Mike Fedeski

Mike and Glenn have been chewing over what the sonic environment can reveal to them for fifteen years or so. The more they listen, the more they discover. Mike brings to Artstation an approach to enquiry that he honed whilst studying environmental design as a senior academic at the Welsh School of Architecture. His interest in the influence of human settlement on the environment brought attention to measures such as green planting in cities and designing buildings to make use of ambient energy. He founded a successful masters course at the Welsh School of Architecture, which he ran for over fifteen years until his retirement. Before this academic career he had practiced as an architect, creating spatial settings for people's lives.

Latterly his research interests have turned towards people's interaction with their immediate environment. He sees the benefits that flow to people from a critical awareness of sensescapes, and from being able to interpret what their senses can tell them about the health of the wider environment. Sound in particular is redolent with meaning about the world around us. His association with Artstation creates an opportunity for active research, sharing insights with the communities we work with.

Chris Coppock

Chris was born in Northern Ireland, went to school in Belfast and studied Fine Art at Belfast College of Art during the worst years of the political conflict, euphemistically referred to as ‘The Troubles’. He was founding Director of Art & Research Exchange (ARE), an interdisciplinary community-facing contemporary arts organisation in the centre of Belfast; an offshoot of the Free International University established by Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll.

His formative experience in Northern Ireland fermented his interest in documentary narrative and the power of media art forms to influence social change; against the backdrop of the war in Northern Ireland the role and function of art in society as a mechanism to support and invigorate social justice agendas became, and still is, an overriding vocational driver; hence his shared interest in working with Artstation.

He moved to Wales to become Director of Ffotogallery, the national centre for photography in Wales. He then took up the post of Director of Spike Island contemporary art space in Bristol for a short period of time, before continuing to work independently as a curator, consultant and community regeneration activist; not least in the role of Project Development Manager for REDHOUSE, formally the Old Town Hall in Merthyr Tydfil.

Chris is currently a Welsh Government appointed member of the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority and Independent Member of the Strategic Culture and Arts Steering Group of local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council.

He has worked with Artstation on numerous occasions as advisor and curator, and in his role as Creative Principal for the ground-breaking Arts Council of Wales’ programme, Ideas|People|Places, commissioned Glenn — who rolled out his inspiration Yellow Brick Road spectacular — as lead artist for a major arts and regeneration project in St. Georges Court estate, Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent during 2017-19.

Nicholas Tresilian

Nicholas Tresilian is an art historian specialising in the relationship between the evolution of art and the development of human ecology. He was educated at Wellington College and did his National Service in Libya. He read English literature at Clare College, Cambridge. Nicholas was a presenter of the BBC’s pioneering arts and media programme Late Night Line-up. For BBC2 he later made the ‘Private Landscapes’ series of films about ontemporary British artists: Peter Blake, David Inshaw, Richard Smith and Joe Tilson. He was a member of the Artist Placement Group (APG) and in 1988 chaired its first encounter at Kassel Documenta with Joseph Beuys. Nicholas lectured on art history at the Central School of Art and Design, Maidstone College of Art and at Cardiff College of Art where he first met Glenn Davidson and Anne Hayes in their student days.

As a media entrepreneur Nicholas founded Spafax Television plc, the first business television company to achieve a listing on the London Stock Exchange. He was founding Chairman of Wiltshire Radio plc, the commercial radio company which later as GWR plc, successfully founded the world’s largest commercial classical radio station - ClassicFM. As an art historian Nicholas has lectured and published with the International Society for the Study of Time and the Planetary Collegium.

He is the author of ‘Tresilian’s Law’ which says that the evolution of art reciprocates rather than replicates the evolution of the human ecology. Nicholas has worked closely with Artstation over many years including the development of a virtual media company in Spain based on the Doñana National Park. Website - http://www.nicholastresilian.com/

Wyn Mason

Following his BA and MA degrees in Fine Art (painting, photography and video), Wyn pursued a career as a freelance filmmaker: writing and directing short films and making TV documentaries for BBC, Channel 4 and S4C. Later he became a full-time Senior Lecturer at the ATRiuM, Cardiff (University of South Wales's Faculty of Creative Industries), where he was course director for MA Scriptwriting. During this time his research interest focused on poetry film and other forms of experimental filmmaking. He has a long history of publishing journal articles, specialising mostly in the creative methodology of either film or theatre making. He has recently completed a playwriting Creative Writing PhD at Swansea University, which took Wales's relationship with Shakespeare as a context to discuss the creative possibilities of postcolonial Welsh theatre. Over the years, Wyn's interest has evolved from filmmaking to theatre writing. His first stage play, Rhith Gân/Song of Illusion, won the Drama Medal at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 2015. And his second play, Gwlad yr Asyn/Donkeyland, tours Wales in 2021 as a co-production between Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru (the Welsh National Theatre) and his own recently formed company, Os Nad Nawr. In 2020 he was selected to be a writer-in-residence at Theatr Clwyd. At the moment, he continues to work part-time at the ATRiuM, spending the rest of his time as a freelance playwright and author. He is currently writing his first graphic novel. His connection with Artstation stretches back many years, having co-authored and collaborated on a number of workshops, media and writing projects. Notable examples include:

· Paperwork - artist residency at an asylum seeker centre in Brussels, followed by an art istallation/exhibtion at The Old Library, Cardiff (2001);

· Blodeuwedd - short film (2003);

· ArtMap - interactive media at Ynyslas visitor centre, Ceredigion (2004-7);

· 'Paperwork: filmmaking and the cybernetic method', Journal of Media Practice (2007);

· The Moiré Project - research project with Glenn Davidson and Prof. Alexis Noselovici (2009).

Mark began looking into the use of drones to generate imagery several years ago when he discovered that there was a ‘Starfish’ site near his village. Starfish sites were an interesting form of ‘virtual’ object, used during the second world war to represent cities and draw bombers away from their intended targets. Alongside this, having introduced a student to pinhole photography, he began exploring pinhole and then wet plate photography. The use of long exposures bringing back an experience of the breadth of time often lost in the rush towards the interactive. Like people, technologies strengths can also be their weaknesses and he is keen to combine the lessons of various technologies to disrupt habitual perception and create moments of epiphany. The most recent work he has conducted with Artstation has been to explore the potential of drones, using point cloud data and film to extend the initiated in the Ynyslas interactive.

Mark Palmer

Dr. Mark Palmer is a Senior Lecturer in Games Technology at the University of the West of England.

As a sculptor and installation artist his work focused on the perception and relationship between the body and space. Whilst studying for his master’s degree in Cardiff he saw Glenn and Anne’s work using Splicer and arranged for them to come into the school where he taught. Over a week’s residency, they created an installation that took over the school hall. Mark then began to use Splicer to create installations, and this led to a research degree in Modern Continental Philosophy and Virtual Reality, which is when he learnt to code. He then held several fellowships including a New Technology Arts Fellowship at the University of Cambridge.

He has worked on a variety of projects involving health and the environment. He collaborated with Artstation from 2004 onwards, coding the Ynyslas interactive. Other work involved the development of a Body Image Tool to provide people experiencing Complex Regional Pain Syndrome a means to describe their perceptions of their body. This has to the recognition of ‘users’ as co-creators of the new.

Frank OConnor

Frank is driven by a thirst for learning and an evolving, relentless passion and desire to change things for the betterment of humanity. He wear many hats in his daily life as a system designer, activist and human being, using his skills in communication, strategy, art and design to offer critique, guidance, mentoring, inspiration, provocation, creativity and solutions. Frank first called for a circular economy in 1989. From the mid ‘90s he was part of a global ecodesign pioneering collective experimenting, practicing, consulting, researching and lecturing in the field. In the ‘00s he set up the award winning Ecodesign Centre working globally with intra-government, government and business.

He is director of anois that specialises in systems design for sustainability, which he set up with his life partner Jude Sherry in 2016. Under their RestPlayWork model they are pioneering new ways of building urban communities, environments and products. Their current immersion in Cork City is garnering widespread media attention.

Frank met Glenn towards the end of 2014. Their co-residency in St Georges Court has been one of his career highlights, giving him an opportunity to apply his then emerging immersive, dialogic process. He has published widely and been awarded a Bachelors in Technology with Education, Masters in Advanced Manufacturing, Post-Graduate in Management and PhD in Ecodesign.

(Photography by John Quinn)

Eva Elliot

Dr. Eva Elliott is an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences and remains active as a co-director of an independent research company called Straeon (stories in Welsh).

Eve’s academic interests have focused on health inequalities and the unjust social and economic determinants that sustain these. She has conducted, or advised on, a multiplicity of large-scale national evaluations of community or place-based interventions, most of which have had some focus on the collective resources and powers required to improve health and well-being and to influence neighbourhood and wider systemic social change.

She has also held other positions, including Director of the Wales Health Impact Assessment Support unit (now based within Public Health Wales); Principal Investigator and Co-investigator on two major Connected Communities projects (a ten-year cross Research Council led by the Arts and Humanities Research Council on the changing nature of communities and the role they play in enhancing well being and in social and economic change); academic lead for one of Cardiff University's flagship engagement projects: strong communities, Healthier People; and the academic lead for the Cultural Participation Research Network in Wales. Eva has collaborated with numerous artists in south Wales and maintains a strong belief and commitment to the transformative power of art in research.

Eva worked with Artstation on the Anchor Peoples installation, 2018/19 it was a Connected Communities AHRC funded project: https://productivemargins.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/outputs/the-hidden-value-of-community-anchor-organisations/

Dr. Bronwin Patrickson

Bronwin Patrickson is a digital storyteller and post-doctoral digital design researcher with interests in storytelling traditions, digital environments, humanist interaction design and the environmental humanities.   After making documentaries and features for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Bronwin gained a Ph.D. in interactive media and playful design from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.  She has since designed a gamified essay writing helper application, an AI tree chatbot, proposed creative data-sharing innovations in Scotland, and documented the Wallace & Gromit Big Fix Up storytelling innovation Audience of the Future project.  Bronwin is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was the 2020 recipient of the IAMCR Climate Communication Award. She worked with Artstation on AI poetry postcard 2021 and continues to collaborate.

Bronwin also likes to type, and tap strings. She shares creative practice at her website: dofairiesdrinktea.com