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.

 

December 2023 event

The next First Friday will take place both in Pervasive Media Studio and online on Fri 1 December 17:00-18:00.



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 the teams who were awarded funding through the Grounding Technologies call, a project exploring how creative technology can bolster climate action in the West of England region.

  • Eyes on Bristol Airport

    Bristol Airport Action Network will be showing their new platform, an experimental project capturing flight and air traffic data to hold Bristol Airport accountable to its planning conditions & climate pledges. #EyesOnBristolAirport @EyesOnBAL
  • The Apothecary Network

    Marcus Berdaut will be demo-ing a new app, supporting a network of decolonial community apothecaries which center growing, herbology, community, collective care, joy, and connection with nature in radical, anti-racist ways and reclaim green spaces for themselves and their communities.
  • Focus, But where?

    The team will be showing two chapters of their playful interactive web-based game that explores the intersection between climate change activism and our complex media / information environment.
  • Garden Lab Whispers Grow

    The Knowle West Media Team will be reflecting on their project based on an allotment in Knowle West, investigating how new sensor technology can be combined with local, embodied and non-human knowledge to further climate action.
  • Greenbelt 2.0, Rings of Resilience Resistance + Renewal

    The team will be sharing the outcomes of their project collectively reimagining the use of Greenbelt around Bristol through co-created mapping and animation using data from communities. 
  • Where Do We Go When We ____,

    The team will be sharing their exploration into co-designing immersive spaces for nature connection for marginalised and neurodiverse communities.

 

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.

 

Grounding Technologies is a 6 month programme funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Department for Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS) as part of its Demonstrator programme. It is part of Bristol+Bath Creative R+D, a partnership programme that is part of the AHRC's Creative Industries Clusters Programme, and for this programme we’re also joined by the West of England Combined Authority.

Bristol+Bath Creative R+D is a collaboration between UWE Bristol, Bath Spa, University of Bath, University of Bristol and Watershed, which has spent five years working to create a more equitable environment for innovation to raise the bar for the region’s creative industries.

 

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.

 

Studio themes