There have been a lot of puzzled and intrigued pedestrians in the general Watershed vicinity this week. The Making the City Playable conference spilled out onto the streets to chalk games on the pavement, we carried charming creatures and symphonies around and we threw shapes under the Shadowing street lights.

The Making the City Playable Conference was this week, and Watershed has been alive with discussion about the best and most effective ways that we can offer people the permission to play within their cities. The conference was a lively event, where delegates spilled out onto the streets to create games on the pavement with colourful chalk, carry a symphony around the city, and play with their shadows. All of the talks will be available to stream soon. We’ll let you know when they are online.

As part of the conference, Circumstance brought their incredible audience-led musical performance, A Folded Path to Bristol. We were given our own portable speakers, and carried them on a curated walk around the city. Each speaker played a different part of the composition, and the sound changed according to the surroundings and how the group was moving together. Different parts of the piece were triggered by GPS, so that when we entered open spaces, or walked through an alleyway, the music would change course. It was a really special event, made even more so by chance touches like a rowing boat on the river and the humungous yellow moon. There was a flurry of tweets from passers by who wanted to know what on earth was going on.

We are delighted to announce the official launch of Playable City Award winning commission, Shadowing. On Thursday, we gathered around a circle of light in a spot near Corn Street, and played with our shadows. This sort of thing will begin to happen in locations across Bristol over the next two months, and we can’t wait to see what people make of it.

Nikki Pugh is back from a laser cutting stint with Sarah Barnes, and has brought some rather beautiful landscape-reactive “armadillo slugs” back with her. These charming creatures will be playing lead roles in her project, Colony. Nikki invited a few people to the Studio to carry the creatures around Bristol and find out how they would react to their surroundings. Needless to say, the creatures proved to be head turners. If you want to know more about Colony, come along to Nikki’s Lunchtime Talk next week, and feed the creatures some sugarlumps.

Strange Thoughts have been working with platinum selling band alt-J and Webstart Bristol start-up Blast to launch a new geo-locational music app. The app allows you to stream alt-J’s new album, This is All Yours, before the official release provided that you are in one of the beautiful locations that have been chosen as listening hotspots in cities all over the world. You can download the app here.