Wasted Spaces was set up to provide a platform for up and coming artists, and to engage with communities through site-specific installations. By creating art that is both accessible and of high quality these projects provide a gateway for people who have traditionally felt suspicious or excluded from modern art.

Taking art out of the traditional white walled gallery, Wasted Spaces brings art to the people. Transforming Wembley's high street with guerrilla installations, video projections and interactive art, the project launched on Saturday 13th February and will pop up on various locations for the next two months.

In collaboration with Brent Council, the project kicked off on Saturday 13th February with a 50-meter outdoor video installation on Wembley High Road. In the next 6 weeks the installation will showcase 4 international and home-grown artists with works including Net Art, animation, interactive and open source coding. Artists include: Rafael Rozendaal, David Szakaly, Hellicar & Lewis and Robert Hodgin

In the next couple of weeks Wasted Spaces is hitting the streets, aiming to make Wembley smile. Keep a look out for this project - you never know when a smile is going to pop up ...

In support of Tate Modern's symposia 'Speaking Out: The Spoken Word in Artistic Practice', Sound-Artist David Toop will be presenting and performing in the 19 person strong improvisation group 'Unknown Devices'.

The collective made up of players of mostly limited experience, predominantly using laptops as musical instruments, will be performing 4 pieces in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. The performance is totally free and booking information and prices for the rest of the symposium can be found here.

We have just added information about the speakers for MuseumNext London to the conference website. We are really excited about the line up which includes individuals from some of the world's top Museums.

The subjects that will be covered at the conference will include: Social Media, Online Video, Museum Gaming, Online Collections and Mobile.

Click here to book your ticket.

Running parallel to the Decode: Digital Design Sensations festival, the V&A hosts this weekend of events, featuring talks, screenings, workshops and more all centered, of course, on digital and interactive design.

Indulge your inner techie or design freak with a weekend of demonstrations by artists digital practitioners such as Memo Akten and Jason Bruges and workshops with Karsten Schmidt or learn the ropes of creating digital art yourself in an openFrameworks lab.

Brand New Banksy: Spotted in London.

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One of the last Herzog films being shown in this unofficial Herzog season, arts organisation V22, are obviously saving the best til last. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner has been described as one of Herzog's best works and the director himself calls it "one of my most important films."

The documentary follows the extraordinary story of Walter Steiner, a German carpenter who also happened to be a world champion ski-jumper during the 1970s. Told in Herzog's inimitable style, this short feature focusses on Steiner's fearlessness juxtaposed with his more mundane day job, as well as the poetry and pitfalls of a challenging sport. The film's being shown at Cafe Oto, a little gem of a cafe in Dalston but it's not a huge space so be sure to book your tickets.

VIENNA http://vienna.unlike.net/event_occurrences/106158-Mass-Moonwalk
LONDON http://london.unlike.net/event_occurrences/106159-Mass-Moonwalk
BERLIN?

It's approaching rush hour and Liverpool Street is fast becoming a crushing medley of limbs, briefcases and polished Italian shoes. Already late for a meeting you dart towards the Circle line in a vain attempt to arrive in some sort of concerted punctual state. Whisked off into London's rat race you arrive at your destination station with perhaps enough time to conceivably make it, yet, as hundreds pile off of the train, you spy the exit at the furthest away point from your current position, blocked by a hundred steaming commuters and the hustle and bustle of the city's underground system. Strewth huh...

Thanks to Lance Stewart, situations such as the above could soon be a thing of the past as this week saw the launch of the Tube Exits iPhone app. Stewart's new invention will help London's hapless commuters get from A to B as fast as is possible, simply by directing them to the carriage closest to the nearest exit of the station they wish to arrive at. Tube Exits gives quick thinking, savvy Londoners the opportunity to be one step ahead of the rush, saving valuable time and a good deal of stress to boot. Covering every station on the London underground, Stewart's creation will potentially make something as haranguing as travelling in London's maze, a good deal simpler and more relaxing. Nice.

The poor London Underground comes in for a fair amount of regular stick, however, most of the time severely unjustified. The inability for us commuters to appreciate the world's oldest underground railway is something of a misgiving, especially as there is a near to non-existent structure in other cities across the expanse of the UK. The much maligned system not only works, but it often work very well [with the exception of the odd tube strike of course], the dotting together of stations an intertwined link of futuristic angled platforms and red brick building work an architectural dream. Realising the potential of the London Underground brand, and the opportunity to catch the attention of a billion annual users, Art on the Underground has shown that it is possible to grab the interest of commuters in a clever and subtle kind of way. The underground is a huge forum for advertising, yet the intelligent angle of using art to speak to an inconceivably large audience is an extremely effective initiative, and one that has been proven to work effectively in the past.

The continuity of the initiative is commendable, and with a huge capacity for collaboration, the Art on the Underground campaign's success lies in these qualities - alongside the physical element, which also broadened out to the sharp daylight of museums and exhibits, there is also a concerted online space.

With 2012 fast approaching perhaps we should begin cutting London's metro system some slack, and with the influx of inventions such as Stewart's Tube Exits, and the continuation of clever campaigns such as Art on the Underground, our journeys shall become both far more pleasant and far more manageable.

Image is of one of the 100 artists selected to reinterpret 'the roundel' [the sign in the centre of the brand]. This particular interpretation was done by James Ireland.

- Contributed by Tarik Fontenelle

By Ruby Pseudo | © PSFK, 2009. | Article Link | Comments | More stories in: Advertising & Branding, Architecture, Arts & Culture, Transport & Travel, Trends In The UK and art, Design, london, underground