his exploration of the infinity of data between 0 and 1, an abstraction of reality that challenges our perception of the codes present in everyday life

It was quite nice and sunny on Friday afternoon, so stepping off Fazeley Street and walking straight into a pitch black space was a little disconcerting. Especially with no-one else around, the air filled with a high-pitched whine and clicking with the large wall at the far end taken up by a projection of streaming data.

For a second it all felt a little too Poltergeist/Ring-esque – I half expected Sadako to start crawling towards me. That didn’t happen.

What looked like white noise from a distance turned out to be precisely determined; calculated data with it’s own, very particular, order (albeit one I couldn’t make out – but I’m happy to accept it’s there). Interesting, then.

data.tron will be at Ikon Eastside until 8 November, while on 24 November there’ll be an audio-visual concert – datamatics [ver 2.0] – by Ryoji Ikeda at the CBSO Centre, hosted by BCMG.

The work will also form the backdrop of Ikon Eastside’s closing party on 12 November:

Dress code is black and white, lights and atmosphere will be suitably monochrome, music and bands organised in collaboration with Colour

Still, I did make it along to the Arts & Business Awards. The special guest was Patrick Stewart (who walked, not teleported on stage – disappointing) and the winners were:

• Community Award – EC-Arts & National Express Coach
• Cultural Branding Award – Stan’s Cafe & AE Harris (Birmingham) Ltd
• Museum, Libraries and Archives Award – Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust & Inchscape Motors Shrewsbury
• People Development Award – Holte Visual & Performing Arts College, St Francis Primary School & Signet Trading Ltd
• Sustained Partnership Award – Sinfonia ViVA & Rolls Royce plc
• Young People Award – County Youth Arts & Balfour Beatty Capital
• Business Volunteer of the Year Award – Colin Wells from Prologic plc & Multistory (also winner of the Champion of Champions Award)

Congrats to all of them.

After that I wandered down to the Sunflower Lounge for Gallery of Owl’s ‘All You Can Eat Zine’ which was fantastic – billed as ‘a night of Zines, comics, small press, music and performance’. It provided all of that as well as a palpable sense of

I didn’t stay for that long, but long enough to catch Richard Peel‘s entertaining performance of Dracula, have a chat with Claire from ATTA grrl a buy a couple of zines (ATTA grrl and Girls Who Draw, since you asked). There was a good turnout, a great atmosphere and the excitement of knowing there’s loads of interesting stuff going on around the city.

Here’s what I picked up:

And check out the hand stamp too – easily the best one I’ve had in a while: