An exhibition of recent works by
 Hercules Fisherman

At The Union Club

50 Greek St, Soho, London, W1D 4EQ

 

From Nov 2012 till January 2013

This is a rare opportunity to see recent works by Hercules Fisherman at Soho’s celebrated Union Club – a characterful watering hole that’s been haunted by artists and writers for decades.

Hercules is an Award winning artist as well as technologist and entrepreneur. He’s had a lower profile in the art world in recent years, during which time had fun time build tech companies and sold a global technology business.

These days Herx is dividing his time between painting on the one hand, and mentoring & investing in technology start-ups on the other. He’s collaborating with other Business Angels to create an start-up incubator space for innovation in central London, he’s also mentoring at a number of institutions and colleges, and he’s working closely with promising start-ups  Lectrio, Amoo, GiniCam and Foodity.

Where his artistic output is concerned, his body of work is diverse. He works in all kinds of medium, at times building robots or electronic circuits to generate music and tones, while at other times contributing to performance art, or creating sculptures and installations. He gravitates nevertheless towards his favorite disciplines: painting and drawing, which are at the core of his work. Experimenting endlessly with charcoal, watercolours, oils and pastels.

His drawings and paintings are varied – some are exercises in colorful fauvist abstraction, others more subtle, formal drawings, of faces, figures and animals.

He’s recently been artist in Residence at Hertfordshire’s Paradise Wildlife Park, located not far from his studio. This year he also organized a festival of Arts in collaboration with the park to coincide with HertsOpen 2012. The event included SketchyZoo Theatre which combined performances, workshops and installations.

He started his art studies at Behzad Art School (Iran) going on to study at Croydon College of Arts (UK) and was a student of Bruce Mclean. He’s published art books, magazines and prints about and with artists like Lucian Freud, Gilbert and George, Richard Hamilton, Bill Bryson, Yoko Ono and Allen Ginsberg. He established Our Wonderful Culture club at Vic Naylor and the Fridge in Brixton, which featured Vivien Westwood, Brixton Poets, Edward Tudor-Pole, Deborah Levy and Leigh Bowery.

He’s exhibited at galleries and arts centers, including Riverside Studio, DeFabrik-Holand, Paloma7 –Spain – and ArtHouse – Ireland. He has been speaker, judge or guest at the WebSummit, DevTank, 3DS, Mobile World Congress, LeWeb and at the Universities of Middlesex, Nottingham and Manchester as well as LCP and LaSalle – Barcelona. He has won numerous awards and prizes for his achievements over the years, including a British Council Award in 1986.

Exhibition access by appointment only

For a visit to the exclusive private members club, including a complimentary limited edition print (hand numbered and signed), please select preferred time and date at the following link: http://doodle.com/book

Paradise Wildlife Park will be host to various performers and acts, compliments of SketchyZoo Theatre, commencing Saturday the 22nd.

Amongst the great acts, the acclaimed Mayhem Theatre Arts, whose studios were used for rehearsal by the 2011 X-Factor finalists will be making a special appearance and will be performing a snippet of their new production; ‘Back To The Future’. As well as versatile Magician James Merlin, whose notable mind reading tricks have awed audiences.

The most enthralling performer of the afternoon is possibly the legendary John Hegley, celebrated for his poems and music, apart from his work with John Peel, the most victorious being ‘Saint and Blurry (1993)’.

Local artists will also be showing off their skills, students from Hertford Regional College (HRC) and the Persian performers who will enact from; ‘The Epic Of Kings’ (Shahnameh)

Many activities will be proceeding, the most pleasurable perhaps the notepads and sketch book materials that will be given out to the guests so they can participate in the drawing and painting.

Award winning multi disciplinarian artist; Hercules Fisherman is the man responsible for this captivating entertainment, he is the director of the event. Paradise Wildlife and SketchyZoo in corporation with their sponsors will accommodate the audience with available refreshments.

Stage performances start from 4:30pm, ticket includes full day access to the park and super early bird discount starts from £7.50 and the entertainment continues till early evening.

*Super Early Bird Discount

*include free access to sketchyzoo
pass to the park +
free barbque/pizza
+
Drinks /K1 Beer

by Sahar

 

A game to save the world

by Team Coffee

José Miguel Velasco, Rico Possienka and Hercules Fisherman

Campus Party #campusjam

we choose  “Growth” and “Plant” as our starting theme.
our aim was to create an engaging sim game where user grows biofuel, Jatropha is a plant that promises to solve some of the world energy problems cleanly with plenty of ecological benefits to the environment naturally and effectively.

 

The game is played in the virtual world, but its  ultimate goal is to help fund for farmers to enable them afford plantations that in the long run would benefit everyone involved.

The game can work on many level by encouraging  sponsorship from companies and individuals interested in sustainability.

The user can gain points for purchasing green products.

try the game here http://tiny.cc/jatrobot

Development progress: we managed to create the base structure of the game, in the future iterations we hope to add robots, other user experience enhancing features.

 

I arrived to Templehof last night just in time to hear the opening keynotes and mingle with the other campuseros attending cpeurope 2012, this year over 10000 participants in a sold out event. It is in an appropriate settings the very place where Orville Wright and Ferdinand von Zeppelin made history by staging  the world’s first flight in 1909.

As they changed the world, the hopefuls are also gathering here to see perhaps they can in their own way make a contribution.

delegates getting ready for the day in the grand hall.

Self portrait as the sun                                                                                           1980’s

“If you are not prepared to be wrong then you’ll never come up with anything original … of being wrong, people are being educated out of their creative capacities.”

“and how we run companies, we stigmatize mistakes”

Ken Robinson

LeWeb  Phil Libin hangout interview

The series of interviews and tweet chats from Leweb is very insightful and I have enjoyed everyone so far last night interview with Phil Libin resonates particularly that as entrepreneurs we often have to deal with this issue regularly this attitude for being open to collaboration has also been a line that I have been trying to encourage as much as possible. It is best always try to win allies when ever possible rather than trying to find new enemies. as Trying to compete against each other is drain on already what little resources a startup  has and it is best to think the world is a big enough place and there is room for everyone. Where we can co-operate to make even a better products when ever possible.

The over the air is  the annual geek fest to attend, where hundreds of hardcore hackers gather at “enigmatic” site where contribution  of our predecessor Codebreakers  at Bletchley Park directly resulted in shortening of the Axis war, invariably saving thousands of lives.

Their contribution in breaking the enigma code was of such importance that it remained secret for decades and the original codebreaking heros were kept underwrapped for even longer to general public for security reasons.

It is always a pleasure to visit the site; I can’t help feeling like “standing on the shoulder of giants” on my every visit. It is a national and a universal symbol of human values to treasure.

The ‘Over the air’ is an opportunity to mingle with our fellow geeks at a very appropriate settings and it gets massive thumbs up every year from the delegates. The event is large tribute to OTA organisers who work hard to keep the juices, the flow of energy and coffee going throughout the long 36hrs of concentrated efforts by the participants in the event.

 

This is the third hackaton event for the farming related Jatrobot, its 4th winning prize this year. It was a pleasure winning in two important categories at the OTA12; it raises the bar up little too high -next time we have to win 3 categories or more!

Jokes aside, clearly we are at a juncture, the age of digital disruption has arrived as old industries, methods and ideas are being turned on their heads. The possibilities to innovate have never been so bright. If we look back to the internet and penetration of mobiles over the past two decades, I think that we have not seen anything that significant yet.

There is still much to be done, with mobile and internet providing myriads of opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs to grapple with, there will be many new areas to explore.  This is despite the economic downturn which is largely affecting through traditional investment and industries, quite rightly too. Furthermore, we are seeing a massive boom in tech sectors, not only the successful tech companies such as Google, Facebook or PayPal are active but also the old industries and business’s such as Cadburys, Pearson and Bloomberg’s are joining the fray as they feel the pinch.

This coupled with governmental incentives with UK currently in global lead in providing fantastic motivations for angel investors and various crowd-funding schemes expect that over the next 12 months this area is going to get even hotter with hundreds and thousands of new start-ups. And innovative ideas that would have an easier task of raising enough to produce a proof of concept than it was possible few years back.

There has never been a better moment to push forward with your new ideas than now, so let’s get on with it.

please check out Paul Tanner blog  and official over the air blog for more details here

 

Thanks to for sponsoring a weather station to the project.

Two other disruptive startups to watch out  for with members in our OTA12 winning teams were

Foodity

and

Lectrio

 

 

 

 

Co authored by Pierre Lever who was one of the early Fizzbackers now a budding CEO and a Writer.

Below is a short description of the book of Pierre and Mike Jackson.

57 Minutes: All That Stands Between You And a Better Life is the definitive short guide to a more fulfilling life.

What makes 57 Minutes so different is that it takes less than an hour to read from cover to cover and is full of powerful ideas that anyone can put into practice. It dispenses with complex analyses and psycho babble, relying instead on common sense and personal examples. As the authors say in their introduction “This is a book about doing and it is packed with recommendations that work”.

The book answers important questions that lie at the heart of sustainable life improvement. Why experiences provide deeper satisfaction than possessions. How to prevent life goals from fading into obscurity. How to break the monotony of repetitive living. Why quitting is sometimes the right thing to do. And many others.

Few books fit so much insight into such a small space.

The authors, Pierre and Mike, are not psychologists or professional writers but they have successfully applied every principle from 57 Minutes in their own lives and have inspired many others to do the same.

57 Minutes combines their experiences with the findings from hundreds of hours of reading to provide you with the perfect introduction to living a more fulfilling life.

 

Pierre Lever

Pierre is an avid student of human behavior. Throughout his diverse career as a lawyer, entrepreneur and business leader he has subscribed to the view that to live is to learn. Pierre is CEO of a business in Asia and lives in Singapore with his wife, Sarah, and their three children.

 

 

Hercules Fisherman interviewed by Visonon.TV at London Web Summit where the Jatrobot was showcased at the ClickSlide stand who where the selected finalists at the event.

At the London Web Summit where UK’s top start-ups present their technoloties , a one-day showcase for dozens of UK tech companies, all of which are intent on changing the world with their innovation and ingenuity. Bringing together 1000 attendees and 50 guest speakers, it’s a rich melting pot of seasoned tech entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors.

 

The popularity of the London Web Summit reflects both London’s importance as a global hub for technology entrepreneurship, and the incentives that recent governments have created to encourage UK tech entrepreneurs.
“These are the employers of tomorrow and they are leading the recovery,” says Hercules Fisherman.

“We are in the midst of a digital revolution and London’s entrepreneurs are leading the world in developing applications and services that resonate with the public. Growing the digital economy is key for future job creation in London and events like InnoTech are vital to help bring investors and startups together.”

– Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

Hercules is the lead investor in two fascinating projects. First, there’s Foodity, an online start-up that turns recipes on the web and on TV into online shopping baskets. Second is ClickSlide, which has developed a platform that turns raw data from APIs (the data feeds that big websites, apps and software companies provide for third party use) into great user experiences for minimal cost and without the need to write code. It’s software made simple. Both start-ups will be featured at the London Web Summit 2012.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there are a quarter of a million companies in the UK that class themselves as working within the ‘technology sector’, and they have a combined turnover of £328bn.
“It’s a competitive area for newcomers,” says Hercules, “but there are hundreds of grassroots networking and educational events in and around London that support people who want to build innovative ventures. A lot of these are free, or very low cost. At the other end of the spectrum you have the London Web Summit, the pinnacle of London’s technology events. Although delegates can pay hundreds of pounds to attend, the organisers make it possible for lots of start-ups to attend at no cost or very little cost. This is the event UK startups look forward to and is the one day a year in the diary of the who’s who in the tech world not to be missed.