Professional Practice Relationship

Why work experience?

During the professional practice module I decided it was best to use my time working alongside commercial companies in order to place myself into the pinball world, see current developments and make valuable contacts for moving on with my project over the next year.

I negotiated two very different types of commercial work experience with pinball companies in the UK.

1. MyPinballs focus on custom software, modifications and restorations. See here
2. Heighway Pinball are the UKs first mass manufacturer of pinball machines. See here

The direct outcomes to the work experience include a documentation of my time on each placement and of course valuable experience I could not have got any other way.

My activities and time during professional practice has guided my work and helped me develop my path as a professional artist. I've created a body of work which I see as observational and reflective of this module.

I believe my proposal and planning of the work experience led to a successful and concise professional practice module.

How it relates to my work?

I had previously spent a considerable amount of time focusing on playing pinball to understand the game better, during this module my time has been mostly spent focusing on the electronic and mechanical parts as well as software and tools required in order to learn how a pinball machine is actually built and maintained.

Work experience gave me some hand on time with pinball specific electronics, mechanisms, tools and equipment I would not have been able to afford to buy or learn on my own.

I see my practice exploring how the physical and digital coming together, but how that's done needs to make sense. That's what I'm currently working out. Professional experience has given me some much needed boundaries to that huge topic. I feel like I'm on the right track.

My main interest in pinball lies in the physicality of the game in it's simplest form. How it works almost seamlessly alongside digital technology, adds a layer to the game which fits into my research and interests as an artist.

This module I've been playing with some of these ideas.

My aspiration going into this module was to create a working pinball machine or prototype pinball game in this semester. This has not happened, here's why:

Learning curve
See blog here

During my learning curve on work experience I started to fully understand just how much of a huge task building a pinball machine really is. I started to worry about not being able to deliver a quality outcome, due to time, skill, money restraints.

I had a bit of a eureka moment when I realised this was not how I see myself working as an artist. It's actually the opposite. Worrying of the outcome instead of enjoying the process of coming up with ideas and making them happen.

This led me to change my approach to how I work on my body of work, to see the final work more as sketches, a testing ground, rather than a fully fledged final piece of work. The idea is to take the pressure off creating work in order to free myself up, have fun and produce.

I have lots of ideas, I'm now learning that I don't need to over develop these to create good work. Sometimes it takes longer to produce a piece, but that doesn't mean I have to make the project more complex and develop to a point I don't enjoy working on it any more.

The parts of a project I most enjoy is first sketching, and that feeling I get when I know I have a good idea, it's exciting picturing the idea in my imagination. The next part is working out how it works, what it is, what materials, where do I source them, how can I do this, testing, prototyping - it's the problem solving part. Then when everything comes together, physically making and/or printing.

Themes

Visualise
See blog and this one

A theme of these works has been to visualise what I original imagine, and translate that to a piece of work. I've really enjoyed this, not over developing ideas past that, and having more realistic expectations on the scope of the work. There's some more ground to be made on this idea.

Observational
See blog and this one

The linking theme between professional practice and research is that the pieces are all observational in some way. They are records of thoughts, topics or moments mostly in the form of sculpture.

Repitition 
See blog and this one


Over and over again. This idea of repetition has cropped up a few times.
Firstly it relates directly to the game of pinball; where you must make repetitive targets to obtain points. The second relates to printmaking; where the process to create a multiple edition is by the repetitive task of printing the same artwork.

What about continuing to working in the pinball industry?

There was also the idea that I would continue working in pinball in some way or another, but during this module and how my path has developed in my personal work, I now want to approach what I am doing as a project during my time on the MA. After which I would plan to go on to work with other types of games. Saying this I don't want to make any solid plans, I quite like how open doors are just now and want to keep a few options for the future.

A catalogue of assemblages

Explorations into assemblage using recreated artwork from top rated pinball machine, The Twilight Zone. The assemblages are to appear to have used and deconstructed the original playfields from the game, in the hope to provoke a reaction and outrage of such an act.

Assemblages are a mixture of pre-planned and freestyle, documenting possible different outcomes.

The outcome for me personally is to explore new ways of creating work.
When I'm more comfortable with the pre-planned route in the most part I want to show differences in restriction in the outcome and processes of creativity:

item 1 - completely free style,
item 2 - mix of planned and freestyle,
and
item 3 - completely planned.

Read previous post including the process of printing and recreating the artwork.

1. Sawn

• 1.1

• Process

  

  Hand sawn - freestyle

2. Triangulate 

• 2.1
  

  

• 2.2

  

   

• 2.3

   

• 2.4

  
   

• 2.5

   
  
  
  

• 2.6

  

• 2.7

  
  
  
  

•  Process for item 2

Triangulated by colour and converted to vector lines

3. Polyhedron

• 3.1

  

  

• Process for item 3

Roughly planned pre-laser cut

Reference:
Michael Pecirno  - The Air Above
How to Lasercut Polyhedra

S T R E T C H E D

Sexism in Pinball
A theme in some of my sketches that form my current body of work, is that they are observational of my research and play into pinball.

One thing I did not originally understand about pinball when I started, is the vast amount of themes out there. When some of these are completely innocent, some of the artwork is aimed at a certain demographic, intentionally including overly-sexual images of women, which appear to be unashamedly sexist.

When researching the recent release of Whoa Nellie! pinball machine, I got to reading threads in forums and comments of Facebook. However, upon following the comment trail on manufacturer, Stern's own Facebook page. It became apparent that there were gaps in the stream of comments on the subject of sexism in the artwork. They had deleted the comments which question the matter, yet left the replies that deny any sexism. It seems suspect to selectively delete comments in this way.

I'm interested in why they chose to censor this conversation. Do they want to avoid it? Do they think the comments of others reflect negatively on their company?

With an association of sexism in pinball there is plenty that can be easily researched online.
There's even this list of most sexist pinball machines.

I found an interesting article from 1993 which states that The Bride of Pinbot pinball machine was removed from a student residence in Harvard University, after students questioned it's sexist view of women.

I understand the themes are meant to be fun and humorous and are a reflection of popular culture, but it's important to question some of the artwork choices.

Stretched
As I suggested above, the following pieces are an observation of sexism in pinball.

I became curious about using textiles in some of my sketches quite early on, although the idea was not fully formed, and only later I linked it to this concept through clothing and censorship of content.

My initial tests came by stretching a material with a high Lycra content over the top of pinball parts. Originally my thinking was to help make sense of the industrial mechanical object and view it in a different way. Tightly stretching material over the complex mechanism created a subtle relief in the textile, where I really think there is some interesting territory to explore, especially with movement.

This has been the hardest set of my sketches to get right, after multiple failed attempts to incorporate textiles into my work, and I'm still not sure if I'm there. I experimented with printed fabric, which became too fussy but the latest addition of laser engraved text added something.

Despite multiple failures, I have still found this process of creating fun, which is important for me to explore.

I CAN SPEAK

Original artwork recreated from The Bride of Pinbot (1991)

WHOA?

Original artwork recreated from Whoa Nellie! (2015)

Kick-Out

Of all the sketches I've been working on over the last few months, this one is one of the earliest. The original working name was 'plinthball' but I don't think it works. Clearly the thought is to house this piece in a gallery, placing a ball on a plinth appears effortless, but it's not that simple. The ball is popped out by the kicker but always falls back into it's hole, in a futile repetition.

This repetition is a theme in my earlier sketch ideas (also see Ball Saver). To me this relates to a few things. Firstly to the game of pinball; where you must make repetitive targets to obtain points. The second relates to printmaking; where the process to create a multiple edition is by the repetitive task of printing the same artwork.

The ball never quite settles, like it is always trying to escape the confines of the plinth, the only thing keeping it there is gravity.

Viewers would be welcome to pickup the ball, shake it, drop it. I like that even with all these external forces it would still always find its way back to its pointless home on the plinth.

Original mockup, maybe this is how it scales up, with multiple holes?

I think in its current format it is still a prototype. I've tested a few ideas to execute it, but the most appropriate for now is to run a tiny 5v solenoid (to kick the ball) from a 9v battery and a switch in the base, which is operated by the viewer.

Tiny solenoid!

A video posted by Jono Sandilands (@jonosandilands) on May 14, 2015 at 1:21pm PDT

I wanted to avoid using large, potentially dangerous power supplies (that's the next inevitable step!). Main reasoning is I need to keep things in their simplest format to explore these ideas as sketches, but also to keep my costs down.

Excel at Pinball

Excel at Pinball displaying my World pinball ranking

I have been processing how all this playing (as research, as well as a hobby) feeds into my practice as an artist. In taking a different approach than focusing on the ambition of building a pinball machine, I've been making 'sketches' relating to pinball.

The concept for Excel at Pinball came from observing a league meeting where a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet was displaying the live scores on a large screen.

Players checking the live scores, back in December at Special When Lit league

Formulas and spreadsheets sitting alongside play and games just seems a bit bizarre. I do know from attending these meets that we all want to know how we size up against the other players in the competition, and for the more professional, what that means to their world rankings - it's important. 

The setup with back projection to 'the screen'

Eventually I intend these scores to display live directly from the IFPA website, and cycle through all my different stats. There's also possibility of showing my rivals scores to motivate to score more points...

Displaying my UK ranking

I've said a few times before I love coming up with ideas and working out how to produce them, so this one was no different.

I originally thought a metal cage of excel cells, trapping a ball, but eventually came to the idea of smashing a ball through the screen in anarchy of the formalities of the game. But how can I drill a hole in a screen?... (I don't want to do this). I've used backlit projection in projects before so decided to go with projection.

I made a maquette to test the idea based on the dimensions of a regular pinball.

Excel at Pinball maquette

Excel at Pinball maquette - hand made cardboard & marble (pre lasercut)

After the test projection I knew I needed to scale up to get better results with projection, but how would this scale? It would loose something if the ball was tiny in the middle of the screen, the point is the massive ball smashing and taking over the screen - reminding us about the unpredictable nature of the game.

After a night of rigorous googlin' I found the perfect object to act as the pinball in the scaled up version... these hollow garden ornaments!

Garden Gazing Ornaments on Amazon

To sum up this piece, it's about the physical and digital coming together, but how that's done needs to make sense. My main interest in pinball lies in the physicality of the game in it's simplest form. How it works almost seamlessly alongside digital technology, adds a layer to the game which fits into my research and interests as an artist. Excel at Pinball is playing with some of these ideas, but it still feels like early days for me.

These recent pieces are meant as sketches so it's good to be analytical. Could I have actually smashed pinballs into glass? I'm not sure, maybe I should find out...

Heighway Pinball

Photographs taken while on work experience with Heighway Pinball at their factory in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales during March & April 2015 A4 Zine, 28 pages, black & white laser print on cartridge paper (2015)

Read more about my work experience 

Heighway Pinball: Part 6

I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015.
See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 or part 5.

The Journey - Space for reflection

It’s a two hour train trip from Bristol to Merthyr Tydfil. I leave the flat just before 6.30am and arrive in Merthyr at 9am followed by a 20 minute walk to the factory.

On the way home, depending when I leave the factory, I get back into Bristol between 7pm and 8pm. I don’t particularly like the commute, but once a week for a few months hasn’t been bad.

Change in Cardiff

Reflecting on my seven days of work over the last two months with Heighway and thinking about the importance of the journey to Merthyr: the journey has given me a bit of much needed thinking space.

Looking back it’s the place I have been most thoughtful and analytic about the direction of my practice. It did help to be on the following day of my art school Thursday’s, so I am already out of my day job work mode. I analysed the work I did the day before and planned for the following week. The ideas I have been producing in my body of work have been conceived or developed during this journey.

Zoning out in the Welsh valleys

I do kinda zone out a bit, on one of my journeys another passenger passed by and said “Don’t think about it too much mate”. I’m not entirely sure if it was directed towards me, and of course he had no idea what I was thinking... but he has a good point.

Welcome to Merthyr Tydfil

I have been working toward getting myself away from over developing ideas to the point they don’t become fun any more. I love coming up with concepts and ideas, I can come up with lots, but before I was getting frustrated that I couldn't execute them to this unreachable level I had set myself. However this semester I have learnt to not over develop an idea but to allow it time to come into place.

I started listening to podcasts on the journey. MoMA Talks: Conversations is a great resource of 190 talks and discussions some of which I found inspiring during my journeys.

So that covers my time with Heighway Pinball, there is still the possibility for more work or support with my project.

Make sure you follow Heighway on Facebook and on Twitter for updates about production.

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I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015.
See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 or part 5.

Heighway Pinball: Part 5

I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015.
See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 or continue to part 6.

Graphics

John Matthews covers marketing and graphic design at Heighway. During my first week I spoke about the possibility of helping out with some graphics during one of my visits. I offer my help with the website as feel it could do with a few improvements. Quite honestly I don’t want to spend too much time with graphics, but it is an area I know so can offer some professional help in return for the work experience.

I already had an idea of how I could help a little bit with the website by revamping the news section. Before just a plain list of text links to different websites which feature news about Heighway Pinball. It was rather uninspiring and nobody really wanted to keep it up to date.

The new layout for the Heighway Pinball news section

My plan was to improve the functionality for better management of the links (by using the built in Wordpress post type, including a featured image and external link). The external facing page was styled into a grid including images and paginated so it’s easier for the visitor to take in and find what they want quickly.

This may help in a very small way, to keep the site current and up to date. I suggested to Jon to look at different themes for the website, due to the fact the current theme is not responsive to different devices and therefore very hard to use on smaller screen sizes.

UK Pinball Party logo by John Matthews, Heighway Pinball

I got a quick look and gave some feedback on some of John’s other work, including the UK Pinball Party logo, before it was released to the public.

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I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015. See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 or continue to part 6.

Heighway Pinball: Part 4

I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015.
See part 1, part 2, part 3 or continue to part 5.

Media & Game Production

Although due to my limited time I could not get stuck in and help out in this department, Russell Speak, Media & Game Producer kindly gave me a tour of his work at Heighway.

Heighway have been quite ground breaking as a pinball manufacture in many ways, but in this case the games are first designed and built as digital versions, which can be played before the huge expense and time required of building a physical prototype.

Early release of visuals of the second game Alien from the Future Pinball software. Source.

This expertise comes from Russ, who has many years experience using the Future Pinball software to design his own (or remake) digital pinball machines. I’d really like to get into building machines using this software and Russ thoroughly recommended getting into it, saying that some people have gone on to build one-off physical versions of their own designed machines from the digital versions. Of course there would be some physical restraints transferring a digital version to reality, but that’s quite interesting.

One of Russel's many Future Pinball machines - Jaws

There are plenty of tutorials for working with the software, which would be a great place to start.

I like the idea of Heighway producing digital games or apps of their real life machines that could be released to the public.

Russ was working on assets for their second title Alien, this is a licensed game so I can’t give anything away from what I have seen otherwise I will be chopped up into tiny pieces!

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I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015. See part 1, part 2, part 3 or continue to part 5.

Heighway Pinball: Part 3

I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015.
See part 1, part 2 or continue to part 4.

Testing Full Throttle

Games tester is one of the job titles that fall into the category of dream jobs. So it was quite exciting to be tasked with testing a version of the Full Throttle software on one of the prototype machines.

Andrew playing while Balint watches on

The best thing to do here is to work your way through the different sections (or modes) of the game, and doing this actually helped me understand the structure of a pinball game a lot better.

It’s quite hard to keep track of what is going on sometimes, especially during a multiball situation when everything is quite frantic!

Test games in the prototyping room

So after a few rubbish attempts at working my way through the game I eventually managed to get through most of the modes getting a score of around 150M. Still not as good as some of the guys that work there, they are very good players!

Alas, games tester is not a job suited for me, I blame myself for poor game play before I blame the machine, which I’ve found is not a common characteristic for a pinball player! (I’ve seen swearing, shouting at and hitting the machines at most of the pinball tournaments I’ve attended)

Work harder bitches! (And the testing error list above)

During working through the modes we found a few errors which we recorded and will be fixed in the game rules. Although it’s important to make sure these errors don’t exist, the good thing about the game code and the setup of these machines, is that updates can be downloaded and installed via USB by the owner.

Slightly related here, is that one area I did not touch on at all during my time was the huge area of software development and writing the rules in code, but given my limited experience in that area and the time restraints, it was best that my focus was on the physical parts more so than the software.

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I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015. See part 1, part 2 or continue to part 4.

Heighway Pinball: Part 2

I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015.
See part 1 or continue to part 3.

Parts

If I could summarise using only one word to describe my time at Heighway Pinball, I would say, quite confidently: “parts”. This is really the main area I hoped to learn more about, in order to understand more about how to build a pinball machine.

Some of the many fabricated parts, these were made locally.

A pinball machine has so many different components, most of which needs to be specifically designed and manufactured. Although I was aware of this, the reality of quantity to mass produce machines is something I had not taken into consideration.

With such a huge amount of stock, worth many thousands of pounds, it’s important for Heighway Pinball to manage the stock well. Heighway have put into place a catalogue software system to organise stock and record where everything is located. It’s a booking system, where parts are signed in and out of the stock room.

When I was there, deliveries were coming in every day from all around the world from specialist pinball suppliers as well as local fabricators. Every single item needs to be checked and counted. There is also a strict quality control which comes into play here, Heighway don’t want to supply its customers with scratched metal parts or misprinted playfields due to errors in manufacturing process.

Rejected parts area

This level of quality control is clearly making things take a bit longer than anticipated, but they must be respected for ensuring the product put to market is of a high standard and uses locally sourced products where they can.

Slingshot assembled

Amongst the many deliveries I helped check and count was from American supplier, Marco, is bumper parts. When counting I notice the number 66 seems to be an important number. Sandor tells me this is because the original plan is to make a run of 22 machines and there are 3 bumpers per machine.

Another memorable delivery was of thousands and thousands of specially made electronics wire from China that we had the epic task of counting, when at the same time each different type needed to be checked by Baptiste Fontaine, electronics technician.

The caged, secure parts room

After counting, the parts are placed in separately numbered boxes and put on the appropriate shelf or trolley in the secure parts room.

Soldering switches

Now parts are in stock, some items such as bumpers, slingshots and flippers can be sub-assembled to make the process of the final assembly much easier and faster.

Sub-assembly of bumpers

When assembling we consulted with the original 3D CAD drawings which were produced by James Rees, Senior Design Engineer using SolidWorks (he gave me a quick overview, I need to learn this software!). Sandor would put together a sample assembly for each item which was first checked by the Technical Director, Romain Fontaine before we set about the production line of sub assembly.

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I have recently completed seven days of work experience with Heighway Pinball between March & April 2015. See part 1 or continue to part 3.