Week commencing 26 November:

The last few months have flown by in the Studio, and we can’t quite believe we’re into December already! With the festive spirit spreading around the studio we want to share with you some of the fantastic projects and events our wonderful residents are working on:

Sharon Clark and Tom Burton have been continuing work on The Stick House. Having secured funding from the Arts Council of England to complete their research and development, they've been working in the Studio with producer Maggie Dunning and a creative team of eleven collaborators including resident Tim X Atack. They are now fully in production mode and working towards a showing of the work early next year. They are researching how psychological effectors, such as low-level noise, lighting, touch and feel, in combination with pervasive technologies, can create more immersive experiences. We’ll let you know in our blog and newsletter when the dates of the performance are, so keep an eye out.  

Verity was kept busy answering last minute questions and enquiries about our Playable City Award. The 30k award was to produce a work which surprises, challenges and engages people in exploring the playable city. The deadline has now passed for applications but later in December we will be posting a shortlist on the Playable City website and inviting comments on the shortlisted projects before judging. The award is co-funded by a network of organisations who exemplify Bristol’s strength in Creative Technologies and Verity published an article about the process and award partners ‘Plays well with others’ on the Playable City website here.   

You might remember that a couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to have Fred Deakin in the Studio to give a Lunchtime Talk. Fred spoke to us about creating interactive spaces in various realms: online through his design agency Airside's work, in live environments via his club nights and concerts by his band Lemon Jelly, and by producing interactive installations specifically for art spaces. Well we’ve now published a write-up of his talk, which you can read here.

Michael from JA has returned to the Studio after a month in America and is continuing to work on his Citizen Space Exploration and the Personal Space Age project. He is going to be running a KickStarter campaign to sponsor a mission to send up to 8000 Thin-Film Spacecraft/Lander/Rover ‘Scouts’ to the moon. He is working in the Studio to try and find ways to incorporate social, education and gaming activities throughout development and the mission.  We will be bringing you up to date developments with the project through our blogs so stay tuned over the next month to find out more about this very exciting project! Michael gave a Lunchtime Talk on the project a couple of months ago, which you can read about here.

Richard and Jo from Calvium headed over to Truro in Cornwall to hold an app sprint with the theatre company Kneehigh to explore how they can develop an app around their project The Kneehigh Rambles. After awful flooding on the train lines, the journey took a mammoth eight hours, but eventually they arrived and had a great day working with Kneehigh. You can find out more about Calviums app sprints on their website here.  

nu desine have been working away on the production for the AlphaSphere, and after extensive design and development they are finally on the cusp of unleashing the first AlphaSphere elite units onto the planet. Very excitingly the first elite units will be shipping to individuals as far apart as the US, UK, Sweden, Spain and Japan. You can find out more about the progress of their journey from conception to production on their website and blog here!

On Thursday the Studio held interviews for our new communicating science residency in conjunction with IOP Publishing . The residency offers a new graduate, early stage researcher or startup company the opportunity to spend supported time at Pervasive Media Studio, to research a new project at the intersection of art, technology and science. We haven’t announced who will be joining us just yet but we’re very excited, so look out for info in the next few weeks.     

Lastly Friday night brought City Running, part of a series of commissions exploring Bristol Temple Quarter designed to surprise, question and delight. A new collaborative initiative co-ordinated by Watershed with funding from Arts Council England, City Running invited 30 artists from all disciplines set out to rediscover a neglected part of the city they call home. At 9pm the artists headed off into the Enterprise Zone armed with pens, paper, cameras and other materials to collect, document and record. Then at 10pm they returned to base camp and had just two hours to make an entirely new artwork. People were invited to come along, watch the artists create and then see a showing of the work at midnight. It was a great chance to see a really diverse crowd come together to see what could be created in such a short space of time! You can find out more about the Temple Quarter commissions here, and MAYK who produced the event here.