Stitch is a not-for-profit organisation set up by a group of young artists, scientists and environmentalists with the aim of raising environmental awareness through art.

They are holding an art auction tonight in the amazing surrounds of the Old Dairy (WC1N), with all proceeds contributing towards environmental causes. I have a framed photograph in the show, Untitled (Isle of Grain).

Untitled (Isle of Grain), C-type 35mm print, 60cm x 42cm, 2011

I have written a short piece of text explaining the background to the image.

The Isle of Grain is a region of marshland in the north of Kent, at the mouthway of the River Thames. In virtue of its astounding biodiversity and variety of habitats, it is classified by ecologists as an "open mosaic" environment, home to a rich tapestry of wildlife. Thirteen of its native species are endangered with extinction, with a further 34 classified as nationally scarce. It is home to Britain's rarest species of native bee.

Its sparse populous, coastal location and proximity to London also make the Isle of Grain a target for industrial development. Formerly home to a BP oil refinery, it is now occupied by the Thamesport container seaport, an oil-burning power station, a Liquefied Natural Gas import facility, and the landing point of the BritNed high-voltage submarine power cable, linking Kent with Maasklakte, Holland. A further gas-fired power station is planned by the National Grid, who own over 700 acres of the surrounding land.

In November 2011, Lord Norman Foster presented a proposal to develop Grain as the radial point of a new high-tech transport system, the "Thames Hub". This would include a four-runway airport with twice the capacity of Heathrow, a Trade Spine to link utility pipes and cables to the north of England, and a high-speed rail station, forecast to become the UK's busiest.

The auction also includes works by the like of Vivienne Westwood, Richard Long, Marc Quinn and Richard Wentworth. The event runs from 6pm.

In T-minus one week, it's the second edition of our new monthly night of cosmic sounds at 93 Feat East, Signals From The Cosmos.

This month we have joined forces with London record label Thisisnotanexit (responsible for records from artists such as Hatchback, Detachments, Brain Machine and Spectral Empire) to celebrate their latest release, the new Ultralight EP from soon to be massive Canadian duo Parallels. Unfortunately we can't afford to get Parallels to London to play for us, but we do have TINAE label boss Simon A. Carr performing a rare DJ set. Expect future music of the highest order.

In addition we will be giving away a copy of this awesome record to one lucky winner. Best of all, entry is free.

Featuring:

Simon A. Carr (Thisisnotanexit)
http://www.thisisnotanexit.net

and your regular hosts:

Urlaubshits
http://www.urlaubshits.co.uk

Ad Hoc
http://www.adhoc.fm

Also find us on Facebook or last.fm.

Signals From The Cosmos is a new monthly residency at 93 Feet East that I am beginning this week (as Ad Hoc), alongside Scott Urlaubshits. Guests this month are the West End Boys, formerly of La Supercool Discotheque. We'll be playing (and I quote) cosmic disco, mutant house, future acid, radiophonic techno and low slung dubbed out grooves.

We're aesthetically angling it somewhere in the retro-futurist continuum somewhere between 1950s American comics and the cold-war Soviet space race. Here's the first flyer of the series...

If you're socially disposed, send a transmission to our Facebook group or MySpace profile.

I'll also be debuting a series of experimental live video pieces to accompany the night. The first is a live video kaleidoscope, created in a few fun minutes playing with Apple's Quartz Composer.

Zane Berzina is a Latvian researcher working across the boundaries of textiles, electronics and theory to produce beautiful physical artefacts, with a strong focus on the design and production processes. Her recent practice, at LCF, manifest itself in a series of investigations using the skin as an analogy for textile surfaces to create "polysensual, therapeutic and interactive environments". She's now based at Goldsmiths, with links to the Constance Howard Resource and Research Centre in Textiles.

Her current work is, on display at the Science Museum's Dana Centre (last day today!), exposes the pervasive forces and potential of electrostatic in fabrics: E-Static Shadows.

It's the product of a two-year research project which is beautifully documented on her website. For those around London, there's a talk tonight exploring the issues surrounding this research:

How can electrostatic energy enhance the sensory experience of our surroundings? Join designer Zane Berzina, architect Jackson Tan and material scientist Mark Miodownik in our e-static shadows installation to talk future textiles. Explore the invisible forces of electrostatics in this night of playful interactions.

More information here.

Not one, but three What They Could Do, They Did-related events this week for your delectation, all with free entry as usual...

The Pictures (Barden's Boudier, Wednesday 18 Feb)
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=26568428070
The latest installment of London's most entrenched underground film club, curated by Garry Sykes. This month featuring "Silver Jew" (exclusive UK screening), live music from Trace Fluids and The Super Shirani Nitemare Band, plus Boring Girls DJs, bingo, free popcorn...

A+B=C
Escape, Herne Hill, Thursday 19 Feb)
http://www.theydid.org.uk/2009/escape/

All bases are manned with our thrilling collaboration with Brighton's Beatabet collective (beatabet.net) for this month's Escape, featuring AK/DK, The Beatabet Band, The Capsized Smiles and so very much more.

"In C"
The Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, Saturday 21 Feb, 3pm
http://www.theydid.org.uk/2009/in-c/

As part of the "24 Fragments" event (thefragmentedorchestra.com), we're performing Terry Riley's classic piece of unpredictable modern minimalism "In C" using a homebrewed ensemble specially trained for the purpose. Also accompanied by a talk by the Stroke Assocation.

Things change fast in the hypersphere. I've been absent for a couple of weeks, first journeying around Napoli on a working trip to EvoWorkshops 2008, then beginning intensive work on an electronics project that I'll outline shortly.

In the meantime, my friends seem to have sneakily entered productive overdrive with new written, drawn and photographed material from Scott, Mimi and Garry respectively. Mike has been involved in the Disclosures series at Gasworks, the Capsized Smiles have been furtively forging material for our impending EP, and new web projects are forthcoming from Julia and Josh (soon). Moreover, a plethora of excitable monome users have latched onto the alpha website for the Monome: Open Practice Project, an ongoing series of events that I'm involved in co-ordinating, so I returned to find a mass of unbelievable vimeo links of monome performances sitting in my inbox. Likewise, more news on this soon. Finally, my paper on AtomSwarm has been published as part of the proceedings of the above conference; to my delight, the nice people at Springer even corrected the shocking spelling error that I allowed into the camera-ready version ("anectodal", for reference).

There's also a frightening amount of exciting events happening in the next couple of weeks: lectures at Goldsmiths from Brian Massumi and Lev Manovich; a rare screening of Robbe-Grillet's Trans-Europe Express at the BFI; the EYOE event series at the O2; Futuresonic festival in Manchester, and (later) Venn in Bristol; a They Did stall at the London Zine Symposium, alongside one from our cohorts at the Forest; and the first of a series of gigs that we'll be hosting in Herne Hill.

Yikes.

Tomorrow (January 31st) at Goldsmiths University, Joe Banks of Disinformation is talking on Rorschach audio and the tendency to romanticize and creatively inflate perceived EVP phenomena:

“Rorschach Audio” offers the primary hypothesis that an understanding of the relevant aspects of psychoacoustics provides a complete explanation for most EVP recordings, and a secondary hypothesis that an informed understanding of these processes is as important to understanding the emergent field of sound art as studies of optical illusions have historically been to understanding visual art.

Next month (February 22nd), Experiment 1 Arts Collective present Flesh and Flame, a night of performance art, music, sculpture and flesh, taking place at Corsica Studios in Elephant. It looks to be a great night, and tickets are half price until the end of January.

For 2008, What They Could Do, They Did are intending to shift their focus away from monolithic multi-day shows, instead staging a number of one-day (or -night) events around London and the wider world. The first of these is taking place this Thursday night at Ginglik, Shepherd's Bush, and features an assortment of music, film and DJs, including the first Ad Hoc + Mixpaste audio/video remix set for quite some time.

More info here....