Week commencing 20 August:

Last weekend saw See No Evil kick off in style on Friday night with the Mail, Maps and Motion at the Passenger Shed. On Saturday, a massive party on Nelson Street showcased this years breath-taking graffiti commissions and Sunday saw the street transformed again with a chilled busking day. It’s been an unusually quiet week in the Studio as people have been heading off for some well-deserved breaks, but as always we’ve got some exciting news to share:

Tickets are now on sale for the REACT Heritage showcase at Watershed on Friday the 28 September. REACT- a collaboration led by UWE Bristol and Watershed - has recently supported six Heritage Sandbox projects which explore digital technologies in museums, parks, gardens and even cemeteries. Heritage Sandbox has enabled the transformation of brilliant ideas into new prototype products, experiences and services. The event will include films showcasing the six commissions, a chance to hear from some of REACT's other heritage projects and an open discussion addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by the emerging possibilities. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance here. It’s set to be a really interesting and inspiring day, so reserve your ticket before they all go!

We’re also very pleased to announce that on the 5 and 6 October, budding games developers and designers from across the UK are invited to take part in a 24 hour Games Jam at either the Science Museum in London or here in the Studio. Open to teams and individuals, the Games Jam will be led by expert bio-medical scientists from the Wellcome Trust, who will reveal a theme at the start of the 24 hour period during which participants will work round the clock to create a brand new, playable game. The Studio will be linked up to the Science Museum by a live audio-visual feed, and excitingly the winners of the Games Jam will be in with a chance to showcase at this year's ExPlay Festival in Bath. You can find out more information and register your interest for the Games Jam here.

This week, Tom Rawlings from game design company Red Wasp wrote a guest article for PocketTatic. In it Tom describes their recent collaboration with The Wellcome Trust and how they worked to improve the medical accuracy of their latest release. You can read his fascinating article, ‘Gaming the Medical: Upgrading the Authenticity in Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land’ here.

REACT still need your votes for the panels they have entered onto SWSXi PanelPicker; Platforms for Haunting and Hacking the University. We also have an additional, awesome Studio panel that needs your vote: Comfort in Chaos led by residents David Glowacki and Laura Kriefman. This panel will explore their amazing science meets art project ‘Hidden Fields’, one of the first successful fusions of dance with complex quantum mechanics to drive public interaction & generative music. It would be a brilliant chance for them all to showcase their work internationally, so please vote for Platforms for Haunting here, Hacking the University here and Comfort in Chaos here.

In other news, Tarim has been working with Rik Lander on his big screen Interactive game. It’s all very exciting and we’ll let you know more as the project develops.

nu desine are thrilled that music producer GAUDI will be taking the AlphaSphere on tour all over the world, climaxing in a performance at the pyramids of Giza during winter solstice! You can watch a video of GUADI with the AlphaSphere here. Their remarkable instrument is also in the running for Design of the Year for the Stuff Gadget Awards 2012, so please take a few seconds to vote for them here.

There are no Open Studio Friday’s or Lunchtime Talks during August, but we kick off again on 7 September with a talk from the awesome guys from Slingshot about the success of 2.8 hours later and the challenges they now face creating the ‘difficult second album.’ Tickets for Igfest; their interesting games festival are now on sale here.