Welcome to our turret. Where we spy on the world and make words and pictures.

We’ve been in situ for 3 years. We were previously locked away in our respective abodes with nowt but our own dull company to cheer us. Now sing hallelujah, we get to spend each and every long long hour together swilling about in the brotherly love of creative nirvana.

The wiring in the building pre dates the renaissance and the cold winter of last year froze the water in the toilet. We battled through in hats and scarves and Myles learned to type wearing gloves. We burnt Greg’s drawing board for warmth and severally depleted the whisky supplies.

Despite working mainly on the evil device that is the computer we like to surround ourselves with paints, pencils, pens and various drawing surfaces. This keeps the evil digital demons at bay and gives us something to do when the electricity has a ‘moment’

In truth tis a wondrous space offering, as it does, unparalled views of the upper middle class town of Stratford Upon Avon. If Shakespeare were alive today we’d have him locked in a cupboard writing short films.

Much love form our turret of creativity

The Brothers McLeod

Ps – Our surname is pronounced MacCloud for those not versed in Norse-Scottish history…

Find out more:
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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

Although there are many collaborators and friends of the Center, Cat and Zack have formed the heart of the team in most locations. The Center is currently at work on the “Spice Mix Super Computer” for AND’s Mobile Republic.

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On our adventures traversing the globe, we have not stayed anywhere for more than 4 months in the past 2 years. With such a nomadic existence, ‘where we make’ is always changing.

On a flight: a good place to think, read and sketch, and catch up with stuff offline.

We have developed a variety of strategies for concentration and focus. For example, Zack works best early in the morning at a coffee shop with headphones on listening to drone music, while Cat works best in the peace of the late night when it seems the world has gone to sleep there are no other distractions (except for the occasional snore from Zack).

Just in the last week, we have worked at Bold Street cafe in Liverpool, on a plane, a train, in an airbnb room in Manhattan, and right now at a house with a large kitchen garden in Connecticut, charging our computers along the way and catching wireless connections where we can. These strategies have worked to greater or lesser effect in all of our temporary accommodations over the last year:

CANADA (Vancouver)
INDIA (Bangalore, the Koorgi Region)
IRELAND (Dublin)
NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam)
NORWAY (Oslo, Stavanger, Bergen)
SINGAPORE
SWEDEN (Stockholm, Uppsala)
UK (Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Milton Keynes)
USA (Portland, New York City, Connecticut)

Our amsterdam apartment and office, while working on Pray for beans Project. The closer the deadline, the bigger the mess!

Every place we visit is an opportunity to connect unexpected dots. Moving around so much means we can exchange ideas, artifacts and recipes between seemingly unconnected places and people. I am sure we wouldn’t be making a Spice Mix Super-Computer in the UK if we hadn’t spent time in Bangalore being drawn into spice-rich karnatakan cuisine. Our Smog Tasting project in Bangalore was prompted by a quote in Harold McGee’s “On Food & Cooking” which seems like a particularly American approach to food. And so on.

Smog Tasting took us to the rooftops of Bangalore for a week of in-situ cooking.

The AND festival’s Mobile Republic is a microcosm of our last year. So far we have visited Manchester, Liverpool and London to work on the project, and we will be taking the caravan on the road to 4 locations in northern England. Taking on a project like this in an unfamiliar place is always a challenge because the simple tasks, such as sourcing various materials, become research efforts in their own right. The upside is that we generally see the places we visit from an unusual perspective. There can’t be many visitors to Liverpool who have strolled along Edge Lane to visit the B&Q.

The sign with no sign on edge lane by b&q, Liverpool, source: google maps

We do not have a permanent home or studio. We have attempted to consolidate our travel kit to the absolute essentials, but it is hard to bring an entire kitchen with us!

Here is an example of our other work space in the Netherlands: the kitchen of a restaurant that we took over for one evening. (Photo Credit: Lucas Evers)

Following food stories around the globe has been amazing, but we are looking forward to finding a landing spot and opening up the Center for Genomic Gastronomy as a non-nomadic entity. Maybe 2013?

All images are courtesy and © The Center of Genomic Gastronomy

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Want to take a look at more suggested blogs by artists? Look here.

As the title suggests, this is a timelapse video of the sort of stuff i do all day. This only comprises the first two hours of my working day as that’s all my little flip can record (and can apparently only record in hour-long chunks too?), condensed down into about thirty seconds.

I probably should’ve set the timelapse with my proper camera to shoot more than one frame a minute too. nevermind, maybe next time.

Interesting? I’ll let you decide

At the Abertay Digital Showcase, for me one project really stood out. Computer Art student, Ryan Locke took on the role of environmental artist and created something pretty magical. In his words: “the idea was to challenge games aesthetics, to experiment with methods by which the visuals of the games could be improved by embracing the lessons of more traditional arts.”

The outcome. Ryan decided to ‘paint’ a game. His environment is created using a pallet of hand painted textures, all pieced together in the Unreal Development Kit (which is now free btw – http://www.udk.com/).

The bit I love best, however, is the open-worldness and aparent pointlessness of the ‘game’ as it stands. The reason to navigate at the moment is purely to explore, discover and – well – relax. Chances are that Ryan was experimenting with textures and form and wouldn’t dream of this itself being a game, but his work reminded me a little bit of Dan Pinchbeck’s Dear Esther (a Half-Life mod, which again is free – so check it out! http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/).

For more on Ryan, check out his website… www.loakers.co.uk.

However, do check out the Abertay Digital Showcase real (http://tinyurl.com/abertaydigitalshowcase) because there’s a load more great stuff  to be seen!

Oh, and here’s a pic from Ryan’s work: