Arts and digital technology joined forces on Saturday for a day of cultural experimentation at the Contact Theatre.
“Play Space is the perfect introduction to what Contact Theatre is all about and what we can do with technology,” said curator and DJ Baba Israel before he introduced a day of interactive happenings, electronic interventions, workshops, unconferences and creative collaborations.
Sarah Hartley from Guardian Local hosted an unconference on storytelling. She kicked off the discussion by talking about how stories can be crowdsourced, particularly when encouraging people to interact via maps. Later, Collette Curry introduced participants to the world of getting artificial intelligence (AI) to tell you a story.
Besides digital storytelling, there were workshops and talks on dance, music, games and visual arts. The emphasis was very much on the practical.
Various breakout workshops including testing your VJ skillz using Serato Scratch. Elsewhere people were using their ipod as a music studio and a group of dancers were trading moves with a New York dance studio for the evening performance.
Local digital hub The MadLab was present to show off gadgets built the centre’s regular users as well as introduce people to some of it’s more off-the-wall creative geekery.
Dr Erica Wright from MIRIAD gave a talk on curating art galleries in Second Life. Second Life has fallen out of favour with many who use the internet for social networking but Wright explained that the virtual world would soon becoming to the Web rather than having to download the software to participate, which may give the concept a fresh lease of life.
Other workshop leaders included Julian Hartley and Steve Devine on blending museum culture and networked culture, Professor Keith Brown on printing in 3D, Mike Cook on using electronics to alter household objects and Suhail Khan on whether Sesame Street offers a model for creativity.
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