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. (Read more…)

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).

(Read more…)

Self-portrait of Jeremy Owen Turner (Project Coordinator – GLOCAL – Surrey Art Gallery) with the other booth participants from the Surrey Art Gallery. For this photo, the Coordinator used the Glocal prototype interface.

Hello GLOCAL Project blog-readers,

As Coordinator, I have finally taken some time to reflect on my Winterfest information presentation on behalf of the Surrey Art Gallery and the Cultural Capitals of Canada Initiative. This mass-media event took place at Central City (Surrey Central) – more specifically, in the foyer of Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT).

As some of you might know, Surrey has been declared Canada’s official Cultural Capital of 2008 so this was a landmark opportunity to showcase the latest in interactive digital media art and technology.

The GLOCAL presentation was a huge success. Many onlookers from every demographic description felt compelled to play with this interactive screen… Some kids had even begged their parents to return to my booth to explore the video processing application developed by the GLOCAL team and many people wanted to learn more so I managed to hand out most of the official GLOCAL brochures.

I believe the reason why the GLOCAL booth in particular had such a steady stream of activity throughout the day was due primarily to the fact that this interactive screen directly engaged the audience in realtime. The webcam was also mobile enough for each attendee to casually play with the viewing angles and by doing so, a unique video-mosaic was created straight out of their own imagination.

I think that most people who visited the GLOCAL booth felt they were directly interpreting the shifting sights of the Winterfest as if they were one of the performers being featured at the event.

As a result of this booth presentation, I think there will be sufficient interest from schools and individuals from the Surrey community to engage in both short-term and long-term workshops with the artists that comprise the GLOCAL Team.

I will have more photos from this event in a future blog posting but for now, here are some officially released photos:

Here is a portrait of Dan Nielsen (Project Manager – Surrey 2008 – Cultural Capital of Canada) using the GLOCAL prototype interface.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Here is what the official Winterfest sign looked like…

Photo by Rick Chapman. The GLOCAL Coordinator is pictured on the far right in front of his FUSION information booth. He is wearing a white t-shirt and standing not too far away from an over-saturated white TV screen that is suspended from the ceiling. The computer screen used to display GLOCAL’s prototype software application looked really nice in person but the photographer had used a flash so the GLOCAL screen is not very visible in this picture.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Inside that illuminated window was where all our information booths were so you could imagine how powerful and loud the fireworks were since they were practically exploding right next to the building complex’s facade. When the explosions first went off, everyone thought someone had detonated a bomb.

Photo by Rick Chapman.Here is another view of the fireworks display that occurred right next to the entrance to the SIAT building.

Photo by Rick Chapman. Here is one last view of the fireworks for Winterfest which by the way, had the keyword FUSION as its theme for this year….

Hello GLOCAL blog readers!

 Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Jeremy Owen Turner and I am the Project Coordinator for the GLOCAL Project at the Surrey Art Gallery’s Techlab.

Hopefully, you will not confuse me with one of the actual artists from the GLOCAL Team who is also named Jer(emy) (Thorp).

 I am available in the Techlab usually between Monday-Friday from 10 AM – 5:30 PM if you wish to visit the GLOCAL Studio in person and ask me questions about the project. I can also give you a demo of the first version of their software interface.

My official GLOCAL phone number is, 604-598-6987.  My direct email is JOTurner@surrey.ca

Please check out our Facebook group and our Flickr Photo Pool for more documentation and information.

In the coming days, I will post photodocumentation from our information booth at Surrey’s Winterfest.

It was an amazing event and many people took away brochures and wanted to know more about GLOCAL.

 Cheers,

Jeremy