

Fingers crossed…

So after a bit of a scramble we’ve finalised details for a rescheduled monome: open practice project: launch event:

Thursday, 12th June 2008, 7-10pm at the Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH - POSTPONED.

We’ve also arranged three follow-up sessions the subsequent first Thursday in every month which we’d also like you to pencil in your diaries:

Thursday, 3rd July 2008, 7-10pm - POSTPONED
Thursday, 7th August 2008, 7-10pm - POSTPONED
Thursday, 4th September 2008, 7-10pm - POSTPONED

at venues yet to be confirmed but including the Bishopsgate Institute, Old Spitalfields Market and Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, Southwark Bridge Road. Thanks go to Tony at Kinetica Museum and Keith at Novas for their help and support here… 

We’re genuinely sorry for any confusion… and the last minute nature of it all… it’s really not how we wanted to start things off.

We’re just responding to advice from our link officer at Arts Council London and trying to give the project the very best chance of a successful grant application… which we really do need in order to move this project forward. Fingers crossed everyone… we’ll have an answer the week of the 28th April - and you’ll all be the first to know!

Next stage for us is to confirm the programme for the launch event - we’re organising a series of 5 minute presentations on “What I do with my monome” or “What I would do with a monome” - contact us if you have a contribution.

We also want to start developing the collective nature of this blog by giving all subscribers the ability to respond to and comment on posts.  Please ‘Join The Mailing List’ - it actually subscribes you as a User to the blog - and in a little while we’ll email you with details of how you can login and contribute - once we’ve worked a little bit more on the infrastructure, which as we’ve indicated previously, we’re rolling out as we go.

Hello to readers from the monome forums! We weren’t intending to make this website public until the details of the Monome: Open Practice Project were fully finalised, but certain eagle-eyed parties rumbled us early so here’s the current information on the project’s status.

We had a venue and date provisionally arranged for our launch night, as part of the NODE.London Spring 08 season of media arts. However, on advice from our link at the Arts Council, we’re going to delay the project launch till mid-May or early-June and relocate to another venue. We just want to ensure that our application has its best chance of success. Hopefully, all will be well, and we’ll announce the results of our application here as soon as we receive them - as well as details of the new launch event date and venue!

In the meantime, we’re proceeding as planned and are still interested to hear from anyone who’d like to get involved.

We’re also making ongoing changes to this blog to develop it as a forum for collaboration and discussion, so apologies for any bugs or breakages that ensue…

Thursday, 24th April, 7-10.30pm

SPACE Studios, 129-131 Mare St, Hackney, London E8 3RH

Final date and venue pending, more news coming soon!

Interested? Want to contribute? Want to get involved? Contact Us.

monomes are beautifully designed, hand-crafted, adaptable minimalist interfaces for controlling and monitoring pretty much anything audio, visual and beyond.

monome are Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, Philadelphia based artists who open source all aspects of the units’ hardware and sofware to their growing and enthusiastic community of users.

“we’re making available devices with which you can have an entirely different relationship… we seek less complex, more versatile tools: accessible, yet fundamentally adaptable… achieved through minimalistic design, enabling users to more quickly discover new ways to work, play, and connect. we see flexibility not as a feature, but as a foundation.“

The open practice project focuses on these devices as the vehicle to support and encourage creative collaboration and meaningful exchange between a diverse group of all ages. It aims to create a playful, experimental space and a supportive framework in which users can share work, realise new technological ideas, be inspired, challenged and stretched.

Join us at the launch event to experience monome in action - via its inventors and a selection of existing users and creative agencies, meet other interested and like-minded people and find out more about the project and how to get involved.

(The monome: open practice project is coordinated by Cybersonica with the support of Cybersalon & Kinetica Museum. A funding application is in progress.)