On February 15 Studio Resident Charlotte Crofts gave a fantastic Lunchtime Talk about the hidden history of Bristol's spectacular cinema scene, telling tales of bombs, snogging and a murder most horrid, through the lens of two of her projects exploring cinema heritage.

Charlotte has recently published The Curzon Memories App and The Lost Cinemas of Castle Park, the latter stemming from her recent REACT Heritage Sandbox award. Both of these have deployed emergent technologies as a means to explore the local history of cinema-going, just at the moment at which ‘analogue’ film is supposedly dead, with the conversion to digital projection and the proliferation of screens.

The Curzon Memories App

The Curzon Memories App is a mobile phone application which provides a tour of the inside and outside of the Curzon Community Cinema, Clevedon (UK) triggering dramatisations and oral memories about the history of the building in the exact locations where they actually happened. Designed by Charlotte, the app was developed to enhance the Curzon's 'Living History' exhibition (which was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund) and the Curzon Collection of cinema technology. If you don't have GPS or should you be unable to physically visit the Curzon, you can still use the manual interface to explore the outside of the building.

The project also includes the Projection Hero installation, a miniature cinema which you can manipulate with your smartphone, made in collaboration with another studio resident, Tarim (Media Playgrounds).  The installation situates the user as a projectionist - you can dim the lights, open the curtains and play movies which all feature interviews with retired projecitonists, exploring the dying art of cinema projection in the digital age. You can watch a demonstration of projection hero here.

The Lost Cinemas of Castle Park

Charlotte's most recent app is The Lost Cinemas of Castle Park (available on iOS), a GPS triggered audio tour which spans over a 100-years of cinema exhibition and features 13 cinemas in Castle Park and the immediate area, from the first moving pictures screened at the Tivoli Music Hall in 1896 to the Odeon, Union Street - a 1930s super cinema which is still operating today.  As you move around Castle Park the app automatically triggers context-specific stories about Bristol’s cinema heritage in the places where it actually happened. The App was created in collaboration with Calvium and Bristol City Council as part of an academic research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council REACT.

The app will be formally launched on Sunday 24 March 2013 (the anniversary of the opening of Bristol's first purpose-built cinema, The Queens Picture Hall, in 1910). The launch will kick off at the Bandstand in Castle Park at 3pm with the chance to try out the app, educational activities for children designed by Local Learning and cinema memory gathering, followed at 7pm by a pop-up cinema screening of Mad About Music (1938), starring Deana Durbin – the first film to be screened at the Odeon, Union Street, the only cinema featured in the app still operating today. Find out more here.

You can find out more about both projects and find the slides from her talk on Charlotte’s website here.