About The Project
The data tool kit was created as a result of a year long project at Knowle West Media Centre called “Curating Activism“.
Curating Activism began with an 8 week pilot starting in May 2013. During this time project coordinator Naomi Yates mentored a team of nine 18-25 year olds through a series of workshops in a variety of areas. The code workshops were taught by Rodric Yates at IBM, with geotagging workshops taught by Dane Watkins. The 9 participants were also guided by experienced curator Charlotte Cotton, who helped them develop their ideas. At the end of the 8 weeks the young people incorporated all their new skills in a community event promoting a good quality of life.
In phase 2 of the project Knowle West Media Centre ran a series of free one day skills workshops for 16-25 year olds called “Camp Kinect.” The workshops were facilitated by artists Dane Watkins, Matthew Olden and skills coordinator at KWMC, Naomi Yates.
The drop in classes were a positive way of engaging young people with new technology and covered a wide range of skills involving data. The attendees learned how to make animated data visualisations, how to use arduinos to collect data from touch sensors, how to make an interactive survey game, how to use motion sensors and visualise data using motors.
In phase 3 of Curating Activism, Knowle West Media Centre hired 8 Junior Digital Producers (JDPs) to work on data arts projects. The JDPs learned code through workshops from Rodric Yates at IBM, further skills on data visualisation from artist Dane Watkins and learned how to create their own computer programming patches for an interactive installation with Matthew Olden. The JDPss successfully worked on a variety of projects during their 6 month contracts at the media centre, the largest of which being the “Data Patchwork” project. Data Patchwork saw the JDPs design and code their own interactive online survey, design and build a physical installation which went on tour around Knowle West for one week collecting data; then finally they took all the data from the survey and installation and visualised it on the Data Patchwork website.
As a result of this work, the Knowle West Media Centre has collated all of its learning and included it in this comprehensive tool kit, so that other arts organisations wanting to work with data and young people can do so easily and successfully.
Thank you to all who have been involved in making this project happen.
Credits:-
Carolyn Hassan, Director – Knowle West Media Centre
Naomi Yates, Creative Skills Coordinator – Knowle West Media Centre
Rodric Yates, Technical Partner – IBM
Sam Thomson, Research Partner – University of the West of England
Emma Agusita, Research Partner – University of the West of England
Charlotte Cotton, Freelance Curator
Dane Watkins, Workshop Facilitator – Freelance Artist
Matthew Olden, Workshop Faciliator – Freelance Artist
Samantha Payne, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Andy Squibbs, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Max Dowding, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Baylea Hart, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Joanna Mitchell, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
David Biddle, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Candice Pepperall, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Thomas Kirby, Junior Digital Producer – Knowle West Media Centre
Joseph Ballard, Prop Maker – Freelance Artist
Tom Harrison, Workshop Facilitator – Freelance Web Developer
Liam Richardson – Freelance Web Developer
Gina Lundy, Photography Workshop Facilitator – Freelance Photographer
Thomas Mortennson, Technical Partner – IBM
Helena Ford, Technical Partner – IBM
Mark Allen – Machine Projects
SEA Communications
TENT
Trinity Center
Ujima Radio