I went to a great party at sandbox yesterday, which is in Preston (North of Manchester). There was catering, an inflatable room and tons of lego! The lego kept me entertained for a good hour! Sandbox is a centre for innovation and creative technology in a brand new building: http://sandbox.uclan.ac.uk/

Preston is about 40 minutes north of Manchester and was well worth the train ride. I went there with Alan, an artist studying at Salford who also works with Second Life, and his partner Rachael, a film lecturer. They were great to hang out with and we’re going to the Bodyworks4 exhibition tomorrow. That’s the plastination exhibition by Gunther von Hagens. Here is an example:
http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html

Paul is away at a show in Poland at the moment, so I’m staying alone at his house until tomorrow. I’m waiting for a bankcard to be sent to where I’m staying so I’m here until that happens. I’m currently applying for jobs/residencies and editing my c.v. I gave a lecture at Salford on Wednesday and got some good feedback as a result. I’m trying to do a talk at the Sandbox before I leave the north, but may not have time. I’m really wanting to get to a p.c with a good graphics card so I can start playing with the project again.

I have had some good dialogue with Raphael from HITlab this week and there will a follow up to this soon. He is also working towards a paper for this project and has defined some of the technical aspects for me. Which direction the project goes in is a matter of further research now. I have reached the point where I intended to and now have a bit of time spare for further develop everything which is great.

Also on Thursday I went o Liverpool to see the sk-interfaces show on at Fact gallery. http://www.fact.co.uk/news/?id=128
This was a good show, mainly work I had seen before, but the catalogue is the best I’ve seen for a while. While in Liverpool I got to see a few other galleries, including the Tate and a beautiful Richard Wilson work. I also squeezed in Openeye gallery, View Two, St Georges Hal, and even had a quick beer at the Cavern Club, the place where the Beatles started out.

It has been a great few days and I look forward to the last week of my time in Europe!