Hertfordshire, UK
I build interactive and expressive technology — touchscreens, apps, VR, and physical things — and spend the rest of my time moving: running the long way round, underwater when I can, and looking closely at light, sound and shape.
About
I'm Chris — founder of Vivid Atom, co-chair of the village youth football club, and a restlessly curious tinkerer. Twenty years of client work has mostly been the same phone call: something technically awkward, needed yesterday, for a tight budget. Saying yes is the easy half. The other half is shipping it — on time, in budget, in spec — and still being there when the phone rings again.
I've been running since 2018, dive when life allows, and would rather be building something — in software, in electronics (usually an ESP32), or behind a drum kit or a flight stick.
Out there
Three ways out of the house, and what they add up to.
Most mornings, the long way round. It started in 2018 and hasn't stopped since.
Slowly progressing — fixed-wing first, and recently sucked in by the R22.
Past the entry ticket, at Koh Tao in December 2007. Underwater everything slows down and the rules change.
The company
Founded in 2019, Vivid Atom makes interactive and expressive technology — exhibition and installation work, apps and iOS development, VR / AR / MR, touchscreen experiences, physical computing, 3D printing and engineering, plus websites, branded emails and digital communications for the pharmaceutical, healthcare and medical sectors. Software at the core; craft in the finish — and a record that goes in one line: on time, in budget, in spec.
BEng Computer Games & Internet Technology — University of Essex
Touchscreens, kiosks and tactile exhibits — technology that people walk up to and touch.
Native apps and iOS work, websites and branded emails, and virtual/augmented experiences — engineered to look effortless.
Interests — not a CV
The threads that run through the work — some for clients, some for the village, some just because I can't leave them alone.
Microcontrollers, LoRa, sensors and 3D printing — hardware that does something in the real world.
Keeping time — the pulse you keep, and the one you're caught by.
Looking closely at light and place. One of my photographs reached a book cover — the rest live in the gallery.
Monochord, cymatics, phyllotaxis and the geometry that runs through things — the shape of sound, and the sound of shape.
Co-chair of Abbots Youth, and protecting the open ground with Save Our Fields — the work that isn't for sale.
Archives, estates and the valley — following the names and places that made this ground.
Instruments Preview
I don't understand this stuff. I can read code and I couldn't read a formula, so I built these to teach myself — one at a time, until the symbols stopped being decoration. Each is a single file: no network, no tracking, no build, and every number on the page is that formula, evaluated. They're here in case they help you too. If I got something wrong, or you have a suggestion, drop me a message.
Drag the harmonics, then press play. Open full size →
Two issues and eight instruments so far; the rest when it's good enough. Published CC BY-SA 4.0.
Elsewhere
Some of the things I look after, out on the web.
Abbots Youth FCGrassroots youth football for the villageabbotsyouthfc.co.uk
EmmetropiaThe eye at rest — clear sight, in measureemmetropia.co.uk
LoomwyrdThe world is woven — a mist-girt Norns' villageloomwyrd.com
Moon AlmanackThe moon, night by night — and four hundred years of lookingmoonalmanack.com
BramblefieldsA world hidden by forgetting — a discovery-adventure in the real worldbramblefields.com
Good Times & Happy DaysA warm little club for small joysgoodtimesandhappydays.com
Helen HurleyA personal front doorhelenhurley.com
Peace of ConsciousnessA free, quiet room for sound, breath and stillnesspeaceofconsciousness.com
Save Our FieldsA community campaign to protect the local meadowssaveourfields.com
Save Our Fields — the appA GPS AR safari; walk a meadow, meet its creaturesapp.saveourfields.com
Vivid AtomInteractive & expressive technologyvividatom.com
WingmanSixA project in the hangar — more when it's readywingmansix.com
Selected
Light, place, and the odd quiet thing. They play themselves — hover to pause, or step through.
A photograph of mine appears on the cover of Watching the English by Kate Fox (Hodder & Stoughton) — the anthropologist's field guide to the hidden rules of English behaviour.
Get in touch
For work, the club, the fields, or a photograph — the best route is email.
