Week commencing 30 July:

With the Olympic games now in full swing we can’t help but wish they’d brought back some of the weird and fantastic sports that used to be included in the early 1900’s. We’d definitely tune in for Tug Of War, the Long Jump for Horses or the Swimming Obstacle Race! Last week we fitted in some essential Olympic viewing around the exciting seminars, meetings and new faces in the Studio.

On Monday morning we were joined by our newest Studio Resident Tom Mitchell. Tom is a computer scientist, researcher and electronic musician lecturing computer music at the University of the West of England, Bristol. His interests cover many aspects of adaptive sound design and interactive musical performance/composition. He’s worked in the Studio before on danceroom Spectroscopy so we’re very excited that he’s become a resident.

On Monday afternoon the Studio played host to an Anchor Partnership meeting between the BBC, The University of the West of England and the University of Bristol about a week long programme of activities that will take place in January. The Anchor Partnership was set up to bring together the wealth of talent across the West so look out for more exciting details soon.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Tom and Verity worked with Tine to set up an indoor positioning system in the Studio. The system will be used to do some testing for Tines new piece for the Victoria and Albert Museum. We’ve heard rumours of superheroes and capes, so we’re looking forward to swishing around the kitchen shortly!

On Thursday afternoon Verity and Tim spoke to the wonderful folk from National Theatre Wales about their exciting new project De Gabay, focusing on the tradition of poetry with young Somali poets. In evening Ukie (The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment) hosted a brilliant video games tax breaks seminar at the Studio.

With less than two weeks to go until Mail Maps and Motion, we’re getting super excited in the Studio. Joanie is working on the project in the Studio with intern Virginie Serneels who is a lighting designer and Morgan Lemercier who studies Architecture. This week Joanie’s had some more computers delivered which has really speed up the rendering process, Morgan’s been creating 3D models and Virginie has been getting to grips with the lighting programme vvvv. Tickets for Mail Maps and Motion have now sold out but look out for some special giveaways that will be happening this week.     

Calvium have been busy preparing for their app workshops; they are offering arts organisations and museums the opportunity to attend one of three workshops in the South West, exploring how to develop compelling, content-rich mobile phone applications to enhance the digital capacity of each organisation. The workshops are nearly sold out, but you can find more information here. Calvium have also generated over 90 new trails for Treasure Trails, an app they developed that makes exploring easier and you can listen to Jo speak on the Arts Council’s Digital R&D podcast about mobile and location-based technology and gaming here.

Charlotte Croft’s Curzon Memories App, which provides a tour of the inside and outside of the Curzon cinema was featured on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours. Charlottes has written a blog post about it.

Verity has been working with the Studio Residents to find a brilliant new start up company to replace the wonderful Red Wasp who are moving on to set up their own premises later this month. We are therefore looking for an unusual and inspiring digital, mobile or games start up company to take up residence in the Pervasive Media Studio for at least 6 months. If this sounds like your company find out how to apply here.

Remember there’s no Open Studio Friday’s or Lunchtime Talks during August but Verity’s been busy preparing an awesome programme of talks for September so you can have a look on the events page here to find out what’s coming up.