News

This week we hit an amazing 20,000 player messages for Hello Lamp Post, announced a new funded REACT PhD opportunity, and have three panels in South By Southwest’s PanelPicker. Read on to find out more:   

With your help some of the Studio’s brightest ideas and talent will have a chance to head over to Austin, Texas to take part in South by Southwest (SXSW), the global conference that brings together people doing interesting things with technology for a packed programme of panels and debate. We’ve submitted three panels into the mix this year; Playable City versus Smart Cities, Co-Creating Reality: Future Documentary, and Future Books: never the same story twice, so please have a read about them here and get commenting and voting before 6 September.

Excitingly we also found out this week that players of Hello Lamp Post have sent over 20,000 text messages to street furtinure around Bristol as part of our Playable City Award commission. The Hello Lamp Post website allows you to browse some of the questions and answers posed by lamp posts and other objects, so take a peek at some of the conversations taking place here. Earlier this month the project creators blogged about what some of their favourite responses were - the ones that have made them smile the most while moderating content. You can read them here. There’s just under two weeks until Hello Lamp Post comes to a close in Bristol so if you haven’t woken up any street furniture in Bristol yet why not check out the website now for instructions.

We’re very excited to announce that REACT and the CREATE Lab in the Department of Psychology, University of Bath, are inviting applications for a three year PhD Studentship in Human Computer Interaction and Experience Design in the Internet of Things. This PhD position will be based here in the Studio and the Department of Psychology at The University of Bath, which has a strong research emphasis on human computer interaction and technology enhanced learning. The PhD will begin with an in-depth engagement with REACT’s Objects Sandbox scheme. The student will collaborate with the funded teams to inform and evaluate cutting-edge projects in this fast-moving sphere. The successful candidate will be supported for three years of full-time study, and the award will include a £13,726 annual stipend and fees. Full details of the opportunity and how to apply are here.

Places are also filling up super quickly for REACT’s Object Sandbox Ideas Lab in Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter.  Objects Sandbox will fund six ground-breaking collaborations between creative companies and academic researchers around human-experiences within the Internet of Things.  Each collaboration will receive £50,000 and the opportunity to work intensively on their idea over three months, starting in March 2014. The scheme has extraordinary advisers from across the world of design, technology and Internet of Things and REACT is anticipating some brilliant competition. You can find out more information about the scheme, sign up to an Ideas Lab and find out how to apply here.

Then coming up in September REACT are partnering with Media Futures to put on a special event in London in September: Publish! New Adventures in Innovation. The event is a day of discussion and demonstration that will showcase cutting edge prototypes in the changing publishing industry. Our Books & Print projects will be there to showcase their work and take part in the event. Full info on ticketing and the programme can be found at the Publish! website

Also this week our lovely Craft + Technology resident Heidi Hinder has been awarded funding from The Awesome Foundation, who award $1,000 grants every month to projects they think deserve a cash injection. Heidi Hinder was awarded one of three Craft + Technology research residencies, in order to develop her proposal for exploring the Internet of Things; smart technology embedded into everyday objects. Heidi researched the far-reaching themes of money and value in ‘Money No Object’, producing innovative new work at the dynamic intersection of material making and digital interaction. She now plans to take this project further by introducing it to a museum ecosystem as an entertaining method of fun(d)-raising. You can watch a video about Money No Object here.

Lastly Verity has been busy lining up some fantastic Lunchtime Talks coming up over the next few months. Our first ‘Sex & History, playing with the past’ will be on the 13th September. The Sex & History project is funded and supported by REACT to research how historical erotic objects and cultural scenarios can be used in the classroom to get kids talking about usually taboo subjects, all in the name of improving sex education. We'll be joined by Kate Fisher and Rebecca Langlands, world leaders in the history of sexuality and by Sophie Sampson an award winning interactive educational games specialist. Kate, Rebecca and Sophie will explain how they met, their inspiration, how they went about user testing, what they found out and what they hope to do next. You can find out more here.