It’s been a fun week in the Studio with lots of our fantastic residents showcasing work at Mayfest & heaps of exciting REACT news. Read on to find out what’s been happening in the Studio:

As you may now know, Watershed and the University of Bristol are disrupting normal residency service and inviting a magician, artist, illusionist or designer to join them for a spell of exploration into creative ideas that blend technology, interaction design, magic and illusion. The deadline (10 June) is fast approaching so make sure you put your applications in soon.

This week we’re also very excited to announce that Watershed and National Theatre Wales are looking for 12 brilliant creative Digital Producers, to take part in Wales’ very first Digital Producers Lab development programme, produced by Watershed. Participants will explore different aspects of creative technology production including: how to develop brilliant ideas, project management, making business sustainable, Intellectual Property, and pitching to clients and funders. They will also have the chance to unpick a host of best practice case studies and dabble in a little creative tech development of their own. For more information and how to apply, visit the Watershed website.

In REACT news the eight fantastic Books & Print project films are now online. From Jekyll 2.0, an immersive gothic experience that morphs with every breath you take, to Book Kernel a bespoke publishing platform for live events, the Books & Print REACT sandbox demonstrated the exciting, emergent possibilities of a fast-changing industry. You can watch the eight project films on DShed.

The team are also delighted that their approach is sparking ideas and partnerships beyond our immediate funding. Ben Gwalchmai (Book Kernel) and James Wheale (Jekyll 2.0) have been awarded a bursary from the Writing Platform to develop an app to deliver stories to users as they walk. James has written about their collaboration on the REACT site.

Lastly, REACT have published their first research paper. "Translation, Negotiation, Advocacy: the REACT challenge" asking what challenges arise when five universities and a digital media centre work together, and what we can learn from those challenges. Read about the Working Paper and download it here.

Over the last six months games designer and consultant Will Luton has been in the Studio writing ‘Free-to-Play: Making Money From Games You Give Away.’ In the book Will explains how to use the business model that has revolutionized the video games industry, creating huge hits, multi-billion dollar start-ups and a new deal for players: Play for free, spend on what you like. You can order a copy from Amazon.

Two weeks ago Colour Keepers kicked off in Bristol. Part exploration, part battle, part collaboration, Colour Keepers was an unique commission for Bristol Temple Quarter between 18-19 May using the new artist-designed BikeTAG light system to create an innovative street game to light up Bristol’s Enterprise Zone. Vic has created a fantastic storify, so see how the project went here. On the subject of storify’s, Vanessa has also made one for The Memory Dealer which showed last weekend at Mayfest. Somewhere between theatre, game and out-of-body-experience, the audience enter that world and become part of a story, which is revealed by headphone audio, media installations and encounters with live performers. You can check out an awesome storify about the show here.

Studio residents Calvium are looking for a junior front end developer to help them bring their cutting edge mobile tech projects to life. Most of their projects are HTML5 based mobile apps and you will be a key part of the team that creates them. You can find out more and reads the job description on their website.

Next Friday we’re very excited to be joined by our newest Studio resident Tom Metcalfe to talk about his interactive print project. What if we could make paper interactive, connect it to the Internet and update print content? For the last 18 months researchers and industry partners have been working with local communities on a project called Interactive Newsprint.  Here they've explored the emerging technology of paper electronics and conductive inks to bring locally focussed and generated news to communities. Tom has recently arrived in the studio after working as Lead designer on this project within the Product Research Studio at the University of Dundee.  He will share with us the background to the project, their findings and perhaps even give a live demonstration, so make sure you pop down! You can find our programme of talks on our events page.