The MadLab Arts+Tech accelerator, which we wrote about late last year, has been running for a while now - meaning it's a great time to find out what the twelve lucky makers who successfully applied to the programme have been up to, courtesy a MadLab open studio event.
Makers and artists who placed in the accelerator were given funding - up to £10,000, provided by Arts Council England and Innovate UK - along with support from MadLab itself including mentorship, workshops, and practical guidance to help bring ideas to reality. The results, it must be said, are impressive: we've covered James Medd's excellent Awkward Arcade before, and the other accelerator members have shown equal levels of innovation and originality in their efforts.
Highlights from the programme so far include: the Noise Machines created by Vicky Clarke and David Birchall, which turn images and real-world objects into sound in a process the pair call "graphical sound"; Kasia Mackowiak and Jakub Rozanski's Point Line Plane, which investigated the use of extruder tools to work with ceramic clay; Angela Davies' Spyglass, which illuminates hand-blow glass spheres with a view to use them for architectural lighting and performance works; Gemma May Latham's experiments with psychophysiological sensors, developing a combined biosensor with wireless data transmission; and Rachael Moat, who has been using the resources of the accelerator to further develop the music bowls project she showed us back at the Manchester MakeFest event last year.
Considering the short time the programme has been running, we're thrilled to see these and other projects bearing fruit - and excited to see what else comes out of the accelerator in the future.