This

is
Central
Station
.com

<Digital
Digital
Edt.>
< Click on
links that are
underlined > + This book belongs to:
Username

< Printed Password

versions of
this book are
available to
order from
our site. >
 <Contents>
3 <Front End>

->
5 Intro/
7 Central Station – Process Platform or Project?
11 Community/

->
A global network of creative talent
97 Portfolios/

->
35,000 member works
119 Member Fund/

->
Cold hard cash for risky projects.
Collections/

->
131 A curated space
145 -> <Back End>
Intro/
What is Central Station?
It’s difficult to describe Central Station in just a
few words. In short it’s a creative social network;
an expanding, interconnected community of people
who share work, ideas and opportunities. Yet it’s
much more than that too. It’s a space for inspiration,
where people can browse new work by thousands
of members from across the globe. It’s also a
directory of events and opportunities from grassroots
to international level and a place to read blogs and
interviews with artists, designers, photographers
and filmmakers from Central Station’s members
and editorial team.
Central Station was launched in September 2009,
by the end of 2010 the site is used by over 120,000
people, features over 35,000 works and almost
2000 blogs. A project produced out of Glasgow
with a remit to promote emerging UK talent has
grown into a worldwide community with an audience
across 180 countries and 4000 cities.
The project at heart is a social platform but one that,
critically, places people’s work in a creative context.
Work isn’t cast adrift on one of the monster social
networks or relegated to the back waters of a
specialist blog or industry site. Members’ portfolios
are supplemented with new commissions, opportunities,
specially curated content and live events. This isn’t
a space exclusively for artists or filmmakers either,
Central Station attracts people who are interested
in a range of cross-disciplinary activities and who
are curious about new ways of thinking, interacting
and engaging with the potential of online platforms.
The Central Station Book
To document our first phase of existence we decided
to create a book. You might ask why we would choose
to celebrate an online initiative in such a traditional
format. Throughout the development of Central Station
one idea has remained: that the virtual world should
support and enrich the real world, not compete with it.
We’re proud that Central Station has results which are
clearly visible beyond the site, as seen in our projects,
events and members’ collaborative work. As Ewan
McIntosh says in his essay (on p157):
“When it comes to the tangible and the experiential of
the physical world, there is still a sense of scarcity,
especially if the product is one of a creative or artisanal
hand. [Central Station celebrates] the real world of art,
film and making stuff [whilst] harnessing the best of the
slightly transient, virtual world of ‘click here, type there’.”
The Central Station Book is a way of celebrating
the tangible elements of Central Station in a physical
object. All the content you find here is live on the
site, links are supplied if you want to explore directly.
Reflecting the link between online and offline we’ve
structured the book in two parts: the Front End
and the Back End.
The Front End is all about the outward facing aspects
of the site and our community – we’ve showcased
over 100 pieces of work from our members and
profiled a handful of them to give you a taste of the
range of creative people who make up our community.
Collections is a snapshot of our curated space,
which includes work by established artists like Gillian
Wearing,Douglas Gordon and Lucy Skaer. Find out
too about the weird and wonderful projects we’ve
supported through our Member Fund, innovative ideas
suggested by our members and supported by us.
The Back End explores the theory and practice
behind developing a project like Central Station.
We’ve included a selection of essays that discuss
digital networks and social media in a creative
world. There are also profiles on our own projects
and events, where we worked alongside Glasgow
International Festival, Edinburgh International Film
Festival, the comedian Phil Kay, visual artist Roderick
Buchanan and art collective NVA, to name a few.
And last but not least get a snapshot of the site
through our eclectic selection of facts and figures.
We’re a continually evolving project and you can
join in at any moment; sign up then drop in, login,
comment, upload or just browse and enjoy. We’ll
see you there.
Gail Tolley, Central Station Web Editor
Central
Station –
Process,
Platform or
Project?
The first phase of Central Station has been quite a
journey. From a relatively modest initial concept it has
grown into a dynamic platform now shaped not just
by the team who established it but by the thousands
of members who have become a part of it.
In the early days we encountered all sorts of
scepticism: “What is with this online stuff?” “Social
media, communities… all very buzzy but I don’t even
use Facebook.” “All a bit too egotistical, way too much
navel gazing.” “MySpace is dead and AOL has been
burned by Bebo.”
Today Central Station is a thriving site used by
120,000 users. It demonstrates that often users
don’t know what they want until it’s right in front
of them… and then they start to change it.This is
how Central Station came to develop a platform
embraced by artists, filmmakers and designers
from across the globe.
Damien Smith
- Central Station
Executive Producer
and founding partner
of ISO – on bringing a
new digital platform
into the world
Birth
The day job at ISO had brought me into contact
with the opportunities that digital platforms offered
for distributing digital content and connecting
people. We were working on projects such as the
development of the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4’s
first exploration of user-generated content, the citizen
journalism site Alt News. We could see its potential
and had started to incorporate services like Facebook
and YouTube in our installation work, but true creative
applications still seemed limited.
It was a meeting with the Lighthouse, Scotland’s
National Centre for Architecture and Design, that
sowed the initial seeds of the project. They were
looking for ideas for a multi-touch table, something
that would catch the eyes of passersby and draw
them in to explore an interactive map of contemporary
architecture across the country.
Instead of making it a fixed, closed system dependent
on Lighthouse content, we recommended that it
be opened up. We wanted to encourage the public
to help build the database, using their images,
observations and memories to extend the experience.
But why restrict this to architecture? When you work
in a dynamic cultural hub like Glasgow, communities
of artists, designers, filmmakers and musicians
naturally bump up against one another. They might
not always speak the same language, but they’re
the people who shape the city at the grassroots level.
Could the project explore social media as a location
for these communities to gather? Could we start to
map the creative clusters across the country? Who
would help support it?
Channel 4, the UK TV broadcaster, was embarking
on an ambitious plan to launch their 4iP fund, a
£50 million investment fund that looked for online
innovation: projects that were defiantly not TV, were
embedded in and helped to grow communities,
explored digital tools and self-publishing and offered
platforms for new or little heard voices. In short:
public service with an attitude. They liked the sound
of the Lighthouse project but pushed us to think
bigger. How could we facilitate new work? What
would this look like? Who were the users? Who
were the audiences? Were they the same? What
did they need that they couldn’t get from the
plethora of existing digital services?
We recognised a gap: new and emergent talent were
looking to find their way in the world and needed a
space where they could make connections, look for
help, find opportunities, promote themselves and their
work and find collaborators. Importantly this had to be
in a space that felt contextually right. Instead of their
work floating around in a sea of unconnected content
on a photo or video sharing site, people wanted
somewhere that took creative work seriously. There
already existed many specialist blogs and networks
but we felt many of these had become silos of ultra
specialist material whilst others had an aimless ‘This
is Cool’ mentality that didn’t offer depth of discussion
or examine the process or issues behind a piece of
work. We also understood there was an audience
out there, hungry for new work, new ideas and to be
introduced to people who they hadn’t had access to
via traditional showcases or exhibitions.
Central Station started to take shape. Channel 4
worked closely with us to develop the project. They
committed to an initial investment presuming we
could find match funding and a number of partners.
Scottish Screen was in the process of establishing
their Digital Media IP Fund – looking to support
digital projects in a similar way to how they supported
feature films. They wanted to explore digital output
and to look at how a new generation would use
different methods for distribution of their work.
They agreed to take a stake in the project.
With partners like Glasgow School of Art and the
British Council also offering their support, we pushed
ahead and set up a ubiquitous Ning network. We
called this ‘The Forum’ – a gathering of 100 or
so friends and advisors who became a sounding
board for project ideas and content.
Not everything
survived the process.
Early on we were looking at ways of developing
fictional characters from within the community; a
form of drama seeded in real world events. Our
Forum and test groups hated it! ‘Why should we
be dealing with fictional characters, when there’s
enough drama in real life?’ It was an important
lesson in listening to the users, ensuring the project
was as authentic as possible and that it reflected
the work and activity the site promoted. Months
later an unexpected piece of broadsheet attention
breathlessly announced us as ‘an online soap
opera set in an art school” – we groaned.
Alongside this, the legal issues we dealt with while
developing terms and conditions, user agreements,
contributor agreements, moderation and ways of
protecting members’ work became a project and
potential minefield in its own right. People are right
to ask who owns their work when putting it into
the digital realm – we made it clear: they did (unlike
some networks out there with catch-all clauses
buried away in the T&Cs).
A submission to the Scottish Arts Council led
to an Inspire Award – one of 10 grants given
to ambitious, cross-disciplinary, experimental
projects. They engaged with the idea of a platform
for promoting Scottish talent and encouraging
new collaborations across disciplines.
After 18 months of concept development,
applications, presentations, plans and interviews
we finally started on the fun stuff.
People, parties
and pop-ups:
Time to start testing…
For an early version of the site we handpicked
fifty artists and designers and brought them
together to spend the day running workshops.
We showed them how to create profiles, upload
work and start using the site.
We filmed the day (you can watch it here:
http://bit.ly/Video001) As one of the participants
pointed out: “The idea of lovelessly adding friends
on sites is slightly redundant now. So it’s all about
a place where you can join the dots between real
people who are actually doing real things.”
This became a mantra for us in the early days;
whatever we did always had to link back to tangible
results, to new work or activity and where possible
be situated in a physical as well as virtual space.
Before we launched we hosted small events and
parties and supported exhibition launches. Initially
we did it as a means of marketing, but we soon
realised this had to sit at the core of the project.
We found a lot of the people who had connected
online had never met. Once you get them in a room,
suddenly it massively amplifies their conversations
and opportunities.
We experimented with ‘Pop Up’ weekends. A sort
of ‘show and tell’: getting behind the scenes at artists’
studios, post-production facilities, designer-makers’
shops or the hallowed halls of games companies.
You may know these things are happening up the
road, but it can be tricky to gain access and to
forge connections. They were a great success.
“We wanted to find a way of
developing a conduit that
allowed people to present
themselves and their work,
position their own ideas...”
Pressing the button
Launch was a surprisingly low-key event. No drum
rolls, cutting of the ribbon or countdown to ignition.
Our production team was in place; gathered from the
worlds of television and film production, design and
education. We weren’t quite sure what a Community
Manager did or what a Social Strategy was, but knew
we would find out.
We knew we wanted to be relatively inconspicuous.
We weren’t particularly interested in a top-down
editorial structure. Instead we wanted to find a
way of developing a conduit that allowed people
to present themselves and their work, position
their own ideas or arguments. We announced
our first member projects. UZZZ was a crowd-
sourced self-portrait piece – created by and for
the community. Over 100 brave souls sent in
images from which we produced a short film
which was screened at the Glasgow Film
Theatre before every film for a month. A
chance to see yourself on the big screen.
Our next project, ArtRocDoc teamed up a crew
of filmmakers, a photographer and an art director
– all gathered from within our membership – with
an indie band and a transit van. We sent them
down to gatecrash Frieze Art Fair and to
document their road trip.
Some great early contributors, like artists Gillian
Wearing and Toby Paterson, offered us work that
had never been in the public domain before, which
we featured in our curated space Collections. Film
Four worked with us to collate footage from films
made by high profile UK artists, while the British
Council let us curate work from their prestigious
art collection.
The halfway mark saw a site re-design with new
features launched, including the Bulletin page.
The initial wave of members and the work they
uploaded – over 10,000 pieces in the first few
months – took us by surprise. Our view of ‘a
democracy of content’ – with members of the
community being elevated by numbers of likes,
views or comments on their work – started to
fallapart under the weight and volume of work.
Fantastic new members were appearing for
justa few hours before being replaced by new
faces; blogs and discussions were burning
brightly andthen getting lost.
We appointed an Editor to work with the Central
Station team to select the best member work
and to develop discussion points. We changed
our homepage, clearly signposting four main
areas of activity: Bulletin, the daily digest / Portfolios,
talent to work with or commission / Opportunities,
commissions and jobs / Community, the member
area. We realised people still wanted the role of
editor (or curator) to filter and interpret work.
Member Fund and
the Creative Heads
One of our most successful projects was also
one of our simplest. The Member Fund was partially
a reaction to the effort required to get Central Station
funded. We were compiling inch-thick application
forms and writing them was an art form in its own
right. There had to be a quicker, simpler way of giving
artists and makers what they needed. Our members
were telling us their priority wasn’t studio space,
marketing support or work experience. They
were after money so they could make things.
Quick, cold, hard cash. No strings attached.
While we were creating large collaborative projects
that people could engage with, we realised that many
of our users already had their own projects underway
but were stifled by a lack of finance to execute or
complete them. Often all they needed was a modest
sum of money. We allocated £10,000 to a fund. We
didn’t set any arduous briefs, we simply committed
to a monthly review of page-long submissions from
our members. We wanted to hear about projects
that wouldn’t be made otherwise.
The response was amazing and the fund has led to
the production of some of the most startling work
we’ve produced in our first year. In addition to giving
out cash, we could help by promoting the project
and finding collaborators or crew which meant that
the awardees could get on with what they did best:
creating new, exciting and often challenging work.
The local global
Central Station has very quickly spread itself across
the world. In year one, we carried out no promotional
activity outside the UK. And yet we gathered users
from 5000+ cities in 150 countries worldwide. They
gather in cultural hotspots – Berlin is very busy for
us, as is Sydney but the UK is still home for most.
We’ve found that many of our members are people
fascinated with British creative life. Or we find our
members have connections back to the UK, they’ve
either studied or worked here and gone global and
want to retain those links back home. Central Station
is seen as an authentic, unmediated source for new
work and talent. Yes, these projects are global in one
sense, but what it’s really about is showing the best of
local work to an audience that is, in itself, international.
I don’t think you can disguise where a project is from.
Its roots come through culturally in the way you do
things. It’s in its very DNA. I’m increasingly coming
to realise that this is what makes a project distinctive,
as cultural identity becomes globally accessible, and
it’s something we need to embrace. So we make
absolutely no attempt to hide the fact that Central
Station is produced out of Glasgow, Scotland, the
UK, the World – in that order.
All that is solid
melts into air
Since Central Station was first conceived the 4iP
fund was born and has recently closed; Scottish
Screen and the Scottish Arts Council have been
amalgamated into a new cultural super body called
Creative Scotland and The Lighthouse has sadly
closed, leaving us as a country with no official platform
to promote the best of our architects or designers.
The cultural landscape has changed irretrievably but
we hope that Central Station can help contribute to
whatever form it will become.
Marshall Berman claimed that “All that is solid melts
into air” (channelling Karl Marx) when describing the
impact of Modernism. It’s a concept that I’ve been
reminded of regularly when trying to develop a project
whose scope and ambition is constantly changing,
that uses technology that refuses to stand still and
has users who act in unexpected ways. But we
wouldn’t have it any other way.
Damien Smith, Central Station Executive Producer and
founding partner of ISO (www.isoprojects.com)
http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/mrdamiensmith
Community/
At the heart of Central Station is the Central Station began its life in Glasgow
community: a network of thousands and its roots are still visible. Whilst we exist
of creative minds interacting with each as a global network we maintain a focus
other from all corners of the world. on the British creative scene and many of
  those checking in from far-flung locations
Community is where our members can have connections to the UK and are keen
meet like-minded people, find potential to keep abreast of developments in our
collaborators, tell people about their cultural sphere. Take a look at a handful
upcoming show, seek advice and offer we’ve profiled here and find out how
feedback. Here they can document their they make the site work for them.
process and invite people to comment
on their work. They can start a group
and bring people together or initiate
debate on the message boards. Central
Station offers the opportunity to discover
artists who you wouldn’t have otherwise
come across, offering the potential for
collaboration or just inspiration.
 
Central Station doesn’t pigeon hole creativity
and as a result many of our members don’t
fit into traditional artistic disciplines. They
might be a writer exploring visual art, a
designer who’s also interested in filmmaking
or a photographer experimenting with digital
media. Our members display a curiosity
towards cross-discipline work and relish
the breadth of content on the site, expressing
an interest in music, performance and
writing as well as art, design and film.
 
 /sam_hart /Genevieve

14 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 15
 /Rydo! /SLangfield

16 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 17
 /Janie
Nicoll
/daniel /pussy
warrentv domesticus

18 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 19
 /sam /Ryan
spreckley Hays

20 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 21
 /Dagmar /Stephanie
Vyhnalkova Spindler

22 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 23
 /fort /Alex
sunlight Hetherington

24 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 25
 /daniel /Kirsty
padden Hall

26 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 27
 /brian /Govanhill
sweeney Baths ART

28 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 29
 /The Gin /Johanna
Palace Basford

30 | COMMUNITY | | COMMUNITY | 31
Portfolios/
For our community Portfolios is a clean online
space to exhibit work with a bespoke URL
that can be sent out to prospective clients.
It’s a powerful and free self-promotion tool
that enables individuals’ work to exist in a
supported and contextualised environment.
For those wanting to source talent it’s
possible to search by location and discipline
in an uncluttered, professional environment.
It is also where Central Station’s editorial
team sources the most outstanding work
from the site to actively promote
via Facebook and Twitter.
 
For some of our members Central Station
becomes their dominant online space,
for others it’s a site that can compliment
other platforms and networks. It’s also a
supportive environment where many
artists, designers and filmmakers who
have previously steered clear of using
online tools have felt confident enough
to take their first steps into social media.
By the end of 2010 Central Station had
more than 35,000 pieces of work uploaded
to the site, a rich variety ranging across short
film, animation, illustration, product design,
craft, photography, fashion, painting and
installation. In the pages that follow we’ve
selected 100 images to give you a taste of
the work our members are making. It’s a
snapshot of the diverse range of disciplines
that our members work in and the high
standard of work that is being produced.
They were selected from our archive of
featured work (picked each day by the
Central Station team), popular images
on the site (as chosen by members) as
well as from a callout seeking new work.
 36 | Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio025 | /daisyrichardson | Metamorphosis (Plastic) http://bit.ly/Portfolio030 | /d.cookney | Sshhh 08 | Portfolios | 37
http://bit.ly/Portfolio089 | /Ellie Royle | The Impossible View No.3 “staff quarters” http://bit.ly/Portfolio065 | /MichaelLacey | Idiots


38
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio032 | /siltandbone | white boulder 12/2009 001 http://bit.ly/Portfolio031 | /Duncan MacDonald | Drums of Death | Portfolios | 39
http://bit.ly/Portfolio019 | /briandickson | Untitled A4 Series #7 http://bit.ly/Portfolio029 | /DavidLupton | Abattoir Blues

40
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio016 | /Bill Millett | Beyond the Fence | Portfolios | 41
http://bit.ly/Portfolio082 | /TheLindstromEffect | light rotation d


42
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio109 | /susieolczak | elongated images of light http://bit.ly/Portfolio060 | /lepeep | playtime | Portfolios | 43
http://bit.ly/Portfolio038 | /Florenceto | 05
44
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio073 | /Richard Taylor | ---LIGHTS--- http://bit.ly/Portfolio111 | /Parc-graphic | Icarus (4 of 4) | Portfolios | 45
http://bit.ly/Portfolio067 | /olli hellmann | Untitled

46
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio112 | /g-man | Portrait_01 http://bit.ly/Portfolio090 | /Fun Makes Good | Block chair (re-claimed and re-upholstered, embroidered) | Portfolios | 47
http://bit.ly/Portfolio035 | /Emmamacleod | Toilet and Gun
48
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio042 | /Genevieve | The Watch http://bit.ly/Portfolio119 | /KatieCooke | extract from History of an Imaginary City | Portfolios | 49
http://bit.ly/Portfolio062 | /Louweasely | Map Circle --> http://bit.ly/Portfolio046 | /ida.arentoft | Untitled (Flying)
http://bit.ly/Portfolio052 | /Jenny_Hood | Consumption 2
50 | Portfolios | | Portfolios | 51
52
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio022 | /chrisleslie | fighting eviction from dalmarnock http://bit.ly/Portfolio043 | /Greer Cummiskey Pester | tanglebittyblue | Portfolios | 53
http://bit.ly/Portfolio136 | /grahamlister | Building Shell
54
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio134 | /jeannette.ginslov | Karohano http://bit.ly/Portfolio055 | /Juliet Fellows-Smith | Three Men Moved by a Splendid Painting | Portfolios | 55
56
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio003 | /AlexHetherington | Untitled still, Triangle of Need http://bit.ly/Portfolio004 | /alexis dirks | Mountain Saddle | Portfolios | 57
http://bit.ly/Portfolio010 | /armando | Untitled
58
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio072 | /rebecca.cusworth | Eva + Pox http://bit.ly/Portfolio074 | /Ruth Parker | Art Deco Mirror | Portfolios | 59
60
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio135 | /bobby niven | When black was white and white was black, I won http://bit.ly/Portfolio069 | /Paul Kerlaff | Prototype Modular Screen | Portfolios | 61
62
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio101 | /hanna_tuulikki | The Sirens Wave http://bit.ly/Portfolio063 | /lynne mackenzie | Some Still Dream 2 | Portfolios | 63
http://bit.ly/Portfolio047 | /Inflatablemonster | tellyfish http://bit.ly/Portfolio127 | /Nordpert | The Dangerous Nose
64
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio120 | /Kylaa | Sonobe Table Lamp http://bit.ly/Portfolio049 | /jamesmclardy | ‘Neo Pavilion - Yielded Parallel’, (Detail) 2009 | Portfolios | 65
http://bit.ly/Portfolio100 | /Hamish Bigg Design + Photography | Ico Lamp

66
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio137 | /Antoinette Parrau | Ceramic lamp http://bit.ly/Portfolio091 | /joasia | None | Portfolios | 67

68 | Portfolios | <- http://bit.ly/Portfolio099 | /ChristinaKernohan | Paisley | Portfolios | 69
http://bit.ly/Portfolio117 | /distorted.time | the earthquake that frees prisoners
 | Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio020 | /CannibalDuck | Russian doll
70 http://bit.ly/Portfolio064 | /Mhari McMullan | Embroidered and printed silk camisole | Portfolios | 71


72
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio041 | /Grant McPhee | Tim’s Nightmare Trailer http://bit.ly/Portfolio045 | /iamrollo | Fashion Loop | Portfolios | 73

74
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio024 | /danielwarrentv | Marionettes http://bit.ly/Portfolio021 | /CARLA J EASTON | Big Bad Wolf 2009 | Portfolios | 75

76
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio094 | /LU Sisi | Digital Analogue http://bit.ly/Portfolio027 | /Dave_Lee | Experimental Japan | Portfolios | 77
78
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio087 | /YvonneMullock | Rough Luxe Exhibition | Portfolios | 79
80
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio108 | /the_duchy | Aimee Campbell & Lila de Magalhaes, Can’t You See I’m Thinking? | Portfolios | 81

82
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio079 | /SimonReekie | Father Facescape http://bit.ly/Portfolio076 | /Ryan Hays | Untitled Biological Landscape No.2 | Portfolios | 83
84
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio123 | /lornam | Untitled | Portfolios | 85
86
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio107 | /Ross_McLean | moscow-car http://bit.ly/Portfolio097 | /TobyP. | Built Colour Bricolage 2, 2009 | Portfolios | 87

88
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio113 | /ryansmall | reflection http://bit.ly/Portfolio005 | /amelia_bywater | Translation from Object to Image | Portfolios | 89
http://bit.ly/Portfolio077 | /samspreckley | 8mm frame 2 http://bit.ly/Portfolio080 | /SLangfield | wrmn 0002

90
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio122 | /Lewis_den_Hertog | This series | Portfolios | 91
--> http://bit.ly/Portfolio059 | /Lemonart | Collective Destinations (33 – 40 of 80)
92 | Portfolios | | Portfolios | 93
94
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio131 | /Pennywrite | Home Sweet Home http://bit.ly/Portfolio023 | /Ciara Phillips | wg poster | Portfolios | 95
Overleaf: http://bit.ly/Portfolio105 | /Marko | Khush Amdeed
96 | Portfolios | | Portfolios | 97
 | Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio061 | /LesleyBarnes | Queen of Hearts
98 http://bit.ly/Portfolio075 | /RuthLaila | Earplug Earrings | Portfolios | 99
http://bit.ly/Portfolio068 | /Pao-M | Aliens

100 | Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio132 | /jbutler | Blakk http://bit.ly/Portfolio048 | /jameshouston | MTV Virus | Portfolios | 101
102
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio015 | /Beto2009 | Sea Song Set http://bit.ly/Portfolio011 | /Barry_Thomson | Poolshark | Portfolios | 103
http://bit.ly/Portfolio124 | /MoonApe | Industry / Finance
104
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio014 | /BethCharlett | Wax Nails | Portfolios | 105
http://bit.ly/Portfolio008 | /angharad_mclaren | shibori pleats
106
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio013 | /Ben FiST | MiLK WARS http://bit.ly/Portfolio116 | /dan_corporation_pop | Sandbox_13 | Portfolios | 107

108
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio037 | /FrancescaNobilucci | Methods of Killing (2009) http://bit.ly/Portfolio092 | /judithwylie | Toby Paterson - Poised Array | Portfolios | 109
http://bit.ly/Portfolio033 | /eggmachine | Cluc Cube http://bit.ly/Portfolio036 | /erisch | Lampedusa (S-W)
http://bit.ly/Portfolio126 | /IslaySpalding | Biomorph Rings http://bit.ly/Portfolio039 | /Fraser | Spillage Stool

110 | Portfolios | <- http://bit.ly/Portfolio095 | /RUTH PAXTON | PORNKIM | Portfolios | 111
http://bit.ly/Portfolio070 | /Rachel Maclean | Mother and Child
112
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio026 | /Dasha | untitled http://bit.ly/Portfolio018 | /briansweeney | if you need to ask you shouldn’t be looking | Portfolios | 113
 114 | Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio085 | /weedrunkglasgowman | Ammianus Marcellinus (380 AD) http://bit.ly/Portfolio056 | /Ladyface | Never Mind What You Said | Portfolios | 115
http://bit.ly/Portfolio066 | /Missbowtie | JIamin showreel 2010
http://bit.ly/Portfolio106 | /martinkempstrousers | Jack & Jill, 2008
116
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio001 | /adelinesuvdal | Rannoch Moor http://bit.ly/Portfolio002 | /Adrian | Sunrise Brooklyn 2 | Portfolios | 117
118
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio121 | /Leah Black | Leah Black http://bit.ly/Portfolio058 | /Lee.Muir | Untitled | Portfolios | 119
http://bit.ly/Portfolio012 | /beki_melrose | Idolism http://bit.ly/Portfolio096 | /Space In Between | Sandy Smith – ‘I Never Felt Closer To You Than This’
120
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio125 | /Unnatural_History_Museum | Oryctolagus anas http://bit.ly/Portfolio078 | /sebastien | Dog’s motion 01 | Portfolios | 121
http://bit.ly/Portfolio128 | /JanieNicoll | Birds Love UTG http://bit.ly/Portfolio081 | /StephenCappello | twit_tit
122
| Portfolios | http://bit.ly/Portfolio093 | /Katy West | KWgreylight http://bit.ly/Portfolio053 | /Jonathan Hall | The End | Portfolios | 123
http://bit.ly/Portfolio054 | /jonstanleyaustin | nurse
Member Fund/
Central Station set up it’s own commissioning
strand to grant monthly awards to innovative
and risky projects proposed by our members.

Research during the development of the

site revealed that what artists, filmmakers
and designers wanted most was not
promotion, advice or access to facilities
but cold hard cash.

In response we launched the Member

Fund, £10k that was used to award small
sums of cash each month to projects that
wouldn’t be supported via traditional routes.
No laborious application process, we just
asked for applicants to tell us what they
wanted to do and how much they wanted.

The Member Fund was judged by our

panel of Creative Heads, independent
practitioners that included designers,
curators, filmmakers and artists.

Take a look at some of the projects

we supported here.
 bit.ly/MemberFund009

> A documentary capturing

Turkey’s eerie Hair Museum.

/Bobby We couldn’t resist supporting emerging art-

Niven:
ist Bobby Niven and his innovative propos-
al for a documentary that delved into the
strange world of the eccentric Hair Museum in
Turkey. Housed in an underground cellar,
the Museum is covered floor to ceiling with
hair samples left by women who have vis-
ited the attraction. Every 6 months the own-
er, Galip Körükcü, invites 10 of the women

Chez
to stay at his guesthouse and participate
in his pottery workshops for free. Bobby’s
film captured the strange museum, its own-
er and his workshops and the surround-

Galip
ing landscape of Cappadocia. He also made
a series of ceramic and stone sculptures to
accompany the film. The works were exhib-
ited at Sierra Metro Gallery in Edinburgh.

128 | MEMBER FUND | | MEMBER FUND | 129

 bit.ly/MemberFund003

> A whirlwind tour across

Europe with graffiti artists

/Recoat
Inkie and Insa.

Glasgow’s Recoat Gallery, together with

Gallery:
Pigeon Promotions and Dr Sneaker, embarked
on a fast-paced mini European tour with two
exciting UK graffiti artists, Inkie and Insa,
stopping off in London, Brussels and Berlin.
At each location the artists created a piece
of installation graffiti art, culminating in
an exhibition and launch party in Warsaw.
Co-sponsored by Casio and Nike the trip was

Fool’s
documented through video, blogs and images and
uploaded to Central Station en route. We loved
how the project brought together street artists
and fans from across Europe and led to sponta-

Gold
neous artworks in the cities it stopped off at.

130 | MEMBER FUND | | MEMBER FUND | 131

 bit.ly/MemberFund002

> Poster projects made

/Poster
collaboratively by
established artists.

Club:
The Poster Club was initiated by visual art-
ist Ciara Phillips. It was created with the
aim of bringing together established
artists, including filmmakers, sculptors and
painters, to work on fast turnaround post-
er projects. Encouraging cross-discipline
collaboration and experimentation, the
ethos of the group reflected values close to

A
Central Station’s heart: that people from
all different backgrounds could come to-
gether to create something unexpected. The
Member Fund assisted with start-up costs

new
and led to the formation of a collaborative
portfolio and an exhibition of printed posters.

collaboration

132 | MEMBER FUND | | MEMBER FUND | 133

 bit.ly/MemberFund008

> Magic Towards Your Face –

a short film crewed through
Central Station.

Magic Towards Your Face is a short film

about an exhibition, within an exhibition.

/Henry
A fascinating and idiosyncratic reflection
on the act of creation and the pre-
show anxieties that face an artist.
Made by up-and-coming filmmaker Henry

Coombes:
Coombes at Glasgow School of Art
and exhibited in a solo show in the same
space. What was particularly unique about
the project was that all crew
were sourced from the Central Station
community and were paid in Henry’s art.

Magic
Towards
Your Face

134 | MEMBER FUND | | MEMBER FUND | 135

 bit.ly/MemberFund004

> An exhibition and event exploring

the concept of neomedievalism and
its parallels with digital networks.

Neil Mulholland and Norman Hogg’s project

/The
presented a curious concept that draws on
medieval fraternities and their similarities
to online social communities. It considers
the idea of neomedievalism and its relevance

Confraternity
to contemporary society. The Central Station
Creative Heads were captivated by the project’s
desire to place digital networks, like Central
Station, in a broader intellectual and cultural

of
context. The Member Fund contributed to Avalon,
the Confraternity’s curatorial investigation
into premodern futurity, exhibited at The
Embassy Gallery in Edinburgh. This was

Neoflagellants:
accompanied by ‘An Unco Site!’ – a zombie
walk during Edinburgh Art Festival followed
by a party, and a symposium ‘Investigating
Premodern Futures’ featuring a range of
speakers on the subject of neomedievalism.

Avalon

136 | MEMBER FUND | | MEMBER FUND | 137

Collections/
Collections is a curated space within Central
Station featuring work from established and
respected artists. Here exclusive content and
unseen archive material has been curated
into inspiring online exhibitions providing an
insight into the art, film and design worlds
and its key players.
Central Station’s first collection brought
together previously unseen work by Turner
Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing. She
granted Central Station exclusive access
to her studio work from which we selected
notes and photographs that gave a glimpse
into the process behind her renowned
series of self-portraits.
This was followed with three bodies of
work by anti-establishment artist Chad
McCail.His detailed drawings, reminiscent
of those found in British Ladybird children’s
books, contain an underlying polemic that
raise questions about accepted norms in
society. This was the first time McCail’s
work appeared online and he was
particularly attracted to the potential
of entering into dialogue with a new,
online artistic community.
We also showcased artists whose work
isrising to greater renown: the beautiful,
intricate prints of Jay Ryan, whose
illustrations adorn posters for bands
including The Jesus Lizard, The Melvins
and Tortoise, and the work of Dan McCarthy,
widely respected as a poster artist by bands
like Sonic Youth and The Shipping News.
McCarthy was keen to have a collection
on Central Station in order to broaden his
exposure in the UK and to create an
archive of his key work.
In January 2010 we initiated discussions
with Turner nominee Lucy Skaer, a
member of art collective Henry VIII’s
Wives along with Rachel Dagnall, Bob
Grieve, Sirko Knupfer, Simon Polli and
Per Sander. Skaer felt that the group’s
work raised questions around collaboration
that would be of particular relevance
to Central Station members.
Several collections also grew out of
discussions with Central Station’s partner
organisations. In conjunction with Film4
we brought together film clips by Steve
McQueen, Sam Taylor-Wood and Douglas
Gordon. Central Station also invited guests
to curate a series of online exhibitions from
the archives of the British Council featuring
work by Hamish Fulton, Madame Yevonde
and Mark Wallinger and Channel 4’s Big Art
Project which displayed examples of public
art by the likes of Jaume Plensa, Antony
Gormley and Anish Kapoor.
 <Contents>
3 -> <Front End>
145 <Back End>

->
146 Voices

->
Essays, Blogs, Q&A’s
168 Projects & Events

->
Produced by Central Station
182 The Numbers

->
Fantastic Facts & Figures
190 Credits

->

“The liberating notion that
it was possible to completely
Artists are strange creatures. They are
often found working alone, obsessed
by their own projects and desperate
to share them with the world. It is no
wonder, then, that social networking
has spread like wildfire through the
creative community since its emergence
only a few short years ago. Not only
does it offer the antidote to the solitude
of the lone worker, by enabling us to feel
connected to others working in similarly
solipsistic situations all over the world,
but it also offers us a simple and effective
way of making our activities public,
This period of change in my own work,
inadvertently or not, coincided with the
expansion of a new type of internet,
known to many as Web 2.0. Whilst
these new social networking tools have
undoubtedly enabled many millions
more to begin to appreciate the negative
side effects of instantaneous ego-
broadcasting, they also offer all of us
the opportunity to begin to counteract
our increasing atomisation as individuals.
In a world which, thanks to the neoliberal
policy-makers of the last thirty years,
has seen a demise in the traditional

New
bypass traditional methods
for exhibiting work, which
required the say-so of a
gallery or curator compelled
me to launch my own website”
of getting our ideas out there. It was
this ability to directly connect to an
audience, which first drew me to using
the internet more than ten years ago.
The liberating notion that it was possible
to completely bypass traditional methods
for exhibiting work, which required the
sense of ‘society’, these new social
media tools offer us the potential for
creating new forms of collectivity.
They offer us unprecedented new
opportunities for dialogue and
exchange, allowing us to find and make

forms of
say-so of a gallery or curator, compelled
me to launch my own website, its first
incarnation serving not only as an online
archive of completed works but as a site
for public web-based experiments.
In 2001 I began the first of these,
connections with like-minded individuals
all over the world. But these connections
are only meaningful if they are genuinely
reciprocal. As artists, strange creatures
that we are, we must attempt to keep
our egos in check: to give as much as
we take, to listen as much as we speak,

Collect-
a project called Eat 22, for which I
decided to photograph and record
information about everything I ate for
a year, uploading new content religiously
every Sunday evening. Long before the
birth of Twitter, I relished the idea
of being ‘followed’: that people were
to learn as much as we teach. Only then
can a real support network be born and
can we truly find our power in numbers.
As we enter this challenging new phase
for the arts in the UK and worldwide, at
the hand of those same policy-makers,

ivity
tuning in for the next update in the
saga of my day-to-day routine. This
sort of reverse-voyeurism became an
addiction and so ensured a number of
large scale projects such as My Head’s
Swimming, Swear Box 2005 and Tea
Blog, where I actively chose to make
personal information, ‘the data of
everyday life’, public.
What the internet lacked in these early
guises, however, was the capacity for
reciprocation. The one-sidedness of
my obsessive publishing did little
to alleviate individualism or isolation,
to contribute to a sense of solidarity
we must learn to utilise our nascent
creative social networks to establish
solidarity and to continue to find new
ways of working outside of the traditional
institutions of art, which might not
weather the storm.
Ellie Harrison is an artist based in Glasgow. The first
book about her work Confessions of a Recovering
Data Collector was published in 2009. Her project Eat
22 is on permanent display at the Wellcome Collection
in London. www.ellieharrison.com

Social media
ESSAYS or collectivity, in fact if anything, it
exacerbated it. So, in 2006 I made
the decision to quit this way of working,
offers practitioners dominated by what I had come to term
opportunities for new as my data collecting activity, in an
attempt to develop a more outward-
forms of collectivity, looking practice, which focused on
says artist more important things happening in
the wider world and which placed a
/Ellie Harrison greater emphasis on collaboration.
148 | VOICES |

1. Once it’s typed it’s published,
J. Christopher Jones, Reprinted in Portable
Document Format by Dexter Sinister, published
Hyper-
by Lukas & Sternberg, 2009, and available online
in PDF format from the Dexter Sinister Library:
http://www.dextersinister.org/library.html
2. See: Anton Vidokle, Produce, Distribute,
ESSAYS
Discuss, Repeat, published by Lukas & Sternberg,
2009, and e-flux: http://www.e-flux.com
Links
3. Dispersion, Seth Price  Reprinted in Portable
Document Format by Dexter Sinister, published by
Lukas & Sternberg, 2009, and available online in
PDF format from the Dexter Sinister Library:
http://www.dextersinister.org/library.html
4. http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/
/Neil McGuire 5. Dark Fiber, Geert Lovink, MIT Press, 2002
discusses
6. http://www.limitedlanguage.org
creativity in
a digitally
connected world
150 | VOICES |
“Great cultural changes occurred
in the West when it was possible to
fix time as something that happens
between two points”
McLuhan, Understanding Media
Once it’s typed...
What follows is a project undertaken
by the visionary designer J. Christopher
Jones in the early 70s. Described as an
experiment with new technologies of
Xerox and microfiche, he wrote about
it under the heading ‘Once it’s typed it’s
published’1, and in doing so produced
the most succinct and far-sighted
premonition of the short circuiting of the
production and distribution cycle that
was to come. The project, in essence,
involved him writing typescripts, and
at any given point you could contact
him and buy a book, compiled from
a selection of his writings that you as
reader would choose. He would then
create a copy in whatever state it was
in at that point, bind it, and send it
to you. In a single step it cut out the
lengthy and labourious elements of
book production involved in finding a
publisher, finding a printer, pre-financing
its production and establishing a
distribution network. Jones elaborates
on the motivation and implications;
“...eventually anyone may write what
anyone may read, and the term ‘writer’
will come to mean, not that one has
written a commercially published book,
but that one can write at all, that one
is literate, in touch.” The project, and
more importantly the idea, preempted
the publish-then-edit online cultures
that would subsequently emerge, and
while not fully social in its production, it
embodied the idea that a ‘thing’ could
have multiple iterations of itself, and
directly ties to more recent endeavours
with RSS feeds, processing and
generative software as a means of
deliberately ‘incomplete’ or evolving
states of production.
Sites
With creation, publication and
distribution no longer distinct, interesting
opportunities arise for public creativity.
With specific reference to networks like
Central Station, it is equally possible
to see potential in the (web)site as a
place for creation, not just connection
and distribution, a continuation of some
of the work of net-art pioneers and
protagonists such as Anton Vidokle 2.
The web can perhaps lay claim to being
a primary location for ‘public art’ if we
accept, as Seth Price suggests, that
“collective experience is now based
(as much) on simultaneous private
experiences, distributed across the field
of media culture” 3. In this sense, if a
popular mp3 could be regarded as a
more ‘successful’ incidence of ‘public
art’ than a civic sculpture or intervention,
the web opens up some contentious
debates as a tool and a vehicle.
What is also interesting is that as
well as compressing creation and
publication, it reduces the distance
between production and criticism and/or
reappropriation. The chance to critically
engage with the medium is another
latent layer of potential, engaging with
some of the issues Geert Lovink and
others embrace via research centres
like the Institute for Network Cultures 4.
Far from the sunny utopia envisaged by
California’s first wave of cyber-hippies,
the web has emerged full of conflicts and
contradictions and it’s important to tackle
these head-on. As Lovink notes, “at best
the net will be a mirror of the societies,
countries and cultures which use it —
not the sweet and innocent, sleepy
global village but a vibrant crawling
and crashing bunch of complexities,
as chaotic and unfinished as the world
we live in” 5
RSS will feed itself
We need to then think about how
effective the tools we have to hand
are at realising these potentials. A
common sensation associated with
Web 2.0 is that of ‘information glut’ –
a level of noise and static that at times
almost overwhelms the signal. It would
be possible to write this off as the natural
flip-side of ‘free information’ but as this
tide of information increases, so does
our ability to sift it. The issue is mainly
one of literacy, and several interesting
projects have started to think critically
about how we ‘create’ within this hyper-
linked environment, not least Limited
Language, a web/book project
engaging with critical writing on
design in a feedback culture.6

7. The Social Life of Information, John Seely
Brown and Paul Duguid, Harvard Business School
Press, 2000
8. Postproduction, Nicolas Bourriaud, published
by Lukas & Sternberg, 2002
9. http://www.manystuff.org/?p=6913
10. The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig,
Vintage, 2002
11. http://www. youtube.com/
watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY
12. Digital Blur, Ed. Rogers and Smyth,
Libri, 2010
13. http://www.parallel-school.com
14. http://www.department21.net
15. Proud to be Flesh, Ed. Josephine Berry
Slater and Pauline van Mourik Broekman,
Mute Publishing, 2009
152 | VOICES |
The endism is nigh:
against newness
Wired magazine’s latest breathless
pronouncement is that the ‘web is dead’
(though as a caveat they claim that the
internet will go from strength to strength,
via ‘apps’, services etc.). It’s the oldest
trick in the book, neatly dissected by
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid who
view technology (and technologists) as
being “obsessed” 7 with an unrelenting
desire to see everything new as the
death of what preceded it. In reality what
emerges is a layered environment, subtly
shifting practices, each layer augmenting
what went before.
In the same way that tweets, as an
abbreviated form of messaging, have
a robust and healthy lineage via text
messaging through telegrams to the
advent of the telegraph and beyond,
so the activity in networked creative
communities is not new, it is just
provided with new platforms and
technologies on which to operate.
The interesting question is not whether
the technologies, in and of themselves,
are any good, but whether they bring
anything new or useful to these pre-
existing communities. We then need
to ask whether this, in a chicken-or-
egg sense, may in turn cultivate new
activities and modes of production.
Text-based messaging, between the
telegram and SMS messaging, may not
have advanced much in that they were
built on a similar social model of one-
to-one or one-to-few communication
across distance, but Twitter creates a
much bigger shift by planting the short
message in the social realm for all to
consume. So the networks that operate
on Central Station and other platforms
are made visible, and in the process
more open to interactions, input and
chance encounters.
Post-production:
sample culture
It’s a slightly glib way of putting it, but
author Matt Ridley suggests that we’re
on the cusp of really seeing what
happens when ‘ideas have sex’, because
of the way ideas circulate online. We
may also be able to put to bed the myth
of the lone creative genius in the ivory
tower. Historically, this myth seems
to have some resilience. But whether
via Bourriaud 8 and his ideas around
post-production or Sara de Bondt 9
and her collaborative projects to unearth
more nuanced (and realistic) versions
of design history, there are interesting
and taxing issues about ownership and
ideas which online networks bring to
the fore. In this sense the value of the
network is increased as both a channel
for production and distribution, but with
the potential for parallel debate about
the issues involved. But how open is this
discussion? The lawyer and prolific writer
Lawrence Lessig asks many critical
questions about the future of ideas 10,
our culture in ‘read-write’ terms, how
our laws are badly out of step with
behaviour online, and the potential
benefits of a creative commons. To this
end, we’re always teetering somewhere
between open and closed networks,
and an inbuilt conflict between the
online masses and those who control
the cables and connections.
Open and closed
Talking in a TV interview in 1995,
Neil Postman discussed what he saw
as ‘cyberspace’s Faustian pact’ 11 –
embodied in the many trade-offs we
encounter online daily: between privacy
and the desire to connect, the benefits
of ‘collective intelligence’ and (some
would perhaps rightly argue) a misplaced
desire to be identified as sole originators
of our own ideas. ‘Open networks’ are
of course not always exactly that, but
sometimes a semi-closed environment
also has benefits. Writing on the
discussion board of one particular
semi-hidden archive, a member
suggests, “There’s a utility to being
closed. It makes things possible. In
this age of connectedness, places
where small groups can meet, both
online and off, are to be prized.”
Digital and analogue
Technology is shot through with
numerous false dichotomies, and digital
vs. analogue and online vs. real world
are two prime examples. To characterise
online networks as digital would be to
completely miss the point. More useful
distinctions, if indeed they are needed
at all, would be between networked
and non-networked artefacts. Much
of what is passed off as interaction
design is actually, as Daniel West
observes, ‘interpassive’ 12 – limited
to a restrictive set of human/machine
sensory interactions. As soon as
interaction design connects to a web
or network (of other people) it suddenly
enters another dimension. In the same
sense that a book is a linked object
and therefore more interactive than,
for example, a motion graphic sequence,
people and ideas are the only thing that
really matter. In the unlikely event that
Wired magazine’s web-death predictions
did transpire to be correct, the network
will still exist and will always be able to
find other platforms. Just as some of
the more covert and clandestine archives
and sharing networks that contribute
to the web’s share culture simply
change their URLs when they get
shut down, there is always somewhere
for the network to go.
Undisciplined and
other boundaries
One of the most exciting features of
online creative networks is that they kick,
more persistently and more effectively,
at the false siloing of creative disciplines,
formal and informal education and petty
sector-specific cultural turf wars, than
any top-down or heavy-handed attempts
at inter-multi-trans-cross-disciplinarity.
Just as at the grassroots level in studio
complexes, artists rub shoulders with
designers, craftsmen with writers,
model makers with architects, the online
platform is equally unprejudiced (or
at least relaxed) about discipline and
other distinctions such as educational
background, geographical location, or
professional or amateur status, which
weigh so heavily on funding bodies
and state educational institutions. This
ties into a wider emerging ecosystem,
embodied in projects such as the
Parallel School 13 and Department
2114, where the benefits of self-directed The five-handed, thirteen-faceted Central
and augmented collective educational Station clock, (whether deliberately or
experiences are realised. not), says something about McLuhan’s
ideas on time and its measurement.
Network of networks: multiples While he was using the concept of a
clock as an example, to suggest that
and parallels society needed to find new analogies for
its electronic networked existence, the
two have ended up blending into one
Therefore, an interesting future for another, just as the physical network
Central Station could counter-intuitively blends into, and is, the digital.
be found in it supporting other
networks, and thinking about whether Neil McGuire is founder of design agency After the
it could devolve itself, de-brand itself, News and tutor in Visual Communications at Glasgow
relocate itself. The future benefits of School of Art.
these platforms lie in their ability to
‘be nothing’, or at least morph and The fee from this article has been donated to
spawn in equal measures. The web Telecom Sans Frontiers, www.tsfi.org
is an environment of multiple realities
and parallel worlds, where the same A hyperlinked version of this article can be found at:
information can be accessed from http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/
numerous different angles and as parts Hyper-Links/blog/2673080/126249.html
of all sorts of different constellations.
It is, fundamentally in its DNA, not either/
or but both/more/extra at the same time.
There are pressing issues of ownership,
in the same way that all internet
endeavours are inseparable from
problems of openness and organisation,
but it is possible to argue that one of
the best things a government could
do would be to fund, with as few strings
attached as possible, this kind of
platform (or multiple platforms), taking
a joyously open-minded approach to
many of its members being from outwith
its geographical borders, and seeing the
richness that it brings. Richard Barbrook
and Andy Cameron, writing in Mute
magazine in 1995 with some degree
of foresight, suggest “... hypermedia
in Europe should be developed as a
hybrid of state intervention, capitalist
entrepreneurship and DIY culture…
once people can distribute as well as
receive hypermedia, a flourishing of
community media, niche markets and
special interest groups will emerge.
However, for all this to happen the state
must play an active part.” 15 In the spirit
of connectivity, funding is connected
to form, is connected to function.
 “Hello. I want you to pause your
player when I count you down and
recommence playing at your screen’s
request. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”
Sitting in my parents’ living room,
I stretched over and pushed the
mechanical switch that would pause
the cassette tape. Click. Then came
the visual countdown on the TV screen.
When the numbers reached zero, as
instructed, I depressed the pause
button, and the Deus Ex Machina
experience began.
(in particular the Wii, Playstation 3 and
Xbox 360) kit themselves out as multi-
functional entertainment units that sit
neatly beneath our HD TVs. Current
market penetration: around 160 million
next-gen consoles; 200 million handheld
games units; and 1.4 billion PCs (less
than 5% of this figure are Macs). And
let’s not forget smartphone sales, which
are pushing 280 million by the end
of 2010. All of these platforms offer
potential to the wider creative community
– not just games developers.
In 1993, Myst was released for the
Wanda the Worm Woman sticks in my
head. She’s an obese dancer with rolls
of fat and sucking worms. By all
accounts, she is just an overfed human
worm. There’s also Harry the Human
Head, and The Residents themselves
have a stage, where the band perform
with giant eyeballs for heads.
Then what? By wandering around, you
come across a backstage sign and a
door, but the circus master stops you
from going through. Try again, and again.
Eventually you get through. Backstage
there are a number of caravans, each
thing is, the story wasn’t that good –
though I’m told the next one will be
better. Nevertheless, it proves again that
the prospect of story and experience to
audiences is a very powerful thing.
I’ve been bleating on for a while now
about how content producers should
start replacing the word multi-platform
with multi-industry, as it is in the spirit
of collaboration between the various
sectors that will lead to some truly
amazing output. Digital platforms are
a uniting force here, where the creative
potential for what can be done is – dare

Digital
In 1984, digital storytelling was delivered
into the family home as an audio-visual
experience on the ZX Spectrum. Jon
Pertwee was our narrator and Ian Dury
wrote the soundtrack (supplied on a
stereo cassette tape that had to be
manually synched to the gameplay,
Macintosh computer, transporting
its players into a seemingly deserted
island in the middle of nowhere. It was
quickly ported to Windows and has
since appeared on nine other platforms,
including iPhone. There are no enemies,
no time limits and no apparent order
the home of a performer from the show.
Enter these personal spaces, rummage
through their possessions and discover
their stories. Wanda was once a beauty
queen, until she befell a tragic accident*.
There was another peculiar PC title in the
I say it – almost unlimited.
This is where the likes of Central Station
come in. Cross-creative hubs, with cross
platform agendas. Brilliant. And now that
the mechanism is in place, we (or should
that be I?) just need to shut up and get

Stories
bringing new quality levels to the digital
experience).
Deus Ex Machina would start to haunt
my thoughts. As a story experience, it
set my mind alight - an eight-year-old
boy weaving this cyber-punk nightmare
into his own dreams. Delivered through
a ZX Spectrum and an audio cassette,
in a format that could be described as a
game, but perhaps not in the sense we
know it today.
Twenty six years later, I’m still rating this
as one of my best player experiences.
And it is in this word ‘experience’ that I
think lies the future of interactive content,
where the experience can be delivered
on any or all of the digital platforms -
present and future.
of play: the game mechanic is simply
‘explore’. The title had been a surprise
hit, and went on to become the best-
selling PC game of all time - despite
some people calling it no more than an
interactive slide show – until The Sims
exceeded its sales in 2002.
I was lucky enough to have been
exposed to the musical works of The
Residents and Devo before they both
released their ‘games’ in the early-mid
90s (I make no apologies for harking
back to the CD-ROM era here, as this
was a time of great experimentation in
computer art, multimedia production and
gaming). These music-theatre-gaming
collaborations were sheer brilliance: titles
filled with ideas and creative execution.
1990s called The Dark Eye, which took on with it.
the works of Edgar Allan Poe, set it in a
3D games environment with a bunch of *This is purely how I remember the
masked performers. In this case, theatre, game. The reality may hold no relation
poetry and gaming all pulled together to to what I’ve written.
make something pretty special.
Simon Meek is Head of Digital and Multiplatform
Of course, what I’ve just described could Content at Tern TV.
both be physical installations - powerful
works of art. But that is exactly the point.
Around the time I was playing Deus
Ex Machina, I remember attending a
role-playing theatre event organised
by the now-defunct Newcastle arts
collective Special Projects. It was a
youth-orientated project, where they
had transformed a warehouse into the “Content producers should
Blackcross Hotel - a setting where a start replacing the word
Lovecraftian story would unfold around multi-platform with multi-

ESSAYS In the past few years we’ve seen

landmark titles in digital art appearing
in a ‘game’ wrapper, and making small
but significant blips on the mainstream
horizon: Detuned, Linger in Shadows,
The Path - three titles to inspire thought.
What is so exciting about these titles
is the attempt to use gaming platforms
/Simon Meek to deliver experiences that aren’t easily
accepted as games. And it opens up a
discusses the whole world of possibility if we can get
potential of creative audiences to start to see and appreciate
our most powerful digital platforms (aka
storytelling on new games consoles) as places to get new
digital platforms forms of content and entertainment.
And the tide is shifting, as the console
154 | VOICES | world opens up to a more ‘casual’
player-base and the major platforms
Check out: Freak Show, Bad Day on
the Midway, and Adventures of the
Smart Patrol. Unfortunately you may
never get to play them, as interactive
digital content tends to be left behind as
technology advances and turns a blind
eye to backwards compatibility. And
they aren’t, as yet, available to download
digitally (at least by any legal means). (For
anyone who is having a bit of a nostalgia
trip at this point check out abandonia.
com. It’s a repository of games titles that
have fallen out of copyright.)
Out of the CD-ROM titles mentioned,
Freak Show is one example of digital
storytelling I always have an urge to
recount. The perspective is first person,
and you start off by entering a circus
tent. Inside the tent are a number of
stages. On each stage there is a show:
us. It was like being in Freak Show,
The Dark Eye or 7th Guest – but before
industry, as it is the spirit
of collaboration between the
technology would allow such things various sectors that will lead
to exist. to some truly amazing output.”
Now take a little time to imagine
what could be done if the best of our
experimental artists and filmmakers took
interest in the potential of interactive
formats on gaming platforms.
In 2010, Sony Playstation took a gamble
with Heavy Rain, a title they described
as an interactive drama. They made a
bet that there was an unseen audience
of lapsed gamers out there who would
buy a narrative-driven experience, if
they were offered it up on a plate. It
would seem they were right, as sales
expectations of 200k were smashed,
and over 2 million units were sold. The
 Star When I started writing and publishing
audio stories on my own blog I was
convinced that it would be a great way
to connect with people from far off lands
The digital world lets us find these
physical products more easily and we
can attempt to experience them through
photograph, visualisation, video or audio.

Alliance
from the comfort of my own proverbial
sofa. Half a million airmiles later I realise
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The
growth in our online connections has in
the past five years led to only one related
phenomenon: in as much as we enjoy
connecting virtually to people, art and
But when it comes to the physical, the
tangible and the experiential of the
physical world, there is still a sense
of scarcity, especially if the product
is one of a creative or artisanal hand. 
Central Station really is the meeting place

Art
artefacts, we want to connect as much
with the analogue, physical elements
we discover online.
For me, the highlight of this analogue-
digital play off in 2010 must be Johanna
Basford’s Twitter art project, Twitter-
Picture. It’s captured our imaginations:
send a tweet, the most transient of
our digital photons, and a real living
artist will transcribe those binaries into
a new sort of artistic physical binary
of the black and white linear for which
she has become so well known. You
can see what she’s up to – digitally
– through the 24 hour welcome. 100
special customers pay top dollar to
get hold of the limited edition – analogue
– prints before sharing them in all their
of these two worlds. Behind almost every
pixel is that scarcity of the physical piece.
Behind every piece the even more scarce
creator and maker. This community has
managed to weave these two worlds
together, and has managed to do so
while both celebrating the real world of
art, film and making stuff, and harnessing
the best of the slightly transient, virtual
world of click here, type there.
We can all be in each other’s pockets
digitally if we want, but, frankly, when
the bread comes out the oven or the
artwork receives its final stroke of the
pen, we want to feel, meet, eat or see
the physical, real, tangible product of
their craft. As an artist, that’s incredibly
reassuring. As a bystander, it’s exciting

ESSAYS
– digital – beauty on photosharing to know that the digital world will only
websites like Flickr. help me get closer to the things I didn’t
already know I wanted to experience
Or maybe this tension between analogue first hand.
and digital is best expressed through
BakerTweet, designed by London-based Ewan McIntosh is one of Europe’s foremost experts
“In as much as we enjoy Poke as a means of getting their local in digital media for public services, particularly in
connecting virtually to baker to broadcast when the croissants education. He is also the founder of 38minutes.co.uk,
people, art and artefacts, were fresh out the oven. A constructed, the creative industries platform for the north of the UK.
we want to connect as much physical object with a mobile transmitter
with the analogue, physical stashed inside, BakerTweet represents all
The digital world is elements we discover online.” that is artisanal and ambiently intimate in
just a way for us to this digital age.
better connect with
As we watch less television and
the tangible, argues participate more in virtual networks of
real acquaintances, friends and Friends
/Ewan McIntosh
(there is a notable difference), we gain,
as journalist and sociologist Clay Shirky
puts it, ‘cognitive surplus’. With limitless
choice in the virtual world we have more
mental bandwidth than we’ve had since
before the birth of television, to do with
what we please. That would include
hanging on the every tweet of a baker’s
oven, or assisting in the creation of a
new artwork by an artist hundreds of
miles away.

156 | VOICES |
/Aldo Palumbo /DuncanMacDonald
/Andy Connor /Gregor Johnstone
/angharad_mclaren /jameshouston
/ashley /Paul Kerlaff
/BenWerd /Roderick Buchanan
/emlyn

Digital
Revolution

BLOGS

New technologies,
new networks and new
opportunities. Our rapidly
evolving, digitally connected
world offers artists,
filmmakers and designers
ways of making work and
reaching audiences that
a few years ago existed
only in dreams.
 BLOGS

Our membership
includes a diverse
mix of established
practitioners and emerging
talent. Because of this the site
has become an invaluable space
for people to seek advice,
share their experiences
and debate industry
issues.

Work
Work
Work
/art24seven /Jessla
/briansweeney /JohannaBasford
/The Carrotworkers Collective /KirstyHall
/differentlight /louise_cochrane_design
/DuncanMacDonald /royshearer
/Gregor Johnstone /Retchy
/Howarth /yhighf
/Jean McEwan
 BLOGS

From funding cuts to

the closure of local arts
institutions, Central Station
has been a platform for
a variety of angry and
impassioned debates. Speak
out and rally for your cause.

Protest!
/alburt
/emlyn
/fortsunlight
/gailtolley
/Genesis
/JohannaBasford
/Neil McGuire
/pennywrite
/pulledup
/Sabre
/StephanieSpindler
/Windcalmer
 Richard Wright came to popular
prominence last year when he won
the Turner Prize for his large gold-leafed
fresco, painted directly onto one of
the interior walls of the Tate which
Richard
was praised by the judges for its
‘profound originality and beauty’.
Q&As In recent years Wright’s work has
focussed on the repetition of small
details, hand-painted directly onto
the walls of the spaces he is exhibiting
Wright
in. The works, made in situ, are
influenced and inspired by the space
itself. They were described by one critic
as ‘invisible art’ due to their hidden
The Turner
positions, for example on the ceiling
Prize winning artist or, in the case of one work in 2006 at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in
talks about his latest
San Diego, a high set window which
commission, and how he detailed with ripples of gold leaf.
music influences
Importantly his works are destroyed
his work when the exhibition finishes, usually
with a lick of white paint in preparation
for the show that follows; something
which imbues the work with a sense
of impermanence. Alongside the
“Sometimes you have abandonment of the canvas these two
something to say and factors work to challenge and diminish
sometimes not.Sometimes the gap between spectator and artwork.
it seems that there are
too many conflicts to For Edinburgh Art Festival 2010
want to explain things” Wright was commissioned to create a
piece in the west stairwell of the Dean
Image: Richard Wright’s Stairwell Project at the Gallery. Central Station caught up with
Dean Gallery, Edinburgh the artist, after his In Conversation
event to talk about the project, his close
connection to music and his enduring
attraction to Glasgow.
You have said that one of the
highlights of winning the Turner prize
was the response and connection
you had with the audience. It must
be nice to chat to the public about
your work in situations like this?
Yes, I mean, sometimes you have
something to say and sometimes not.
Sometimes it seems that there are too
many conflicts to want to explain things,
other times it comes easier. But of
course it’s an opportunity for the work
to be seen from a different point of view.
Ordinarily people come and they only
see the work, so for them to also see the
human side of it... but hopefully I will also
get something from them.
The stairwell project in particular is
interesting because it is a permanent
piece and won’t immediately be
removed when the exhibition ends.
Does that distinguish it from your
other works for you?
Yes, I think that the fact that I knew the
work may have a longer duration did
affect the way that I thought about it.
I was aware that I actually might have
to look at it again, for a start, and that I
actually might have to look at it again in
a few years time. So my thinking about
it was more prolonged, in the sense that
I wanted the work to reflect a longer
duration of thought than something I
would just do and disappear. More than
a month’s passed since I made the work,
ordinarily it would be painted out now,
and had it been that situation I may have
done a different work.
In the talk you mentioned that for a
piece you made for the Manifesta
2 show in Luxembourg, you took
something from the space (in that
case it was the runs in the concrete)
that acted as a ‘way in’ for the piece.
Did you find something similar for
the stairwell project?
Yes, there was the symmetry of
the architecture, the solidity of the
architecture [and] elements which are
in the rose of the ceiling, what appear
to be honeysuckle leaves. And although
I didn’t want to copy that, it was one
way into the work. Also, the work of
course is so made in the space, that
the space makes the work. Whilst I may
have started off with certain intentions,
inevitably those intentions are deflected
by the act of making it. So as you
proceed along the wall, working in one
way, you hit the obstacle of a piece
of cornicing, or a corner, or change in
direction of the physical surface which
always speaks to the work, it changes
the work. The work very much comes
out of that process.
One thing I find fascinating is this
connection to music and rhythm you
can see in your paintings. Do you
see this influence in all your work?
I think so, but I think that’s probably
a question which is difficult for me to
answer. As I said at one point earlier
on, you think you’re doing something
different and it turns out that it’s actually
like something else that you’ve done
[before]. And I think in terms of looking
at things, art has been something I’ve
been interested in since I was very young
indeed, but music has had an enormous
emotional impact on me. Music drives
me in some ways and so the two
things are very close together for me.
Quite often some works will refer very
directly to music or they might directly
refer to what I call a poetic content
of music. So that’s there. I think it’s
connected to the body as well – this act
of making music and listening to music.
When you look at things there’s
this possibility to see them as being
separate from you and when you listen
to them they’re in you. That’s to do
with the body, that’s to do with a more
total experience and I think it is that
experience I’m looking for with painting.
It’s not that I want [the paintings] to
overwhelm but I want them to become
part of you or me in the way music does.
And the sense of space is so
intrinsic to that…
Yes, definitely. But it is this perceived
space, the work happens not there [on
the wall], not here [where the spectator
is], but somewhere in between.
You’ve stayed in Glasgow when
many other artists have moved away.
You were here during the nineties, a
very exciting time for visual art and
you’ve witnessed that scene change
since. Do you still feel it’s a city that
can offer you what you need from a
city?
I still live there! Yes, I love Glasgow.
Of course one’s drawn away, many
times to different places but I always
seem to come back. It used to be, back
a long time ago, a city you moved away
from if you wanted to be an artist. I see
even now, and though the energy may
have changed, it’s still a city that a lot
of people want to move to, to become
an artist. I am always surprised to
discover that there’s something else
going on there that I didn’t know about.
I keep meeting young artists who are
doing things and I think it’s great – it’s
a good city.
I was just in London for a week and I
think I could never live or work there.
There’s too much anxiety and I don’t
mean that in terms of the pressure of
getting on the tube – all that stuff is
difficult and expensive. In particular in
the cultural or art area, everyone’s so
desperate, everyone wants to succeed,
I guess because they need to, because
of the pressure. I don’t have that same
feeling, I think people are much more
concentrated on the work that they’re
doing in a place like Glasgow.
Interview: Gail Tolley
 It’s difficult to know what to make of
Martin Creed. The artist, most famous
for winning the Turner Prize in 2001 for
Work No.227: The lights going on and
off, alternates between dead pan humour
and deep sincerity (with one often
impossible to distinguish from the other).
And his work is much the same; it is at
once playful yet also challenges everyday
perceptions. Take for example Work
No. 850, where Creed set up runners to
sprint, every 30 seconds, through the
Tate. The artist said that the regularity of
the running was something that might
offer comfort to the spectator, yet at
the same time the piece represents an
almost violent disruption to the formality
of the gallery space, not to mention a
Martin
display of cheeky, childlike audacity.   different mediums (and the ballet
This mixture of fun and intrigue has made
Creed a popular artist among audiences
and critics alike and his latest exhibition
at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh
will no doubt be a popular destina-
Creed
tion this Festival season. Creed is also
working on a commission as part of the
refurbishment of the Scotsman steps –
a public stairwell in Edinburgh which
connects the Old Town and the New
Town, due to be unveiled in the new year.
If that isn’t enough, Creed is also
bringing his ballet (Work No.1020), first
performed at Sadler’s Wells last year,
to the Traverse Theatre between 8-15
August and is speaking at Edinburgh
International Book Festival on 16 August
about the release of two new books on
his work. I spoke to Creed last week, in
between rehearsals for his performance
at the Traverse, about the events he’s
involved in this summer in Edinburgh,
his latest commission to transform the
Scotsman steps and why we might soon
Q&As “In a sense I think that I
be seeing the Martin Creed opera show.
You’re in the middle of rehearsals
make my work because I want
for the ballet at the moment, is that
to be loved, so I want people
right?
to like my work because that
Last night was the first preview
makes me feel good.”
performance, which was effectively a
dress rehearsal really because we’ve
Image: Martin Creed, Down Over Up (installation view)
The artist The Fruitmarket Gallery, 2010. Courtesy the artist.
only had three days of rehearsals, so
we’re kind of rehearsing while we do it!
speaks about Copyright the artist and The Fruitmarket Gallery
directing a ballet Do you see the ballet as an extension
of your piece with the runners
and why his latest through the Tate? There are similar
work could be ideas for example the presence
and movement of the body...
compared to a very Aye, that’s where it came from. You can
166 | VOICES |
nice toilet think of the running as a really simple
dance in which you’re just trying to move
your body as fast as it can (because the
runners at the Tate were running as fast
as they could). It was that that got me
into so called ‘dance’, in the sense of
movements that are choreographed.  project…
The ballet has five ballet dancers but it
also has five band members who are
playing the music for the dancers. One of
the ideas for me is that when you’ve got
five ballet dancers there on stage [and]
five regular people next to them the
people with the unchoreographed move-
ments can look funny and diverting.
You’ve said before that it’s important
for you to work across many
being one example of that). Are
there any others you’d like to
explore? Online? Opera?
Yeah, I’d like to do an opera! The ballet
is kind of… although it’s called ballet it
contains singing, for me that’s a chance
to do lots of bits and pieces. But that is
on my list of one of the things I’d like to
do is work with singers, trained singers.
At the moment I’ve been working with
me singing and other band members.  no surprise that it’s brown!
What sort of conversations did
you have with Fiona Bradley at the
Fruitmarket in preparation for the
current exhibition there?  as a toilet!) and that very precious
She put out a list of works and I kind of
said yes and added some that I thought
might be good and maybe took one
away and she took one away and added
something and that’s how it went. She
put together the main list, because the
Scotsman steps [commission] kind of
came from the Fruitmarket as well so I
think that’s how the steps thing started
because we were working on this steps
commission and she was saying ‘Oh
there’s all these steps in your work’ so
why not make the show, so that’s how it
started and I think it’s true, there are lots
of steps and increments.
Are you interested in how audiences
interpret and interact with your
work?
Yeah definitely, in the sense that I want
people to like or love my work, me and
my work. In a sense I think that I make
my work because I want to be loved,
so I want people to like my work
because that makes me feel good.
But I don’t understand how it does all
work… I don’t know exactly what it is
that I want from people. I know that
other people are really important.
I don’t think I can find out about my
work until I put it into the public.
Tell me about the Scotsman Steps
They’re renovating it and they wanted
an artist to do something. I proposed to
actually do the steps rather than doing
something on the walls and to do them
in marble so that each step is made
from a different type of marble. I hope
it will be like a beautiful array of all the
possible different colours and textures
of marble that you can get. I did make
a piece with tiles of marbles, so in a
way that was an earlier version which
led to this.
When you get into colours of marble
there are some really good pink and blue
and green marbles but a lot of them are
beige. So you could have a staircase
of loads of different types of marble but
actually they could all be brown, beige
and white and I want it to really be a full
contrast of different colours although
within the limitations of marble, because
marble is made from the ground, so it’s
And are you interested in the
contrast between its current state
(very run down and mainly used
material that you’ll be using?
It is such a toilet and there’s piss all
over the place but I thought the best
thing to do would be to try and make
it really beautiful. Also marble is piss-
proof, you know? You can hose it
down or whatever.
I think the fact that it’s mainly used as
a toilet is because those people don’t
have anywhere to live and it is a covered
staircase. So it would be nice if those
people could have somewhere to live.
I don’t think they should be moved out,
they should be given somewhere so they
don’t have to sleep there or shit there.
Or to look at it another way, if that
staircase is a toilet, when I go to the
toilet I like a nice toilet and marble is
also traditional toilet material. So those
guys should just have a really nice
toilet, you know?
Interview: Gail Tolley
4 Art Schools /
11 Graduate Artists /
Tags:

Now I
1 Filmmaker /
Plus a Huge Warehouse Party /
Documentary
Central Station commissioned director Johnny
Art School
Barrington to shoot a film that would form both
a response to and a record of the SWG3 show
Exhibition
Now I Know My ABCs, an exhibition of work by
the year’s most exciting Fine Art graduates from
SWG3
Edinburgh College of Art, Glasgow School of Art,
Gray’s School of Art and the Duncan of Jordanstone
Warehouse Party

Know My
College of Art & Design. The film raised questions
on what can be learned of art and explored how
LuckyMe
artists often struggle to discuss their work.
Now I Know My ABC’s
Central Station also hosted the opening party for the 21 July 2009
exhibition which featured DJs from music label and
art collective LuckyMe, an opportunity for us to begin Event Type
to spread the word to Glasgow’s creative community. Exhibition & Party
about our imminent arrival.
Location

ABC’s
Glasgow

Event Listings
+44 141 Gallery – Now I Know My ABC’s
curated by Simon Gowing
Artists featured: Angus Cameron, Carrie Skinner, Chris
Mackie, Emma McIntyre, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Travis Souza,
Max Swinton, Rachel Maclean, Ralph MacKenzie,
Richard Bracken, Ross Christie

SWG3 Pre-Launch Afterparty featuring:

LuckyMe Collective

.
 -> Watch Art/Roc/Doc:
bit.ly/Projects010
72 Hours /
4 Art-Rockers /
“...Things got crazy... The event was packed,
incredible exhibits abounded with work from Tags:

Art/
4 Central Station members /
3 Sleepless Nights/
the likes of Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst on
show as well as performance artists in-situ, a Frieze Art Fair
1 Knackered Old Transit Van/
Too many parties to mention...
fashion show, burlesque and the bands.”
London
These were the ingredients for Art/Roc/Doc, a fly on the
“We had a plethora of interviewees and after our
diligent producers snagged big-name artist Gavin Turk Volume
wall documentary that followed Glasgow band Isosceles
on an adrenaline-fuelled road trip to uncover the London
we were more than satisfied with the content...”
/Tom Duncan Plus
art scene during Frieze Art Fair 2009.
“The film managed to capture not only the beautiful Isosceles
Along the way Isosceles headlined PLUS, 72 hours of
non-stop artists, exhibits and music, featuring Douglas
journey between Glasgow and London, but between
visual art, music and film. Art/roC/dOc is testament to Documentary

Roc/
Gordon, Matt Collishaw, Sarah Lucas, Gavin Turk and
Sam Hasler.
the potential of the creative sectors working together.”
Patricia Fleming (curator, Volume/PLUS) Road-trip
Members Tom Duncan and Dasha jumped on board
to film and photograph the event, designer Ruth Parker
was set with the task of creating a cardboard caravan
and together they created a whirlwind short film
which premiered at The Glasgow Film Festival 2010.

Doc
 -> Watch Phil’s
antics here:
/65 Art Exhibitions
/12 Twitter Led Video Dispatches
@CenSta would #GIPhil like to meet at Kelvingrove to
check out Shrigley this avo?
Tags: bit.ly/Projects008

Phil Kay
/6 Days
/1 Artist-Comedian-Musician “Leave me a comment or tweet us an invite @CenSta
Phil Kay
And A Dog Named Sparky and tag #GI Phil. That’s me - for this weekend I’m an
artistic soldier. Sir yes sir.”
Glasgow International
Irreverent dispatches from the frontline as comedian
Phil Kay lands on Glasgow International Festival of
/philk
Comedy
Visual Art 2010. “Today we’re going in search of a white bike, looking at
collages, making some flickbooks and probably playing
Visual Art
Central Station captured the Scottish comedian as he
discovered exhibitions, performances, happenings,
my guitar. Rumour has it, we’re also going to be followed
by a BBC reporter. Stalker.”
Twitter
clubs, gigs and random encounters and ‘did GI’. His /philk
antics were caught on camera and made into a series

does GI
of comedic shorts, released daily throughout the festival
and seeded through the comedy networks like Chortle,
The Humor Blog and rereleased on Central Station,
Facebook and YouTube.
We asked our members to get involved via Twitter,
telling us the most exciting exhibitions and events that
Phil should check out and giving them the chance to
meet the man himself.
“We’re going to someone’s flat....a lady called Janie
Nicoll. She invited us by tweeting at us. I hope she has
tea. You’d think she would, since she’s invited 15 artists
into her living room, plus all the GI visitors too. Might put
a wash on while I’m there.”
/philk
“Exhibitions, performances, happenings, clubs, gigs and
random encounters, Phil’s going to be doing the lot with
Central Station.”
/CenSta
 -> Watch the crowd-sourced
200 Cyclists /
50 White Bikes /
An online campaign and Twitter network tracked
the project during the three weeks of action, enabled
Tags: White Bikes film at:
bit.ly/Projects006

White
A 45 Year Old Manifesto /
32 Cameras /
1 Traffic Stopping Ride Out
Politically-driven art collective NVA collaborated with
Central Station to re-enact the anarchic Amsterdam
White Bike Plan – a radical scheme aimed at providing
a city with a free and green transport system. 50
white bikes, free to use, were released into the city
so that Glasgow International Festival-goers could
travel freely between venues and events.
shared sightings of available White Bikes and named
and shamed those who dared to keep them under
Glasgow International
lock and key.
NVA
“An informal network of bike spies has sprung up
on Twitter, using the hashtag code #whitebikes to
Cycling Scotland
keep tabs on where the white bikes are for other
users, as well as photographing and shaming
Crowd-Sourced Film
those spoilsports who’ve attached their own
padlocks to the bikes” The Herald
Head-Cam
Ride Out

Bikes
The initiative was launched with a 200 strong White
Bike Ride Out. Central Station mobilised an army of Twitter
cyclng enthusiasts and experimental filmmakers to
be part of a crowd-sourced film. Armed with head-
cams, phones, and homemade contraptions to fix
cameras to their bikes, footage was uploaded within
hours ready for Central Station’s final edit.
 -> Watch Tattoo & Lament at:
bit.ly/Projects005
50 Budding Composers /
6 Shortlisted Members /
“We got a bunch of creative people together, and
created something that we all like. ‘This is making
Tags:

Sound:
2 Short Films /
1 Acclaimed Artist /
An Award-Winning Sound Studio /
An International Film Festival
Award-winning sound studios Savalas, experimental
film artist Roderick Buchanan and Central Station offered
one composer the chance to create the soundtrack for
two short films to premiere at the Edinburgh International
Film Festival 2010.
From over 50 entries 6 were shortlisted. The final
me happy’ as Roddy would say. I think I can speak
for the entire Wasabi collective when I say it’s been a
Roderick Buchanan
tremendous experience for all of us, both as a sort of
learning-curve, a creative challenge, and in terms of
Savalas Studios
just being great fun.”
phipsim
Edinburgh International Film Festival
“I’m getting a real flavour of submissions. I’m flattered to
Composer Wanted
hear people’s creative response to our invitation. As the
files come in I’m starting to hear there’s a recognised lan-
Fear Wasabi
guage out there that I’ve not been exposed to. I’m in my
studio, running my practice and all of a sudden a window

Image:
winner was Andy Sim and his band Fear Wasabi opens up onto another creative landscape.”
who also won £500 and a publishing deal with Roderick Buchanan
The Sonic Design Agency.

This unique experiment and collaboration was

documented through blogs and images on Central
Station and culminated in a sellout premiere at
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010.

Art
 -> Get a taste for our
The Central Station Central Station takes A Pop-Up Event at the Pop-Up Events here:
bit.ly/Projects004
launch: bringing the a trip to Dundee. prestigious Edinburgh

Pop-Ups
online community into Existing members had the chance to meet the team
International Film Festival.
the real world. (and each other), new members signed up and the
Central Station set up a hub for a day where visiting
whole community got an insight into the city’s vibrant
filmmakers could find out about the site, sign
A weekend jam-packed with talks, screenings and arts scene. Internationally acclaimed artist Martin
up and blog their festival antics.
socialising. A Big Red Bus took everyone on a tour Boyce, fresh from exhibiting at the Venice Biennale,
of Glasgow’s known, and less well known, creative discussed his exhibition No Reflections.
We hosted an innovative event at Inspace: an
sights, and local filmmakers, artists and designers Underground music and film festival organisers
exhibition of members’ work and a journey through
got up and introduced their creative projects. Arika talked about their ground-breaking event
our collaborative project Sound:Image:Art with award-
Kill Your Timid Notion. Janey Muir shared her
winning sound studios Savalas, visual artist Roderick
experiences of being involved in the artist-led
Buchanan and composer Andy Sim and his band
Pop-Up Launch space Generator Projects and alternative art
14 & 15 November 2009 Fear Wasabi. The event finished with an unveiling
distribution conduit Yuck ‘n Yum discussed
of the final work. The day ended in style with a
exhibiting art outside of galleries.
Event Type heaving party at Henry’s Cellar Bar with the folk
Launch from short film production company Digicult.
Pop-Up Tour
Location Throughout the festival we also had two members
6 February 2010
Glasgow reporting from the frontline with all the latest news,
Event Type reviews and behind-the-scenes gossip. They
Event Listings
Colin Gray Artists Talk
Pop-Up live-blogged during our Sound:Image:Art event,
Dummy Jim Album Launch relaying to the wider community the atmosphere
Location and discussions taking place and adding an
They Live Artists Talk
Dundee additional layer of interactivity to the proceedings.
Fun Makes Good Design Talk
Made In the Shade Shop Tour
Event Listings
Mary Mary Gallery ExhibitionTour
Cooper Gallery Curator Talk and Exhibition Talk
Sorcha Dallas ExhibitionTour Edinburgh International Film Festival Pop-Up
DJCAD Masters Graduates Talks
Savalas Sound Design Studio Tour 20 June 2010
Dalziel + Scullion Studio Tour
Che Camille Studio Tour
Generator Projects Gallery Tour and Talk
Ciara Phillips Artists Talk Event Type
WASPS Gallery Tour and Talk
+44 141 Gallery Tour Workshops, Talks, Screening & Exhibition
Martin Boyce Film Screening with Live Soundtrack
Brazen Studio Tour
Realtime Worlds Studio Tour and Talk
GSA Caseroom Tour Location
McManus Galleries Gallery Tour and Talk
Dan Williams Artists Talk Edinburgh
The Visual Research Centre Studio Tour
The Modern Institute Luke Fowler Films
DCA Print Studio Tour
Scottish Digital Shorts Preview Screening Event Listings
Martin Boyce Artists Talk
This Is... 10 Members’ Talks DigiCult RED or DEAD? Short Filmmaking Workshop
SuperFly Pop-up Exhibition
Sunday School Social Savalas, Roddy Buchanan & Fear Wasabi
Yann Sezec Exhibition Talk
Film Screening and Artists Talk
Handmade Heaven Exhibition and Sale
InSpace Members’ Work Exhibition
This Is... 10 Members’ Talks
.
 Random
Remote
Outposts:
N.Territories, Canada./ 6 Users
Honolulu/ 14 Users
Tashkent, Uzbekistan/ 2 Users
Falkland Islands/ 4 Users

#1
#10 #2

#9 Top #3
Countries
#8 by Visit #4

#7 #5
#6

au
21dio
6

Top UK
Cities
by Visit
Most Popular Video
Tags by /LU Sisi
‘Digital Analogue’
Discipline: Views:

88%
#1: art
#2: design 8714 61
oid 2
ua

#3: film
#4: photography
#5: music Images
216
audio

#6: illustration
#7: writing
#8: sound
#9: theatre 343
works titled
‘Untitled’

35,000
art
Most
Member Tags artist beever

29
bruce mau communication
consultation csr design
/MarkBeever
er designer exhibition finding
glasgow greengaged identity ideo

Works
mark massive change matthews
projects publication signage
sustainability thomas matthews

Uploaded
thomas.matthews wayfinding
workshops

Image:
/RyanHays
‘Untitled Biological

216
audio
Landscape’
Views:
7.6%
audio
216

2528 Video

0.5%
audio
216

audio
216

3.9%
Audio
186 | THE NUMBERS | | THE NUMBERS | 187

Blogs
Team
Core Team, Year 01 Creative Heads Interns

Row 1, L–R: Row 3, L–R: Row 1, L–R: Row 2, (after break) L–R: Row 4 L–R:
Tulta Behm, Collections Producer Patricia Fleming, VAA Consultant Johanna Basford Jessica Ashman Catherine O’Hallaran
Lesley Booth, PR Suzy Glass, Project Producer Gregor Johnstone Louise Cochrane Kaye Symington
An ever-evolving, multi-disciplinary Yvonne Bray, Content Producer Heidi Kuisma, Community Manager Neil McGuire Claire Thacker
team, Central Station continues to Mark Breslin, Creative Director Heidi Proven, Community Manager Simon Meek Row 3, L–R: Louise Hoblyn
draw upon a pool of creative Row 2, Stephanie Hauer
talent to keep things ticking over... Row 2, L–R: Row 4 L–R: Mutley Tomas Hermoso
Andrew Connor, Production Accountant Erin McElhinney, Assistant Producer Paul McArthur
Genny Cotroneo, Project Co-ordinator Damien Smith, Executive Producer Mathieu Sagnet
Alec Farmer, Designer Gail Tolley, Web Editor
Emlyn Firth, Designer Paul Welsh, Executive Editor

188 | THE NUMBERS | | THE NUMBERS | 189

Central Station is supported by: Book Credits Florenceto sebastien The Carrotworkers Published by:
FrancescaNobilucci siltandbone collective CenSta Ltd
Fraser SimonReekie Windcalmer 41 St Vincent Place
Fun Makes Good SLangfield yhighf Glasgow
Community g-man SpaceInBetween G1 2ER
Genevieve StephenCappello
AlexHetherington grahamlister susieolczak Essays Copyright for text:
briansweeney Grant McPhee the_duchy the authors
Central Station was funded through The Digital danielwarrentv Greer Cummiskey Pester TheLindstromEffect Damien Smith
Media IP Fund, in partnership with Scottish danielpadden Hamish Bigg Design + TobyP. Ellie Harrison Copyright for images:
Enterprise and the Creative Scotland Innovation Dasha Photog Unnatural_History_ Ewan McIntosh the listed bodies and
Creative Scotland is the new national leader for Fund, and by Lottery funding through the Scottish fortsunlight hanna_tuulikki Museum Gail Tolley photographers
Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries. Arts Council’s Inspire Fund Genevieve iamrollo weedrunkglasgowman Neil McGuire
Govanhill Baths ART ida.arentoft YvonneMullock Simon Meek Copyright for publication:
JohannaBasford inflatablemonster the publishers

Thank you
KirstyHall IslaySpalding
Ryan Hays jameshouston Member Fund Additional Images Typefaces used:
Rydo! jamesmclardy Hermes, Helvetica Neue
pussydomesticus JanieNicoll Bobby Niven Community:
sam_hart jbutler Henry Coombes Stephen McGarry/ © 2010. All rights
samspreckley jeannette.ginslov Mitch Miller & Jennifer Beaton reserved. No part of
SLangfield Jenny_Hood Emma Lennox (Alex Hetherington) this publication may
StephanieSpindler joasia Poster Club Barbara Kadji be reproduced or
The Gin Palace Jonathan Hall Ptarmigan (Genevieve) transmitted in any
There have been many, many people who have made a contribution to Central Station. 
jonstanleyaustin Recoat Gallery Jannica Honey form or by any means,
We’d like to say a huge thanks to you all. judithwylie SASA 2010 (Johanna Basford) electronic or mechanical,
Portfolios Juliet Fellows-Smith (formerly Me + 3): Lynne Wray including photocopying,
Katie Cooke The Confraternity (Govanhill Baths ART) recording or any other
Special Thanks To: adelinesuvdal Katy West of Neoflagellants Ingvild Wollstad information storage and
Adrian Kylaa Yuck ‘n’ Yum (Brian Sweeney) retrieval system, without
AlexHetherington Ladyface prior permission in writing
Stuart Cosgrove, Claire McArdle, Melanie Hayes & Jamie Arnold at Channel 4 / Andrew Leitch & Robbie Allen
alexis dirks Leah Black Member Fund: from CenSta Ltd.
at Creative Scotland / Kenny Shaw, Jon Carlos & all the team at Screenmedia / Angus Farquhar, Godsal & amelia_bywater Lee.Muir Voices Jonny Shaw
angharad_mclaren Lemonart (Henry Coombes)
team at NVA / Allan Radcliffe & The List / Arika / Atypical Root / Ben Werdmuller von Elgg / Brazen / Brewdog /
Antoinette Parrau lepeep Alburt Norman Hogg An ISO Project.

ISO
Brian Sweeney / Chad McCail / Che Camille / Colin Macdonald at Realtime Worlds / Colin Gray / Chris Scott / armando LesleyBarnes Aldo Palumbo (Confraternity of
Barry_Thomson Lewis Den Hertog AndyConnor Neoflaggelants)
Dan McCarthy / DCA Print Studios / Edinburgh International Film Festival / Ewan McIntosh / Flickr /
beki_melrose lornam angharad_mclaren Martin Clark &
Fun Makes Good / Generator Projects / Giles Lamb & Savalas / Gillian Wearing & Lisa Marie Russo / Ben FIST Louweasely art24seven Ciara Connolly
BethCharlett LU Sisi Ashley (Chez Galip) isoprojects.com
Govanhill Baths Art / Grahan MacLachlan at Blipfoto / Isosceles / James Houston / Jay Ryan / Jean Cameron,
Beto2009 lynne mackenzie BenWerd
Katrina Brown & team at Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art / Jen Davis & team at Glasgow Film Bill Millett Marko differentlight Voices:
bobby niven martinkempstrousers Duncan MacDonald Ellie Harrison
Theatre / Jerwood Contemporary Makers 2010 / Jon Gill & Superfly / Kick Apps / Landshare / Lesley Booth /
briandickson Mhari McMullan fraserdenholm (New Forms of Collectivity)
LuckyMe / Lucy Skaer & Henry VIII’s Wives / Made in the Shade / Malcolm Dickson & Street Level Photoworks / briansweeney MichaelLacey fortsunlight LU Sisi
CannibalDuck Missbowtie Gregor Johnstone (Digital Stories)
Mark Ashelford & Antonia Anness at Lee & Thompson / Martin Boyce / Martin Creed / Matthew Dalziel &
CARLA J EASTON MoonApe Genesis Johanna Basford
Louise Scullion / Mark Daniels & Inspace / McManus Gallery / Mel Woods, Laura Simpson & Mhari MacDonald chrisleslie Nordpert Howarth (Star Alliance Art)
ChristinaKernohan olli hellmann jameshouston
at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design / Mike Grieve, Paul Crawford & The Sub Club / MUSA /
Ciara Phillips Pao-M JohannaBasford Projects & Events:
The crew at SWG3 / NEON Signmakers / Newspaper Club / New Media Scotland / Our Creative Heads: d.cookney Parc-graphic jessla Ryan MacDonald &
daisyrichardson Paul Kerlaff Jean McEwan LuckyMe
Gregor Johnstone, Mutley, Jo Basford, Neil McGuire & Simon Meek / Patricia Fleming Projects / Ciara Barry
dan_corporation_pop Pennywrite Kirsty Hall (Now I Know My ABC’s)
& Rosie Crerar at Digicult / Penny Anderson / Phil Kay / Richard Wright / Roderick Buchanan / Rosamund West, danielwarrentv Rachel Maclean louise_cochrane_design Heidi Kuisma
Dasha rebecca.cusworth Neil Mcguire (Phil Kay)
Sophie Kyle & Lara Moloney at The Skinny / Rosie Crerar & Matt Lloyd at Glasgow Short Film Festival /
Dave_Lee Richard Taylor Paul Kerlaff Dagmar Vyhnalkova &
Sally Johnston & team at The Cultural Enterprise Office / Sasha de Buyl-Pisco / Savannah Henley at DavidLupton Ross_McLean pulledup Jack McConnchie
distorted.time Ruth Parker Retchy (Art/Roc/Doc)
British Council / Seona Reid, Scott Parsons, Tara Beall, Kate Hollands & team at The Glasgow School
Duncan MacDonald RUTH PAXTON royshearer Patrick MacDonald
of Art / Stuart Fallon / The First 50 / The Hannah MacLure Centre / The Mutual / River Cottage / eggmachine RuthLaila Roderick Buchanan (Glasgow Launch)
Ellie Royle Ryan Hays Sabre Ross Maclean
The Visual Research Centre Dundee / Toby Paterson / Tom Schofield / Volume / Washington Garcia / WASPS /
Emmamacleod ryansmall briansweeney (Dundee Pop-Up)
Welcome Home / With Kerlaff / Yann Seznec / Yuck ‘n’ Yum / +44 141 Gallery Erisch samspreckley StephanieSpindler
Join Us:

http://www.
thisiscentralstation.com

http://www.facebook.com/
CenSta

http://www.twitter.com/
CenSta