Revision as of 19:22, 2 July 2007

Facts

• Dr. Simon Yuill is an artist and programmer who is based in Scotland.

• He is a member of staff of the School of Media Arts and Imaging, in Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (which is itself now a faculty of the University of Dundee).

• He is among those who are thanked on the artwork accompanying the A Few Old Tunes cassette, though it should be noted that the mere existence of such a credit does not in itself imply that he was ever a member of the Hexagon Sun collective.

• There is, however, independent confirmation that Simon has collaborated with Boards of Canada: the BBC website contains a page about an online exhibition called "Dots and Lines" by Laura Baxter and Simon Yuill; it is stated there that the musicians Simon has worked with "include the Boards of Canada, Kaffe Matthews and Zeena Parkins". His collaboration with the latter two musicians was the Weightless Animals project, a series of "Sonic Space Cartoons" in the form of Flash animations programmed by Simon, with music by Kaffe Matthews and Zeena Parkins.

• His interests include art, music, political activism, performance, and free software. Several of these interests are reflected in the fact that, in 2004, Simon was the organizer of "Your Machines", a series of workshops and discussions about Free Open Source Software that were held in the CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts) in Glasgow. Tutorials covered the use of free software in such activities as audio and video processing, and in streaming technologies that could allow, for example, musicians in different countries to work together online, in real-time, in live audio performances.

• He was the project director of Spring_Alpha, a networked game set in a council estate; the game allows virtual "social experimentation", not only by means of conventional game play, but also by an unconventional means, namely, modification of its own source code.

• Together with Tryggve Askildsen, Simon is also a member of the code-art collective Slateford. Although the two have never met, they collaborate online to explore the aesthetics of old-school computer programming, but using contemporary equipment. All of Slateford's artistic output is in black and white.

External links

• Biography at the Duncan of Jordanstone College website.
• Simon Yuill his page at the Piet Zwart institute in Rotterdam, where he was a Research Fellow in residence.
• Your Machines official site.
• Your Machines : Your Culture an essay by Dr. Simon Yuill.
• Slateford an alternative site, which includes a biography of its members.