Post #3991

Glancing over my shoulder I catch sight of Nick enter purposefully from the adjacent room. He’s clutching an electronic rig and wearing an expression that tells me ‘something has worked’. He sets the contraption down on a table and takes a step back. Jack leans in to probe the item and seems pleased if a little taken aback. A flurry of exchanges spin up and ebb into conversation of possibilities and more experiments. I get the feeling that something new is being invented. A feeling that is becoming increasingly familiar as I settle into life at BERG.

The group has expanded quite a bit recently and that pattern continues this week as we welcome Alice Bartlett to the fold.  She has taken the helm of a new project we’re calling Flagstaff and I overheard her describe it as ‘worryingly easy’ yesterday. It’s nice to see her adapt effortlessly to the studio milieu and I’m looking forward to working with her in the near future.

It would seem that Britain is the only place where the weather has a sense of irony. It’s June yet the skies appear to have been drawn from the pen of Cormac McCarthy. Bleak.

With some kind of oracular insight, Matt Webb has dodged much of the gloominess by spending the past week in Cyprus. He’s back in the studio now and described his return to work as. “that bit in Finding Nemo where the fish stick fins into the turtle current and get whipped across the world at a thousand mph.” If email piled up on the floor like post when you return from your holiday I imagine he’d be really struggling to get through his front door right now. He’s also spent time meeting with Uinta, reviewing aspects of Chaco and overseeing project running. Cyprus probably feels very far away.

Matt Jones has also carefully outmanoeuvred the dour weather by compassing half the globe to Foo Camp in California. In spite of his absence from the studio his echoes still ripple though the BERG blog. I understand he’ll be back with us tomorrow; likely tanned and equipped with many tales of far off lands. While in sunnier climes he’s also been meeting with Uinta people, reviewing Dimensions 2 copy and preparing for, what has been dubbed, SVK Friday. No doubt there will be much more about this to follow shortly, so definitely keep a UV sensitive eye out.

Schulze has now left the studio, bound for the States on a short break (and a few meetings). I spent the early part of the week working with him on Chaco and intermittently throughout the week on Chaco alongside the excellent Tim Bacon. Jack is dividing his time between every aspect of Chaco while planning the layout out a new potential studio space. We had a brief stroll to peer through the window on Monday; it looks big. In addition to all this, he’s also hoovering up a lot of admin which leaves very little time to for him to enjoy his Grazia.

Nick has Physics tied up in the room known as Statham. It’s cooperating now

With so many people out of the office early week the development team emerged from Statham and took up residence in the main studio. Nick is now tapping away a few desks across from me focussing the online SVK lasers on tomorrow. He’s managing development on all things Chaco while ensuring that Alice grows with the grain of the studio without hitting any knots. He’s also keeping track of developments from Elliot in South Korea.

Andy has has introduced an eclectic melange of deep funk to the speaker system which has lead to much imitation slap bass around the studio. When not setting the Scrutton St alight with his musical oeuvre, Andy is spending much of his time planning and reviewing work on Chaco. He’s also lending his skilful touch to Barringer, sourcing components and pestering PCB manufacturers.

James’ time is largely being devoured by the implementation of Weminuche, the rest is given to helping out Alice on Flagstaff. A powerful team by my reckoning. James and I have hatched a plan to go to yoga one day. We’re going to keep it that vague for now.

Tom is predominantly polishing off Dimensions 2 now. So close now. He and Alex have conversations about whether a panel should be moved one, or two, pixels to the left. Tom demonstrated the project to the studio last week at Friday demos to a warm reception. I’m looking forward to see it live in the world now

Kari has pulled out the induction sheet once again for Alice. Keys have been dispatched, general directions provided and contracts issued. She is also juggling emails about Schooloscope and lending a deft touch to the preparations for SVK Friday.

I can see a slither of Alex’s face between two large monitors, he looks like Goliath bearing down on Stonehenge in an, as of yet, unwritten fantasy novella. He’s putting together the final pieces of SVK and generating assets for Dimensions 2 with Tom and Simon. He also maintains close radio contact with Peter Harmer who continues to unearth invaluable stories for the project from afar.

Timo is firing photons across the entire Chaco spectrum. I’ve caught glimpse of the video of some experiments he’s currently editing together and it’s pretty special. The work is leading the project into fresh domain where rules have to be invented to help navigate new paths of enquiry. All part of a days work. He was also clever and has been abroad for much of the week.

It’s Simon’s third week now and I’ve noticed his masterful technique of organising people without making them feel like they’re being organised. Consequently all the projects appear to be running like clockwork now. It’s great to have him around.

When I look at Denise’s screen I see a flood of charming sketches for Chaco. It seems that there is a lot of work to do in a short space of time but the foundations are being set with rigorous thinking and sketching. She’s currently chatting to Simon about copy for Dimensions 2.

Phew! That’s everyone.

It’s sunny now.