Ruth is an experienced producer and commissioner of successful co-devised, participatory artworks that utilise social technologies, events and performance in diverse settings. She regularly contributes to publications, books and conferences and has participated in exhibitions at CCA, Glasgow, The Baltic, Gateshead, Limehouse Town Hall, London as well as galleries in Zagreb, Madrid and Detroit and has work featured on the Rhizome Artbase and The Digital Kitchen. She was a recipient of a 2003 Low-fi Net Art Commission. She is adviser to Tiltfactor an independent games production lab that focuses on critical play. As participation, learning and exchange are central to Ruth's artistic practice they inform her work developing Furtherfield.org's Participation and Learning programme and in other diverse community and educational contexts. She has worked in Higher Education for over 15 years. In recent years she worked as part of a team at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication to develop pedagogically-led approaches to developing and exploiting new emergent technologies and tools (e.g. social software, pervasive computing) in anticipation of shifts in future professional life within sustainable communities of practice. She is currently employed as course leader for FdA Digital Art and Design and BA(hons) Art and Design Practices and is working with as part of the team developing new BA and MA courses in Art and Environment at Writtle School of Design.
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Projects by Ruth
Articles/Reviews by Ruth
 If not you not me | |
 released 4/2/10 | This essay accompanies If not you not me, an exhibition of networked performance art by Annie Abrahams. While social networking sites make us think of communication as clean and transparent, Abrahams creates an Internet of feeling - of agitation, collusion, ardour and apprehension.
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| collaboration, net art, networked, performance | |
| FutureSonic:Environment2.0 2009 | |
 released 24/8/09 | This review of the 2009 FutureSonic festival by Ruth Catlow and Olga Panades looks at artists' and technologists' explorations, of participation and agency in a networked society in the context of environmental crisis. It also reflects on the partial adoption of an ecological approach in a celebration of the new techno-green-enterprise soon to become FutureEverything.
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| activism, DIY, environmental, festival, game culture, hactivism, installation, intervention, knowledge, live, Locative Media, media art, media art ecologies, networked, participation, real time, satire, street, urban | |
| Ecologies of Sustenance | |
 released 16/5/09 | This 6-year retrospective of the Feral Trade project, by artist Kate Rich, kicks off Furtherfield.org's Media Art Ecologies programme. An ecological approach pays special attention to the interrelation of technological and natural processes: beings and things, individuals and multitudes, matter and patterns. |
| distributed creativity, DIY, exhibition, infrastructure, media art ecologies, networked, open source, self organisation, social | |
| Node.London: Getting Organised Openly? | |
 released 9/4/09 | This text is a reflection on the NODE.London experiment and its engagement with radical openness. Looking at its context, its cultures and the make-up of its events, infrastructure and organisation it discusses how it might be possible and worthwhile to support the development of grassroots media arts infrastructure in London.
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| abstract, activism, collaboration, collective, community, media art, media art ecologies, participation, self organisation | |
| Furtherfield in support of Ada Lovelace Day | |
 released 7/4/09 | In support of Ada Lovelace Day Furtherfield.org invited women working in media arts to join the NetBehaviour email list for a week. Contributors posted information about their own work alongside the work of other women who had inspired them in their own practice. |
| agency, archive, article, collaboration, collective, community, context, critical, cyberculture, dialogue, distributed creativity, feminism, gender, media art, networked, participation, resource, social | |
1| Do It With Others (DIWO) - E-Mail Art in Context | |
 released 14/9/08 | An account of experimental networked co-curatorial process. Introducing some of the threads, streams, experiences and debates generated as part of the Do It With Others (DIWO) E-mail Art initiated by Furtherfield.org in February 2007 and exhibited one month later at HTTP Gallery, London.
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| collaboration, community, dialogue, distributed creativity, DIY, E-mail Art, media art, net art, networked, participation | |
| Do It With Others (DIWO) in the Furtherfield Neighbourhood | |
 released 4/4/07 | This text describes how Furtherfield came about and how it now extends the DIY ethos of some early net art and tactical media, towards a more collaborative Do It With Others (DIWO) approach; whereby peers connect and collaborate, creating their own structures, using digital networks and shared physical environments, making art that is both made and distributed across a network.
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| critical, distributed creativity, DIY, E-mail Art, independent, Internet Art, media art, net art, networked | |
| VisitorsStudio: A Context Map | |
 released 27/11/06 | Describes VisitorsStudio as a media art project and its connection with Fluxus, mail art, happenings, performance, art-activism and live art and now positioned within the thriving territory of real-time art, software art, net art and participative and collaborative expression in contemporary "remix culture".
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| activism, audiovisual, collaboration, distributed creativity, media art, multi-user, networked, participation, performance, real time, remix | |
| Season of Media Arts | |
 released 18/2/06 | NODE.L defines a season of celebration and acknowledgement of interest and engagement. It illustrates creative and experimental uses of communication media and technological innovation to express ideas and...
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| abstract, activism, collaboration, critical, distributed creativity, DIY, social | |
| Packet Switching | |
 released 1/11/05 | Packet Switching is described by the artists as an encounter with the “liminal space between ocean and land, between emotions and thoughts, and between reality and virtuality”.
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| Low-fi gets physical at Stills | |
 released 29/9/05 | This is the last chance to see the third in a the series of exhibitions of Low-fi net art commissions, that serve to introduce aspects of networked media art to a more established art audience.
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| Feral Trade Coffee [2005] | |
 released 6/5/05 | Feral Trade Coffee is imported by Kate Rich from Sociedad Cooperative de Cafecultores Nonualcos R.L. in high altitude El Salvador and traded along social networks.
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| activism, agency, behaviour, collaboration, conceptual, critical, database, distributed creativity, DIY, event, independent, interactive, intervention, media art, networked, psychogeography, social, urban | |
| Let’s Do Lunch [2005] | |
 released 6/5/05 | Let's Do Lunch by Take2030, installed in Space Gallery, London, tracks Hackney's public access wireless nodes and its lunch menus along bus route 26 in the form of a series of documentary videos.
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| Glass Rondo | |
 released 31/5/04 | This is Internet Cubism; in its expression of the artists' relationship to the object...and its simultaneous transmission, live to its multifarious audience. [windows media player]
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| abstract, aesthetic, audiovisual, event, installation, interactive, Internet Art, live, media art, net art, networked, performance, photography, real time | |
| agoraXchange | |
 released 21/4/04 | This net art project, commissioned by Tate Online to "Make the Game, Change the World" sets out four decrees which "form the fundamental political tenets for the new world system on which the game is based".
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| activism, collaboration, collective, community, critical, cyberfeminism, database, dialogue, game culture, geopolitical, institutions, multi-user, narrative, net art, networked, participation, Political, social, social games, theory, war | |
| multiAMAZE | |
 released 16/1/04 | An audio sensitive multi-user space by Andy Forbes. Moving towards facilitating spontaneously generated, collective and open ended 'play'.
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| abstract, software art, sound | |
| Confrontation [2003] | |
 released 16/11/03 | 'Confrontation' is a collage of 3 elements, variously constructed and channelled by Annie Abrahams and Clement Charmet. A cycling, multilingual, taxonomy of human intention at war.
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| activism, browser art, Code Art, critical, dialogue, digital, geopolitical, interactive, Internet Art, interplay, media art, narrative, net art, networked, participation, software art, taxonomy, war | |
| 5 Operas | |
 released 5/11/03 | The operas are the result of an internet call for opera libretti, exactly 100 words in length, selected and set to music by Michael Szpakowski, sung by college students and schoolchildren.
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| collaboration, community, Flash, net art, participation, social | |
| The House that George Built | |
 released 25/9/03 | A document of a remarkable, satirical project in the grand tradition of doing exactly as you are told, in order to reveal and subvert the idiocy of national government.
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| Graffoto | |
 released 30/8/03 | In Graffoto02, MOTC (man of the crowd) has printed out photographs of the streets, pasted them back onto the surfaces where they were taken, and then rephotographed them in situ.
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| activism, agency, archive, collaboration, distributed creativity, DIY, graffiti, intervention, media art, participation, social, street, urban, web art | |
| World | |
 released 30/8/03 | This strangely emotional work weaves finely tuned aesthetic formalism with polemic. Unusually for Internet based media work, after an initial cascade of data, the piece unfolds at an intensely slow pace.
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| One among 400,000 [2002] | |
 released 15/8/03 | A personal document of the protest that took place in London, UK on September 28th 2002 to stop the war against Iraq.
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| Separation [2003] | |
 released 15/8/03 | A reflective and insightful web work that exhorts us, as fellow digital 'users', to recognise our state of cyborgian seizure as we sit at our screens.
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| Dress The Nation | |
 released 1/1/03 | On 3rd March 2003 Avatar Body Collision, joined the Lysistra Project in a worldwide theatre event for peace!
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| aesthetic, agency, audiovisual, behaviour, browser art, collaboration, community, cyberculture, cyberfeminism, dialogue, digital, event, interactive, Internet Art, interplay, live, media art, multi-user, narrative, net art, networked, participation, performance, real time, remix, resource, satire, social, Technical Resources | |
| Short films | |
 released 1/1/02 | These are mud pies of films. I've got a wooden spoon in my hand and I'm stirring the chthonic soup.
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2008 Furtherfield.org.Hosted by Furtherfield | PHP & MySQL by Atty (Andy Forbes) | Designed at Furtherfield
| We Won't Fly For Art | |
 created 12/4/09  | An exponential growth pledge using the Pledgebank social utility. Ruth and Marc won't fly for art for six months but only if 6 others will do the same AND replicate the pledge |
| environmental, generative art, life hacking, media art ecologies | |
| Eco-Scope Interview | |
 created 2/1/09 | An interview about media art and ecology within Eco-scope, a communication tool that provides a context for discussing environmental affairs, acknowledging by its structure the "importance of participation in any meaningful solutions that can be imagined". |
| collaboration, environmental, geopolitical, interview, media art, software art | |
| Peckham Street Training | |
 created 25/10/08 | Street Training is the art of simultaneously transforming personal experience and the streets, both collectively and individually. For Peckham Street Training Lottie Child and Ruth Catlow worked with local children to create a public tour in physical space and online. |
| Driven- a dilemma of coexistence | |
 created 10/3/08 | Two people attempt to resolve a recurring argument. Their conversation is transcribed into 2 frames in a single browser. Lag starts to interfere with the flow of statements and responses. |
| collaboration, DIY, net art | |
| Indecent | |
 created 5/2/08 | Indecent is net art sketch, inspired by, and in support of women, who take part in, or actively witness, protests and action against aggressive fundamentalism. This sketch pairs censored animated images from the 'Breasts Not Bombs' campaign with the eyes |
| agency, dialogue, feminism, gender, geopolitical, net art, war | |
| November | |
 created 8/1/07 | A networked performance celebrating Halloween and the changing of the season. Patrick Simons, Kate Southworth, Marc Garrett & Ruth Catlow met online to exchange collected data whilst eating prepared garlic. |
| audiovisual, collaboration, networked, real time | |
| DissensionConvention [2004] | |
 created 6/11/04 | A collaboration with Michael Szpakowski. Collaborative art-polemic from DissensionConvention, a protest web broadcast by 20 net artists, coinciding with the Republican Convention in New York. |
| VisitorsStudio | |
 created 3/3/04 | An online place for real-time, multi-user mixing, collaborative creation, many to many dialogue and networked performance and play. |
| activism, audiovisual, collaboration, distributed creativity, media art, multi-user, networked, performance, remix | |
| Rethinking Wargames | |
 created 27/8/03 | A new version of multiplayer, online chess to find strategies that challenge existing power structures and their concomitant war machineries. |
| The Maenad Inquiry | |
 created 27/8/03 | A collaboration for the Orpheus project initiated by the 'Screenburn' collective. Based on a poem by Jeff Harrison and the website of the current Hutton Inquiry |
| Domestic Idols | |
 created 16/8/03 | Pipe-cleaner figures, cavorting in a domestic setting |
| aesthetic, agency, conceptual, cyberfeminism, digital, interactive, Internet Art, media art, narrative, net art, poetic, satire, sexuality, Transgressive, web art | |
| What use apocalyptic dreams? [2003] | |
 created 16/8/03 | A quiet, internal, rising panic invokes dreams of apocalypse. |
| Diary of Objects in the street | |
 created 16/8/03 | Net and street art; An ongoing diary of sculptures in the streets of London. Made from bric-a-brack and colourful materials the sculptures are tactile |
| aesthetic, agency, behaviour, conceptual, critical, distributed creativity, DIY, graffiti, independent, installation, psychogeography, social, street, urban | |
| The Cloud of Unknowing [1999] | |
 created 16/8/03 | A pilgramage with a sculpture |
| Rushing past the local news [2003] | |
 created 16/8/03 | An ongoing project exploring emotion in information, linking to local news around the world |
| Selected projects [91-01] | |
 created 16/8/03 | Images and notes documenting exhibitions and net projects 1991-2001 |
| One among 400,000 [2002] | |
 created 16/8/03 | A personal document of the protest that took place in London, UK on September 28th 2002 to stop the war against Iraq. |
| A reflective learning journal | |
 created 16/8/03 | A journal reflecting on work in a range of diverse environments, each with their own, sometimes conflicting, demands, satisfactions and learning oppor |
| collaboration, collective, community, geopolitical, participation, reflection | |
| Short films | |
 created 1/1/02 | These are mud pies of films. I've got a wooden spoon in my hand and I'm stirring the chthonic soup. |
| Mesmerized | |
 created 1/1/00 | A strange story about a warrior pacified by 150 women. Retold using interactive media |
| Natural rockers | |
 created 1/1/00 | An erotic display of playful tribalism. Scenes with pipe-cleaner figures, a child's medium. They can be seen as three-dimentional, rude graffitti or f |
| Flesh TVs | |
 created 16/8/99 | Commission your own TV portrait sculpture's |
| aesthetic, flesh, installation, object, web art | |
| Emotion in information. | |
 created 16/6/99 | Contributory project in which visitors are asked to provide texts to accompany images.Made in response to media images & texts during the Balkan war |
| agency, behaviour, conceptual, critical, digital, journalism, narrative, news, photography, poetic, Political, reflection, social, text, TV, urban, web art | |
| Flesh cars | |
 created 16/8/98 | Cars turned human flesh |
| aesthetic, conceptual, critical, flesh, Internet Art, language, satire, web art | |