The Studio’s been bustling this week as teaching kicked off for an Experience Design MA module that the Studio is hosting, and lots of our lovely Residents have been nominated for very exciting awards and grants. Read on to find out more about the awards, teaching and what our wonderful community of residents have been working on:

There’s been exciting news for Stand + Stare as their project Theatre Jukebox has been selected as a finalist in the South by Southwest Interactive Awards in Austin, Texas under the Art category. As part of this award Theatre Jukebox is also eligible for the Audience Choice Award, which is voted for by the public. It only takes a few seconds, and there’s no need to sign up so please follow this link and give them your vote.   

The nominations for The Royal Television Society Awards have been announced with two of our residents nominated for awards in the digital section. In the Best companion content award, celebrating the best second screen, multi-screen, interactive, online and connected TV content Studio residents Opposable Games have been nominated for their connected screens game Clockwork Racers. In the Best digital innovation awards, which recognises outstanding innovations in digital content across any platform or combination of platforms, breaking new ground in digital media, Hidden Fields by Studio residents danceroom Spectroscopy and Guerilla Dance Project has been nominated. You can find out more about the awards and who they’re up against here, and if you fancy a glitzy night out tickets are on sale for the awards ceremony on 24 Feb here.

This week nu desine have been planning their UK release of the AlphaSphere with some very exciting collaborators, look out for more news about it soon on their website. They have also just received the first boards for the Elite series of AlphaSphere’s and are preparing to ship their first units early next week!   

Our Craft + Technology resident Heidi Hinder’s work is currently on show in Nesta as part of their Artist showcase. Nesta has transformed its networking and events area into a space for artists from around the country to showcase their work to a large and diverse audience. The exhibits, which include paintings, sculptures, videos and ceramics, will change every six months and are selected to reflect their core mission: To make the UK more innovative. You can find out more about Heidi’s work and the other artists on the Nesta page here.

On Wednesday Vic headed to Nesta's Digital R&D in the Arts Forum, designed to explore the nature of collaborative technology relationships, risk taking and knowledge sharing in the arts. As part of the event she participated in the Opportunities Panel. The panel's brief was to explore the major opportunities for digital innovation in the arts in the coming three years, and what this could mean for the R&D needs of the arts and cultural sector. She took part alongside Hasan Bakhshi, Director of Policy and Research Creative Economy at Nesta; Tim Plyming, Head of Digital at the British Museum; and the panel was chaired by Dr Paul Gerhardt, Managing Director at Archives for Creativity. Vic has blogged about the event on the iShed site which you can read about here.

Among the first nine projects in the UK to benefit from the Digital Research and Development Programme for the Arts, is DanceTag – a collaboration between dance development agency Pavilion Dance, Mobile Pie and DCRC’s Seth Giddings. DanceTag, a location-based gaming app, reaches new audiences for dance by encouraging the public to upload and geo-tag films of themselves dancing. Users will be able to view, share and rate the films online; challenge other users; or re-tag locations. The website space will also provide the dance sector with information about local dance providers, dancers, companies and venues and allow users to receive messages about events local to them. Funded jointly by NESTA, AHRC and ACE, the scheme supports research that explores how digital technology can be used to enhance audience reach and develop new business models in the arts. You can find out more here.

On Thursday we had two fantastic play tests in the Studio. Studio alumni Slingshot set up a number of games around the Studio that will form part of Time Winders a brand new street games debuting in Exeter later this month. Then after lunch, resident Kathy Hinde was also testing the latest version of her Vocal Migrations project. The project involves a mobile audio device that enables the user to navigate using sound, by listening to their own voice recordings. The device samples your voice and uses distance sensing to change the playback of the sample. The testing took place in half an hour group slots and involved being blindfolded and nativagting yourself around the room without bumping into any obstacles! You can find out more about the project here.  

On Friday teaching kicked off in the Studio for an Experience Design MA module for the UWE MA/MSc in Creative Media Technologies and the MA Wildlife Filmaking. We welcomed them to the Studio for a day of teaching, and they joined us for a fabulous Lunchtime Talk from The Stick House.

You might remember that a few weeks ago we were join by the fantastic thechineseroom for a Lunchtime Talk to talk about their incredible experimental mod Dear Esther, and their new upcoming projects. They have kindly allowed us to put a recording of the talk online which you can watch on dShed here. This week they received five very well deserved nominations of the Bafta Games Awards and we wish them the best of luck of the Awards ceremony!  

Finally next Friday we will be joined by Peter Bennett from the Bristol Interaction & Graphics group who will share his extraordinary project 'Chronotape', a digital tool that allows you to create a tangible timeline for charting family history. Combining rolls of paper, a wooden box and spinning reels, with methods of digital annotation and recording, Peter will demonstrate how this device offers a new way to interact with computer data using real physical objects. Chronotape is a great example of Slow Technology, an emerging field of research that encourages us to take our time and to favour quality of experience over efficiency in our interactions with technology. You can find out more about our upcoming programme of talks on our events page here.