There are less than two weeks to apply to this year’s Playable City Award, which offers £30K and support to realise an idea that places people at the heart of future cities. The word is spreading about the Playable City concept, and the British Council have invited Playable City Producer, Hilary O’Shaughnessy to research the possibility of Playable City Lagos, meeting up with the team from Co-Creation Hub in Nigeria's vibrant capital in a month’s time.

Residents Calvium have been working with UCAN Productions, developing an indoor way-finding app. UCAN Go will help visually impaired people access arts venues across the country, and is now live on the app store. Charlie, Calvium’s Marketing and Opperations manager has written a blog about the app.

Residents Davy and Kristin McGuire have just released a trailer for their stunning, battery powered Theatre Book, which they have developed in collaboration with The RSC, supported by REACT. While turning the pages of the Theatre Book, the reader will trigger different scenes of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which are projection mapped onto beautifully crafted pop-up stage sets.

Theatre Book - Macbeth from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.

Seth Jackson, Tom Metcalfe, Satragni Sarkar and the rest of the Strange Thoughts team have embarked on a rapid prototyping session this week, building the latest iteration of Homer 2.0, a mind-controlled, pint-pouring robot. The robot will debut at April’s Beer Innovation Summit in Birmingham. Seth is giving a talk at the summit, pinpointing the dos and don'ts of social media and giving delegates tips on creating stand-out digital marketing strategies. Tom has been building a beer cart, to carry the keg and the robot around.

Vice Magazine’s food channel, Munchies has written a great article on resident James Wheale’s project, Understory, which combines storytelling, technology, gastronomy and neuroscience. James has been collaborating with neuroscientists from Bristol University, using EEG brain scanners to investigate how storytelling can affect the flavours we experience. 

Mandy Rose spoke on a panel around ‘The Art, Ethics and Technology of Documentary Co-Creation’ at MIT last week, alongside award winning documentary director, Katerina Cizek, director of Highrise. The panel explored the history and potential of creating documentaries with people, not just about them, and how collaborating with citizens, social scientists, technologists and artists can create artful meaning and inspire political action. If you’re interested in the subject of collaborative film making, Mandy Rose conducted a really interesting interview with Kat Cizek which touches on the subject. She posted a write-up on the Collabdocs website.

Jess Linington and Constance Fleuriot are setting up a local Girl Games meet up; a chance for women from Bristol and the South West to share ideas and make games, whether they're in the industry already or want to get into it. They are also planning to run some workshops, possibly starting with Unity. Sign up for the first meet up here.