What is the quickest way to try out a complicated tech idea on real people? How do you get real, valuable feedback from users without going to the expense of writing code?

Paper prototyping is an idea I've recently been introduced to at Thoughtworks. You draft up the interface on pieces of paper, and have a human act as the computer would, swapping out bits of paper in response to a real user.

I was trying to tell a friend the other day how Git and Github are related. Where does Git end and Github start? What do they each even do for you?

I realised that it's actually one of those fundamental things that is worth stepping through and getting a clear understanding. If you've been using the terms interchangeably, the distinction makes a good backdrop to learn more, and getting clarity will enable you to steer past a whole bunch of confusion later on.

What is Git?
Well, Git is not Github. Git is a piece of software that you install locally on your computer which handles 'version control' for you.

So to learn about Git, you have to learn about version control.

In my recent work, I have been exploring the creativity inherent in perception, and the sense of value we seamlessly inject into our everyday experience.

To do this, I have been looking, within an installation context, at the phenomenal experience of encounters that are both remote and somehow also close. The approach I have taken is to use light and sound to augment the surface of rocks.

Soon I will upload video documentation of new installation work, but in this post I want to share some of the photographs that have been part of the outcome of this process.

Over a three month period, with the support of two residency programs, I have completed one new installation work.

Interestingly, the final form of this work did not fully take it's current shape until the final week.

In another post I'll talk about the work itself.

But for now I want to offer some thoughts about the process I use to make installation work, how and why that process has changed, and to talk about the value I place in criticism.

Last night I cleared (almost) everything out of my studio - so that I could focus on the installation in terms of it's 'total space':

By 'total space' I mean the space around the work, which viewers experience just as much as the work itself - in installations this space is part of the work and cannot be separated.

I've arrived at my residency at Contemporary Artist Center (CAC) in Troy, New York. In this post I'll show some images of this beautiful location, and talk about the direction I want to take with my work from here.

The residency program is now run inside the historic Woodside Church, having moved from it's previous home in North Adams, Massachusetts.

The night I arrived I was treated with all the other residents to the regular Sunday meal. The next night I took part in the weekly crit.

This video is of an installation 'sketch' representing the in-progress piece I worked on during the I-Park Residency program.

The shots in this video represent what visitors to I-Park Open Studios September saw on the day. It is the same work discussed in my previous post 'Perception as a Creative Process'.