From Spikeworld. | Spikeworld - The blog of Spike Dennis | Artist, Maker, Curator and Colloaborator
Tiree Tech Wave Autumn 2015
I had the pleasure of attending the Tiree Tech Wave at the end of October. It’s a small event that takes place on the tiny Hebridean Isle of Tiree – the most westerly island of the Inner Hebrides.
The Tiree Tech Wave is described as “a hands-on making and meeting event exploring the edges of technology on the wild edge of Scotland“.
the Tech Wave presents an opportunity to take time out from the hustle and bustle of our daily routines to meet with like-minded souls and to experiment and play with hardware and software.
I didn’t really know what to expect of the Tech Wave event – and even having visited I still struggle to explain the set up!
The Tech Wave takes place in Tiree’s Rural Centre which acts as cafe/restaurant, community centre, cattle market and cinema! There were 3D printers and laser cutters set up alongside cattle gates in the market space whilst the communal area was given over to thoose working with software as well as craft workshops whilst we were there.
I travelled to the Tiree Tech Wave with staff from Cardiff School of Art & Design and a small cohort of MSc Product Design students. The students were set the task of creating an automated sandwich making machine whilst they were there – which you can see them working on in some of the images above. A lot of the other attendees were working on projects involving open data.
I made use of the time in Tiree to develop some new tools to enable me to take my artwork into some watery new realms. I’m not giving too much away about this new work just yet as I’ve a lot more work to do yet but you can see the results of one of my experiments from Tiree Tech Wave in the image below.
It was fantastic having the time and space to develop some new ideas whilst I was in Tiree. It was also really helpful to have access to a great range of resources – not just in terms of the 3D printers and laser cutters, but also the knowledge of the Product Designer that were there with us.
Being able to run my ideas past people with a very different creative approach enabled me to develop some quite radical ideas very quickly!
Of course the whole experience was heightened further by being based on a beautiful island miles from civilisation! Tiree really is a wondrous location as you can see from the image above – you can see some more of my photos of te Isle of Tiree in a previous post here.
You can find out more about the Tiree Tech Wave here: www.tireetechwave.org – If you have an inerest in technology and the chance to attend I would highly recommend it!!
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