Weekly Blog: 26/08/13 - 30/08/13

It’s been an exciting week in the Studio as Installation is underway for Submergence; a stunning reactive light artwork and the Great George bell has joined in with some Hello Lamp Post fun. Read on to find out more:  

We’re super excited to announce that Submergence, a large-scale installation resembling an ocean of light will be opening to the public on the 13 September. Visitors will experience a virtual world, where pixels on a screen are replaced by thousands of points of light floating in space. Created by award-winning digital artists Squidsoup, who are resident artists in the Studio, Submergence has never been seen before in the UK. With two successful international showings at the Geneva Mapping Festival and in Oslo, this remarkable creation is finally ready to land back in Bristol for its UK premiere. You can find Submergence in The Eye, beautifully placed overlooking the water on Glass Wharf, just over the bridge from the lively Creative Common and Temple Meads Station. For a map and opening times visit the Watershed website here.

This week Great George, the University of Bristol’s nine-and-a-half-ton bell, will be revealing more about its hidden life in the tower of the Wills Memorial Building as it becomes the latest addition to the city’s Hello Lamp Post! project. The project was designed to help local residents rediscover their local environment by inviting people to tune in and communicate through street furniture and inanimate objects across the city, including lamp posts, bus stops, post boxes and now the country’s sixth largest bell. You can find out more about Great George’s hidden life by texting 'Hello Great George #1924' to the phone number 0117 325 9898. There is now only just under a week left to play Hello Lamp Post, the first commission of Bristol’s Playable City Award, so make sure you have a go before 8 September. To find out how to play visit hellolampost.co.uk and watch the project film on DShed.

Studio resident Tim Kindberg has just confirmed his Encounters session on the 18 September about his REACT funded project The Nth Screen in collaboration with Charlotte Crofts and Hazel Grain. Nth Screen films are made up of individual videos that play simultaneously across collections of mobiles and tablets. Think multiscreen, but now in the hands of an audience who can play with the screens, moving them around to make their own juxtapositions as well as those imagined by the filmmaker. In the session there will be a chance to play and watch the Nth Screen together, and discuss the potential for this new form of short film. Find out more on the Encounters site.   

Ad Spiers’ light up milk bottle installation MilkPixel (watch a video here) and his and Coco Sato’s awesome Origami Foxes returned from Shambala Festival this weekend and are already heading for their next festival installation at ArcTanGent in Bristol. You can find out more about both the projects on Ads website here.

We’re looking forward to September 13 when our programme of Lunchtime Talks kick off again after our Summer break. We have some fantastic ones lined up which you can find our about on our events page here and our first is Sex & History, playing with the past - which will explore how can the erotic objects of the distant past help us to talk about sex today? 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. Find out more here.

Finally don’t forget that 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.) This year we have submitted three panels into the mix; Playable City versus Smart Cities, Co-Creating Reality: Future Documentary, and Future Books: never the same story twice. Find out more and vote before the 6 September.