First Friday is a monthly social event open to anyone. These events are somewhere between the last meeting of the week and the first event of your weekend. You might meet an artist or an engineer, a school teacher or a city leader. It is a place to connect with someone you might not otherwise meet, and hear about stuff you didn’t already know. All are welcome - from inside and outside the city, online or in the Watershed building.

FEBRUARY'S EVENT

First Friday - Pervasive Media Studio’s 15th Birthday Special

Fri 3 February 2023, 5 - 7pm, Pervasive Media Studio & Online

A birthday special of Watershed’s monthly social event, First Friday. We’ll be sharing a selection of Studio projects from 2008 to the present day! Everyone's welcome.

This event will take place both in Pervasive Media Studio and online. 

People joining online can participate in short speed networking conversations, facilitated by our chat roulette style software. You will be paired up at random for a series of five minute conversations, one-to-one with other guests. There is an option to take a break between each chat and you are welcome to pop in and out whenever you like. It's fine to join the event late and leave the event early.

People joining us in person will have the opportunity to have a look around Pervasive Media Studio and to find out more about some of the work that happens here. There will also be some equipment set up to chat with people joining the event remotely. 

Residents sharing work include:

  • Constance Fleuriot (Pretty Digital) is an artist/writer who has been involved in Pervasive Media Studio since its conception. These days she mostly spends her time writing and making games. She will be showcasing the pc/mac version of Wonzie World, a gently subversive game for intergenerational co-operative play that encourages children to say No.
  • Tom Abba / DCRC sharing Ambient Literature - a two-year collaboration between UWE Bristol, Bath Spa University and the University of Birmingham, established to investigate the locational and technological future of the book.The project is focused on the study of emergent forms of literature that make use of novel technologies and social practices in order to create robust and evocative experiences for readers.  
  • Fozia Ismail and Ayan Cilmi (Dhaqan Collective) will be sharing their current project Audible Tapestries, which focuses on finding new ways to combine sound with physical woven artefacts. The project explores the links between Somali nomadic weaving patterns and the songs that are an inherent part of the crafting process. Their practice asks and seeks to find ways of building imaginative futures that support Somali people here and in East Africa to resist the threats over their cultural heritage.
  • Duncan Speakman creates narrative sound led experiences that engage audiences in uncontrolled public and private space. His current research is in the relationship between locative urban audio experiences and contemporary ecology, wrapping the questions in melancholy and romance. Here he will present some of his hybrid print/audio projects along with documentation of his recent award winning augmented audio work ‘Only Expansion’.  
  • Eirini Lampiri is a Creative Director and Production Designer with background in filmmaking, extended realities, installation and performance art. Eirini will be sharing footage and props from the Mixed Reality Interactive Experience prototype Cognition.
  • Tim Kindberg is a science fiction writer and digital creative who makes applications and platforms to empower people through participation, and strengthen communities through collective action. He will be demonstrating Sust: a digital platform for empowering consumers to make more sustainable fashion choices, and motivating brands to produce more sustainable fashion products. 
  • Theatre company Uninvited Guests will share material documenting their participatory performance which lets audiences imagine the future of their city using various emergent technologies. Originally developed as part of Theatre Sandbox in 2010 and reworked for Layered Realities in 2018 the project has taken on many forms including micro-projectors, augmented reality and spatial sound. They are now developing the Future Places Toolkit that allows the work to be used by communities in planning processes. 
  • Shrouk El-Attar is an artist, belly dancer and drag performer, engineer and LGBT refugee from Egypt. They will be sharing work they developed during a Winter Residency at Pervasive Media Studio, where they brought together engineering and drag performance to create a belly-dancing robot.
  • Air Giants are sharing Ferns, a morphing installation of four 2m tall soft robots. Their movement is organic and undulating; curling up to half their height, or stretching open. The robotic creatures are made from fabric, valves, air and clever computing.
  • Zoe Rasbash, Environmental Emergencies Action Researcher at Watershed, will be around to talk about the Creative Climate Action Toolkit designed specifically to support smaller businesses, organisations, collectives and freelancers to act on climate.
  • Theatre maker and inclusive performance practitioner, Rowan James, will be sharing some of their work involving haptic technology and creating multi-sensory accessible experiences for music events and more.

The hosted element of the event will finish at 7pm. After that, in person attendees are welcome to continue conversations in Watershed's cafe bar area.

In case you want to make a night of it, the Bristol Light Festival starts on the same evening https://bristollightfestival.org

BOOKING INFO

To join us online sign up here. You will be asked for your email address so we can send you your personal link. Please try and use either Chrome or Firefox on your computer (rather than a mobile device).

If you are attending in person, there is no need to pre-book. Head to our main cafe bar area, buy a drink if you want to, and then follow directions down to Pervasive Media Studio.



ABOUT PERVASIVE MEDIA STUDIO

The Pervasive Media Studio hosts an international community of over 100 artists, companies, technologists, and academics exploring experience design and creative technology. We are a space for risk taking and early ideas; for the kind of projects and questions that inhabit the meeting points of art, technology, and society.

Our projects span play, robotics, location-based media, food, connected objects, interactive documentary, new forms of performance and more.

We have an open plan studio with a culture if generosity, curiosity, and interruptibility. We believe that by clustering people together from a broad range of backgrounds, with differing skills, experience, and opinions, all of our ideas become better.

Pervasive Media Studio is a collaborative research and development space run in partnership between Watershed, UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol. 

Join the First Friday mailing list here.

This event is supported by MyWorld.

 

Accessibility

The PM Studio is wheelchair accessible and there is an accessible and gender neutral toilet. There is also a baby change area.

 

We have a dedicated quiet room where there is low lighting, sofas, bean bags and space to lie down. This is away from the general open space of the Studio.

 

If drop in events aren't accessible for you, please email studio@watershed.co.uk to book in. When you book in, we will link you up with a member of our team who will reach out to find out where you would like them to meet you and what time you will arrive. That team member can also arrange a time for you to visit the Studio for a 1-2-1 tour so you can familiarise yourself with our space before attending. We have a dedicated quiet space and dedicated quiet desks area, which all visitors are welcome to use.