All good things come to an end, and never was a saying so true as we wave off our incredible cohort of Summer Residents as they come to the end of their stint with us in the Studio. To mark their time, give them a space to reflect on their progress and share their ideas, we organised the Summer Residencies Showcase that was held in Watershed on 22 September. 

The event was kicked off with our New & Emerging Talent Residents recounting their development. Roz Dean updated us on her thoughts on play, and Thomas Williams shared his inspiration for his light and sound installation. We were also lucky to receive a pre-recorded speech from Samantha Payne sent in from where she is currently based at the Disney Accelerator in LA - on behalf of Open Bionics, and specifically our resident in the Studio, Vitória Maurício, who unfortunately could not attend.

These insights were followed with a brilliant presentation from Pete Bennett of Resonant Bits, who had taken a micro-residency with the Studio to explore the concept and the scope of resonance.

We were then lucky enough to welcome back our Artist in Residence, Ashley James Brown, who took part in an excellent Q&A exchange with Clare Reddington, discussing Ashley’s practice and reflections. A film depicting the highlights of his residency, shot by resident Benjie Croce, can be viewed here:

We rounded up with drinks and the attendees being given the chance to interact with the residents and their projects, which ranged between scrapstore challenges, wearable synths and noise-altering devices to perceive different chewing sounds to what you’d expect (amongst many others). 

To conclude five years and over 50 projects, The Research & Enterprise in Arts & Creative Technology (REACT) hub are celebrating with an immersive exhibition. Titled ‘The Rooms’, the free festival will run between the 5-7 Nov, and will be situated in the characterful Old Firestation and Magistrates Courts in Bristol. Unsurprisingly given the name, the building will utilise the unique and individual ‘rooms’ to give space to the varied portfolio of projects that have gone through the REACT Sandbox programme. There will be an assortment of mystery treats and activities - from bio-activated mazes, film screenings, immersive performance and some amazing interactive installation and exhibition. We are all very excited about this event and could not recommend it enough to anyone who happens to be in Bristol that weekend.

We’ve popped Hilary O’Shaughnessy of the Playable City team onto a plane for her participation in this week’s Mutek Forum in Montreal, Canada. Mutek is a forum on current practices in Digital Creation in collaboration with the British Council. Whilst participating, Hilary will be introducing Canadian audiences to the Playable City concept with her presentation about the ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Producing Digital Art in Public Space’. 

Over the past couple of days, Watershed has been awash with delegates for this year’s No Boundaries Symposium on the role of arts and culture. The Studio is pleased to be involved in the conference – with residents Jen Bell (Jennifer Bell Company), Ian Danby (Circumstance) and Rosie Poebright (Splash & Ripple) all leading games and events. The event will be happening across Bristol (Watershed) and Home in Manchester, and we look forward to some great debates and sharing new ideas.

The Digital Cultures Research Centre are hosting a series of upcoming seminars, on the relatively new subject of ‘The Anthroposcene’ – a term used to described the new geological era we are currently in, characterised by the effects of human beings and our threat to biodiversity. Entitled in full as ‘The Anthropocene: Looking for the Emergency Exit’, the three discussions will be lead by prominent researchers from a range of arts and humanities disciplines. They begin this Thursday 1 October and run on various dates over the next few weeks. More information can be found here

Last week James Wheale of Understory began to share his interest in food, music and the brain in a packed out talk at At-Bristol Planetarium, and with a succession of video journals published to his website. Below are two recent uploads displaying an exciting and poetic glance at the extent of James’ research:

To conclude this post, I’d like to warmly welcome our two new faces, Alex Astin and Catherine Allen, who have recently joined as Studio Residents. Alex is a newly recruited ‘Future Fixer’ for Splash & Ripple, and Catherine is a digital producer who is setting up a new production company specialising in emotive 360, VR and immersive content.