With Christmas just around the corner we’ve combined two weeks worth of news into one very festive blog post, read on to find out about all the recent developments and exciting projects in the Studio:

Last week we were very pleased to announce the shortlist for the Playable City Award. The brief was to produce a work which surprises, challenges and engages people in exploring the playable city. The shortlist represents a mix of ideas, art forms, countries and technologies and presents a brilliant range of playful and playable interventions into the city. Incorporating everything from music to games to 3D printing, the shortlisted ideas utilise giant balloons, mystery umbrellas, running robots, singing buildings, body scanners and talking lampposts. We are inviting you to read through the summaries of all ten and leave your suggestions, support and questions in the comments boxes. Which projects would you be excited to play with? Which would work best in the city? What haven't they thought of? Have a read of all the projects here and leave some feedback here.

In keeping with the Award the Huffington Post UK posted an article written by Clare; 'What Can We Expect From Our Future Cities?' She argues that over half of the world's population can be found in cities and increasingly, they expect more from the place they live and work. How can we make cities more malleable, more hospitable places? In the future, playfulness, the creative expression of fun, will be key. Read the full article here.

Last week we also hosted a group of 22 A-level IT students from Saltash School. After giving them a taster of what we do, Clare talked them through the Playable City concept and then got them into groups to come up with their own playable city ideas. You can read more about the day in a blog Clare has posted here.

Then on Friday we were treated to a Lunchtime Talk and project demonstration by Studio resident, and artist Kathy Hinde who spoke about her latest project Vocal Migrations. Kathy has been researching and developing a new vocal work that combines live singing with electronically altered voices. The piece is inspired by how bats echo-locate by using sound to ‘see’ their surroundings and the project aims to employ bio-mimicry as a creative method.  You can read a write-up of the talk here.

Then straight after the lunchtime talk we cracked open the mulled wine and mince pies and started our very own Studio Christmas Grotto. Residents and the Studio team brought in games they’d made and we spent the afternoon having some festive fun in our very fetching Christmas jumpers! Juneau projects had us betting on Reindeer Racing Robots, Verity brought in a homemade arcade machine, Opposable Games made a board game version of their new game Clockwork Racers (more below), Tom introduced us to his ingenious ‘Colour Battle’, and nu desine built a snowman made up of AlphaSpheres. Santa’s little Hinderers (Vic, Dan & Nicola) also made two fabulous festive games, Santa vs Reindeers and He’s not heavy he’s your Santa, while Vanessa, Matt and Jo made a brilliant Nativity photo booth. It was fantastic to see so many of our residents come together and celebrate the end of a fantastic year!

Talking of festive fun, have you heard about a little something called Advent Locker? Advent Locker is an advent calendar treasure hunt set up by Tom Scott and our very own Creative Technologist Dan Williams. Every day between the 1 -24 of December they announce a code to get into an Amazon locker via twitter. The concept is simple, the first person to get to the locker with the code, wins the prize. It might be something simple like a Christmas decoration, a trinket, or some chocolate. But sometimes, it'll be something big: a toy, good books, or maybe even an iPod. Sounds good right? Well it’s not to late to play, follow @adventlocker on Twitter so you know when the code is announced, and check out their website for pictures of previous winners and their prizes here: http://www.adventlocker.com/

Want even more festive fun? Early this month Designer Natasha Lawless was in the studio working with Joanie Lemercier from world-renowned projection experts AntiVJ. They developed a beautiful animated wallpaper installation for an empty shop front in Bristol. The Christmassy mapped projections are located in The Arcade in Broadmead (in what used to be Starbucks) and can be seen every night from 4pm to 9pm until the end of December, so make sure you stop and have a look before it finishes.

Want a game to play on Christmas day? Well we’re very excited to announce that our lovely Studio residents Opposable Games have released their debut game, Clockwork Racers. It is a celebration of the best top-down racing games that children will love and adults remember fondly. Connecting via Bluetooth, Wifi and Airplay, up to four players can play the game with their own handsets to control the console-style race on a single shared screen, challenging one another around the track and competing in fastest-finger mini-challenges. It’s definitely one to be played with the family at Christmas! The game has been gathering some press this week and has even been mentioned on Hello magazines website, which you can see here.

Studio resident Nat from Opposable Games was also named one of Develop’s annual 30 under 30. The list honours people on the frontline of development who are shaping the games industry of tomorrow. You can find the list and more information about the award here.

This week it’s been confirmed that Tim is going to be running Culture Shift for the British Council in Nairobi in mid February, on the theme of the Digital Moving Image. You can find out more about culture shift on the British Councils website here.  

nu desine are full in production mode now and have just had a delivery of plastic parts to the Studio to go along with the massive amount of rubber they had delivered last week! Last week Adam headed to Sofia in Bulgaria to give a presentation and play at gig at Computer music festival. You can stay up to date with the AlphaSphere production process on their twitter account here.

Laura has just graduated from her fellowship at Clore. The Fellowship Programme aims to shape emerging creative leaders through in-depth learning, tailored as far as possible to the needs, aspirations and circumstances of about 25 individuals a year. This includes the visual and performing arts, film, heritage, museums, libraries and archives, creative industries and cultural policy and administration. You can find out more about Clore and the fellowship opportunities here.

Don’t forget that over the festive period we will be taking a break from our regular programme of lunchtime talks and there will be no Open Studio Friday. Join us in 2013, from 11 Jan for more ideas, insights and inspiration. To find out what talks we have upcoming check our events page here.

Lastly on behalf of the team and everyone in the Pervasive Media Studio community have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!