Hayley Lowman

Hayley Lowman

About Hayley Lowman

I have been working as an artist exploring contexts using text  & sound since 2008. I graduated from a degree in Writing (aka performance writing) from Dartington College of Arts in 2011 where I found my niche and formed my practice. I also work as a freelance writer, performing an assortment of writing tasks: from editing essays to the scripting of theater pieces. I am just very excited about writing generally, and if I can incorporate this within my role in the Future Producer's Programme I shall be overjoyed. I have also worked at smaller and larger arts festival as a producer and artist, so I have some experience with the organising of these events. I'm great at idea generating and developing ideas from theory to practice, but I do lack some organisational skills which I hope to improve on throughout this experience. I live and create work with my partner William Yates (memotone) who works as a composer and producer; because of his job we have made some amazing contacts with great musicians and artists that would love to be involved in the creation of projects that we will be doing as part of this programme and beyond. I play the guitar and more recently I have picked up the drums. So listening to and playing music is probably one of the luxuries I enjoy most in life.  I'm in love with cinema, literature and food also (probably similar to you, non?) My favourite areas and themes to work with are: dystopia, futurism, sci-fi ;), romance, surrealism, the unconsicous and comedy. Please let me know if any of my skills would help you!

Hayley Lowman's blog

This is the end

The Watershed’s sci-fi Fun Palace was a hit! I am incredibly proud of my team for working so hard and it all coming together to make such a wonderful weekend, but I must admit a small underlying come-down now that the event is over, and my role within the Watershed coming to an end. I guess, in the future, I can use this feeling to inspire a new project.

During a couple of months of workshops, talks, discussions and creative play, my definition of what a producer is has shifted, moved and eventually evolved. I’ve definitely been used to being the artist, rather than a producer. It’s a far more complex job than I had first anticipated, with a requirement to adopt many different roles and to juggle a broad range of skills. I wasn’t so naive before to think it was a basic role, but before putting it into practice I didn’t imagine quite the amount of layers involved.

I found the group I was working in to be incredibly strong. Each person had a skill-set and range of contacts that complimented the other. I felt that we had strong communication and enthusiasm constantly throughout the project despite all having very busy working and personal lives. If there was one thing I could have done differently, it would have been to not have had such a demanding day-job so I could have dedicated more time with helping my team and working on the project, but in the same sense it how me how much I can do with my time, if I really push myself.

The Event
The Saturday night kicked off with some words from Lolo and Roz who described what the fun palaces was and then the cube orchestra kicked in which some classic sci-fi sounds

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There was also a U-V ping-pong room which was sound-interactive. Jaz, Will and I created a sound-reactive table using contact mics, a Kaoss pad and a lot of wires and initial glitches! Roz & Jaz also came up with the idea of including UV-pens so that the audience could decorate the table.

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The Saturday night featured a ‘Debate Station’ in the bar area which was to inspire the audience to discuss with one another what the future had in store. The table was a constant feature throughout the night, and there are so fantastic ideas that have been written down on the cue-cards provided.

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Half way through the night we screened The Fifth Element,as a blind cinema screening. The audience had voted from a small selection of sci-fi classics and The Fifth Element won. It was also in-keeping with the underlying Afro-futurism theme.
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We also had an interactive set followed by a full hour set by Memotone
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Behind Memotone’s set was an Alphasphere, a device with many pads, which, when pressed change the visualisations on the screen, this meant the audience could control the videos.
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The BFI future producer’s group also had a telescope on the balcony which the audience loved. The moon looked incredible through it, and was apt as the BFI were showing Duncan Jones’s Moon the film as the late-night screening.
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There was a sci-fi playlist compiled by Mark and decorations to create a sci-fi atmosphere.
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Feedback from the audience proved that there was something there for everyone.
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The Sunday had a different feel than the Saturday, but equally had a great buzz.
There was table for a ‘making station’ which ended up being extended as there were so many children and adults creating masks, figures and pictures with materials we had given them.

There were also a range of Hackspace instruments installed around the bar area, which were really fun to interact with. A robot that could take a picture of you, and then draw a Shrigley-esque portrait from the photograph was a great hit.

The ping-pong table was a constant feature again throughout the Saturday and it was interesting to see a different aged audience have great fun- it proved UV ping-pong really is for everyone.

Laura Kriefman showed her ‘Kicking the Mic’ performance, an interactive set including the use of contact mics to create a sound- respondent dance-floor.

There were interactive games by a Contributor-Alex Latham. ‘Gorb the Cyborg’ which involved a puzzle in a very make-shift environment

Bristol-Con also featured in the day with discussions about the future and with general panel discussions.

Unfortunately our photographer fell sick on the Sunday, so I don’t have any pictures right now, but I will edit this post soon.

Tonight is the final meeting with the Watershed Future Producer’s team and I’m very excited to talk to everyone again for the first time since the event.

First Blog Post

What a wonderful couple of weekends with the Future Producer’s I have had, even if punctuated with small bouts of illness and delirium.

I have somehow managed to absorb so much information already, as well as kick around a lot of baby-new ideas and eat really great free food. I’ve also had the opportunity to listen to amazing talks by very knowledgeable and charismatic people; those that have come in from outside the programme and many that are part of the programme themselves. I am constantly witnessing my team-mates conjure up amazing ideas, questions and conversation and we all seem to have cameloid abilities, which is super. I certainly, a couple of years ago would not have been able to talk in front of a group of people and actually say words in the correct order, with sentence structure, without throwing up and wanting to set fire to everything, but this experience is enabling me to evolve and learn the skills, so that’s something that’s been great for me.

During the first weekend we were the audience to Sarah Ellis, a digital producer for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She spoke about the work she had undertaken, her process and the many different roles that are involved with being a producer. She made it very clear about how crucial considering the audience is in every-step of the process. This notion has been re-iterated throughout the weekends & it may seem obvious, but there are many small areas where you can get carried away, and the audience left behind without realising. Sarah illustrated a project that she was part of and I was intrigued by the use of social media and integrating mobile phone use within the performance and have begun sketching out ideas how this could also be added to Fun Palaces, a strand I’ve chosen to work on.

Another great workshop that occurred in the first weekend explored experience design. This was led by Tom Metcalfe. It was the first real time we had in groups to generate and explore ideas using a post-it note and brainstorming activity. It was really useful and also really great seeing the many themes that were being considered by all groups. It also showed, how, when broken into a group; each finds its own formula. One would have 12 or so vague ideas that got condensed into one or two very clear outlined ideas, and others would be very specific themes that developed into more vague and larger topics. All were unique from the other, but provided great results.

During the Sunday of the first weekend we were introduced to the strands and took part in workshops which explored each one in an interactive and creative way. Charades and Pictionary was played for the BFI strand, an app that was in its development stages was a fun game for the family arts festival, and for the Fun Palaces strand we were able to get a first glimpse at the public’s responses to what they wanted to see at the event. This workshop got me feeling excited and inspired me to pitch for the event the following weekend. But only just. I found it hard to put BFI down.

The following week we were given the task of writing our pitches to perform in front of Katherine Jewkes, Matthew Austin, Victoria Tillotson, Laura Kriefman, Jess, Hannah and Roseanna as well as the rest of the future producers. Unfortunately from around Thursday I was cast down by an evil bug and didn’t end up putting full effort into my pitch,writing it grey-faced and sickly. I managed to pitch nonetheless and unfortunately had to leave the rest of the session for sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and..

The following morning I was back in my usual body and wobbly head and I managed to slip right back into the programme. It started with a talk from Kim Plowright about Project Endings and Emotional Journeys and I found what she was saying very interesting. I feel like she removed some rose-tinted lenses I was wearing and gave us some realities behind the job, at the beginning this worrying for me but by the end of the talk, it was very beneficial. Being realistic about the role as well as about what you’re producing will prove the best results. She also asked us to deliver a story & a process about an event or app etc that we had been to/used recently. This process allowed us to visualise the different steps behind realising them and it opened up the journey the creators and users go on, there were elements to this I had not considered but will do so from now on. (what happens after the event, when the user can be forgotten, being afraid to delete or not sign up etc)

During the latter of the day we formed back into our strand groups and got stuck into ideas and considerations for the event and for the coming Wednesday, a night where we have the opportunity to speak with possible partners, volunteers and enthusiasts. I thoroughly enjoyed this very much, but on reflection worry that my enthusiasm and coming out of the sick zone made me a little too excitable and loud spoken throughout the task. I hope everyone involved felt like we got somewhere with our process and had opportunity to express what they wanted to see. I certainly felt very positive about the whole thing.

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And that’s my first blog post.