Ben Barker

Designers' Front

2010-09-25T13:23:00.001+02:00

Slightly later than expected, Designers Front is real! We are online at designersfront.com or designersfront.com/blog for the blog. That means most of what I'm involved in will be on display over there now as well.

Now and Then

2010-07-29T11:07:00.000+02:00

Met with Alex yesterday to catch up with what tinker are doing. I made a little document to tell her about what I'd been upto over the last year and what I'm doing now. So what am I doing now? Well I just got back from France, doing more photography work and I'm keeping the blog over at bgbarker.com/writings both of which I've mentioned before. I am also working with a group of friends on a studio that we are loosely calling, Designers Front, this may be the name that sticks. Hopefully there will be more information to come on this in the next week. The friends I'm working with our Rachel, Matt, Sam, Brittany and Chris. Go take a look at them!

New Writing Website

2010-07-16T19:01:00.005+02:00

A new website dedicated to mini essay writing that I started over at bgbarker.com/writings/ The idea is to write a short piece each day covering a new topic and hopefully use it as a way of practicing writing and collecting thoughts and ideas that I have.

Go to bgbarker.com/writings/

France Pictures.

2010-07-11T19:13:00.001+02:00

I'm in France at the moment, working as a photographer. Here are some pictures with blue sky and not much else. Its sort of like a working holiday.

onedotzero Document

2010-07-11T19:06:00.001+02:00

A few weeks back I went to see onedotzero. I hadn't see much of them since the year before when I had worked with them. I thought it might be nice to make a document showing what I had been upto in the year between. Now I'm showing you for the sole reason that I haven't put anything visual on here for ages.

Show Bricklane: Design Curious

2010-07-11T18:57:00.001+02:00

We had our final year show in Bricklane a month or so back. I was involved in the design build mostly but overall the whole thing went really well and Matt and Sam designed a beautiful catalogue. We left immediately after the close of the London show, to a show called DMY in Berlin, which was different and equally successful.

It was all such a cunfussion of action, frustration and excitement that I don't seem to have much visual evidence that it happened. Perhaps when all the dust finally settles I'll dig some out to add to this post.

Final Film

2010-05-29T14:31:00.000+02:00

Here is the film for my final project presentation. Its exploring how design can created democratic engagement.

Liberal Democrats in Blackheath

2010-05-04T10:02:00.000+02:00

I spent the Bank Holiday in Blackheath with the Liberal Democrat bandwagon, speaking to people and trying to hear Nick Clegg talk about political involvement. There are a few valuable points in there, such as how important everyone felt communication was to sustained interest. There was no conservative councillor to be seen, so it is not bias that I don't speak with one.

Plotter in Action

2010-05-02T20:56:00.000+02:00

The plotter that I have been building over the past month or so, partly functioning, I hope to explore other forms of representation using it and get the interface away from the computer.

Ink Dropper

2010-04-22T08:37:00.000+02:00

An automated ink dropper to use in conjunction with the plotter. A solenoid squeezes a drop of ink
from the pipet when arduino sends the current through it.

Plan Degree Show.

2010-04-15T16:31:00.000+02:00

Spent yesterday making and measuring for a plan of our degree space. Obviously boring to those who 's exhibition space it isn't, but some part of my brain seems to get a thrill from organising space in this way on a map/plan. I'll get some picture up for it soon.

Heres a crudy picture of the space to give an idea what it's like.

X Y Plotter

2010-04-13T18:30:00.004+02:00

A plotter that I have been building that will allow me to create personal political profiles and location based political profiles. Giving people a new outlet for their opinions and a new sense of value for the location where they are able to express their opinion. The strength would be that identities would be visualised, both place and personal.

Politi-Crisps

2010-04-13T18:10:00.000+02:00

I normally don't put other things up on here, but these crisps that Rada got for me are so similair to stuff I was doing a month or two back and am still toying with now. Voting through a selection that is streamlined with normal choice. What spray you use, etc.

BT Newspaper.

2010-04-13T17:58:00.001+02:00

This is a newspaper that I made with Tinker London using the new, award winning service from Newspaper Club. It was for a workshop we did with BT and a fun experience.

Vote with your Feet.

2010-03-22T15:25:00.001+01:00

A model of my "stand". Promoting the idea of having a daily space to promote opinion. People read the paper every morning, but have nowhere to express their opinion. This offers them a place at the station, as they walk, to put say what they think about the current issue of the day. A series of posters could build up over a period of time and create a new space of opinion sharing and discussion. A history of opinion could build up.

Our Berlin Route

2010-03-05T18:37:00.002+01:00

Voting where you stand.

2010-02-19T15:46:00.001+01:00

Newspaper of Opinion

2010-02-19T15:06:00.000+01:00

A newspaper built from varried sources, to challenge people to question what they form opinion based on, and question the source of their news.

Site Installation

2010-02-19T14:24:00.001+01:00

Suggestions for a town centre installation that would form a place where people could output opinion and would give the forming of opinion a new value. a reason to generate an opinion.

Tee-Shirt

2010-02-05T20:16:00.002+01:00

Tee-Shirt project is about to go live, take a look at www.outof100.co.uk. Don't tell Sam though because it ain't quite ready.

EDIT: This should be going live tomorrow (tuesday 9th) with our first couple of tee-shirts and ready for people to start creating, submitting and soon. Head over there for more information.

Prayer Companion

2010-01-29T14:51:00.010+01:00

Talking to Andy and Nadine about the prayer companion I was interested to learn about how they came to this outcome. By having a specific user group and a targeted site, they were able to be far more focused on what they wanted to achieve than I have been so far. So the first key point is that I need to locate a user/group/site that I can understand and work with.

Talking about the prayer companion, a few of the most interesting moments that came up were around how the nuns reacted to what they called the 'indulgent' social networking statuses as well as struggling to understand the concept of social networking, that people were just saying things to the world.

Andy and Nadine talked about the democracy of the monastery, how decisions about the object were taken between the group and if the object had failed to suit their collective needs, then they would have no problems rejecting it.

They also talked about how it had become more of a life companion, in that it was less about aiding at the moment of prayer and more about an awareness of the needs and issues that they absorbed in their daily lives. This is how I would like to imagine that my objects or ideas might function.

The pointed me in the direction of an event later today as well as well.

UPDATE: Interesting event and venue, got a little lost. I ended up speaking with an artist in the space about democracy in art (there was an evening of democracy related work) he was talking about where the author (auteur) sits in democratic work. His criticisms were around Anthony Gormley's One and Other in Trafalger Square. He felt the influence of the artist was too strong in that work to call it democratic (as Boris Johnson did). Something that he said that was very interesting was that the T.V was the biggest restrictor of democratic discussion in the home. He comes from Italy, so his meaning would be more about the state control over the media. It got me thinking though, does the t.v deliver democratic ideas, already complete into the home and remove the need for an active viewer. I.e the politics industry. So this may become the site of my democratic intervention.

Context Report.

2010-01-23T14:15:00.004+01:00

This report is equivalent to a dissertation, however it serves as a framing for the final project that I am working on, rather than a finished outcome. Its all hand made and printed at home, the content is quite varied, and serves more as a broad selection of ideas than as a single strand of enquiry. Hopefully it makes it clear for me, and for the reader what my interest is and where I am going next.

The Democratic Household

2010-01-15T17:31:00.000+01:00

Exploring ideas of household moments, to change or enforce that every decision in a household or any evironment is, or can be, a political decision. This builds on Foucault's idea that politics is everything in life. Deoderant cans that represent a political decision each morning after watching the news or reading the paper, who has made an impression on you that morning. A washing machine where your choice of wash cycle can be related to a parties environmental or financial policies.

Back to it.

2010-01-08T11:46:00.001+01:00

I've been silent on here for a long time. Possibly the longest time since I started this blog nearly two years ago. It just been such a relaxing christmas I haven't been able to get myself to upload anything. Hopefully now with the cricket over, all the holidaying done and Martha and Alice off on their Europe trip (finally!), I can get back down to work. I have heaps to do on my context report.
Last week I was in Scotland and Northern England, so here are some images from there. They are part of a series I was doing for my friend Catherine as a Christmas present. You can see some more on flickr , they are a little classical in style, which is something I am hoping to move away from, but it very difficult when your surrounded by quaint churches and snowy mountains.

Barbican Screen Printing

2009-12-21T23:03:00.001+01:00

We ran a workshop at the Barbican as part of their lates programme. The idea was a £3 bazaar, where no item or stall could cost more than three pounds. We had sets of stencils of people at a christmas party and let people choose the legs, torso and head of the character as well as the colours of ink and paper, they then got to learn to print it them selves. It perhaps was a little over ambitious, and too labour intensive. I can't say it was a success as we were unable to work efficiently enough to make the money we would have hoped for. However we were really happy with the concept and think with some refinement it could be great. The girls who we went with made a packet on their badge/ jewelery/ christmas card stall. I was working with Sam who is pictured below.

Democracy: Greenwich

2009-12-06T17:47:00.001+01:00

Talking in a new borough, this time Greenwich. Probably a slightly different cross section of society and a larger tourist population.

Personal Pronouns

2009-12-06T17:44:00.000+01:00

The use of personal pronouns in a selection of famous speeches from democratic countries. I was interested in seeing how leaders communicate with the people they are supposed to represent; whether they think of themselves as apart from them (i.e I and You) or connected (i.e We). Its far from definite but just interesting to look at. Context of course plays a huge part.

Democracy: Lewisham

2009-12-06T17:29:00.001+01:00

A follow up to last weeks Deptford video, I went talking to people in Lewisham their views on the same two questions: 'What does the word democracy mean to you?' and 'Where do we have an impact on,or connect to Democracy?'

Democracy Video

2009-11-27T10:32:00.005+01:00

A video on the streets of Deptford (in Lewisham), looking at the public view of democracy.

Document: Week 5

2009-11-23T16:52:00.002+01:00

This weeks document, containing my fictions and images of my process and outcome. The front cover is intentionally a little austere, to match the bleakness of the short story and the outcome. The paper I used on the cover is really nice, got it from atlantis a while back. I forget the name but its a heavy hand made paper with a really nice texture. *geeky paper bit finished

Pound Shop Objects.

2009-11-21T13:03:00.001+01:00

A project we did on artifact-based imagined futures this week. Taking no more than 5 things from a pound shop we had to suggest a future using an object and a fiction. One was supposed to inform the other and vice versa. A sort of creative dialogue between the two. The short fiction I wrote is below, however it probably fails to explain fully enough the world I imagined and just suggests a few parts of it. I may add the more complete description in time
I'm not sure how useful this week was for me or how successful my process was. I'm still pretty confused about the feedback that I got. The suggestion seems to be that my object associated too much with something, as ever there is a certain lottery about what response you receive, which is often frustrating when you work so hard. Though I acknowledge that I was too influenced by a James Auger lecture I attended which showed in my final outcome.

"Something never sat right with me about that," I said as I watched the puddles swelling in the rain.

"Why do they only copy what we already have."

Food was being slopped in tiny portions from large grey drums. A Ro-mu hovered by scanning for life. The rain fell and the queue stretched back for miles. The never ending queue, to eat from the drum. The man from downstairs began to reply.

"It's a way in." His creased and sickly face looked up, "Like a subtle evolution, one day its a real cat, the next it's robotic, its the only way we accept it."

We inched forward, probably using more energy in the act of queuing than we are likely to get from what meagre portions await us.

"Take the Ro-mu, it become its own species, but without the invention of the cat, it can't exist."

I saw he was half watching something and turned; a Ro-mu had captured and killed a mouse and was in the process of digesting it.

"So now we have a robotic mouse, eating real mice to survive, a pale replica of life." I said.

He showed no sign of having heard.

"Its not about looking back though, the real question is, what's next?"

He was right of course, as we watched the Ro-mu complete it's re-charge and begin scanning a feeble looking elderly lady. Collecting and uploading information, profiling the human species. On the wall in front of us, painted and un dimmed by the rain, showed a red symetrical symbol, an anti-human symbol seen a few times in shadowy corners throughout the last century, but this time not hidden or secretive but glowing in full public view.

Four so far.

2009-11-16T15:49:00.001+01:00

These are the four diary (weekly) documents for my final project so far. Each one shows what I did in that particular week, and tries to relate it to my theme where possible.

Week 4, context debate.

2009-11-16T15:44:00.001+01:00

Document from context report. Really enjoyed this as I was free much free-er in making it and didn't worry about having a grid or a specific system. It lead to some nice moments and a few less impressive spreads, but over all, having fun is the key to this diary.

Week 3; Voter Influence.

2009-11-16T15:38:00.002+01:00

Here's the delayed document from week three. Its a little lighter than some of the others, but still explores and interesting area.I'm looking at influencing voters with key themes and imagery to suggest up to the moment information on key parties and debates. My object trawled twitter for the search term democracy next to a ballot box. It will only become interesting once put to use.

Presenting...

2009-11-14T12:43:00.002+01:00

We presented yesterday and it went reasonably well, however we lost by a narrow margin to the opposition who had an excellent speach (and more precise presentation) than us. It was heaps of fun and I got a lot out of it. Mostly working well in a group and learning to perhaps be a bit more succinct next time. Hopefully there will be some pictures of when we were presenting soon.

Eat-Dough

2009-11-14T12:16:00.010+01:00

To advance our arguement and explore the statement that we were given, we decided that it made sense to look at dough. In particular the difference of dough in famine countries contrasted by play-dough in the western world, where food sources are poisoned in effect for our entertainment.

To be clear, this is not a critique of that, but rather an example of why context is all important in design and must drive the process. Imagine trying to justify colourful inedible dough to children in famine ridden countries. As an illustration of this we packaged an edible play-dough like product for that market.

Context

2009-11-09T19:39:00.001+01:00

This week we are engaging in a department wide brief, where we have to debate a number of themes. We were addressing the question, design should be/ is context driven. We will have to fight it out with a group arguing the opposite on friday. This leaflet was designed to give direction to our argument and the stamp hopefully will be used to brand other peoples proposals and show that everything is a context.

Drawing Document

2009-11-04T10:31:00.010+01:00

Last week was spent drawing as a way of expanding and exploring my project theme. I've gathered the work into this medium sized booklet for future reference and as a way of documenting. You can start to see a theme of documenting each week with a booklet. I'm going to have to knuckle down to make this weeks one interesting now.

Final Project Brief.

2009-10-26T22:20:00.004+01:00

The last week has been spent refining the brief for my final project. It is not concrete necessarily but represents a flag in the sand, with regards to outlining what I will be exploring for the foreseeable future. The document is 16 pages of objects, ideas, references and people that my be useful in my exploration of the area. An uploaded pdf is available here: bgbarker.com/briefdoc01

Democracy Map

2009-10-23T13:17:00.005+02:00

I am beginning an exploration of my possible (read probable) final project territory. This was a poster to map how we (humans) connect to democracy. The inspiration came from a silly story in America where people were using tax payers money (through credits) to buy golf carts. The governments response was to do nothing. I felt this disconnect was interesting and could form a basis for project understanding why we feel so removed from our money. I've been speaking with local councils to gauge their opinions on this. (thanks to Matt Ward for the image)

Christopher Baker Influenced Ideation.

2009-10-18T16:59:00.005+02:00

In exploring new ways of generating ideas I drew on a piece of work by Christopher Baker, famous from the Data Flow book. He made an average gun by taking a line drawing of every toy gun patent ever filed in the US and laying them over the top of each other to make an average. Its a very beautiful thing. My posters were made from a series of robots that I made using everyday technologies, like the wii remote, a laptop and an electric tooth brush. It was hoped that while I was building these robots, I would start to make connection between thing that I would otherwise not have considered. In other words I was distracting myself by making robots, whilst I was actually coming up with the seeds of an idea.

Digital Interfaces in the Real World

2009-10-18T15:03:00.004+02:00

These were illustrations of idea I had had for using digital interfaces in new contexts. Specifically in areas where it avoided a question. I had be struck by a couple of points that Tom Igoe had made in his book Making Things Talk. He was referring to the way interfaces should be designed to keep the user in the loop and understanding the process that was going on. If it was common for a pregnant lady to wear a loading screen, or a sleeping person to show a buffering bar. I also tried to represent the idea of a real world colour picker in the video below.

Exploring Choice

2009-10-16T15:26:00.004+02:00

Through an exploration of negative intervention for brief developement. I arrived at an area that was interesting to me which was that a negative impact can affect the number of choices available, which can have a positive impact. This brief can lead to explorations of how we can navigate (or possibly remove) the choices of modern life. The video was designed to represent the noise of modern life.

Little Book

2009-10-15T13:43:00.003+02:00

A booklet I've made to collect the results of my survey of the pubs in New Cross. I was surveying them to understand the impact of the heavy snow day in February earlier this year. It is part of a project to understand if positives can come from a negative impact.

Screen Printed t-shirt.

2009-10-10T10:30:00.009+02:00

I decided to learn some screen printing technique as the chance presented itself. This was done using two photographically exposed screens and two colours.

Me being a grown up!

2009-10-07T11:18:00.005+02:00

As part of tinker.it at designers_block, here's me attempting to fit into the adult world.

Post-its!

2009-10-06T14:23:00.007+02:00

Part of the beginning of the process of finding a brief to work on this year. Each person came up with ninety ideas and we mixed and order them to generate a range of briefs. There is a sample one below.

Quote:
Oscar Wilde: "To me beauty is the wonder of all wonders, it is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances."

Background:
A theme that was common in the collected ideas, was the idea of ugly design. It brings up a number of debates around the idea of aesthetics and the subjectivity of beauty. Oscar Wilde spent most of his life extolling the virtues of beauty and the aesthetic movement. His first novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey is almost entirely dedicated to this discussion. In this brief we want you first to connect with this debate and understand what beauty means to different people and in different contexts. Then react to your research to make something that can fit within your definition of ugly.

Project Definition:
Design something ugly! This maybe a service, an intervention, an object or a graphic, the most important thing is that you engage with the issue of what it means to be ugly and find an angle that allows you to generate an outcome.

Deliverables:
During the eight days we would hope to see a few days spent researching and understanding ugliness, with the aim of arriving at your own definition (this need not be a complete definition, but a starting point), then this should enable you to spend a week making your final outcome as unutterably ugly, as possible.

French Band: The Yupps

2009-10-03T13:46:00.004+02:00

I did a little photography for a French band from Metz called The Yupps, whilst I was there. They sang in English and were good. I think they are coming to England soon to play in Brighton and London.

Food Day

2009-10-02T12:31:00.011+02:00

This morning I finally got round to doing a few things that I had been meaning to do all summer. Primarily, visit Smithfields meat market to look at high quality produce at wholesale prices. I got there early (5.45 to be precise) and it was every bit as extensive as I hoped. It clearly isn't aimed at small customers like me, but it's very easy to buy in small amounts. I got chicken livers, braising steak, black pudding, sausages and duck breast. The prices are all very decent (sausages £4 for 1.5Kg, chicken livers £2 Kg) and the quality seems superb. I can't remember eating such good sausages, and at around £1 per lb, they are priced like 10 years ago. However the best moment of the morning came when I was searching for bread at London Bridge, nowhere was open at 7am, so I decided to knock on the door of a wholesale bakers called Tivicos. I asked if he could sell me a loaf of bread, he asked me what size I wanted (i said biggest!), then ran off and got me one, stuffing it in an old flour sack. Then when I tried to pay him he refused! Which made it hands down my favourite flavour of food, free!

From there I headed back home (via Bermondsey Antiques Market) and was on Wickham Road by 8am, Exactly 3 hours after leaving. Once there I set about cooking some of those sausages, which were excellent.

Then faffed around cleaning the kitchen and got out my newish coffee machine and persuaded it to make easily its nicest latte so far. Perhaps the double cream helped! I just got back from buying Mushrooms so chicken liver pate should be coming soon.

The Chicken Liver pate is complete. The livers were great, not much preparation needed. I made two flavours (as you can see). One is Mushroom and Parsley, the other is Thyme. The thyme one is a bit disappointing, somehow the soft flavour doesn't really compliment the richness of the livers, perhaps it needed lemon. I can always add it when its eaten. The mushroom one tastes great though. Seems to be a really strong combination. Anyway, here are the picture of that.

Next I'll relax for a moment before starting on the beef and black-eye bean casserole. Perhaps I'll even open the bottle of Bordeaux that I brought back from France with a slice or two of Alsace jambon.

The stew is done, I'm tired. Simon is here to pass judgement and he says its ok. Tough judge!

Yeah, it was nice. Now the left over cheese.

Robot Animation

2009-10-02T11:14:00.003+02:00

A little animation that I put together whilst working at Tinker.it.

tinker.it at designers_block

2009-09-27T13:21:00.003+02:00

The last few weeks have been really busy. Just got back from a very fun time in France (essentially to eat, but with the appearance of working). Now I'm over at designers block with tinker.it, working on the hyper push project. We've been getting some really good responses and its been fun. Here are some pictures and take a look at any of the links above to find out more.

A few more Lutherie Images

2009-09-27T13:16:00.002+02:00

A couple more from France.

Tools-Lutherie

2009-09-20T14:59:00.003+02:00

Working in a French Violin makers for an interactive "how to" experience/cd. I'm making the section and tools at the moment.

Discarded Idea

2009-08-12T19:34:00.008+02:00

This idea was rejected in the end, but had a lot of potential. The concept was based on inkblots swelling, as yoga focuses on energy coming outwards from the core.

3 yoga ideas

2009-08-12T19:00:00.008+02:00

Part of a project for Island Yoga. There were three proposed routes. One based on print shapes and textures using a yoga mat, another that stemmed from the hibiscus flower that is common in Hawaiian paterns and textures and the third which was gestural forms based on yoga positions. There was a lot of experimentation in the process.

Kin work.

2009-08-12T18:57:00.003+02:00

My wall of work at kin. I really liked this system of producing work and publishing it to the wall, then reviewing and refining, discarding as necessary. It means nothing gets lost of forgotten and there is a good chance to review and contemplate things. This will definitely become part of my practice.

New Front Page

2009-07-25T15:11:00.005+02:00

New front page for my website, bgbarker.com

Teasers

2009-07-25T11:22:00.004+02:00

Some imagery that I made in my work for Tinker.it!. Can't say too much more.

Ted Global Notes.

2009-07-25T11:10:00.003+02:00

Sketched notes from the ted global live stream at Wieden and Kennedy the other day. Trying a more visual approach to note taking.

9.00-5.00 Design

2009-07-24T12:10:00.007+02:00

**POSTPONED DUE TO GOOD WEATHER**

This project is born from a number of ideas. The first was a desire to work on my self made brief of exploring potential (see image below for full brief). It is also from a desire to better understand the design process; can it become something very strict and mechanically, with rigorously imposed deadlines and advancement points. I feel the typical response is to think of it as something very organic and "felt" but is this just a lazy attitude hidden behind the so very powerful notion of "creative process".

I was also thinking about design in the work environment, and how it seems that most design studios never manage to maintain consistent working hours, and if they would be more productive places if they did.

On a personal level, although I am often hard working, I have a tendency to give up as soon as things get hard, so I wanted to set a brief where that was simply not an option, and if I fail with an idea, I try something else.

So below there is also a schedule, I have built in an extra hour at lunch time to publish what I have discovered upto that point, so my day is technically 9-6, although the hour from 1 until 2 is to be considered as invisible. I will be as strict as possible with time keeping.

Any feedback on the schedule/ brief/ etc is welcome and if anyone wants to get involved either helping me, doing their own 9-5 using my brief or setting their own brief then please do come along. All the Wickham Road facilities are available for use, there is loads of space and the doors are open. (I might even provide lunch!) Ring, tweet, etc.

Schedule to come

Some ruminations on the internet and the birth of time travel.

2009-07-15T22:15:00.002+02:00

As humans of the twenty first century we are forming an intricate and almost seamless virtual representation of our world as it is now. Every human is like a node, recording and documenting their time and place and uploading it to the network to form a virtual representation; a digital collage of the now. Whether it is visual, aural or text based, we have an endless compendium.
Imagine a man sat in a room in front of a large screen, five hundred years from now. Using sophisticated searches he asks to see Curtain Road, London July 15th 2009 10am. Every video, photo, update and blog is checked for relevance and presented to him, he spins the clock forward 2 hours, the search engine refines and re-presents. The wealth and breath of information available to him would bring him very close to a complete sense of place and time. But more pertinently, in his current life, he is so accustomed to this virtual world that the experience is not diminished by being disembodied.
In effect we are building the ‘real world’ of the future here at the birth of the network, and in that world we are defining the rules. By building the world(s) of the future, we are choosing to embed time travel as a given. Google street view already shows us the potential to explore previously physical spaces, how often will they re-photograph and archive planet earth, making it layered not only by space, but also by time?
To put it another way, imagine a person from before the twentieth century, being put into the same space, given the same detailed information and then try convincing him that he didn’t transcend time.
So it seems almost facile to say that our perceptions change and prevent us from seeing what humans have created. Time travel is upon us, just not as predicted; we won’t need worm holes and particle acceleration where we’re going.

Typographic Posters

2009-07-01T23:42:00.006+02:00

My sister (Rachael) is about to begin a residency in Holland as part of an art collective and she wanted some suggestions for a poster. These were what I made. Links to the place and final poster to come.

Just popping in...

2009-06-26T19:11:00.004+02:00

Nothing worse than an untended blog I know, but things have been quite busy and I haven't had much time for personal projects and haven't had the internet at home. A good double excuse for you there. Anyway, a couple of pictures of my bike hanging with his friends at work to keep things going.

Update.

2009-06-14T18:21:00.002+02:00

Time for an update. I know I haven't been producing a lot on here recently. I thought I should say a bit about whats been going on. I'm doing a placement at a company called onedotzero at the moment, see them here.

It's a great spot, you can see some of the stuff I'm involved in on their twitter feed twitter/onedotzero. I bike in each day and am slowly getting hooked on the whole biking thing. Nothing shows this more than the fact I spent the entire weekend taking apart, respraying and rebuilding my bike (it used to be blue and yellow). The pictures are below and its quickly starting to become my pride and joy.

New Banner

2009-06-10T19:26:00.004+02:00

The new banner for the onedotzero home page. Something I have been working on in the last few days when I have a spare moment. Check out there site at onedotzero.com

Design meets Science.

2009-05-26T22:16:00.004+02:00

Tonight was spent photographing this event at Imperial College. A blind date style match up between the two.

Bank Holiday Jam

2009-05-25T22:17:00.005+02:00

So when you have fruit, sugar and are waiting for a T.V repair man on a bank holiday what do you do? Make and brand your own Jam. Simple.

Final Day Mosaic

2009-05-22T18:17:00.005+02:00

y last day at St Lukes and we were working on the painting of the week by Lowry. The idea was to create a giant collaborative mosaic of the picture, with each child taking an a5 peice. It worked well, but we didn't have time to finish.

Packaging with the Children

2009-05-19T18:02:00.003+02:00

The last three weeks have been on Packaging with the children. We started by using a pre made net and getting the children to understand how you fold and create a box. Then we moved on to them designing their own using a matrix. As ever some really impressed with their ability to think differently and understand a concept. One hild had the front door of a house as his opening for putting his D.S games in. Just a shame he rushed the making. He planned it all himself though and was very independent.

Deptford Guide: Paice award

2009-05-07T13:57:00.003+02:00

A booklet made yesterday for the paice award application we made.

Portfolio

2009-04-23T12:36:00.002+02:00

So the long silence has been due to heavy work load putting together a portfolio. Its finished and went on its first outing for an interview with live|work. Getting all the images together, well organised and well printed has obviously taken time. The final look is simple but I think fits really well with my style. I will look into building a cover for it in the next few days. The size is just a little larger than A3.

Diginate.

2009-03-30T21:48:00.003+02:00

This was meant to be part of something else, a challenge to write a new illustrated short story everyday this week. It was less successful than hoped. It might resurface as that, but for now its a digital typeface.

Peter Serafinowicz

2009-03-30T19:39:00.007+02:00

So I thought this week I would 'make graphic' a quote from his twitter feed each day. If you don't know who he is give him a google, he's a funny guy.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Friday

Teaching

2009-03-27T19:18:00.002+01:00

Friday afternoons are for art class. So far I have been teaching repeating patterns and some of the children have done really well. I mounted them for display this week and they were looking nice. Now just to get used to being referred to Mr Barker. Actually that reminds me, I got asked how come there were no 'man teachers' today, which went some distance towards explaining why I get called Miss as often as Mr. I guess not all 7 year olds have fully grasped the concept of gender.

Black and White

2009-03-24T23:31:00.002+01:00

Messing around with Premiere and some old video clips found on an online archive. Nothing particularly substantial but got to do something with it.

Shred Money

2009-03-17T17:38:00.003+01:00

Here is a quick video of Bob Dylan talking about money made in Flash.

Videos Presenting the SoLo Concept.

2009-03-12T18:29:00.004+01:00

Here our concept videos, explaining how we saw the blocks as being a metaphor for both information and location. Also the kinds of moments that this technology can create.

Animation for Exhibition

2009-03-12T17:46:00.003+01:00

Here is an animation that we put together to show how our proposed Nokia presentation stand could look. It was aimed at conveying the mood as well as how the event would work.

Making real life fake.

2009-02-24T15:57:00.003+01:00

Tilt shift photography can make even the most real and memorable journey seem like you were just playing with toys in your bedroom, as this image of the fair ground shows you.

Man sized blocks.

2009-02-24T01:23:00.003+01:00

In fact blocks that are only really suited for building Brick City, or is that Block City, or indeed even Blog City. Either way, this project entitled Define Your Own City, or is that Blogging: City Building; well you get the point, we haven't settled on a name yet. I spent my day prototyping one possible idea, a multi-coloured blackboard and just applied some paint this evening. Actual chalk images to follow when the shops are open. (Just realised, anyone actually questioning the size from the title, the grids below the image are 5x5cm)

America images.

2009-02-21T22:27:00.004+01:00

Just been sorting through photos from America for that section of the website. Take a look at bgbarker.com/america for all of them. I notice that the site is looking fine in Firefox and safari, but not working at all well in IE and Opera, so apologies if you are using either of those browsers.

The Nyctophobic Bible

2009-02-18T22:04:00.002+01:00

I was re-photographing this project for my website earlier, with help from the ineffable Simon Cordery (for those who know him). The concept was of a book created for sufferers of Nyctophobia (fear of the dark) using modern parable as a tool to discuss and explore ideas around darkness and death. Using similar concepts to the bible (a slightly grandiose reference I know!).

Check the progress in the design section of the website: bgbarker.com

Nokia and splashes

2009-02-12T01:39:00.004+01:00

We presented our ideas to Kin design today for a possible brief with Nokia. It was a midway presentation with a view to generating an idea good enough to present to Nokia in March. One concept was around the idea of using blocks and micro-blogs to represent the communities created by Friend View (the Nokia software we are promoting). Another was around using ripples created by a splash to show the impact a user can have. In this case on vibration sensitive LEDs. Below is some of the content I generated.

New site coming.

2009-02-04T20:50:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note on the new site coming, bgbarker.com. Its also a new email address too ben@bgbarker.com. Its just a place holder page at the moment, but it will hopefully incorporate some photography and design. There's also another place to check out, that should be coming soon, www.studioinsideout.co.uk that i'll host.

C.V.

2009-01-19T12:44:00.004+01:00

This is my latest attempt at an interactive C.V. i.e one that allows the user to take what ever data I give them and interact with it. So being able to make any of the versions below or a version of their choice, as any of the 15 rectangles can have any of the data cards or images.

GPS, London and Cambridge.

2009-01-16T21:04:00.003+01:00

So continuing my gps mapping, this one includes the map of cambridge then extends down to London. I made three trips in total. Two by car (the thicker route on the right) and one by train. Then in london a fair amount of buzzing around, including trips to Lewisham shopping and dropping Robs laptop off in Greenwich. I love the power of this technology, so i'll just keep trying until something interesting comes up. Perhaps maps about my movements will only ever be interesting to me though...

Briefcase Narrative

2009-01-15T17:01:00.003+01:00

Here's a story board from a recent project on objects and narratives. Its one of my first attempts so excuse the middling quality of the drawing. I'll post the full story at some point as its probably hard to get it from these low quality images (although I have tried to keep them good enough).

Cambridge to New Cross

2009-01-05T22:33:00.004+01:00

I got back from Cambridge to London yesterday, perhaps to illustrate the difference between the two existences, or maybe student and 'grown-up' life, I discovered and photographed what had been cultivating in the fridge. Don't be fooled, it was disgusting. Just for contrast there is also a picture from a frosty morning on the farm.

Personal Map

2008-12-29T01:37:00.003+01:00

I'm always interested in ways of mapping, especially how people move in spaces. This is a gps map of my movements since christmas. It includes driving my younger brother to his girlfriends, exchanging a duplicate present and metal detecting in a field of my dads. I love how individual this map becomes. In some ways it is very similar to a road map, but it only borrows certain elements, it becomes a narrative and quite personal as well. The more often you drive a certain route the thicker the line becomes, so building data and creating hotspots. Obviously this is just a few days of relatively mundane events but even so it is easy to see the potential. GPS also records information such as speed, altitude or just about anything you want.
To look out for on this map are the straight road that is involved in most journeys (an old roman road, the a14) and the two hotspots, at my house and cambridge town centre. The distance between these two points is about 12 miles.

Winter Photos

2008-12-28T23:15:00.006+01:00

Beautiful low wintery sunsets and a need to photograph with my new macro lens have combined to make these pictures. I'm not sure what it is, but there is something evocative about bulrushes.

Coral Spot

2008-12-26T18:08:00.004+01:00

Well after a long period of inactivity, (everyone knows I love christmas) heres a boxing day picture. Expect more of this sort of thing to come as my Christmas present was a set of extension tubes. So I shall no doubt be influenced by them for a few weeks. This fungi is normally found on dead wood and I believe is called coral spot although do correct me if I'm wrong. I also got a gps tracker so expect some maps of my movements in and around cambridge. Another notable gift and lets face it, me showing off, was a signed and personally illustrated book by Rebecca Dautremer (an absolutely superb french illustrator), given to me by a friend. Needless to say that was a sketchtravel connection. :)

Smiths Vol.2

2008-12-08T19:01:00.005+01:00

Almost unbelievably the culmination of heaps of hours of work and just a slightly above average magazine. A good process though and I never would have imagined that trying to make a beautiful magazine would be so difficult. It is a huge improvement on the last one though.

Daniel Eatock

2008-12-08T13:59:00.004+01:00

Anyone who knows Daniel Eatock's work will know how fascinating he is. I've really enjoyed his website for some time because of the richness of the content. You can get lost there for hours. Anyway, to cut a long story short I submitted a No Smoking sign to his collection. As there is no selection process I can hardly rate it as an achievement. The simple act of bothering to send an email is enough to get you included, but still I feel a weird sense of satisfaction. Anyway go take a look and get lost there for a while, its very interesting...

www.eatock.com

The Act of Doing

2008-12-06T12:58:00.002+01:00

So got up very early this morning to get myself up to kings cross and do my installation. Here are the pictures complete with very disappointing grammatical error. I'll say more later but have to rush off to football now.

Fairy Tale

2008-12-03T00:16:00.003+01:00

As promised a while ago, the story that is in the book that i made (see below) for the fairy tale project that I completed a month or so ago.

Power to the Pedestrian

2008-12-02T23:35:00.003+01:00

Here are some pictures from the project I'm working on at the moment. Its based in the kings cross area of north London. I was looking into giving more freedom of movement to pedestrians who are the biggest users of this space. I made a lot of maps of the the most common paths that people walked through the space and then planned to put this as a crossing as well as signage and ramps for people with cases on their way to kings cross. Hopefully have the real thing soon. Just got to make it first...

Dartmoor

2008-11-17T12:01:00.008+01:00

Just back from Dartmoor, with a greater understanding of the word 'tor', a sense of the England from stories and a deep seated mistrust of the merchant navy. Actually not true but it is beautiful down there. I can't get enough of the misty bleak moors that force you to feel a least a little bit of melancholy. So heres to lakes appearing from behind a veil of mist, stumbling upon little village squares with pubs and people driving land rovers that actually need them. Oh and wearing welly boots...

Sketchtravel

2008-11-09T16:15:00.004+01:00

After the interview on thursday I photographed the book that the whole project is about. This is it as well as one of the illustrations within (go to the website to see all of them and learn more about the project). In short it is a book that travels the world being illustrated by top illustrators and is then sold for charity.

Quentin Blake

2008-11-07T19:20:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I met Quentin Blake. We were filming for Sketchtravel so it was Catherine interviewing him, Sylvain came to deliver the sketchbook and I was filming and photographing. He was absolutely as lovely and easy to get on with as you would hope, as well as being funny. The filming went well and I even got a few nice pictures of him. Images of the sketchbook and links will follow soon.

Smiths Magazine

2008-10-30T20:27:00.002+01:00

Smiths magazine came out today. It was our first effort and certainly not perfect but a promising start I think. The structure of having 25 designers and contributors (a co-op style set up effectively) didn't really work perhaps so we'll try something new next time. Anyway, we're all learning and apart from the loss of the uncoated paper that we wanted it sort of works.