After a week of studying the science of Leonardo with Frijof Capra at Schumacher was time for a couple of days off. I used it as an opportunity to review my notes from the previous week and do some video recording around the college.

Where do I start? It's been a really packed few days. Various sessions with Frijof Capra discussing the science of Leonardo. A 'gaia' walk with Stephan Harding around the Dartington estate. Plus cooking, gardening, cleaning and eating. Schumacher College really is a amazing andfulfillingplace to be. I've also been doing a good amount of thinking about my artwork and future direction. I'll summarise this after the course.

Another full day at Schumacher College. Starting with a session with Fritjof Capra, then a very interesting open discussion with Stephan Harding, Brian Goodwin and Fritjof (pictured). In the afternoon we had a "fireside chat" with Satish Kumar. My workgroup was on scullery duty today - general tidying up after meals and mopping. In the evening there were presentations from course members on their work, including myself talking about the development of my interactive artworks. What a full day.

I arrived at Schumacher College in Totnes, Devon today to participate in a two week course being taught by Fritjof Capra entitled "Living Networks: From Leonardo to Lovelock & Beyond". It's my first time at the college. We started will the guided tour, the library, meeting rooms, kitchen and eating areas and then a brief getting to know you session. Then followed dinner and the first introductory session with Fritjof. The college is a very relaxing place, and I still can't quite believe that I have two whole weeks here!

Many years ago I took and passed the "Radio Amateur Exam". This enabled me to apply for a radio amateur license and (more importantly for me at the time) gave me a good excuse to learn about electronics, radio and useful things you can do with a soldering iron! Recently, I've been getting interested in radio and TV transmission again - albeit from a different perspective. My current idea is to create audio "structures" by sampling sounds and pictures from across the radio spectrum. It's early days yet, but I think there is a decent idea for an artwork here. Anyway, I decided to re-apply for a broadcast license and have received the call sign "M0JPP". i don't know if I will be using it to transmit that much, but it might come in handy in the future.

The next Stench event will be happening at The Phoenix in Leicester on the 5th June 2009. It's going to be a great night with audiovisual performances from Modulate and Mick Grierson and others. See the event page on the Stench site for more details. Also, keep an eye out for "Stenchival" this summer. More details to follow.

This Friday 1st May we will be presenting the final show for the residency I have been doing at the Music Technology Innovation department at DMU. "Ears and Eyes" will take place at the PACE building on campus from 7pm.

As part of the show I will be doing a new visual set with circuit bending maestro ASMO. This will be based around my spinning lights visuals and a new visual instrument I have been working on in Max/MSP/Jitter.

The event is free and all are welcome!

I've just heard that I will be doing my laser/lights installation at the Shambala festival this year with Modulate. Shambala is a great, small, creative festival that takes place in Northamptonshire. It's very family friendly and I always enjoy doing stuff there. See http://www.shambalafestival.org for more information.

I had an opportunity to do my first piece of truly interactive laser work at the recent Stench event. Working with music from James Kelly, I mixed a live laser sequence based around six-sided patterns. I used the Fiesta! laser control software with MIDI control coming from my external controller (in the studio I have it working with Max/MSP control, but I need to do a bit more work before using it live). During the event Bathysphere's Stu Smith took a number of pictures and included the laser show in his video of the event. Visit the event's Stench page to have a look.

I've been a fan of persistence of vision toys for quite a long time. Indeed, I produced an exhibition about them back in 2002.

Recently started to get in to them again and have been scouring eBay for the the newer LED-based toys. These typically use the POV effect by spinning the LEDs to create interesting displays.

I plan to use the toys in my live work by creating live video loops of them that I will synchronise with music. The first outing of this new set will hopefully be with Stu Smith's ASMO in early May.