Drawing Exercises @ soundart radio, 1pm Tuesdays. 102.5fm or listen live
Research:
How are current claims of a computational universe contributing to restructuring the cultural imaginary and what are the effects on the construction of subjectivity and contemporary artistic practice?
In My Mother was a Computer Katherine Hayles puts forward the claim that
“the computational universe enables deeper insight and new intuitions onto certain aspects of reality; we may safely assume that is also obscures other aspects of reality including constructions of subjectivity that have traditionally found expressions in the humanities and social sciences”
This MRES project investigates this claim and charts the resulting shifts by locating live drawing and writing in relation to computational practices.
The computational universe is definition coined by literary theorist Katherine Hayles to describe “claims that the universe is generated through computational processes running on a vast computational mechanism underlying all of physical reality.  For scientist making the strong claim for computation as ontology computation is the means by which reality is continually produced and reproduced as an atomic, molecular and macro level.  In a new kind of science Stephen Wolfram extends the claim to include biological systems and indeed complex behaviours of every kind introducing social and cultural systems”.
Biography
Helen Pritchard is an artist and writer. Her work often takes the form of videos, performance, texts and radio work which explores ideas of physical presence/absence within systems.¬† Central to this is the impact of pervasive media on art & writing practices, the cultural imaginary and subjectivity.¬† Her most recent work ‘Fill the art gallery with noise’ (a radio work) was made in collaboration with Sound House Brass was commissioned by Plymouth Arts Centre for Transmission.¬† During the project Helen developed a set of instructions for a textual score. On Saturday 29th August 2009 a 28 minute continuous note was broadcast on FreeSound Radio.¬†¬† Fill the art gallery with noise is part of the series Actions for Radio Broadcast, an ongoing project, which is dedicated to systems based art and writing enquiries through collective, computational activities.
In 2009 Helen was artist in residence as part of Project Club at Spacex and launched the project Drawing Exercises on SoundArt Radio which was recently broadcast on the RADIA network. In 2008 Helen was the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation bursary (for excellence in visual art) to attend the Digital Arts Residency at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts, Florida USA. Helen often makes work as part of GilbertandGrape (Helen Pritchard (UK) and Anne-Marte Eidseth Rygh (N)).  In 2007 GilbertandGrape were commissioned to create the online work for How2 – the online journal of modernist and contemporary innovative writing practices by women.
Helen has shown work internationally including Transmodern Festival Baltimore, (USA), UKS Oslo, (N) and Conical Gallery (Aus), ACA Florida, USA and National Review of Live Art (2003).
Helen Pritchard is an associate lecturer at University College Falmouth (Dartington Campus) and an MRES candidate at M-DAT, Plymouth University.