9PIN project

SCAN locations 2004/5

In summer 2003, a call for artists was sent out for the project 9PIN. The call asked artists to respond to the (then) 9 geographical locations occupied by the consortium members of SCAN. Proposals were submitted for a series of residencies and commissions looking at the possibilities for networking and mapping in the SCAN community. James Coupe, Hedley Roberts and Rob Saunders, Hywel Davies, Armin Medosch and Ivan Pope were chosen from some 70 proposals because of their range of inventive approaches to the SCAN network.

From Armin Medosch’s data visualisation research starting with a comparison between real and virtual ports through to Hywel Davies’ compilation of a sound database, gathered from each of the consortium venues, for the composition of new material by both himself and other musicians and composers, each of the artists involved in 9PIN makes a significant contribution to their own areas of practice and dissemination of content, whilst helping SCAN to cohere a very disparate group of organisations brought together by their desire to collaborate on high quality experimental work. Ivan Pope brings his sketches and ideas using GPS, to enhance his interest in psychogeography, to his workshops, while James Coupe and Hedley Roberts take on the difficult task of examining and building an intelligent system which reflects activity (data drawn from sensors installed at SCAN’s member organisations) at each venue in the SCAN network.

The 9PIN project is premised on research and development and brings together artists and makers who are at the forefront of their field. This is a flagship project for SCAN and sets a precedent for the organisation’s aspiration to facilitate an environment for practitioners to develop their process outside of other areas of institutional research whilst working towards high quality outputs for the SCAN network.