Launch event and reception for the artists is from 2pm  to 4pm, 
Saturday, 24th January 2009 at Surrey Art Gallery,  13750 88th ave. Surrey.

The digital revolution has included the global proliferation of millions  of image-taking devices (such as digital cameras, video recorders,  cell phones, and PDAs) and the sharing of billions of images through  online networking and archival sites (such as Flickr). As this  democratization of digital technologies makes the ability to make  photographic images so ubiquitous, Glocal is interested in looking at  the implications of the changing roles and relations of images within  the field of visuality. Glocal is particularly interested in exploring  the construction and relevance of the “unique” or “originary” image in  relation to the multiple or “multitude”. How can an image retain its  ‘unique’ nature as resistance against being subsumed into the  multitude? How can we understand the nature of “uniqueness”? Does it  remain a relevant concept for digital image making? Through an  interactive installations as well as a series of on-line platforms,  Glocal examines the new digital lives of images.

Glocal has been in development for the past year, incubating in the  Surrey Art Gallery’s TechLab as an artist in residence project.  Starting from scratch, the team has developed software tools, and  hardware gadgets, and experimented with various prototypes of  presentation formats and interactivity models. At the same time, the  team has led various community engagement projects, built curriculum  for numerous high school and university workshops, and assembled a  large networks of volunteers, educators and supporters. For this  event, the Glocal artists will be presenting the culmination of their  research/creation. Viewers will be able to interact with the touch- table prototype that explores the aggregation within their 20,0000+ 
image archive, and view a series of large software-generated  photographic ’similarity structures’. These ’similarity structures’  imagine how an anthropologist might attempt to build relationships  between images within the archive. Using an algorithm which calculates  compositional similarity between images, elaborate maps and  phylogenetic trees are generated, modeling possible links between  images. These temporally unique visual structures attempt to examine  the complex relational environments that surround images in an online  space.

The Surrey Art Gallery is located at 13750 88 Avenue (at the corner of  King George Highway) in Surrey. Just 10 minutes from Surrey Central  Skytrain Station by bus. Link to google map : http://is.gd/g3ls

For more information please email info@glocal.ca .

Ends: Friday, December 12, 2008

Brief: Find words or text that appeal to you anywhere in your environment. Wait for “something interesting” to happen, with pedestrians, with light, with framing, with angles! Anything creative that strikes you.

In photo challenge #7, we asked you to find things that were “not quite right”. We were amazed by the various submissions that we received and began to think of how our project offers this amazing opportunity for street-level exposure to so many urban centres around the world. Photo challenge #8 has further exploration of this topic at it’s objective.

Street photography became possible in the early 20th century when advancements in technology made it possible to carry a hand-held camera on one’s body. There was much excitement in the ability to capture “everyday life” as the common man experienced it. Street photography allows us to consider how what we see everyday impacts what we know about the world. Considering text as a common thread in urban life adds a common thread from which to view many street photographers’ works.

In the photography of Walker Evans, the visuality of urban life reveals important cultural information about his early 20th century work. At the time of his black and white street photography, capitalism was very much changing the appearance of city streets as the ability to mass produce goods brought about consumerist culture. As we readily recognize, urban street signage dots the landscape:

New Orleans Street Corner, 1935

What does this photo tell us about the urban setting in which it was taken? We can extract a lot just through a quick glance: what language is spoken there, what kinds of products are consumed there, what kind of cars are driven there etc. etc.. Objectively, it’s also relevant to look at the scene as a whole and consider how drastic the advertising really is in relation to the entire scene. Only the fruits and vegetables in the shop window remind us of the natural world and the resources that many of our products are created from.

Later, Fred Herzog mostly documented the changing streets of Vancouver, a city on the west coast of Canada, revealing again, the almost-overwhelming presence of street signs and advertisements, as the city moved from “backwater town” to a world-class city with many desirable goods and services for its inhabitants.

The above photo, taken in Vancouver in 1968, brings colour into the visual spectrum of street photography. The viewer is bombarded by brightly coloured neon and back-lit signage, “games, guns, movies,” “western gym,” “washington.”  

Most street photographers at this time were still using black and white, while Herzog preferred to work in Kodachrome, and shot on slide film. Although unnoticed for years, his work is now recognized as an important body of historical photographs.  Today, the colours, font and designs of those streets signs are associated with forgotten signage in dilapidated and run-down neighbourhoods. The fact that his slide films were just recently developed into prints for exhibitions provides an extraordinary opportunity to look at “new” prints that contain outdated cultural information, including fonts and colours that we no longer associate with contemporary  city scenes.

Arcade, 1968

Herzog also created some interesting use of text in his street photography. One word in the photo below hangs in the frame of a very theatrical San-Francisco moment. What is it about the word “only” that continually piques our curiosity each time we look at it? Here, Herzog has selected a moment in time, well aware of the text that lingers in the top of the frame, something we’re hoping our photo challenge participants will consider as they go out looking for inspiration.

Vercruz 96

This October 18th is your chance to finally see the fruits of your labour! The Surrey Art Gallery Techlab is hosting an afternoon open-house from 1-5pm to show you some of the achievements of the Glocal Project!!

As you know, the Glocal artist team has been busy in the TechLab hacking, coding and building systems to manipulate how we make, view, and think about digital photography. Now, their interactive exhibit invites visitors to experience thousands of photographs made locally, and globally, on a giant touchable screen! The interactive prototype uses a specially-designed camera vision to sense the movement of your hands across the table, revealing photographs connected by human and machine perspectives.

This afternoon event will also invite you into the TechLab to experiment with custom built digital cameras – like a remote controlled toy car that takes photos!

Ends: Monday, September 15th, 2008

Brief: Pick a photo in the Glocal flickr pool, print it out and create a new image by superimposing your chosen image on top of a backdrop that you have created. You can decide how to manipulate or interpret that backdrop, but please provide a link to the original image in your images’ description. 

Instructions: Tag your photo with “glocalproject” and “photochallenge5″ and add it to our flickr pool. Need help? Email us.

Our photo challenge topic this week was borne out of comparing historical references from the modernist photo movement with cool web art references. We’ve been inspired by the work of Kenneth Josephson  and the always entertaining web art of sleeveface.com. The contrast between the historical art reference and the web art reference seems to be a relevant challenge for Glocal, given that the project examines the history of photography while experimenting with the potential for mass collaboration on the web. We also like the concept of superimposition as a means to think critically about the uses to which photography is applied, both artistically and in popular culture.

Kenneth Josephson’s photos-within-photos create visual statements that prompt the viewer to think critically of photography, both as an art form and as a representation of reality.

This simple photo of a boat, held against the backdrop of the ocean, reminds us that an image is little more than a representation of reality and never reality itself.

On sleeveface.com, the concept is similar and repeatable. Contributing photographers select an album sleeve of their choice and re-create the scene outside of the borders of the album sleeve:

This beautifully positioned album sleeve lines up nicely with the newly created backdrop. It creates a new image that alters the original context of the album art. Like the Josephson image, the arm holding up the album both adds humour, and suggests that we are supposed to be aware of the layers between the images.

Unlike photographic re-creation (Photo challenge # 3 (re) Create), where the new image is a single layer and a re-interpretation of an earlier image, superimposing an image creates a new narrative that reminds us of the distance from reality that we experience as viewers.

Have fun!

The above image is an example of a participants’ response to exploring colour and motion using the Motion Sequence Application (MSA).

Hello Glocal Blog Readers!

Glocal just held a week-long intensive Digital Summer Camp that was hosted by both Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology and the Surrey Art Gallery.

22 Youth from Surrey were selected to take part in this free digital summer camp from July 14-18, 2008.

 Each day from the camp had different themes:

Day One – Students (such as Sarah Lae whose photo is pictured above) learned about the details behind Glocal’s various open source software toolkits.

Day Two – Students were then given guided workshops using the user-friendly computer programming language, Processing.

Day Three – Arduino camera hacking with the help of guest artist,  Daniel Jolliffe.  The cameras were hacked via labourious soldering sessions using Glocal’s custom-printed circuit boards.  Later in the day, the class went outside to neighboring Holland Park which was the site of Surrey’s Fusion Festival once the Summer Camp had finished.

Day Four – A special conceptual photography workshop was developed in order to educate the Students on ways they could stretch their imagination and make full use of the freshly hacked cameras and their newfound enthusiasm for Glocal’s Software Toolkits.  This included the 60-balloon cam made famous by one of Glocal’s committed volunteers, Byron Peters.  In the above picture, we have an example of conceptual photography by one of our Summer Camp participants, Stephen Golding.

Day Five – This final day at the Camp occurred at Glocal’s home-base, the Surrey Art Gallery.The Camp explored the surrounding Bear Creek Park region and tested out their own camera hacks and newly acquired software skills.

 It was out of these landmark sessions that such hardware devices as the Skatecam were researched and developed. This picture above shows Tyler Mast with his own Skatecam that he had built himself.  Other notable cams included the: Bikecam, Hamstercam and even the innovative Spray-Paint Cam (see below).

Please scroll down for more images from this camp…

 Shifting expectations, young girls made up the majority of youth selected for the camp through an on-line application process.

Digital Intern Dennis Rosenfeld worked with half of the participants of the Digital Summer Camp at a time to demonstrate how to “hack” open a digital camera. He then instructed them on how to intervene into the shutter system so that the wiring could be attached to the circuit boards which would allow the cameras to operate hands free.

Guest Artist Daniel Jolliffe worked with half of the participants of the Summer Camp at a time to teach basic electronic circuitry. Working in pairs, participants were shown how to use a soldering station and wire a circuit board from a circuit schematic diagram.

Mentoring Artist Jer Thorp provided a lecture on generative and regenerative art practices to students, providing an explanation of OpenSource software. ..  Jer then led the group through a basic introduction to the OpenSource programming software called Processing…. 

Students were able to design their own simple Processing program and to save images from their own program.

Participants were invited to use their creativity with the glocal software applications and to provide feedback to improve the functionality of the programs. Participants contributed over 4700 images to the glocal project during the Digital Summer Camp week, many of which provided enlightening insight into the capability of the software and the potential for an amazing exhibit in September 2008. The following image utilized the Multiple Exposure Application.

 The Digital Summer Camp finished with a participant project that utilized the skills acquired during the camp. The objective was to provide a series of photographs that utilized innovative photography. Initially, participants brainstormed possible ideas for their projects, which the glocal team will use to develop educational toolkits for educators. The following image represents one participant’s idea of innovative photography.

Canada Day

This is one of my favourite images from Canada Day. These beautiful Persian girls came into the tent and quite naturally made stunning images.

To view more Canada Day images, check out the new posts on our flickr pool.

Hello there GLOCAL blog readers!

Our info-booth presentation at Ottawa’s Canada Day celebration was a success!

The entire GLOCAL collective was chosen as an “artist” alongside the ceramicist Murray Sanders and the painter Deborah Putman to represent Surrey as the ambassadors on behalf of Surrey’s designation as a Cultural Capital of Canada for 2008.

We were all very grateful that the weather held up for this event as the evening before was pouring with rain and this horrendous weather reduced the grassy lawn of Major’s Hill Park to vast puddles of mud.

There was also some initial panic over the installation of GLOCAL’s main presentation monitor but this issue was also quickly resolved when the day arrived (scroll down for the juicy details).

About 200+ photos were taken of our presentation and hundreds more screenshots were captured directly off our Multiple Exposure and Motion Sequencing applications (please see the downloads section to the right of this blog).  

Please click on this link here to view these screenshots from both Ottawa’s and Surrey’s Canada Day celebrations that have been stored on our official Flickr photo-sharing pool!

If you were at our presentation during Canada Day and recognize one of your images, please contact us at info@glocal.ca and we will ensure that you get sufficient credit for your contribution(s).

Here is a picture of the blogger (the Coordinator) showing some booth participants the GLOCAL software application…

Photo by Deborah Putman.

Well, enough about us!  Here are some pictures showing you what the event looked like…

One young participant aims the webcam like a gun towards the red painted Canadian leaf on his cheek for inspiration… All of our software applications allow the participant to take any webcam video feed and make still images out of them.  

These 2 seem to be focusing intently on the results that they are creating in realtime…

This picture provides you with a better angle of what they are looking at in realtime.

These girls are carefully calculating all the possible poses they can do in front of the webcam for the GLOCAL application…

When these kids gave me permission to take their photo, I did not realize they would actually be posing for my camera…I was hoping for an action shot of them using the app..sigh!

Here is one little kid almost poking her eye out with the webcam as her brother inspects the results.

Here was what the main presentation monitor looked like… Please scroll down to see the monitor getting transported via a golf caddy!

In addition to my (Jeremy Turner’s) presentation at this Canada Day info booth, we also had the ceramicist Murray Sanders as well as the painter Deborah Putman representing Surrey’s Cultural Capitals of Canada designation.

MURRAY SANDERS - 

Here is a close up of Murray giving a ceramics demo… I am not sure why this photo is turned on its side.  It looked perfectly straight and upright when I uploaded this from the photo-folder…sigh!

Photo by Stephanie Farrington.

In this picture, Murray is giving a special presentation to a group who appear to be members of “Equipe Candu“. A couple of Deborah’s painted portraits are seen in the background.

This photo provides more evidence to suggest that Murray was (physically) the hardest working booth-member in the tent…He was the one who truly broke out into a sweat!

DEBORAH PUTMAN - 

Here is an action shot of Deborah captivating her audience by pointing to one of her painted portraits…. She is showing this particular portrait as inspiration for the audience members to create their own self-portraits as a tree.  This might be a deep philosophical question but what kind of Tree would a GLOCAL artist be?  Certainly the forest as a whole would be ecologically diverse…Hmmm….

Here is a better angle that shows you the audience members in more detail.  You can see the girls at Deborah’s booth table hard at work with imagining what kind of tree they would be.  You can also see Murray working in the background.

Once each participant has drawn themselves as a tree, their self-portrait is hung on a string like precious laundry.  Here you can see one of the tree self-portraits in plain view.

ASSORTED CROWD SHOTS - 

Here was our booth’s official sign.  You can tell the sign is officially Canadian because it is bilingual.  As we are from British Columbia, we are not used to seeing anything other than the written English language except on things like government documents and cereal boxes.  This sign was for all 3 of us since we were Surrey’s cultural ambassadors for 2008.  There was some text that was “lost in translation” however.  GLOCAL became known as “Global” but at least they correctly identified us as a Digital Media project…phew!  On another note, our booths were next to Nanaimo (on Vancouver Island), Sackville (New Brunswick) and a small town in Manitoba called Morden.  After we had finished the event, we had received many compliments that our booth was the most interactive and popular…double phew!

This photo was taken near the beginning of our presentation.  Here were some of our earliest enthusiasts. For most of the day, our dominant demographic was comprised of Senior Citizens and young families. The ladies in red were our volunteers… Although they were our placeholders for an audience in the very beginning of the day, within about 15 minutes, we started to get lengthy line-ups.  At that point, the volunteers helped out with French translation and other diplomatic duties.  

In retrospect, the reason why our booth attendance was skimpy to begin with was due to the fact that our booth was directly behind this massive mud puddle that resembled a giant trench from WWI. Fortunately after many grant applications (heh heh, just kidding – so Canadian, eh?), we managed to get this puddle filled up with some farm-fresh straw.  Now that we were on secure ground, the audience visited our booth in droves.  The line-up for GLOCAL in particular began to grow exponentially once our main presentation monitor had finally arrived…

At last!  GLOCAL’s main presentation monitor had arrived!  We definitely received special treatment for our delivery.  Our Coordinator Julie Billows (the blonde one) managed to score a golf-caddy (or a reasonable facsimile) and had the monitor hand-delivered by one of their more able-bodied employees.

Not to be outdone by the heavy lifting of her colleague, Julie personally delivers the rest of the presentation gear directly to the GLOCAL booth.

Julie was so impressed with how the GLOCAL Motion Sequence application looked on the main presentation screen, she invited over her own boss (which might be the boss of all possible bosses?) to try out the application for himself.  We were pleased to acquire direct photo-evidence clearly displaying the fact that some of the higher echelon from Canadian Heritage were directly experiencing the GLOCAL project.  

Here is a crowd shot that was to the “stage-left” of our booth (I cannot remember which direction we were facing).  On this Main Stage, celebrities such as Murray McLauchlan sang in the evening.  This photo also has a nice view of the National Gallery.

Here is a view of our booth as seen from the perspective of an approaching audience participant.  The lady in red next to the GLOCAL screens was GLOCAL’s personal volunteer.   She doubled up as our security guard when I was off taking photos of the event.  This volunteer also took care of the French translation for questions regarding the GLOCAL project.

We would like to thank everyone at Canadian Heritage for inviting us and would also like to extent our thanks to Julie Billows (Canadian Heritage, Ottawa) and Dan Nielsen (Cultural Capitals of Canada, Surrey) for inviting us to this event and ensuring that we had proper accommodations at the Lord Elgin Hotel.