After a quiet Christmas interlude, we have returned to the Studio, which is brimming with ideas and full of wonderful creatives from the UK and Brasil as part of Recife: The Playable City. We are gearing ourselves up for an incredibly busy few months, with members of the iShed team flying out to UnBox in India and South by South West in Austin Texas. Also coming up are the No Boundaries Conference in Bristol and York, and REACT’s Future Documentary Sandbox Showcase at iDocs. REACT are shortlisting Objects Sandbox Applicants, and Calvium and Bristol Youth Links are on the hunt for new employees. There is a lot to talk about. Read on to find out more...

As part of Recife: The Playable City, we are joined this week by a wonderful cohort of creatives, technologists and producers from Brasil and the UK, as they take part in a two-week Playable City workshop here in the Studio. They have been working together and pooling their knowledge to develop playful interventions that rethink public space, and after a few days of brainwave bunting and metaphorical Lego constructions, exciting ideas are beginning to form around the theme. There will be a talk about Recife: The Playable City next Friday as part of our Lunchtime talk programme. To keep up to date with the Recife project, click here and look out for new blog posts by Studio co-ordinator Jess, who is documenting the whole process.

We have two new arrivals at the Studio this week. We welcome Esther MacCallum-Stewart, the new Research Fellow for DCRC, who’s work examines the role of players and social rulemaking within gaming communities, and also examines gender, sex and sexuality in videogames. We also welcome Luke Emery, the new Master Builder (Executive Producer) of Splash & Ripple, who has worked as producer for many theatre companies in Bristol, including the Mechanical Animal Corporation and as production manager for Bristol Old Vic. Other Splash and Ripple news sees Ben Gwalchmai, writer and producer, appointed as writer on the newest Welsh National Opera Street Game. Prolific Ben’s recently published novel,Purefinder, a Gothic-horror with a metaphysical edge, will be on special offer in e-book form next week, and available to buy for 99p.

Seth Jackson, director of Strange Thoughts, has been invited to be part of a ‘Geek Chic’ panel who will be giving talks at this year’s South by South West festival in Austin, Texas. Clare and Verity will also be speaking as part of a Playable City panel. Seth, who brought mind controlled pint-pulling to the Studio last year, is currently overseeing a project in which technologist Peter Wyganski uses this mind reading technology to create a multiplayer version of Pacman, which you can control with your mind. We are waiting with bated breath for it to make its way to the Studio for testing!

The UnBox labs are coming up, which take place over 10 days in Ahmedabad in India, and will bring Creative Practitioners and Researchers from the UK and India together in order to explore the topic of ‘Future Cities’. REACT have been working with the British Council to select a group of UK creative practitioners to take part, whilst the AHRC have been selecting UK based researchers. A full list of the selected UK creative practitioners has been posted on the British Council website.

A new REACT working paper has been published by Research Fellow, Simon Moreton, on the topic of ‘Curating Collaboration’. Click here to have a read of the full paper. REACT is currently in the process of shortlisting applicants for the Objects Sandbox, which will see six projects emerge from collaborations between creatives, technologists and academics, exploring objects and the Internet, through the Internet of Things. We are very excited to learn more about the new collaborations and ideas which have emerged from the Ideas Labs.

The No Boundaries Conference is well on its way, to join the debate, visit their website or watch the provocations forming part of their ongoing debate around the role of culture in 21st Century Society on their YouTube channel.

A few jobs and opportunities have popped up in the first week of the New Year. Calvium, our resident award-winning app developers, are looking for a mobile developer to help bring interesting and high profile projects to life, making great apps across iOS, Android and HTML5. Find out more here.

Bristol Youth Links, whose Virtual Youth Network is being shaped here in the Studio, are looking for a full-time Online Content Editor to join their Engagement team. If you’re interested, have a look at the Watershed website. Bristol Youth Links are also looking for 3 young journalists, between the ages of 18-24, who specialise in video production, social media or editorial. If you or anyone you know may be interested in this fantastic opportunity to help shape Bristol’s Virtual Youth Network, have a look at the full details here.