#bronac ferran

In today's Making Conversations, Bronac Ferran focuses on Making Things Open (archives, collections and data). Guests are Mahendra Mahey and Ben O'Steen from the British Library BL Labs project, Julie Freeman of the Open Data Institute and Alf Eaton, who has been working with the British Library BL Labs and Sound Archive on ways of making the Resonance archives accessible and potentially available for creative reuse. What kinds of creative works have resulted from the recent openness trend with collections and data and what possibilities might arise in future? [Repeated Saturday 2.30pm.]

This week's Making Conversations at noon today addresses the growing involvement of artists, craftspeople and designers in medical research and development scenarios - from the imaginative application of stem cells to personalised breast reconstructions deploying new and traditional materials producing new challenges and opportunities from aesthetic, ethical and technical perspectives. Bronac Ferran is in conversation with Gina Czarnecki, Matt Durran, Dr Karen Ingham and Rhian Solomon. This programme was made in association with the Crafts Council's Make:Shift conference and produced by Carlos Zaghis Jr. of the Sound Design Course at Ravensbourne.   

Making Conversations - Tuesday 11 November at noon

On 21 November as part of the Crafts Council's Make:Shift:Do various projects across the city will open their doors to new visitors and participants. Bronac Ferran and John McMahon (Head of Learning at the Crafts Council) discuss the proliferation of these Maker Spaces - which encourage hands on, low cost access to tools and resources, as well as informal skills and knowledge sharing - with Jessica Mello of London Sculpture Workshop; Andy Merritt of Makerversity; Tom Lynch of South London Maker Space; and Ben Stopher of Elephant & Castle Maker Mini-Maker Faire.

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/makeshiftdo/

Making Conversations at Noon, Tuesday 4th November

What stories can artists and researchers tell each each other and who lets the public in? In Making Conversations at noon Bronac Ferran talks to Tony White, novelist and publisher/progenitor of the artists' book imprint Piece of Paper Press. White's inimitable capacity for the making of stories drawing on close interdisciplinary encounters has brought him into various academic and public engagement contexts. As Creative Entrepreneur in Residence at the French Department at King's College London he has been conducting a loose collaboration with Dr Sanja Perovic, Senior Lecturer and author of The Calendar in Revolutionary France. Perovic joins White for this conversation along with Chris Shaw, Research Fellow, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Sussex.

[Repeated Saturday 2.30pm.]

Bronac Ferran talks to four artists who work with dynamic circuits and systems often encouraging audience involvement in open ended and participatory ways, reflecting indirectly on the history of science and engineering and setting up dialogues between past and present: Luciana Haill, neuro-feedback artist in residence at Department of Informatics, University of Sussex; Magz Hall, co-founder Radio Arts, Senior Lecturer Canterbury Christ Church University; Dianne Harris, founding director and curator of Kinetica-Museum; and, from Rio de Janeiro, Mariana Manhaes, who makes organic machines with electrical elements and animatronic devices.

Bronac Ferran discusses new models of hybrid publishing in the internet era with guests Doug Sery, Senior Acquisitions Manager for New Media, Games Studies and Design at The MIT Press; Professor Joanna Zylinska of Goldsmiths Department of New Media and Communications, author of "Bioethics in the Age of New Media;" and Ben Pester, Podcasting Coordinator at Goldsmiths. What are the new models in relation to business, knowledge and information-sharing which are influencing academic publishing today? Can we start to predict future trends? What needs to change, when and why? [Repeated Saturday 2.30pm.]

Making Conversations, Noon, 30 September on Resonance 104.4fm

For the second programme of the Making Conversations series at noon, curator Bronac Ferran is joined by Dr Karen Gaskill and Tiffany Radmore of the Crafts Council to debate challenges and  opportunities at the leading edges of craft, medicine and making with glass artist, Matt Durran; Dr Richard Wingate of the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at Kings; and ceramicist Tamsin van Essen. Wingate and van Essen have recently been awarded a grant to explore new directions in anatomy, funded through the Crafts Council's new Parallel Practices initiative in tandem with King's Cultural Institute.

Parallel Practices awards seek to demonstrate the value of connecting interdisciplinary skill sets of medical professionals and researchers in the biomedical, dental, psychiatry and medicine schools at King's with makers in various craft fields. Its aim is to test new ways of working in collaboration in craft and health, to catalyse innovation in materials as well as create interventions to inform clinical outcomes. Four awards have been given which will allow for collaborative working to take place between now and December. The programme will encourage dialogue about the ethics and processes involved in 'making for medicine' - a topic which also be explored next month at the Craft Council's Make-Shift conference in Greenwich. 

Making Conversations has been devised especially for Resonance104.4fm's residency at Science Gallery London Pop Up by Bronac Ferran in partnership with Professor Andrew Prescott, AHRC Digital Transformations Research Fellow and Dr Karen Gaskill curator of Innovation at the Crafts Council.

[Repeated Saturday 2.30pm.]