James Stevens

James is the founder member of SPC and lives with his family in Deptford SE London.

Subscribers continue to enjoy diy web, mail and media hosting alongside a bramble of production experiments and collaborations in progress.

He directed development at web boutique Obsolete in 1995. Within a year launched proto cybercafe Backspace on Clink Street, London Bridge – An accessible place to explore creative networking and critical media in public.

Whilst fitting it out with artist Tim Cook it was modeled online by Dorian Moore and became touchstone to a thousand web coders and inventors, inspiration for the technology spaces and businesses that boomed in the years that have followed.

Today his time is split between research development work and network maintenance for artist studios, housing co-ops and rehearsal studios in London and South East. Most recently from a desk in the Toproom of Limehouse Town Hall or the garden shed!

Conceptual and pragmatic influences fuse to accommodate the needs of those close, seeking fresh opportunities for cultural stimulation and transformation. Environmental and interior design, live music production and event management, database development and opensource advocacy, free networking and public access media, community development, gardening and baking all continue to texture and test.

1980 BA degree – Interior Design @ Kingston Polytechnic
1982 Vis-A-Vis – Design practice
1985 Music Management – Cardiacs
1989 Brag – Live music booking agency
1992 Euro MA – Image Synthesis and Computer Animation
1993 MIT – UK non linear video edit training and hire
1995 Obsolete – Web boutique and design partnership
1996 Backspace – Proto Cybercafe in London Bridge
1998 SPC – Defines abbreviated ‘space’

2000 Consume – Wireless network primer UK
2001 Deckspace – SPC media lab in Borough Hall, Greenwich
2003 Boundless – Broadband network coop – Deptford
2004 Gifspace – Wireless Wednesday Workshop – Deptford
2005 Bitspace – Community computer clinic – Greenwich
2008 OWN – Open wireless network for SE8 and SE10

2010 Technical collaboration and outreach in raft of local community projects supporting media arts, shared workspaces, co-oporative housing, public galleries, event spaces and private dwellings.
2014 reSync – collaboration with A.Hadzi explores mobile synchronisation and promotion of media.
2016 MaziCreeknet is the DIY networks of Deptford Creek – CAPSI – Horizon2020
2017 SELCE – director at South East London Community energy.
2017 Reverso – Distributed Spaces at CSM and in Sao Paulo favelas.
2018 DDBC – Collusion Commission for 2019 exhibition
2018 Uniform – SPC network media lab in OPS Deptford 2019 Spoke – Resource library and social research lab, Dover.
2020 ASH – Virus Shelter in the garden shed!
2023 TOP – Archiving Yoshi Zen’s collection in Limehouse Town Hall.

Enthusiasm for social exchange characterise many aspects of this work, never shy to facilitate the grand ambitions and support embryonic efforts of others with patience, experience and resourcefulness. He continues to interweave many threads into a self-sustaining infrastructure, supporting domestic and public life in continuity with family, long term collaborators and fresh interactions alike.

Telegram : +44 7973318881
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SPC @ Toproom Limehouse Town Hall, 646 Commercial Road. London E14 7HA.
SPC is a trading name of Slacktivist Ltd.