Last weekend I went down to London to see Area10 in Peckham. They were having an event called re booted, as part of the node.London (http://www.nodel.org/) series of events.
Area 10 http://www.area10medialab.co.uk/
Area 10 Project space is pleased to launch the new media lab
platform. The medialab is being introduced to facilitate the
development of research and art practices using open source new
technologies in the media arts. <AREA 10: MEDIALAB /> will focus on
engaging cross-disciplinary collaborations between various arts and
science based practices, encouraging open and critical discussion in
addition to sharing knowledge and skills transfer.
It was two days of talks, with a launch night on saturday full of electronic music using the platforms described during the days. Eg Jackbytes, Fluxus, PD, MaxMSP etc.
Area10 is a huge warehouse which was a great space for some large video artworks. The most fun was the peace mobile cinema from the Netherlands. It had seating for up to nine people, and was a group experience, where the audience became part of the movie.
The next major event Area10 are planning is a summer streaming event. With their linkages to goto10, constant, openlabs, it should be great. They are looking at more than just presentations through it, but doing live art.

(device/artwork by simsyn.org)
A paper of mine on how artists access technology has been pblished in the online fibreculture journal. I looked at artworks by FOAM, Blast Theory and the SymbioticA Research Group. You can find it here
SO today….
Arduino workshop
{from http://www.takeawayfestival.com/node?q=node/128} In this workshop we’ll introduce the ARDUINO philosophy and explore the basics of physical computing while learning how to build simple interactive objects. ARDUINO is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and a development environment for writing ARDUINO software. It can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other outputs. ARDUINO projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP.)
http://www.arduino.cc
this afternoon
Hive Networks
Hivenetworks
by Ilze Black, Alexei Blinov
So youve discovered this piece of technlogy that interests you. You want to make some art about it, maybe you want to make some art with it, maybe you want to critique what lies behnd it. What is access and how can you get it….
Access can be broken into three separate albeit interrelated aspects:
-physical/economic access (do you have the money to buy?/economics)
-intellectual access (do you have the right to use/patents)
-regulatory access (can you use this technique without crossing proscribed boundaries/can you satisfy regulations?)
If we take Stelarcs third ear as an example, it would be expensive to attach the ear surgically. The cast of his ear would have involved using a proprietry polymer, and the surgey itself may have required regulatory approval.