the useful arts organisation style, design, program, build,
manage & find solutions for media, internet,
installations, exhibitions, performances and people.
the
useful arts (also called technics)
are concerned with the skills and methods of practical subjects
such as manufacture and craftsmanship. It has now gone out of
fashion, but was coined in Victorian times as a mirror of the
performing
arts and the fine
arts.
the useful arts organisation was founded by
Dorian Fraser
Moore in 2008 to gather together his portfolio and provide
a framework for his expanding practise. Angie Fraser Moore is
co-director of the company, providing consultancy and advisory
services.
the floating cinema, www.floatingcinema.info, 2011
Website styling, design and build with content management
system.
The Floating Cinema was commissioned by UP Projects as part of their
Portavilion
series of mobile public event spaces. For the 2011 Portavilion
somewhere and Studio Weave decided to create a
cinema on a converted barge that would roam the waterways of East
London, including areas around the new Olympic Development.
somewhere wanted a
website to better reflect what they were trying to achieve than the
existing portavilion website, that would offer them a space to
document their process as well as the events, and give them a space
to post films of the events thereafter. From this I developed the
idea of orientating the site around a map of the waterways
involved, styling it to give visual emphasis to this oft overlooked
back bone of London's past. This also created a spatial snapshot of
events and where the influences for the project come from. Blog
posts come via mobile phone allowing the embedded GPS data to used
to attach the images to the map.
Over the course of the project an additional record of the
events will be created, turning the site from a promotional tool
and booking mechanism into a full archive of the events.
office for contemporary arts norway, www.oca.no, 2011.
Website styling, design &
build with Content Management System.
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway was founded by the
Norwegian government with the aim of promoting visual arts and
production in Norway to an international audience, and to stimulate
international exchange in the arts.
I was commissioned to help OCA transition from a flat file, hand
maintained website to something 'more modern' which better
reflected the scope of their work, whilst reflecting their
established, restrained, aesthetic, and help to improve their
publishing workflow.
My aim in the redesign of OCA.no was: to improve the ability for
the various audience demographics to find the information they are
looking for; to provide a framework for richer documentation of
their projects; to better emphasise the wide range of international
connections OCA has and is developing; to provide an improved
channel for communicating their multiple activities.
The OCA.no website is part publishing platform, part database,
the goal of which is to link together the various practitioners and
organisations OCA work with with how they work with them, to
present a transparent picture of OCAs activities at all levels. As
new relationships are established, and new documentation is
created, the site will unfold into it's full potential creating an
evolving document of OCAs field of influence.
rip it up and start again, www.ripitupandstartagain.org,
2011.
Website design & build with Content Management System.
Rip It Up and Start Again is a series of lectures on
architecture and the city, curated by Robert Mull and Kieran Long
of London Met Architecture and Spatial Design to place the work of
the school in relation to broader debates about the city.
The Useful Arts Organisation were engaged to develop a living
archive which documented the talks and presentations in a dynamic
way, whilst keeping the strong visual identity that had been
developed for the print materials promoting the lectures, and
providing a space where visitors could leave their own annotations
to the talks.
portland works, www.portlandworks.co.uk,
2010.
Website styling, design & build with Content Management
System.
Portland Works (Sheffield, UK), built in 1877, is one of the
earliest surviving examples of an integrated metal trades complex
Nowadays it plays host to a wide range of crafts and arts. In 2008
the owners decided to attempt to sell it, displacing many of the
tenants and risking the survival of some of the skills acted out
there. The tenants decided to group together and now plan to buy
the building and run it as a co-operative.
In 2010 The Useful Arts Organisation were commisioned by
Sheffield University to re-design their campaign website to better
present the story and to act as a platform for fund raising and
promotion. The site is built to be easily managed by the team there
and to be able to provide a rich document of a space with a rich
history and a hopeful future.
fugitive images, www.fugitiveimages.org.uk,
2010.
Website styling, design & build with Content Management
System.
Fugitive Images is a the collaborative art practise of Andrea
Luka Zimmerman and Lasse Johansen, who the useful arts organisation
worked with previously on the i am here website. For their
portfolio site they wanted a simple, clean minimal site that was
flexible enough to represent the various strands of their work
whilst being easily self-managed.
Recent, and not so recent, work, 23rd March 2012.
Earlier this week I put live a new website for Jaywick Escapes, a film by
long time collaborators somewhere.
In doing so I realised I've been really busy for the last year,
but seemingly have nothing to show. I've been working on a few
bigger projects which will be launching shortly, and have been all
consuming. Along the way I've been doing lots of updates to
existing client sites, and I've manged to fit in some small new
projects as well.
First of all I've failed to mention the Floating Cinema website in
my news, even though it's lurking in my portfolio, which though now
past will be making a return later this year. Since then I've also
produced an updated version of Colchester Inn for Public Works was
created, complete with an in exhbition interactive for the Knick
Knack Cloud component that allowed people to hear stories by
swiping the knick knacks over and RFID reader; a portfolio site for
film editor Adam Mufti; a
portfolio site for artist Rebecca Rendell; done an exchange
of services produce a promotional website for my friendly heating engineers, A1 Boilers, who saved me from a
cold winter two years in a row; created a petition website to help
Aleksandra Mir put Freddie on the Plinth; and
finally, created a music download site for experimental musicians
Squares and Triangles.
Amongst all that production work I've been working with Cornerhouse and Grizedale Arts on getting them up
and running with a live HD Video streaming setup as a part of the
Arts Council's 'Broadcast
Project' research initiative into how arts organisations can use
high end video equipment to broaden their audience reach. And
working on these other big projects, and a couple of others that
didn't quite make it ... yet.
So not had much time to keep this website updated.
New Website for OCA, 24th May 2011.
I've just launched a new website for The Office for Contemporary
Arts Norway, you can see it at oca.no.
Portland Works, 20th January 2011.
Early in December 2010 - just before I went on paternity
leave - we launched a new website for Portland Works, an integrated
metal works in Sheffield which is fighting for it's survival as a
space for craftspeople, artists and small business to thrive. The
tenants of Portland Works are attempting to raise funds to buy the
building, run it as a co-operative, and restore it to it's former
glory, whilst keeping it as a working building. We are happy to
have been commissioned by Sheffield University to build this
website to try and keep local crafts alive and developing.
What I've been up to, 19th July 2010.
It's been a busy year, but I haven't really said much about what
I've been up to. As ever I am working on multiple projects in
parallel, all of which seem destined to be launch later on this
year. I've also been doing a lot of website maintenance on existing
projects.
Things I've done of late that haven't been announced on here are
the website for the Rhyzom
network, a refresh of somewhere's website, a number of
updates to the what
will the harvest be website for the new growing season, a
re-freshing of the layouts on my personal website and an
update to Rossi &
Rossi's website to represent their classical artworks, and the
first phase of the Lawson
Park Electronic Library, created with Guestroom for Grizedale
Art's Lawson Park residency space.
I've also been setting up some new servers and migrating sites
and email to new places, and carrying out a large number of updates
to my CMS framework.
Currently in progress is work on:
- Afterall - updating
it to represent their advertisers better, to apply more
functionality to their article layouts, and to hook into the
subscription system provided by University of Chicago.
- Spatial
Agency - refinements of the database, and working on the
mapping of connections between the various practices.
- Grizedale Arts -
extending the documentation of their contributors and works, and
creating a visualisation of how their activities interconnect.
- Lawson Park -
building the backbone of a small social network to help residents
at the space to document their activities whilst staying
there.
- International Village
Shop - A web representation of the various experiments and
models of shop commerce carried out by a range of groups I
collaborate with; public
Works, somewhere,
Grizedale arts and Myvillages.org
- Colchester
Inn - Extending public works website
representing the various strands of action for the current phase of
this project.
I've also recently been commissioned to work on a number of new
projects:
- Portland Works -
A website to represent a historical Sheffield building and the
makers who work there, and to help them in their aim of buying the
building and preserving the space.
- Office for Contemporary Art
Norway - Redevelopment of their website to freshen it up
and make the content more accessible
- Florian - website for Austrian Jewellery designer and
maker
- Agri-Cultur - A new website representing various art projects
that are connected to agri-culture and farming.
So, keeping busy. Hence why so quiet with the updates!
Rossi & Rossi Gallery Website, 22nd February 2010.
I've recently completed a new website for Rossi & Rossi, a London
gallery who specialise in Contemporary and Classical Asian artists
and artworks, from traditional Sculptures, Thangkas and Masks
through to contemporary originals, prints and photographs from
leading artists.
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