Recent trips | Late at The Tate | March 2009
Amazingly I hadn’t made it to one of these first Friday of every month events that Tate Britain hosts. Having not been to the Tate since my GCSE art day trip I was intrigued and excited to re-visit the museum that has been overshadowed in recent years by its younger sibling.

Arriving after work on a Friday night at the Tate Britain I was greeted by an amazing atmosphere, wondering through the Museum, Late at Tate Britain engaged me and evidently many other people, it was heaving. The focus of the March Late at Tate Britain was showcasing the music of two of my (newly) favourite DJs / artists, Dorian concept – check out his type of music here and Mark Pritchard in his current guise of Harmonic 313 – check out his style of music here.

Both Dorain and Harmonic play mashed-up glitchy deep bass electronic music that also has influences from hip-hop and jazz – you could say its eclectic and is why there is still controversy over what to actually call it. The term wonky is mostly widely used for lack of anything better yet! Read more about Wonky here.

Late at Tate Britain is a fantastic concept that opens up the museum late into the evening allowing a different crowd to enjoy modern art and music in beautiful and more traditional surroundings. The next one is on Friday April 3: Futureproof read more here.

See you there! DB

Recent trips | Loop Brighton | August 2008
We visited Loop festival to catch Brighton’s coolest summer event. The weather just about held out to make for a very enjoyable afternoon of eclectic music from big name bands such as New Young Pony Club and Four Tet to less well known acts such as Turbowolf, The Shoes and Skull Juice. We loved the sound of The Bays who produce their sets live creating completely unique performances every time they play – quite amazing seeing them pull it all together! Away from the music we really enjoyed Celluloid Dreams, who offered a break from the music and showcased ‘interactive cinema’ - handing out ice creams to the audience at the same time as everyone on screen licking away on their 99’s – I guess they didn’t want to feel left out! BOREDBRANDS digital funfair provided fun and games (http://qik.com/video/185967) harnessing the simplicity and the power of much loved 80’s classic such as Space Invaders and table arcade video games. They had replaced the arcade game with a selection of audio and visual that allowed you to create musical mash up. We also spent a lot of time playing DJ on the music jigsaw and throwing virtual coconuts at TV screens of Sadam Hussain et al, the more nasty the celeb the more points we earnt; shame at this fun fair points didn’t mean prizes! Loop is definitely worth a visit next year. DB

Recent trips | Futuresonic Manchester | May 2008
brik digital attended Futuresonic recently, the international urban festival of Art, Music and Ideas. This years theme was social networking unplugged, based around the impact and affect of social media online. Futuresonic juxtaposed the online norms and values that we have come to accept of social networking, sharing, talking to strangers, give and take and creativity and re-planted it in the real world with events such as the offline myspace shop. Our eyes were opened to many things, good and bad, to see more on Futuresonic visit their own site, click here. NW

In testing | October 2008
I would class myself as a mobile power user, that is I run my email, numeorus applications and browse the world wide web almost as much as I do on my PC on my mobile phone. My mobile has one advantage over my PC, it knows where I am, even if I don’t – which is very handy when I want to get all cultural and know about the local area, or simply when I need to re-fuel and get some food.

Lightpole is an application which I have been running on my phone (N95 8GB) for a couple of months now and was immediatley struck by its concept – that is to geo locate me on a map using the phones GPS and then mash-up information from various sources, wikipedia being one of them to show me very conveniently what is on offer near me right there and then.

Sounds great, right? Well it would be if it worked, I’m sure it will improve but currently the application struggles to refresh itself and locate me, it picks and chooses when there is additional information to show me and honestly hardly works. I keep persisiting but it hasn’t rewarded me so far for my efforts. I love the idea and I have given it time, I’m sure they will improve it sufficienlty soon enough. I’ll let you know when they do.

Have a look for yourself here.