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.

 

November 2023 event

The next First Friday will take place both in Pervasive Media Studio and online on Fri 3 November 17:00-18:00. Our November event is presented in collaboration with Digital Catapult.

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.

As well as the chance to socialise in the Studio, attendees joining the event in person will also get to see a selection of work by some of the teams who were awarded funding through the first MyWorld Challenge and CR&D Calls led by Digital Catapult and also by UKAI, who are visiting the UK from Toronto. 

  • Larkhall (aka Charlie Williams) is the award-winning concert pianist and developer of the groundbreaking app, Shazam. Along with collaborator Drew Batchelor, he will be sharing Otto - his computer co-performer, which translates musical nuance into stunning visuals that dance in perfect harmony with sound.

 

  • Thomas Keane is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Meaning Machine - a game studio pushing the boundaries of what’s possible through generative AI. Tom will be bringing a playable demo of their interrogation game – DEAD MEAT. Can you manipulate a murder suspect into giving a confession? Prizes available for anyone who can do it in under two minutes. 

 

  • Bristol-based inertial sensor startup Zero Point Motion, in collaboration with the University of the West of England, will be sharing Digibeat, an experiment in simultaneous high-precision fingertip motion tracking and heart function measurement through ballistocardiography (BCG). At First Friday you can try out how Digibeat technology can feedback live into a VR environment whilst playing a custom-made experience, Wytch Glyph.

 

  • Ashley Gwinnell is a Bristol-based creative technologist and entrepreneur working in video games. Ashley will be sharing IMPRESS, a multi-faceted marketing toolkit enabling indie game developers to strengthen their online brand presence, discover and reach gaming influencers, and react to high-value community growth opportunities.

 

  • Professor Joseph Hyde is an artist and researcher, working across sound media and technology. Jo will be demonstrating prototype work for MyWorld project Celestial Live, where he has been developing techniques to operate drone light shows interactively in real-time, working particularly closely with music.

 

  • UKAI Projects is an arts organisation based in Canada that researches and prototypes culture for what’s coming. They will be sharing a few projects related to cultural infrastructure for a world of ecological and political volatility including experiments in highly local language models, decentralized collaborative tools, and an ontologically confused AI. Studio Lead Luisa Ji, Prototyping Lead Kasra Goodarznezhad, and Research Lead Jerrold McGrath will be on-hand to share and demonstrate current projects.

 

The hosted element of the event will finish at 6pm. After that, in person attendees are welcome to continue conversations in Watershed's cafe bar area.

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.

Join the First Friday mailing list here.

This event is supported by MyWorld.

 

 

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 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.

 

Access

Pervasive Media Studio is wheelchair accessible and there is an accessible and gender neutral toilet. There is also a baby changing 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.