SCOTTBOXX.com
For announcing and archiving the (mostly) artistic activities of Scott Fletcher.
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2023
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New Expressions Of Archive
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- ACE / Developing Your Creative Practice
- Research grant to explore new approaches in the documentation and representation of archives and collections.
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During the previous few years of working with archives and collections, I have developed a strong idea of how to leverage the ideas formed and connections made to further explore new means of documenting, displaying and disseminating collections of cultural and artistic value.
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As such the DYCP grant was aimed at extending my knowledge base on the use of digital processes to enhance cultural collections and artist's archives.
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Mr Zeltser - Alcoholic Spritz
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- FMCG - brand characterisation / copywriting commission
- "You don't have to be drunk to view this website, but it does have to be an option."
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This commission gave me the rare and delightful opportunity for abstract wordplay about an imagined character whose history was not yet set.
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2022
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Bill’s Attic : Experiential Archive (Release Stage)
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- Mixed Reality Audio/Visual archival experience
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I was previously awarded ACE funding to test new digital recording and presentation approaches in the documentation of Bill's Attic, before its contents were rehoused and repurposed. In early 2022 I was again successful in achieving ACE funding, this time for a much larger amount and with it ambition.
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Summer 2022 saw the public release of Bill's Attic Experiential Archive - a three part documentation, depiction and dissemination of Bill Mitchell's workspace, the works within and the works with others.
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Informative : God's Eye View - Sketchfab 3D Attic Tour
Effective : First Person View - VR 1:1 Attic Experience
Evocative : Bug's Eye View - Dome Attic Projection
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2021
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Underground Milk Wood - No Welsh Aloud
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In mid 2021 I received a small grant to develop a cultural delivery system prototype, to be tested in the streets of Bristol in early 2022.
Through a varying array of sensors and emitters controlled by Raspberry Pi there will be a Pandora's box explosion of prose, reinterpreted to suit its surroundings, echoing across the city. The intension being to extend its impact through future upscaled iterations.
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In this version Dylan Thomas' masterpiece Under Milk Wood will be given a new lease of life through the voices of residents representative of the city's diverse cultural heritage. Recorded outside their homes and places of work, the scenes will then appear as randomly ordered audible street projections; appearing at night, for only the solitary and silent.
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Arts & Audiences Consultancy​
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- Cornwall Museum Partnerships (collaborative strategy formation and write-up)
- The Royal Society of Sculptors (group workshop and individual sessions)
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Aside from the many more serious consequences, Covid has severly hampered cultural engagement in the UK's public venues. My practice relies heavily on exhibiting so I have had to temporarily adjust my output to a more supportive and preparatory role.
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As such 2021 has seen a steady growth in requests to assist artists, venues and organisations in the investigation, explanation and eventual integration of digital techniques. Ready for when things again resemble normality...
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The year has therefore been a rewardingly mixed bag of smaller projects that among other things have afforded me the opportunity to:
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- Refresh knowledge of creative agency processes
- Improve design / illustrative skills
- Extend love for creative writing
- Introduce a wider set of artists / disciplines
Alongside these varied and professionally enhancing roles I continue to grow my own arts practice, specifically in the areas of digital archiving and representation. This has manifest as personal submissions for larger Arts Council Project Grants as well as NLHF and Epic MegaGrants.
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2020
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Bill’s Attic : Experiential Archive (Documentation Stage)
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- Mixed Reality Audio/Visual archive experience
- https://feastcornwall.org/bills-attic/
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I was invited to Redruth to respond to the incredible space that is Bill’s Attic and was immediately struck by its cluttered eclectic majesty and how important it therefore was to digitally document the space and its objects. In the first stage of what will soon be a much larger project, we used photogrammetry scanning, 360 video/photo and ambisonic audio techniques to create an extensive mapping of the architecture and collections it housed.
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There now exists a vast array of high-quality assets; some worked up into public facing content, most as raw files, all ready for use. The next even more exciting stage of the project is the creation of an exploratory digital archive that links them all with past and future responses to Bill's legacy.
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2019
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Old Homes New Tech
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- Location-specific digital art Symposium
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Two symposiums providing unique context and framework for the use of digital arts in stately homes, gardens and historical venues of fixed content.
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Each of the symposiums brought together a complimentary mix of invitees as venue-specific teams; to discuss, conceive and plan bespoke digital artworks that extend its character and engage new audiences.
Myself and co-host Ian Danby invited an exemplary mix of arts, culture and historical organisations to experience, question and conceive ways that technology can positively intervene with tradition.
Accompanying the first Port Eliot hosted symposium was a small collection of themed digital technology demonstrations, featuring Face-Recognition, Voice Control, ARKit, HoloLens, 360 and Haptics.
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So effective and proactive was the exploration of venue-specific arts projects that Antony House hosted a follow up event. Both being supported by Arts Council England and Cultivator Cornwall. The 'Old Homes New Tech' format remains in high regard by its attendees and sponsors and is regularly referenced as a highly effective, exciting and efficient means of site-specific cultural development planning.
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2018
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Round A New Way : Interactive Tour Guide System
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- Site-specific installation and public tour-guide app
- Painted Mural on Plaster + 360 + ARKit
The conception, development and delivery of a new way of expressing and extending artwork through contemporary digital reinterpretation. The immense 360 Robert Lenkiewicz mural in the Port Eliot Round Room inspired this unique digital expression and exploration of its characters, stories, influences and setting. The finished interdisciplinary work succeeded in increasing public engagement and understanding of the artist through interwoven digital interpretation of interviews with the mural's subjects.
Developed using ARKit the mural is brought to life to reveal evocative audio and visual representations that peel away from the wall and populate the room as spatialized audio conversations. The resulting experience being that off a cocktail party with the characters from the wall telling you their stories in a manner reminiscent of how the room looks and sounds during a party.
Launched at the 2018 festival and intended to continue on all public days and for any private function. Unfortunately due to Covid the house is not open to the public until 2022 but when it does, the experience will be available again as tour enhancement and take-home app.
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2017
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Elephants Can Remember : Scene One - Hololens Edition
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- Audio-scape and holographic animation
- Literature + 360 screenplay + HoloLens + ACE
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Never before heard recording of Agatha Christie narrating her Poirot mystery presented as a Mixed Reality performance at Port Eliot Festival 2017, developed in collaboration with Films@59.
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Archive recording of the author is played as spatialised audio alongside holographic cues for plot points and character dialogue. Set in a period bedroom, the scene is an exchange between Mrs Oliver and her maid while choosing her outfit. As a fascinating extra detail, each of the featured hats are bespoke 3D models of ones selected by renowned Milliner, Stephen Jones from his own collections.
After the festival premier the work has been shown at Haifa International Film Festival and the Agatha Christie Festival as well as other smaller arts/culture events.
A unique achievement of the work was to provide a genuine, tangible and personal connection with the author. As such subsequent invitations can only be accepted from events able to closely reproduce this intimacy; by way of physical props, set dressing, location and audience management.​
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VR vs. DJ​
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- Audio-reactiveTiltBrush artworks as live performance
- Live band / DJ / CDJ + Painter, Dancer, Boxer
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As part of Love Saves The Day closing party at Bristol's iconic Lakota nightclub, a VR stage and projection mapped walls, floor and bar were created for an eclectic mix of artists to use TiltBrush as an expression of their movement: Dancer's created intersecting vortexes, which Boxers punctuated with sharp angles as Artists overlaid recognisable forms and together they all generated live visuals for DJ’s and Bristol favourites The Egg.
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A unique and central aspect of the performance was for the brush strokes to represent the acoustic signature of the live music. So as an artist painted each virtual brushstroke, the strokes would animate or illuminate to match the characteristics of live audio input.
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The evolving VR artwork was projected into the room as visuals, which is to say they were seen by the crowd not just those in the headset. The night was a great success and the experience immensely valuable and rare.
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2016
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Room 202
- VR 'natural-navigation micro-story
- Interactive storytelling + 360 screenplay
- https://vimeo.com/421541262
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Room 2O2 drops the viewer into a hostile, off-the-record interrogation, with their hands and legs tied and mouth gagged, to avoid alerting any passing by-the-book cops. As such only by nodding yes or no can the player progress the narrative and ultimately escape.
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This experiment in natural navigation techniques demonstrated how natural and rewarding it is to progress a narrative by just nodding in response to questions. Selected for inclusion at Future of Storytelling Awards 2016, this piece includes some wonderful surprises, is a firm favourite of many industry experts and free to download on the Oculus Store for Rift and Gear.
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2015
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Dance With Me
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- Motion-tracked Baroque dance at Bristol Old Vic
- Cellist + Dancer + Kinect
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A unique opportunity to engage in a new way with Bach's iconic classical music and be part of cutting-edge digital experimentation within live classical music performance. This work was conceived as part of Bristol Digital Proms as a multi-faceted experience to aid the dissemination of classical music and its accompanying dances.
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Hosted by Tom Morris, discussions with leading choreographer Jane Gibson and renowned cellist Peter Gregson led to a groundbreaking digital installation that allowed the public to interact, imitate and respond to a silhouette of a pre-recorded dancer as she moved to a recording of a Bach cello suite.
Using a 3D camera the choreographed dance is recorded. This dance is played back to the public so they may add their own expressive response. Over a month each public engagement was filmed then merged, treated and the combined input used as a projected accompaniment to a live performance by Peter. Preceded by a fascinating explanation of Baroque Dance etiquette from Jane and my explanation of the overall project.
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2014
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Raw Material : Llareggub Revisited
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- Online conversion of live performance into an interactive archive.
- Literature +Theatre + HTML5
- https://vimeo.com/421541778
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An HTML5 experience exploring Laugharne - 'the strangest town in Wales' and inspiration for Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood. The responsive online archive was produced for National Theatre Wales as an evolving accompaniment to a weekend long live theatrical performance taking place in the Author's home town.
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An incredibly unique and advanced application of HTML5 responsive web design; the archive is a scrollable 3D map forming the backbone of a story originally bookended by superb FMV sequences from the performance's tour guide / kidnapper.
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Through the navigable 3D map, the audience can explore theatrical installations, meet characters and discover behind the scenes interviews with actors as well as performance footage, audio broadcasts and star-studded BBC content.
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I worked closely with directors Marc Rees and Jon Tregenna to develop a digital theatrical reimagining of his innovative live performance. Commissioned by National Theatre Wales and supported by The Space as part of the Dylan Thomas 100 Festival.
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2013
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Four Seasons Recomposed
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- Live audio-reactive 3D animated performance
- Orchestra + Sonnet + Animation + Live audio analysis
- https://vimeo.com/421555681
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A forty-five minute audio-responsive animation retelling the story from the sonnets which inspired Vivaldi's Four Seasons. This vast 3D animation was an accompaniment to the live performance at Bristol Old Vic of Daniel Hope and The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra with each of their microphone feeds used as controlling inputs for the separate aspects of the animation.
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For the creation of the 3D world that encompassed the animation I first exhaustively analysed the sonnets in comparison to Vivaldi's rendition; this provided an understanding on how the meaning of the sonnets correlated with the expression of the music and critically the points when their meaning changed. These changes became the scene changes. Everything worked around timing a sequence of animated journeys' through the seasonally changing landscape and scenarios, as depicted in the sonnets.
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However these journeys were to accompany Max Richter's rendition (as opposed to Vivaldi’s original) and so I next altered that original interpretation to Richter's work, matching his stripped back, synthesised, contemporary approach and it was this that was mapped to the live performance timings.
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Assorted
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I undertake consultancy, collaborations and commissions alongside my core arts practice, ranging from initial conceptualisation and proposal writing to full production, direction and evaluation.
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An exciting project with abstract landscape artist Sally Coulden who approached me to collaborate on the combination of AR with her artworks. We conceived a performance piece using motion capture footage of her creative process alongside time-lapse of the canvas evolving. The resulting work is a touring installation (room-scale) and associated iOS app (table-top) that demonstrate the relationship between an artist and the canvas as it evolves.
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Consultancy at this fantastic Bideford arts venue to investigate and report on suitable means of integrating digital media into their existing framework. This ongoing relationship is incredible rewarding and allows both parties to thearise and implement new approaches to engagement with traditional art forms.
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The production of a touring HoloLens installation that sought to express insights into gender fluidity through spatialised audio interviews set in a part real, part virtual bedroom environment. Shown at Sheffield DocFest
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A year long consultancy at the inspirational Oxford literary museum as they undertook a complete overhaul of the venue. My role being to advise on the scope and placement of suitable subtle digital content.
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Amaurosis​
Advice on the combination of performance and venue, production of the first stage of development and co-writing the funding proposal.
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Biography
Applying a combination of media technologies and artistic mediums as performance, public or personal installations.
My output is a response to a fascination in engaging audiences with art and mediums they were perhaps once intimidated by, while offering new perspectives to the established audience; applying a thought process and practical approach best described as delicate digital.
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Delicate digital is the phrase I use to describe a way of integrating new technology and techniques with more established, less responsive mediums. My hope is that audiences experience an unencumbered, subversive or even counterintuitive engagement with message and medium and in doing so face questions on representation, control, truth and expectation; in turn promoting a wider questioning of their role in the public art realm.
Explorations so far include collaborations in Archives, Theatre, Orchestra, Dance, Literature, Painting and Sculpture with technology including (but not limited to) VR, MR, AR, 360, Pi and Computer Vision.
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Commercial
Graduated Plymouth University with BSc (Hons) MediaLab Arts and MA Digital Futures, going on to lecture on the same courses and in 2014 joined the board of i-DAT, the University’s home of excellence for digital art research, education and development.
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Co-founder of Limbomedia in 2000 with the aim of delivering technical expertise in the burgeoning digital art landscape to more traditionally skilled artists. Through collaborations and commissions a uniquely holistic approach to the use of technology evolved that continues to inform my work and that of the others from the collective.
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The PPC provided the opportunity to produce internationally touring experiential campaigns for the US and International movie markets. Time here gave experience in delivering projects of extremly high production values introducing cutting-edge technology to large, varied audiences.
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Co-Director of Play Nicely during which time I helped establish an award winning agency known internationally for highly-polished, cutting-edge and well-considered campaigns, specialising in VR, AR and Computer Vision as theatrical marketing content.
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As a freelance producer and consultant I can draw on a project specific combination of skills from over 20 years experience in new technology.
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Details
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Extras
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I love to write, be it for work or pleasure. Word choice, sentence structure and paragraph dynamics are delightful rule bases to get lost in, adhere to, disrupt or outright ignore. To that end I started a blog many years ago to try different approaches in thought expression. And then promptly stopped. You can read it here.
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Video editing is a skill I don't often get to apply but one that when I do is utterly consuming and very rewarding. The control of message and tone, the importance of medium and audience and the infinite variations of form fascinate me. For each ACE project I produce I will create a short sizzle for marketing and posterity and so am able to maintain a regular output of content.
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Frivolous
This is a public website
As such your viewing experience may not be solitary
I have provided an identical website for private views
scottboxx.org is pre-bookable as one-hour slots
Email me to request a date and time
Currently free of charge