Brigstow is a University of Bristol institute that rose from the ashes of the REACT project dedicated to getting academia and businesses working together. It recently had it's official launch, held at Wills Memorial Building, Bristol, where it exhibited the large body of works that have gained funding from their first bout of seed-corn projects. Amongst the artists and researchers showcasing work were a number of our own Studio residents. 

Showcasing existing projects were Chloe Meineck who had her Trove box set up for exploration, Stand + Stare were supplying demos of their product Mayfly, and Heidi Hinder, Ki Cater and Helen Manchester exhibited an assortment of relics from their Tangible Memories project.

In addition to these, Rosie Poebright and Kev Kirkland had produced new work upon being granted access to the large repertoire of archives at the Bristol Records Office. Rosie acquired a large red post box that she filled with tech, in order to display her Wish You Were Here postcard project, created in collaboration with historian Robert Bickers. Meanwhile, Kev, working with law scholar Professor Antonia Layard and local historian Alex Craven, harnessed data to map the changing histories of public and private space in Bristol over two centuries and explore some of the complex issues affecting access, movement and control within the city.

New work was also submitted by Peter Bennett and James Wheale who have been exploring how bottles might provide interactive interfaces for engaging with issues of overconsumption in their project Interactive Playable Bottles. The project left them gasping for air as a fundamental part of their work involved blowing into bottle tops to produce sound frequencies.

As if tooting bottles hadn't kept him busy enough, James Wheale of Understory, along with his colleague Annie Zimmerman, recently recorded a 15-minute Four Thought snippet for Radio Four. You can listen to the show here.

Playable City celebrated the announcement of the 2016 award winner in a launch last Thursday. We are delighted to be welcoming in UK tech-consultancy company Hirsch and Mann into the Studio in the coming months to realise and produce their Stop Smile Stroll project in Bristol.

We've been overjoyed with the news that Watershed has obtained Ambition Funding from ACE National, to support it's Creative Producer Programme in conjunction with Playable City. This exciting development marks an initiative to get practising producers on board with the Playable City concept and it's internationalisation.

In other Playable City news, the award's first winner, Hello Lamppost, has just been installed in London. If you missed this experience the first time around, we urge you to pop along to Olympic Park to see it in action. 

Hello Lamp Post - London from PAN Studio on Vimeo.

Reimaginers of literature, Circumstance, have just released a new hybrid physical/digital book project called ‘Six conversations’. Written by Duncan Speakman and Tineke de Meyer, with contributions from Simon Moreton, Jessica Macdonald and Sarah Anderson, Six Conversations is a hand-made limited edition set of books that work in harmony with a custom made mobile application. You can read more about this work and order your copy here. 

If you can't spare the cash for this, you can always opt for a free taste of Circumstance's work in the form of ‘yesterday you’re still dreaming’ - a work of Ambient Literature commissioned as part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas programme on 12 November. 

Digital media artist, Rik Lander and Dr. Patrick Crogan, Associate Professor of Digital Cultures at UWE are teaming up with Phil D Hall of the natural language processing company, Elzware to take a scratch version of the participatory theatrical experience, Job Vacancy: Echoborg to the State Festival in Berlin on 4-5 November. This has come about through an invitation from Teresa Dillon, Watershed Professor of City Futures, UWE.

This piece, devised by Rik, was first tested in the Studio in March 2016. For participants it involves a one-to-one conversation with an artificial intelligence via an Echoborg. An Echoborg is a human who repeats the words of an AI. The encounter is an experiential exploration of our anxieties about automation and AI, and is heavily informed by the Syrian war and the refugee crisis. We will keep you informed of any scratch performers closer to home if you can't make the festival!