Cupcakes by Curiositea

Yesterday’s TEDxYork conference at the Ron Cooke Hub orchestrated by Pilot Theatre and supported by Creative York, left me feeling exhilarated about future possibilities for the creative and arts industries in this new age of interactive, augmented and ubiquitous technology.  Tools are maturing and are becoming easier to use, more sophisticated and the era is moving beyond ‘technology for technology’s sake’ into one of a hugely expanded and accessible rich creative  palette, which can be used in multi-locations with many people,  shared instantaneously.  TEDxYork was an illustration of how important the Arts are to innovation and development,  as much as Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).  We spent the day putting the Arts into STEM (Hence a new STEAM age).

To me this is mindblowing!

Within 7 hours yesterday we communicated and shared ideas with Adelade-Au, Christchurch-NZ and Canada.  We experienced 360 degree gaming, made hydrogen racecars, and reused old phone chargers to make mood lamps with the Jam Jar collective.

BabaIsraelshowed us multi-location dance using projections and gauze, to create live interactions between dancers in Manchester and NY, which looked hauntingly beautiful and created an electrifying atmosphere.

Heather Niven Tedxyork

We recognised the power of stories, through Alan Lane’s inspirational talk and understood how this might affect future game plots and interactions with Maria Arinbjarnar from  WeEnrich introducing her emergent software story engine  technology.  We even shared our own stories with Alexander Kelly in his inspirations exchange, which were told at the end to conclude the day.

Bill Thompson was a real highlight for me, with his talk ‘The Internet ate my brain’ looking at how the brain has evolved, that capacity for learning spoken language is hardwired into the brain but that reading is a relatively new phenomena and needs to be taught/learned.  His argument is that if the areas of the brain weren’t used for reading they would be utilised for something else and that by using many forms of digital technology (often at the same time) neural paths and specialisations may change, but that this isn’t necessarily an unnatural response to change and isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  We adapt and change to suit our environment – our brains innovate.

These are a few highlights of the day, with other amazing talks by Daniel Bye (about his imaginary friend he put on ebay!) Kristin Alford, and Yatterbox to name a few.  The recordings will be available on the TED.com website soon, and also through Pilot Theatre (watch this space)  A full Programme and more info on all the speakers can be found here

I can’t wait for the next one :O)

View from above

Marcus Romer, Lead on TEDxYork

TEDxYork

Kristin Alford

 The event’s home each year is the Hospitium, a decadent 14^th Century venue overlooking the picturesque Museum Gardens  with two floors incorporating large central rooms which are today, packed out with fantastic talent.

 As a stall holder myself this year, I can appreciate the benefits of such an event and it is something that has brought me new business and the potential of lasting friendships for the last two years that I have been lucky enough to attend. Instantly accessible for current students, ambitious graduates and  those looking for new opportunities, or to start their own unique venture, CYF is the ideal place to make contacts and share ideas.

Anyone coming in to the venue is instantly greeted with conversation and inquisitive individuals who, while having their own ventures are keen to help and support those new to networking and informal-yet-established gatherings like this. Set out so that those who are curious can travel around the room(s) in a circle looking at each business and examining their product, it’s the ideal chance for anyone to come in and see what York has to offer in terms of its creative community including multimedia agency Lazenby Brown, young creative support networks Business Link, NYBEP, custom guitar designer Ed Taylor and film professionals the likes of Digifish Media and Agathon Productions.

This year, there seems to be a strong focus on young businesses and it’s great to see them accessing the support offered by the likes of Creative, Higher, and IT & Digital York alongside the aforementioned. Businesses making particular waves this year include those at York St John’s University’s Phoenix Centre – web-design agency Snapshot Media hold a stall centre room on the bottom floor while Social Media Analystujeewa Alwis debuts his own unique software on floor two to the delight of many in need of new ways to access their online audience. Also representing the Phoenix are former English Heritage photographer-turned-freelancer Keith Findlater, Agathon and the ever-developing and popular Live&Love York magazine.

 If anyone wanted to challenge the idea that York is not a creative hub that can provide opportunities within a range of our planet’s most “challenging” industries, then it is events like today that serve to provide strong evidence against the variety of government cuts going on around various aspiring cities nationally. Indeed, since York is in the middle of such a creative “boom” and is, in fact an area with an above average amount of prosperous businesses and employment, it would be nice to think that, with funding being completely cut for similar events in other areas as close as Hull, CYF could be a positive example promoting the benefits of networking and bringing together people within dynamic creative communities, with the right kind of exposure. Science City York’s, Kat Hetherington provides her thoughts on the day. “It’s great that events like these can take place in York,” she says. “It’s provided a great opportunity for me to meet like-minded people and I have really enjoyed it.”

As a testament to this, I myself run an alternative music publication dealing with genres as niche as goth and as popular as heavy metal and electronic music, but each year I am able to connect with businesses way outside of my target market and find a way, through conversation (and lots of tea  plus sandwiches) to form a connection and a bond that allows me to support them in some ventures and them to aid me in others. I have come away from this year having had great chats with representatives from The Arts Barge (a community arts and music project in the city), Screen Yorkshire (a nationally recognised film and multimedia organisation) and York College to name a few. It goes to show you that nobody is out of place in this environment where everyone is on-hand to support each other and knock out the recession.

Dom Smith

Soundsphere magazine

www.soundspheremag.com

This is a chance to mingle with other creative practitioners in York’s beautiful old Hospitium, in museum gardens to talk about the latest projects, new activities and  events on offer, chances to collaborate and join in in creative pursuits you might not normally consider.

We are running drop in workshops including social media for the terrified, theatre workshops, music mixing sessions, and much more. There will be round the table discussions on how to innovate your way out of the arts cuts, and on positive social media for business.

You will have a chance to contribute to the UNESCO bid to make York the city of Media Arts.

There will also be on hand business advice and development assistance from organisations such as Screen Yorkshire, Creative York and York Theatre Royal to name but a few, and there will be loads of creative businesses there too.

York has a strong and vibrant creative community and this is a chance to celebrate our strengths and work together to create a future of continued growth and prosperity.  The event is open to all creative businesses and individual at any stage of your career, its free to attend and lunch is provided.  Booking is however ESSENTIAL. Please click here to book

Create Your Future opens the line up for York Business Week, which is jam packed with events and workshops to help you do business in York.  Hope you can make it, please tell your friends!!

Wednesday 27 October
Early Bird Discount Offer – 1 Week Only
 
“A must-attend event for any business aiming to lead the way in creative and digital technologies”
   
We would like to offer you a discounted ticket to the upcoming Creative York Symposium as we beleive it might benefit your business as well as help others in the future.
The symposium will explore the very latest creative and digital technologies available to you and your business.
 
It’s also a fabulous chance to network with like-minded practitioners, leading industry players and key policy makers.
 
Tickets:  £35:00 (Normal price: £45.00) includes lunch and refreshments.   
To book your discounted ticket, click here and type in Discount Ticket into the promotional code box.
 
Topics under the spotlight include:
- 3D & interactive technologies
- sustainable design practice
- learning through on-line communities
- future scenario planning
- environmental and social innovation
 
To view the full programme, please click here. To book your place, please click here 
 
Really hope you can take advantage of this offer and very much look forward to seeing you there!
 
Heather

We spent the day looking at 4 different future scenarios looking forward 10 and 30 years and focussing on how we would deal with predicted opportunities and challenges that a range of creative industries might face.  The scenarios explored the social, political, economic and psychological consequences of climate change and identified 5* plausible global responses, describing 5 different worlds by 2030.  These scenarios comprised  ’protectionist’, ‘service transformation’, ‘redefining process’, and ‘efficiency first’ world views and each presented different opportunities and threats for the creative industries to tackle.

*(we only had time to look through 4 of the 5)

The last part of the workshop focussed on generating actions to take from the day and implement in the near future as well as aspirations looking forward.

We can help reduce planetary damage through innovative design, marketing, creating, inventing as well as through general problem solving across all industries as well as in our own business practice and everyday lives.

Findings from this workshop, (as well as ideas from a similar workshop run in Bristol earlier this year) will be discussed by Fiona Bennie, Senior Sustainability Advisor in Innovation for the ‘Forum for the Future’ group, at our Creative York Symposium – The Next Dimension in October.  We will be adding her into the programme this week!

Background thinking around our symposium can be found in the previous blog and the link above will take you to further info, how to book and the latest programme.  We will be adding biographies, video links and further info to this blog site over the next few weeks to give you more information around the content for the day.

Watch this space…Hope you can make it!

With this technological evolution, we are presented with an infinite number of choices around how we use these tools to enhance experiences, to accentuate our own learning capacity, extend our lifespan, improve our health and well being, extend our ability to communicate and revolutionise our social experiences.

New developments in ‘ubiquitous computing’ such as ‘tele immersion‘ create a full 3d ‘almost as good as the real thing’ virtual experience.  The closer to real life these experiences become the less the need to carry out the activity ‘for real’.  Possible applications include virtual business conferences, thereby reducing travel expense and time drastically (and reducing greenhouse gases hugely).  It is already possible to dance with another person (or people) located in different parts of the world, connected via the internet through using 3d sensors and projectors, whereby your images are streamed to each other and projected in front of one another in 3d.  The richer this virtual experience becomes, the more desirable it will become.

In continuing with this line of thought, the more artificial reality mimics reality the more emotional investment we will give it.  People tend to anthropomorphise other beings which respond to them in some way or show emotional behaviour.  Will the increased  interaction with artificial intelligence or virtual interaction online make us happier, more sociable and generally better people or will it reduce our level of contact with our ‘real’ friends and families.

Already micro chips and electical wires are being implanted into the brains of patients in the U.S. who suffer from long term depression and Parkinson’s disease, creating a ‘neural pacemaker’ which reduces symptoms immediately after implant.  It is only a matter of time before these new developments are being used to augment processing speed and retention levels in the human brain, as well as monitoring health, blood and vital signs (and probably phoning the ambulance for you if you get ill and automatically uploading your entire medical history to the hospital en route there whilst unconscious!)

So where do the creative and digital industries play a part in all of this?  My feeling is more where don’t they play a part.  Intelligent buildings, enhanced entertainment systems, complete communication solutions, games, leisure and fitness programmes, socialising platforms, learning experiences, navigation, health and convalescence are all areas where creative development and input are crucial to develop quality experience and content.  However, in producing these desirable experiences and services there is also a level of responsibility to consider how we power, manufacture, distribute and dispose of these new tools.

The world has finite resources and a delicate ecosystem, which so far we have used without much regard for the future.  In the past this over-exploitation could be put down to ignorance but in this globally connected networked world we now live in, that excuse is wearing thin.

If the future developments previously mentioned in this blog continue to evolve on the trajectory they are currently on, then the divide between the ‘technology enhanced’ and those who are not will widen exponentially.  This could polarise the human race.

A disconnect between virtual and real worlds may also increase as the virtual space becomes more enticing with its multiple identities and abilities, and the ‘real’ one less novel and amazing in comparison.  The concern is that this may also reduce the connection with our ‘actual’ planet and those who are suffering or poverty stricken therein and can distance us from feeling responsibility towards these global issues .

Through having an understanding of these important factors, when designing and inventing our future world, it may be possible for the creative and digital industries to lead the way in changing the world for the better, through reducing the carbon footprint, designing products that power themselves through sustainable means, sharing new innovations and technologies with all, improving health and happiness and reducing isolation, and most importantly creating positive change.  If we can move forward with an optimistic, environmentally conscious and socially responsible frame of mind, we can confidently embrace the next dimension of technological and human development.

Creative York are having a Symposium to discuss these issues in more detail on the 27th October 2010 in York.  We intend to skype many of our speakers to reduce our carbon footprint and we also intend to live stream the event, allowing as many people who want to to contribute to the day.  If you feel you are working on a project that fits in with the above theme which you would want to speak about on the day or have an exhibition stand or poster  to show others what you are working on, please get in touch with me and we will try to include you.  We are particularly interested in creative designs, innovations or services that either help the planet in some way or generate their own power or raise awareness or help less fortunate people.  Please  Email me with your ideas.

http://khaozmediayork.wordpress.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kilo75/4770924710/in/photostream/

http://matthewlinley.wordpress.com/2010/07/06/day-2-morning-at-shift-happens/

http://digistories.co.uk/2010/07/shift-happened/

http://www.ished.net/category/watershed/

reflections from day 2

Back at home after a brilliant day one at Shift Happens, a conference about Arts Learning and Technology at the Theatre Royal in York.  This is its third year running and Creative York are one of the proud sponsors of the event.

The day kicked off at 12 noon with a lovely lunch, fresh strawberries and cream and lots to do in the foyer area. Activities included a beautiful little animation/projection in the smallest theatre in the world. http://www.theicebook.com/ (we need to have them over for Illuminating York this year!! what do you think folks?)  There were the regulars ‘Friispray’ drawing with light combining wii technology with gaffa tape and a few other useful things as well as breath training games and a chance to try social media for yourself in the foyer with Creative York.

After lunch, speakers kicked off with Pilot theatre’s Marcus Romer welcoming us all, closely followed by Andrew Nairne of the Arts Council who talked about how using digital technology is about ‘shaping the condition of society’

Claire Reddington followed by a talk around iShed, a project which shares artforms ‘cross platform’. She discusses how ‘creation nets’ allow acceleration of collaboration and development with others ‘not like you’ .  As a sector we need to better support digital practitioners, engendering open collaborations.

Following Claire, Herb Kim, founder of Thinking Digital and CEO of Codeworks took the stage and gave us an honest appraisal of his journey from loss to success to create the internationally renowned annual conference.  He concludes that the social media evolution = Less promotion, better products, more truth and happier people.

Andy Field from Forest Fringe gave a rousing and enthusiastic speech next on how we must embrace the implausible and fantastical to test the boundaries of digital technology rather than merely using it to upgrade or replace the ‘old’ way of doing things. There can be ways of using digital technology in transformative and unique ways.

Claire McCardle from 4ip talks next about their collaborative projects with the RSC and the Tate, about social media Shakespeare in the form of Romeo and Juliet which they ran as an experiment and which polarised opinion as to its level of success.  Claire asked the question ‘when running a fully curated online exhibition, what aspects need to remain?’

Hanna Nicklin was up next, and her focus was that we are moving into ‘the age of the first person’ where consumers are no longer content with ‘one way’ experiences and where 100% of 10-16 year olds asked in their survey (sorry can’t remember which survey she mentioned) had previously experienced online gaming.

Alan Lane from Slung Low brought the focus around to the ‘within or without the institution’ question of which works best?  The reliability of being able to eat and pay the rent versus the levels of control and artistic integrity which can be retained when not jumping through the hoops of funders.  In the light of all of the present and future funding cuts it begs the question of will the funding cuts generate more creative and sustainable use of digital technology due to necessity and relevance?  My thoughts are that the ‘system’ will weaken as cuts increase, leaving creative spaces for people to explore new needs, within the gaps

Sir Ken Robinson finished the day of speakers through a skype link from L.A. and his wisdom and insight were brilliant and at times pretty terrifying.  He talked of a level of imaginative engagement necessary for creativity, which is in danger of being lost with technology.  To explain this he used the analogy of his son wishing a computer as a present if he passed all his exams (at age 15).  Ken had said no, but after a few weeks of his son doing well he got him a computer (because he fancied one himself by then ;o) says Ken.)  Ken also has a younger daughter who at this time (aged 5) had found some rope in the garage and asked to make a tree swing from it. So while dad spent the afternoon setting up the computer for his son, son and daughter spent the afternoon (and indeed the rest of the summer) playing with the tree swing.  He laughed at the idea of his son wishing a long piece of rope as an incentive for doing well in his exams rather than a computer, but this was indeed what had entertained him all summer!

Ken blamed urbanisation for causing us to lose touch with nature & our humanity which he feels is essential for future happiness and success as a core part of what makes us human.  An example of this is that Tokyo now has a larger population than the whole of Canada and that this type of human congestion drives a wedge between humanity and the earth.

With a point of convergence between human and machine being predicted to occur within the next 40 years, (where we will think commands to our computers via inbuilt chips or neural hybrids and where computers will have evolved to become capable of learning and reprogramming themselves according to their experiences.)  At this point computers will have the processing power of the entire human race! If we don’t maintain the link between ourselves and the natural world around us this could hold serious consequences for learning, happiness and survival.

This synergy required to prepare ourselves for the exponential increase of technology, can be achieved through exploring the crossover between science, arts and technology as well as through nurturing the human spirit.  This will also affect how we respond to environmental changes and how to redress the imbalance of wealth and poverty currently experienced globally.

Change can start at grass roots level says Ken, and when organically grown and nurtured can be a powerful growing force.  Don’t wait for your MP or others in authority.  ”The DCMS would never have sat around a table and invented rock music!”  Shift Happens in the home first and usually responds to the  changing needs of society.  Ken finished by quoting Ghandi  ”Each one has to find his peace from within” only then can they make peace and truly work together out there in this rapidly changing world.

Shift day two is tomorrow and follow @shift_happens and @creativeyork on twitter for live updates throughout the day, of the next set of cutting edge speakers.  More info can also be found on their website http://www.shift-happens.co.uk and we will be posting photos, video interviews and more from our 10 bursary winners soon.

Hope to see you there tomorrow!

Also check out Colm’s great blog about the day found here

The Centre is run by myself, the Creative York Network Manager for Science City York and I have spent the last few days busying myself at Phoenix (for short) getting the place ready for this fresh intake of creative and digital companies here in York.  We will spend the next couple of days getting settled in, finding out about potential opportunities with  York St John University, where the centre is nestled, getting to know each other and sparking some collective ideas around the room.

I will keep you posted on how they all get on over the next few weeks and introduce you to them all as soon as possible, but meanwhile watch for @creativeyork  tweets over the next few days as we say hello to our new Phoenixers. [twitter hashtag #scyphoenix]