June 2009 newsletter
June 16, 2009 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on June 2009 newsletter
NOW & UPCOMING
New Website & Twitter
Proboscis is pleased to announce that we have a new website where we will be posting much more regular updates on projects as well as our creative process. We will continue sending occasional email newsletters, but in future we recommend bookmarking the news page or subscribing to the RSS feed.
http://proboscis.org.uk/news/
http://proboscis.org.uk/feed/rss/
http://twitter.com/proboscisstudio
Sutton Grapevine
Proboscis has been working this spring and summer in Sutton-in-the-Isle on Sutton Grapevine, a story sharing project which will be shown at Sutton Feast Week from the 1st – 5th July at St Andrews Church and around the village. We’ve been exploring various different on and offline processes around local storytelling. We roved around the village gathering and recording stories – both past, present and future; hanging out at the community shop, visiting local clubs and individuals, hosting a storytelling barbecue and a workshop with young people.
http://suttongrapevine.org
http://twitter.com/suttongrapevine
Sensory Threads : demo at Dana Centre 23/06/09 & National Physical Lab 02/07/09
We will be giving the first public demo of our Sensory Threads prototype at the Dana Centre on Tuesday June 23rd. The event, Surface Tension, is free to attend (no booking required). Sensory Threads is a new experiment in mobile participatory sensing and sonification – making imperceptible things in our environments tangible and tactile.
http://proboscis.org.uk/1207/dana-centre-demo/
We will also be demoing ST at the National Physical Laboratory on Tuesday July 2nd as part of the Wireless Sensing Showcase 2009:
http://www.wisig.org/showcase2009
Artemov, Mobilefest and Arteleku
Proboscis has been invited to participate in several festivals and workshops this year – from Mobilefest in Sao Paolo (Brasil) and at the ‘Your Map is Not My Map’ workshop at Arteleku, San Sebastian (Spain) in September, to the Artemov festival in Belo Horizonte (Brasil) in November.
http://www.mobilefest.org
http://www.artemov.net
http://www.arteleku.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RECENT ACTIVITIES
New Cultural Snapshot: Cultivating Research
Sarah Thelwall’s Troubadour Study for the Creator Research Cluster, “Cultivating Research : articulating value in arts and academic collaborations” is now available to download:
http://proboscis.org.uk/1245/cultural-snapshot-16/
Jump In Workshop, The Rookery, London
Proboscis, Sarah Thelwall and Tim Jon (Solar Associates) hosted a one day workshop with about 20 participants from small arts organisations exploring possible routes to, and reasons for, acquiring Independent Research Organisation status. The workshop was the final activity of the Creator Research Cluster (funded by the EPSRC as part of the Digital Economy programme), of which Proboscis was a founder member
http://proboscis.org.uk/1005/jump-in-workshop/
Being in Common : Catalogue of Ideas
Proboscis has published a special artists bookwork to accompany our Being in Common commission for Gunpowder Park. The catalogue, a deck of cards, is a playful exploration of ‘common space’ drawing together fragments and ideas from across the project, to be played with, read individually or assembled into narratives and stories making unexpected connections and perspectives. The catalogue is available to buy for £10 (inc. shipping) from our online shop.
http://proboscis.org.uk/987/catalogue-of-ideas/
StoryCube prices 25% lower than 2008
StoryCube packs are now an average 25% lower than in 2008 – making them an even more delectable a tool for workshops and storytelling projects:
http://proboscis.org.uk/store.html#storycubes
Diffusion Generator – update on progress
As part of our Technology Strategy Board Feasibility Study, we have completely re-engineered the Diffusion Generator. Thanks to our development team (technical advisor Stefan Kueppers and coders Simon Whiteside & Yasir Assam) the new Generator supports offline content creation; landscape as well as portrait eBooks; both long and short edge version of the Diffusion eBook binding; double and single sided StoryCubes; multiple languages (including many non-Roman alphabets); right-to-left languages (Arabic etc); and can accept CSS-styled XHTML as content. We are building a new website to access it this summer and hope to invite individuals and organisations to test it out as the year progresses. Please contact us for more details.
http://diffusion.org.uk/?page_id=4
Paralelo, Sao Paulo, Brasil
Proboscis took part in the Paralelo event hosted by the British Council Brasil, MIS-Museum of Image and Sound and Centro Cultural de Sao Paulo. We helped with the event facilitation, running two social mapping workshops and designing a special Paralelo Diffusion eNotebook for participants to capture and share ideas, reflections and information.
http://paralelo.wikidot.com/
New Diffusion Titles
Dope smuggling, LSD, organised crime & the law in 1960s London by Stewart Home – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1205
The 36 Stratagems by anonymous – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1192
Would be Disciplined by Tony White – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1178
iStreetLab by mongrelStreet – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1148
Dodolab StoryCube by Giles Lane – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1118
Hard Hearted Hannah: Classics from Nowhere by Cartoon de Salvo – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1104
Hard Hearted Hannah: the world of the Strange and Bizarre by Cartoon de Salvo – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1107
On The Death Of Julia Callan-Thompson by Stewart Home – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1083
H2O by Alejandra Canales, Anne Ransquin and Juan F. Salazar – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1070
The Anatomy of the Horse by George Stubbs – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1062
Measure Once, Cut Twice : a case study of Snout by Frederik Lesage – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1054
Bourriaud’s ‘Altermodern’ – an eclectic mix of bullshit and bad taste by Stewart Home – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1049
Tweetomes : some epithets on practices of pithy exchange by Giles Lane – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1025
The minimal compact by Adam Greenfield – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1012
The Tongue Conceals Time by Shae Davidson – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=1000
Click This? MySpace & the Pornography of Corporately Controlled Virtual Life by Stewart Home – http://diffusion.org.uk/?p=993
Sutton Grapevine
June 4, 2009 by aliceangus · Comments Off on Sutton Grapevine
This week we are back in Sutton-in-the-Isle for Sutton Grapevine our story gathering and sharing project commissioned by ADeC.
From 3rd – 9th of June we’ll be roving around the village gathering and recording stories in many ways; from hanging out at the election, the community shop, the pub and the community spaces with a large village map, to visiting local clubs and individuals, to hosting a storytelling dinner with the residents of a street, to running workshops and going for walks. As the village continues to change through growth, movement and migration the initiative aims to let local people explore place and identity.
Alongside this we’ve integrated storytelling and news sharing (by email and with a WordPress blog); sound recordings (via the free podbean and AudioBoo podcasting servicees and the low cost Gabcast telephone-to-MP3 podcasting service); photo sharing (via the Flickr group pool); social connections (via the Facebook Group) and news feeds (via Twitter). We will also be adding in some of our own inventions like StoryCubes and Diffusion eBooks to make tangible things that can be passed around, as well as the digital media.
Should you find yourself in the area please come and find us in Sutton to add a story to the Grapevine or join in remotely.
We will be back during Sutton Feast Week from the 1st – 5th July with an exhibition and audio broadcasts at St Andrews Church and around the village.
See you in Sutton!
Sandwell Sense of Place
May 29, 2009 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Sandwell Sense of Place
Proboscis has recently been invited to join a tender bid to Urban Living and Birmingham City Council for the Sandwell Sense of Place project. The other partners are Rob Annable and Mike Menzies of axis design architects (who are leading the bid); Michael Kohn and Chris of YouCanPlan and Nick Booth of Podnosh. The sense of place project aims to devise a toolkit and archive using a variety of media and techniques for local residents to articulate their sense of place in two areas of Sandwell near Birmingham in the ‘Western Growth Corridor‘. This sense of place and its archive will form a key input into the regeneration masterplanning process.
As part of our interview we created a special Diffusion eBook outlining the team’s approach and illustrating some of our previous work.
DodoLab Montréal
May 18, 2009 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on DodoLab Montréal
DodoLab is a collaboration between Render, Proboscis and the Musagetes Foundation – a dynamic and experimental co-creative lab for engaging participants in events and communities to challenge accepted ideas and develop insights into contexts, processes and situations.
The first DodoLab was held in Montréal in May 2009 at the 5th World Environmental Education Congress – a creative intervention in the exhibition hall and out and about in Montréal itself. Led by Andrew Hunter of Render, the DodoLab team created a series of projects engaging the congress delegates in questioning concepts of sustainability and environmental education with a focus on resilience and adaptability. Giles Lane devised and a facilitated a mapping and StoryCube activity engaging several hundred delegates in annotating a world map with their location and connections to other places, and completing a StoryCube about their ideas on sustainability and resilience.
Paralelo, Sao Paulo
April 5, 2009 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
Paralelo, Sao Paulo, Brasil
Alice, Giles and Orlagh travelled to Sao Paulo in Brasil to take part in the AHRC and British Council sponsored event, Paralelo, hosted by the British Council Brasil, MIS-Museum of Image and Sound and Centro Cultural de Sao Paulo. We helped with the event facilitation, running two social mapping workshops and designing a special Paralelo Diffusion eNotebook, Travelling Through Layers, for participants to capture and share ideas, reflections and information.
http://paralelo.wikidot.com/
Navigating History
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · Leave a Comment
Navigating History was created by Proboscis and curator Deborah Smith to bring to light unique local history collections through a series of specially commissioned projects by practitioners from the fields of art, design, jewellery, film and interactive technology. The project was sited in the richly diverse collections of East Sussex Record Office in Lewes, Folkestone Library & Museum and West Sussex Local Studies Collection in Worthing Library. In each of the libraries and archive you will find three of the commissions, a programme of talks and events, further information including inspirational archive boxes of background materials and you can join in with the project My History.
A significant portion of the local studies collections in the libraries and archive are only accessible through library/archive catalogues and are made available to the public on request. Navigating History‘s imaginative and exploratory commissions unearth items from these collections relating to several hundred years of history including 18th Century inventories, early film, maritime history and local newspapers. By interweaving past and present whilst exploring themes of identity and place the commissions open up unusual and new routes into the collections. A maze of narratives from the unexpected to the peculiar, the tragic to the wondrous are revealed from stories of ordinary people to those documenting momentous events.
Commissioned Artists:
Neville Gabie, Rachel Murphy, Claudia Schenk, Stephen Connolly, Rob Kesseler, Bob and Roberta Smith, Andrew Hunter, Simon Pope, Mah Rana, Jason Bowman and Sally O’Reilly & Cathy Haynes.
Team: Alice Angus, Deborah Smith & Orlagh Woods
Funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England, Creative Partnerships, Kent County Council, West Susses County Council and East Sussex County Council
Lattice::Sydney
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
In February 2008 Proboscis were resident with ICE (Information and Cultural Exchange) in Western Sydney, Australia. We collaborated with ICE and the British Council Australia to run a workshop and exchange labs over 3 weeks with a group of 15 creative practitioners from local communities. The project grew out of connections we made with ICE during the Coding Cultures project by d/Lux/MediaArts in Australia in 2007.
Through a series of intensive workshops, Proboscis explored approaches to creatively transforming cities and shared techniques with the Western Sydney artists, who in turn had the opportunity to develop projects. Members of the wider arts community participated in half-day Exchange Labs and a public symposium. Lattice addressed the ways culturally diverse communities engage with their environment and considered; what happens when people come to a city? What knowledge is lost, or gained? What are the impacts of emerging new identities on cities?
- The Lattice::Sydney film was made by participants in the workshop and features a playful model city built from any materials that came to hand, to manifest the ideas about ‘Creative City’ generated in the workshop.
- We also made Drawing Conclusions a short film of artists Matt Huynh and Tina Tran of Popperbox drawing conclusions from the Lattice forum.
- Lattice::Sydney project blog
- Lattice::Sydney Sketchbook Diffusion eBook by Tak Tran
- Lattice::Sydney Sketchbook Diffusion eBook by Tina Tran
- Lattice::Sydney Sketchbook Diffusion eBook by Matt Huynh
- Lattice::Sydney Sketchbook Diffusion eBook by David Capra
- Lattice::Sydney Unwrapped Diffusion eBook by Proboscis, ICE and Lattice Participants
- How to Find out What they Want Diffusion eBook by Matt Huynh, Todd Williams, Kasama Yamtree
Team: Alice Angus, Giles Lane & Orlagh Woods
Participants: David Capra, Ali Kadhim, Sanez Fatouhi and Amin Palagni, Ben Hoh, Tiffany Lee-Shoy, Fatima Mawas, Ben Nitiva, Matt Huynh, Tak Tran and Tina Tran of Popperbox, Denis Asif Sado, Trey Thomas, Maria Tran, Todd Williams and Kasama Yamtree.
Partners: ICE (Information & Communication Exchange)
Funded by the British Council as part of the Council’s Creative Cities East Asia initiative
with additional support from Foundation for Young Australians (Youth Digital Cultures Project) and support from the AMWU.
Sutton Grapevine
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · 3 Comments
Sutton Grapevine explores issues of place and identity in and around the village of Sutton-in-the-Isle, Cambridgeshire, focusing on the unique context of Sutton, its location in the Fens, the rapid development of the village, it’s rich history and the complex mix of it’s multiple communities past, present and future.
It draws inspiration from storytelling’s historical context: the telling and retelling of folktales as they travel between villages or continents, the sociable storytelling in the pub or around the living room fireside, the broadcasting of stories via radio and books. The project collects and shares stories with the local community through a series of events, online media and sociable listening experiences.
Sutton Grapevine proposes a kind of template for using hybrid online and offline experiences in rural communities where there is a lack of “permanently available shared cultural spaces”. Spanning the technological and tangible we aim to bridge virtual and physical spaces in compelling and innovative ways.
http://suttongrapevine.org
Follow suttongrapevine on Twitter
Team: Alice Angus, Dia Batal, Giles Lane, Karen Martin & Orlagh Woods.
Commissioned by ADeC.
Funded by Arts Council England East.
Perception Peterborough
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · 3 Comments
Peterborough is currently one of the UKs four Environmental Cities and it aims to become the Environmental Capital.
Perception Peterborough is a dynamic and creative visioning project which brought together key local representatives with creative thinkers to develop innovative approaches to the challenges and opportunities facing Peterborough over the next 15-20 years. Proboscis was commissioned to develop and lead a series of creative workshops alongside consultants Haring Woods Associates.
As part of our research for the project, we conducted an anarchaeology of the city and its people and created a series of Impressions to inspire different perspectives on the key themes for workshop participants and project stakeholders.
Read more about the Workshops
Read more about the Impressions
- Lines of Mobility Diffusion eBook
- Blocks of Change Diffusion eBook
- Bus Adventures Diffusion eBook
- Underused Assets StoryCubes
- Monsters and Mermaids (8 panel french fold booklet PDF)
- Flows Film
- Perspectives Film
- Voices audio piece
- Briefing Pack Book (PDF)
- Briefing Pack StoryCubes (illustrated by Matt Huynh).
- PP Launch Event Booklet (PDF)
- Final Report & Appendices (PDF)
Team: Alice Angus, Niharika Hariharan, Matt Huynh, Giles Lane, Karen Martin, Sarah Thelwall, Carmen Vela Maldonado & Orlagh Woods.
Commissioned by Peterborough City Council; Arts Council England, East; Opportunity Peterborough, East of England Development Agency, MLA, Natural England, Sport England and English Heritage.
Proboscis would like to thank the many people we encountered in our research as well as those we spoke to for longer and in particular the following: Renny Antonelli, Simon Belham, Nuno Costa, Jimmy D, Vladimir Demcak, Patricia Higham, Judith Jacobs, Keely Mills, Nathan Murdoch, Glen Nelson, New Link Translators, Luke Payn, Amanda Preston, Proteus Canoe Club, Michael Riccardi, Monika Romankiewicz, Liliana Ronseca, Phil Sheppard, Jurga Tonkuniene.
Feral Robots
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
Robotic Feral Public Authoring was a collaboration between Proboscis, Birkbeck College’s Pervasive Computing Lab and Natalie Jeremijenko. Combining Proboscis’ Urban Tapestries public authoring platform with Natalie’s Feral Robot concept (first commissioned by Proboscis for Private Reveries, Public Spaces) to create a pollution sensing and mapping tool for local communities to discover more about their environments and correlate it with other local knowledge.
Working with local residents and users of London Fields in Hackney we built a feral robot to sense air pollution in the park, uploading the data via Mesh WiFi to the Urban Tapestries platform where it could be seen mapped against local knowledge about the park shared by residents. Space Media Arts provided a base for a bodystorming workshop and access to a local mesh wifi network.
Team: Demetrios Airantzis, Alice Angus, Camilla Brueton, Dima Diall, Natalie Jeremijenko, Giles Lane, Karen Martin, George Papamarkos, George Roussos & Orlagh Woods.
Partners: Birkbeck College (University of London), Space Media Arts.
Funded by EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
Conversations & Connections
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · Leave a Comment
As part of our Social Tapestries research programme, Proboscis collaborated with Kevin Harris of Local Level and residents of the Havelock Estate in Southall, west London to explore how communication technologies (such as Urban Tapestries) and creative techniques (such as Bodystorming, StoryCubes & Diffusion eBooks) might enhance democratic engagement at local level by stimulating the habits of participation.
The project encountered significant issues in adoption and engagement due to complex and interwoven social, cultural, economic, linguistic, educational factors – and a key outcome was the ongoing evaluation of these barriers and how we tried to address them. The project’s final report to the Ministry of Justice (April 2007) quickly became Proboscis’ most downloaded publication ever.
Team: Camilla Brueton, Kevin Harris (Local Level), Giles Lane & Orlagh Woods
Partners: Bev Carter (Partners in Change); HIRO (Havelock Independent Residents Organisation)
Funded by the Ministry of Justice (Electoral Policy Division Innovation Award)
Social Tapestries
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · Leave a Comment
Social Tapestries (2004-08) was a five year research programme of projects that grew out of our original Urban Tapestries project. The focus of Social Tapestries was to create a series of experiments in public authoring in challenging environments and with local communities that could begin to reveal the potential for emerging mobile media in enabling change through the mapping and sharing of knowledge and experience in everyday settings. We developed projects with two social housing groups (a residents’ committee and a short-life co-op), schools (a secondary near Hull and a primary in North London), residents/users of London Fields and people who lived and worked in Hoxton.
Team: Alice Angus, Camilla Brueton, Kevin Harris, Giles Lane, Karen Martin, Sarah Thelwall and Orlagh Woods.
Partners & Collaborators: Birkbeck College; London School of Economics; Jenny Hammond Primary School; HIRO (Havelock Independent Residents Organisation); St Marks Housing Co-op, Kingswood High; Getmapping.com;
Funded by Arts Council England, Ministry of Justice, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
Snout
November 3, 2008 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
Snout investigates how data can be collected from environmental sensors as part of popular social and cultural activities. Proboscis collaborated with inIVA and researchers from Birkbeck College’s Pervasive Computing Lab to design and build two carnival costumes (Mr Punch and the Plague Doctor) that were instrumented with environmental sensors and LED displays. A website was created (using free social software tools) to show the sensor data mapped against other local knowledge (drawn in via RSS feeds) and contextual data (about local health, poverty, education etc) scraped from the Office of National Statistics.
In April 2007 we staged a mock carnival in Shoreditch to collect pollution data and stimulate conversations. The procession started out from the new inIVA building on Rivington Street and weaved a route up Charlotte Road to Hoxton Square, down Hoxton Street and round Shoreditch High Street to finish up with an afternoon public forum at Cargo.
Team: Demetrios Airantzis, Alice Angus, Giles Lane, Karen Martin, George Roussos, Jenson Taylor & Orlagh Woods.
Performers: Bill Aitchison & Jordan Mackenzie
Partners: Iniva; Birkbeck College (University of London)
Commissioned by Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts)
Funded by Arts Council England and Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Foundation.
Perception Peterborough – Impressions
September 15, 2008 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Perception Peterborough – Impressions
As part of our research for the project, we conducted an anarchaeology of the city and its people and created a series of Impressions to inspire different perspectives on the key themes for workshop participants and project stakeholders.
The Impressions, initially created as a means of conveying a local sense of place to national and international participants, were inspired by the series of ‘Wanderings’ that Proboscis undertook with local people in Peterborough as a means of conveying a local sense of place.
We were inspired by the people of Peterborough and the seeds of the future they showed us that Peterborough already has; the diversity, talent, river, and green spaces, fens and waterways, the history and folklore and the great generous friendliness of people who never turned us away. Our Impressions therefore were about the seeds of Peterborough; visible and invisible, from past and future, for hopes
and concerns. They are about what could be seeded, nurtured and grown and what seeds exist here already to help everyone do that.
The wanderings involved conversations and encounters with over 20 local people of different ages and backgrounds. Proboscis journeyed through townships, villages and city by taxi, train, bus, bike, kayak and on foot to investigate and explore the city and its surrounding landscapes. We gained a richer understanding, through local and grassroots perspectives, of people’s perspectives of what it is like to live in Peterborough and their aspirations for the future. The resulting series of Impressions include short films, audio collage, eBooks, StoryCubes and drawings that can be shared physically and digitally and combined with existing policy material to add new perspective to the visioning process.
- Lines of Mobility Diffusion eBook
- Blocks of Change Diffusion eBook
- Bus Adventures Diffusion eBook
- Underused Assets StoryCubes
- Monsters and Mermaids (8 panel french fold booklet PDF)
- Flows Film
- Perspectives Film
- Voices audio piece
- Briefing Pack Book (PDF)
- Briefing Pack StoryCubes (illustrated by Matt Huynh).
Perception Peterborough Briefing Book
September 1, 2008 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Perception Peterborough Briefing Book
Produced by Haring Woods Associates
Editor: Celia Makin-Bell
Concept and design: Proboscis
Illustration: Matt Huynh
Graphic Design: Carmen Vela Maldonado
Perception Peterborough – Voices
September 1, 2008 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Perception Peterborough – Voices
Voices records hopes, aspirations and feelings about the city of local people we encountered during our anarchaeological research for Perception Peterborough. One of a series of 8 “Impressions” of the city of Peterborough in England. Part of the Perception Peterborough project which involves artists and consultants in working with local, national and international people to develop a compelling and exciting vision for the future of the city.
StoryCubes Installation – bTWEEN08
June 20, 2008 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on StoryCubes Installation – bTWEEN08
Following the Manchester Beacon workshop, Proboscis facilitated a StoryCubes ‘landscape of ideas’ to help Just b. Productions and the Manchester Beacon Project define the brief for a new commission to create an online public engagement service that maps connections between people, places, knowledge and creative activity in Manchester. Starting with a series of questions derived from the initial day-long workshop, delegates of b.TWEEN were asked to add their comments, ideas and suggestions to scope out wider issues, aspirations and challenges for the design brief of a new online ‘public engagement tool’.
The StoryCubes Installation was subsequently voted Best Interactive Gallery Installation by the delegates of b.TWEEN.
Team: Giles Lane and Karen Martin.
StoryCubes Workshop – Manchester Beacon
June 20, 2008 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
Proboscis were commissioned by the Manchester Beacon Project and Just-b Productions to design and facilitate a StoryCubes Workshop as part of developing a brief for commissioning an online ‘public engagement tool’.
Read more about the workshop and view it outcomes here.
Participants:
Katz Kiely, Giles Lane, Karen Martin, Erinma Ochu, Rob Annable, Geoff Laycock, Constance Fleuriot, Lewis Sykes, Maria Stukoff, John Wetheral, Dom Raban, David Fernandez-Dias, Tim Riches, Martyn Amos, Marjahan Begum, Toby Howard, Andrew Wilson, Onno Baudouin and Dwayne Brandy.
Team: Giles Lane and Karen Martin
StoryCubes
May 9, 2008 by Giles Lane · 9 Comments
*** Buy Packs of Blank StoryCubes ***
What Are StoryCubes?
StoryCubes are a tactile tool for thinking, storymaking and telling that are fantastic for exploring relationships and narratives. Each of the six sides can illustrate or describe an idea, a thing or an action – placed together it is possible to build up multiple narratives or explore the relationships between them in three-dimensions. StoryCubes can be folded in two different ways, giving each cube twelve possible faces – and thus two different ways of telling a story, interior and exterior, to reveal different perspectives and make new connections and associations.
Visit our new website for more ideas, uses and case studies: storycubes.net or read our handy guide below :
Multiple sizes : Proboscis has recently introduced a new medium size StoryCube (82x82x82mm) to complement the original size (55x55x55mm) and our custom exhibition size (228x228x228mm). The small and medium sizes are available both a blank cubes to buy and as templates in bookleteer for creating personalised cubes. The exhibition size cubes can be ordered as custom items – please contact us for more information.
Buy Packs of Blank StoryCubes
You can buy packs of blank StoryCubes from our online store from £24.99 (Original size 48 cubes, UK delivery) and £29.99 (Medium size 27cubes, UK delivery). The cubes are professionally manufactured using FSC-approved sustainable card stocks.
Personalised StoryCubes
*** design your own Print On Demand StoryCubes with bookleteer ***
Users of Proboscis’ free bookleteer service can design their own StoryCubes and print them out at home (or work) on standard paper or card. Alternatively you can use our Short Run printing service to order professionally printed and die-cut cubes on 300 micron FSC-approved card. Minimum print run of 50 copies per StoryCube design and minimum order of 250 printed cubes. Join bookleteer today for free and create your own StoryCubes (and Diffusion eBooks).
Some ideas for using StoryCubes
- as a brainstorming tool to help people share ideas in workshops, conferences and creative labs
- as an evaluation tool to build up multi layered and multi faceted responses to an event (conference, workshop, performance etc)
- as mnemonic devices helping participants recall activities and outcomes of workshops and mentoring sessions
- in school projects to help students collaborate on group work, enhance negotiation and debating skills and develop tactile and spatial construction skills
- in community projects for intergenerational work – helping people see each others’ perspectives on shared issues
- with young children: make your own alphabet and number cubes or create StoryCubes with photos of friends and family to assist recognition and memory skills
- for storytelling games – where each participant adds elements to their cube and take turns in telling a story with them
- for storyboarding: to help organise storylines for writing, animations or films
- for urban gaming: use StoryCubes as props in urban game scenarios.
- Get more ideas, suggestions and case studies from our new website : storycubes.net
StoryCube Design Services
Proboscis offers several design services for StoryCubes. Please contact us for pricing options.
- StoryCube Packs for Conferences & Workshops: for organisers to distribute to delegates as an evaluation tool, or to stimulate discussion and debate. Proboscis will design and produce a pack containing StoryCubes and customised handouts for distribution to delegates.
- Workshop Facilitation: Proboscis can facilitate StoryCube workshops at conferences and events for brainstorming, discussion and evaluation sessions. Proboscis will design and provide custom handouts for delegates, all the necessary StoryCubes and will facilitate the workshops themselves. In addition we will document and evaluate the workshop as part of the service.
- Custom Printed StoryCubes: Proboscis can design and manufacture individually designed StoryCubes – e.g. as give-aways for events, objects for urban gaming experiences, marketing campaigns or other projects – for single or double-sided cubes with as many different StoryCube designs as you like (minimum order 250 StoryCubes). You can design your own StoryCubes using our bookleteer service and order them to be printed on digitally printed and de-cut card. See above for sample costs.
- Licensing: For customised designs and volume ordering (such as museum education programmes, workshops etc) the StoryCube design may be licensed to take advantage of local manufacturing economies.
Download our Design Services Leaflet (PDF 1Mb) or visit our Online Store
StoryCubes Resources
- Sticker template for MS Word
- Sticker template for OpenOffice
- Sticker template for Adobe InDesign
StoryCubes Workshop – iHuman Youth Society
April 6, 2008 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
Experiencing Democracy Report
April 5, 2008 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Experiencing Democracy Report
Experiencing Democracy Report (April 2008)
Conversations & Connections Report
May 28, 2007 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Conversations & Connections Report
Social Tapestries: Conversations and Connections (May 2007)
Download PDF 3.3Mb
Order a Hard Copy
Shared Encounters Workshop
April 30, 2007 by karenmartin · Comments Off on Shared Encounters Workshop
‘Shared Encounters’ was a workshop which took place at CHI 07 in San Jose, California. CHI is the annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems and this one-day workshop brought together researchers from academia and industry to explore how mobile technologies might support shared encounters in urban environments. Karen Martin and Giles Lane submitted a position paper describing Proboscis’ Conversations and Connections project and the challenges and opportunities faced by projects which make use of, and develop, new technologies but have primarily social goals.
You can read our paper here: Making Glue (PDF 150Kb)
This is the workshop abstract:
Our everyday lives are characterised by encounters, some are fleeting and ephemeral and others are more enduring and meaningful exchanges. Shared encounters are the glue of social networks and have a socializing effect in terms of mutual understanding, empathy, respect and thus tolerance towards others. The quality and characteristics of such encounters are affected by the setting, or situation in which they occur. In a world shaped by communication technologies, non-place-based networks often coexist alongside to the traditional local face-to-face social networks. As these multiple and distinct on and off-line communities tend to carry out their activities in more and more distinct and sophisticated spaces, a lack of coherency and fragmentation emerges in the sense of a shared space of community. Open public space with its streets, parks and squares plays an important role in providing space for shared encounters among and between these coexisting networks. Mobile and ubiquitous technologies enable social encounters located in public space, albeit not confined to fixed settings, whilst also offering sharing of experiences from non-place based networks. We will look at how to create or support the conditions for meaningful and persisting shared encounters. In particular we propose to explore how technologies can be appropriated for shared interactions that can occur spontaneously and playfully and in doing so re-inhabit and connect place-based social networks.
http://www.mediacityproject.com/shared-encounters/description.php
Urban Tapestries: Public Authoring, Place & Mobility
October 15, 2006 by Giles Lane · 1 Comment
Urban Tapestries: Public Authoring, Place & Mobility (October 2006)
Common Knowledge
May 15, 2006 by Giles Lane · Comments Off on Common Knowledge
Cultural Snapshots No.12 May 2006
Common Knowledge: Community development and communication on a housing estate by Kevin Harris
