We’ve had something of an international exchange in the Studio over the past couple of weeks.

Last week we hosted technologists from YCAM (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media) along with their RAM (Reactor for Awareness in Motion) motion capture tool. We produced a series of workshops to experiment with the capabilities and potential of the RAM system as a tool for choreography with a cohort of creative practitioners. The workshops culminated in a Lunchtime Talk on Friday which had a fantastic turn out of 70 people! Dancers Lisa May Thomas and Chryssa Varna demonstrated how the tool records their movements through 18 sensors and gives visual feedback it in realtime on a screen. Find out more about this fascinating exploration in our write-up.

Almost as soon as we’d waved goodbye to our friends from YCAM, we sent our own Clare Reddington and David Haylock to Tokyo with Chomko & Rosier, where they have spent the week installing Shadowing (Playable City 2014 Winner) ready for the city’s Media Ambition Festival on 26 February – now in it’s 4th year. Studio producer Verity McIntosh joins them next week to see the installation through to its launch.

Playable City producer Hilary O’Shaughnessy is making a preliminary trip to Nigeria next week, ahead of Playable City Lagos workshops. We’ve now announced the participants for the project, which include Studio resident Simon Johnson. The creatives will work together to exchange ideas and test prototypes that respond to the themes of Playable City that will culminate in showcase in March.

In tech news, we’ve been delighted to have Nikki Pugh back in the Studio working on her ongoing project ‘Colony’. Nikki, who first came to the Studio in 2012 to take part in iglab, exploring participatory activities involving small groups of people. She is particularly looking at the interaction between participants and their city, and how they interact and navigate within it. In the Studio she has been collaborating with technologist Tarim to create the 2nd iteration of Colony – developing the second of two behaviours of her ‘critters’ (slug-shaped creatures). This involves using GPS to suggest lonliness amongst the critters when they stray too far from their group. You can read more about the testing of this via Nikki’s blog.

Finally, in quite notable news, REACT comes to the end of it’s 4 year period at the end of next week. We can hardly believe how fast this has come about. The team have conducted final interviews with many of the contributors and have been compiling the final reports. As we wave off a fantastic programme, we prepare for a new phase of research with UWE, Ambient Literature, led by Tom Abba. You can read the write up of the Lunchtime Talk he gave recently, setting the scene for this new and exciting project. We will have more information on the development of Ambient Literature soon.