Welcome to our Tinderbox Lab Members! Find out more about the creative practitioners based at the Tinderbox Lab and the work they’re involved in.
Sarah Calmus
Sarah Calmus is an interdisciplinary artist, programmer, creative director, arts advocate and creator of large-scale immersive installations and provocations, working across a multitude of mediums from glass and light, social intervention, moving image and sound. Interested in building spaces to connect and reflect, her practice is intentionally interdisciplinary and participatory, viewed as a series of experiments underpinned with explorations into interaction. Building on Connected Innovators funding from Creative Informatics and Creative Edinburgh (2020), Calmus is exploring new interactive sound and light works that feature performance. Calmus has been nominated for the STV Digital Spark Award (2015), received VACMA funding from Creative Scotland & City of Edinburgh Council (2018) and was nominated to be the President of Visual Arts Scotland (2020-2023). In 2021, Calmus was shortlisted for The Leadership Award, through the Creative Edinburgh Awards and in 2022 was awarded Creative Informatics Resident Entrepreneurs funding.
W: sarahcalmus.com
I: instagram.com/sarah.calmus
T: twitter.com/sumlacs
Abby Carter
Abby Carter [she/her] is a sound artist and filmmaker based in Glasgow. She has a background in music, with an MA in Music from the University of Glasgow, and has used her experience in sonic arts to expand her practice into audiovisual arts and filmmaking. Abby has had a short film (BODIES, 2022) screened at festivals in the UK, including Kendal Mountain Festival, and further afield at festivals in the USA and Canada. She is keen to keep making films and is excited about the opportunities that Room to Play will afford her to expand her practice and collaborate with other artists.
Abby is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Mel Frances
Mel Frances is a game designer, digital storyteller and creative mathematician. She makes interactive experiences – books, performances and games – that travel to unknown places, speculative futures and alternative realities. Her work is for people who like adventures, probing rules, and finding hidden possibilities.
She is Joint Artistic Director of Produced Moon: a digital, interactive arts organisation based in Scotland, who create mixed reality experiences, live performance and participatory projects. She is proudly part of Coney’s Guild.
Photo credit: Willy Corner
W: melaniefrances.com
I: instagram.com/melo_frances
T: twitter.com/melo_frances_
Ink Asher Hemp
Ink is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Dominika Jackowska
Dominika Jackowska is a freelance animator, storyteller and workshop facilitator currently based in Edinburgh. Born in Poland, Dominika studied BA Hons in Animation at Edinburgh College of Art, specializing in stop-motion filmmaking.
Having held positions within companies such as Kolik Films, she has worked on shows like the BAFTA Award- winning animated series OOglies. Recently worked on animation projects in partnership with Edinburgh Printmakers and Community Land Scotland.
Dominika is a Room to Play 2019 selected artist.
Since graduating in 2017, she has progressively developed her skill set, expanding her mixed-media animation style as well as exploring the boundaries between sound design and animation through interactive installations.
Most recently, Dominika exhibited her playful and participatory “Interactive Lightbox” sound and visual installation at V&A Dundee (The Arcadia 2019 Press Play Tay Late), The Royal Scottish Academy (SSA & VAS 2020) and the Edinburgh Festival of Sound 2020. Her work has also been in Edinburgh’s Filmhouse, Hidden Door Festival and White space, as well as exhibitions in BWA Tarnow in Poland.
Always open to exploring new concepts and experimenting with different styles, please contact Dominika to discuss any potential projects, workshops or design challenge ideas.
W: dominikajackowska.com
I: instagram.com/doska.animation
Duncan Jones
Duncan Jones is a musician and artist who likes to make things!
Sonia Killmann
Sonia Killmann is a Glasgow based international composer and multi-media artist from Belgium. As both a saxophone player and audiovisual artist Sonia has performed across the UK and Europe. Sonia’s works are largely inspired by composers such as Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Alvin Lucier and explore the relationship between sound and environment. Sonia has also been exploring the relationship of movement and sound and has composed the music for Jamiel Laurence’s Ballet Read Only Memory in 2022. Together with Constant Vigier, Sonia also created the Fringe show “Bamboozled”, featuring solo dance and audiovisual music. Sonia is currently also working closely with Cryptic Glasgow as a Cryptic Artist.
Sonia also plays in the ambient duo, Failed System Test, using coded visuals and Ableton Live to create an immersive experience through melodic saxophone playing and live digital processing of multiple mediums. Failed System Test released their second EP {unshift} with Dead Hound Records, which Sonia helped co-produce.
W: sonia-killmann.com
I: instagram.com/soniakillmann_sound
T: twitter.com/KillmannSonia
Antony Lucchesi
Antony Lucchesi (born 1999, Edinburgh) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Glasgow. Since graduating from Sculpture and Environmental Art at The Glasgow School of Art, Antony’s practice has looked at experimental methods of documentation, the value of digital media and the ways in which creatives share their process. In April 2022, Antony was selected as one of Cove Park’s Youth Arts Bursary recipients where he developed a body of new work over the course of the year including a new website called ectype, an open source collection of digital files with the intention of sharing resources used by creatives so that others can use them for their own practice.
W: antonylucchesi.myportfolio.com / ectype.online
I: instagram.com/antonylucchesi / instagram.com/ectype.online
Antony is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Jessica McIntosh
Jessica is a stage manager, technician, designer and all round creator with a focus in theatre and performance. She graduated in 2020 from Lancaster University with a BA(Hons) degree in Drama, Theatre and Performance and has since moved to Edinburgh to pursue her career in the arts. The recent years have taken her out of the usual theatre buildings and into more fluid spaces – volunteering with festivals such as Hidden Door and Edinburgh Magic Festival, as well as working as a technician for theSpace during Edinburgh fringe.
I: instagram.com/jessicaa_mcintosh
Jessica is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Shawn Mark Nayar
Shawn Nayar (he/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist who weaves physical, digital, and performative mediums into collaborative erotic inquiries. He layers responsive AR with tactile and interactive performances that critique the fetishization of queer bodies. The audience is regularly invited to scan, manipulate, and smear his “body of work” enacting the racial and queer discourses that ground his artistic and academic practice.
Shawn is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Kenneth Nuelan
An accordionist, composer and educator, Kenneth Nuelan works across a variety of projects both solo and collaborative. Perceiving sounds as colours through emotions, a main part of his practice is to communicate the essence of melody, harmony and rhythm of works in relation to the inter-connectedness of ourselves and the things around us.
Kenneth is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Chandi Petro
Chandi is a third-year student at the University of Edinburgh, where she is currently pursuing a BSc in Music Technology and Acoustics. With a passion for composing and sound design, Chandi is dedicated to exploring the intersection of technology and music, and how it can be used to create innovative and engaging compositions. Throughout her studies, Chandi has demonstrated a strong aptitude for music production and sound engineering, and has been actively involved in various projects. Following graduation she intends to work in the music and/or film industry, using her skills and knowledge to make a meaningful contribution to the field.
Chandi is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Shankar Saanthakumar
Hi, I’m Shankar,
I’m a visual artist who enjoys exploring themes of computation and robotics.
Currently with Tinderbox Lab I am developing the Ximulacra project.
Ximulacra consists of six robots, each with unique digital behaviours as responses to analogue photographs of mountain scenes.
This behaviour driven piece seeks to explore the interaction between artificial and natural entities to generate novel digital-analogue hybrid scenes.
W: shankarsaanthakumar.com
I: instagram.com/ssaanthakumar
T: twitter.com/ssaanthakumar
V: vimeo.com/ssaanthakumar
Mark Sandford
Mark Sandford is a bassist from Edinburgh. You can usually catch him performing with his band ‘Grace & The Flat Boys’, or hanging out at The Jazz Bar. He studied Music Technology at the University of Edinburgh, where he developed an interest in interactive sound spaces and modular synthesis. He’s excited to be part of the Room To Play team this year and see where the adventure goes!
Mark is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Deborah Shaw
Deborah Shaw (Aurora Engine) is a multi instrumentalist, composer, vocalist and producer living in Edinburgh. Her works blend real instruments, voice, found sounds, effects pedals and electronics.
Recent works she has worked closely with nature especially birdsong and bee sounds collecting , responding and manipulating sounds weaving them into new works ‘Terra’ which will be presented at Soundfest 2022.
Deborah was composer-in-residence at Earth In Common in summer 2022 and worked to creatively document through the medium of composition the cultural and social landscape of the earth today. Research took her to the local apiary recording honey bees, the Water of Leith recording birdsong, local beaches collecting waste and observing the tides and inspired this series of sonic portraits. This work will be presented at Scotland’s Soundfest in October 2022 . As part of this work she developed a series of nature inspired sound art workshops for young people.
Recently her process as a composer has seen her take instruments and develop soundscapes and scores blending traditional and extended instrumental and vocal techniques with electronics. Other recent works include 2 cinematic live-scoring commissions from BFI / Film Hub Scotland in partnership with Cinetopia for 2 silent films ‘Seashell and the Clergyman’ and ‘Meshes of an Afternoon,’(July 2022) and a series of fixed media film scores (Spiral Out Pictures, Cinetopia, Hot Aches Productions).
Deborah was recently awarded funding by Creative Scotland to record and release an album under her artist name ‘Aurora Engine’ due to be released later in 2022. She performs with Warp – a contemporary electronic inspired chamber ensemble and ‘Machine Orchid’ and experimental all female trio blending folk, jazz, electronica and improvisation with musicians Emma Lloyd and Caro Overy.
W: auroraengine.com
I: instagram.com/aurora_engine
T: twitter.com/auroraengine
F: facebook.com/auroraengine
Saffron Slater
Saffron Slater is an intermedia artist who was born in England in 1999 where she later moved to Scotland at 19 to complete a bachelors art degree in Inter-media at Edinburgh College of Art. While her practice varies in mediums from woodcarving to digital modelling it often uses the natural world to infer symbolism towards subjects of human dystopia and disparity but may occasionally revolve around showcasing nature in more pleasant ways. No matter the subject or medium everything starts with research: in the case of more documentational pieces such as digital dinosaur reconstruction this is a combination of reading theory papers and viewing fossil evidence which are then compared to existing creatures to narrow down the most plausible features of the animal. Art pieces that are emotive still use research but more into cultural meanings and human psychology of the viewers’ knowledge and tendencies (or assumed) to persuade their perception to finalise into something similar to the intended meaning. This can manifest in ways such as connected lines to direct the order a viewer looks at details in the painting or play on perceived meaning like mushrooms inferring decay or empty spaces implying silence.
Saffron is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Lingli Wang
Lingli Wang is a visual artist, illustrator and animator from China who is studying for an MA in Edinburgh, working on comics, books, gif animation and stop-motion animation. Interested in moving images and sensory interaction, her work is interdisciplinary and experimental. She has worked for media companies and collaborated with 3d artists on 3D animation, and has participated as a visual designer in the China Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and received funding from the College (2019). Most recently she has spent a year working as an animator on an Edinburgh student film production and teaching herself HTML.
W: lingli.cargo.site/admin/28695443
I: instagram.com/lingli252
Lingli Wang is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Maria Cecilie Wrang-Rasmussen
Pulling at a tension between physical and virtual environments, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen’s work brings together animation, sculpture, 3D models, and browser-based artworks. Drawing on themes of fantasy world building, queerness, longing, and failure, she creates cyber landscapes and immersive environments formed by internet sub-cultures, rhizomes, art history, and self-mythologization. Graduating from Intermedia Art BA at ECA in 2021, she was awarded the University of Edinburgh Collections Degree Show Purchase Prize as well as the ESW x ECA graduate residency. She is currently working on the operational committee of EMBASSY gallery and as an art worker with ARTLINK Edinburgh.
Maria is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
Zxy
Zxy is a queer artist based in Glasgow. With a background in painting, printmaking and tattooing. They’re work is interested in questionioning relationships of connection, haunting nature and cyber ecologies. Working with traditional and digital processing to explore how technology interacts as part of ecological and social systems.
Zxy is a Room to Play 2023 selected artist.
