Here at the Studio we’ve been treating ourselves to festive spectacles including SquidSoup’s new light show and Tom McDonagh’s wonderful shadow puppet demonstration. Verity gave a talk at the Wearable Futures Conference in London, and we announce some of the speakers for the No Boundaries Conference, taking place in February. Read on to find out more...

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week Verity our Studio producer went to speak at Wearable Futures in London. Wearable Futures is a conference exploring the future of wearables, from smart materials to new technologies. Artist and Studio resident Heidi Hinder, and Tom Armitage, who was the technologist on Hello Lamp Post, our first Playable City Award commission joined her in the line-up, as well as residents Kieronand Tine, who were on the Wearable Magic panel. Watch Verity's talk here, and visit the Wearable Futures Youtube channel to see more from the day.

On Wednesday our brilliant architects of adventure, Splash and Ripple headed to Sussex to do some game testing for their Bodium Castle adventure. They are currently working with The National Trust to create a real-world game, transporting the player back to the darkly magical 1390s. This game, using geolocative technologies and Splash and Ripple’s limitless imagination, will all take place in a genuine medieval castle in East Sussex. Stay tuned to find out more about the project.

The first wave of speakers announced for No Boundaries 2014 includes RSA chair Vikki Heywood, Bigga Fish CEO Nii Sackey, poet Luke Wright, 9/11 Memorial and Museum director Alice M. Greenwald, Birmingham Library director Brian Gambles and, back from the dead, visionary architect Cedric Price, who will present a unique PechaKucha presentation, courtesy of digital specialists xHumed, who adapt ideas from revolutionary thinkers in history to modern day topics. In addition to the talks programme, No Boundaries will also present a range of playful interventions programmed by Studio director Clare Reddington, including an evening with musician, artist and creator, Fred Deakin, a sweet-smelling perfume workshop from Odette Toilette and an inspiration exchange from contemporary performance artists Third Angel. You can find out more and book your tickets on the No Boundaries site.

Over the last year, Studio resident theatre-maker, writer and producer Ben Gwalchmai has been writing a Dantean exploration of Victorian London in the form of a historical thriller called ‘Purefinder’. You can now order yourself a copy from Amazon and read a lovely review of the book here.

You might remember early last month that Studio resident Paul Archer spoke at TEDxBristol. The whole day of talks was centred on the theme of ‘Failure’ so Paul spoke about his world record setting trip around the world in a black cab. You can watch a video of his talk ‘Around the World in 20 Fails’ on the TEDxTalks youtube channel here.

Earlier today we were treated to a brilliant Lunchtime Talk and a series of amazing Shadow Puppet demos from Tom McDonagh. You can look out for the write-up next week. The Lunchtime Talk and Open Studio Friday programme will be taking a break over the Christmas period, but we're already busy lining up exciting speakers for January. Check our events page for further details.

Finally don’t forget that next week SquidSoup are presenting another new light show. Following the success of Submergence, their interactive light installation comprising of 8,064 dynamic, suspended lights, SquidSoup have continued their residence in Bristol Temple Quarter’s The Eye. Like Submergence, visitors will walk into a virtual world where pixels on a screen are replaced by thousands of points of light floating in space. Shapes and images will slowly appear, wrap around and dissolve, suggesting form, presence and movement within physical space. The installation will be open to the public for free for two days only – 16-17 December, from 16:00-22:00. Find out more here.