Team Rubber
October 10, 2007
Posted by Emma in: Events | Add a commentiShed dropped in on Team Rubber at their Park Row offices on Friday to see what they're up to. Director Andy Parkhouse gave us a run through of some of their latest work including music promos, viral campaigns, websites and e-democracy. We loved - this animation for World Hepatitis Awareness Day; the election alarm clock which Swindon Borough Council used to remind thousands of voters of upcoming elections; and this fun EasyHotel game which Team Rubber have been able to quantify the success of through their nifty Viral Marketing Tracker.
Unusual Common Ground
October 9, 2007
Posted by Clare in: Watershed | Technology | Evaluation | Add a commentUnusual Common ground, a report on the Watershed/HP Labs relationship, has been published by HP Labs this week. The paper, by Clare Reddington, Erik Geelhoed and David Drake, updates Under Blue Skies: The Watershed/HP Labs Partnership which was written by David Drake in November 2005.
Watershed and Hewlett- Packard Research Laboratories Bristol have been involved in research collaborations since the mid 1990's. The report describes the benefits for The Watershed and for HP labs and lists a number of joint projects and programmes such as Mobile Bristol (the precursor of MediaScapes), SE3D, MeiGeist and CommunicationWear.
Download the full report here.
We Came Out and Played!
October 3, 2007
Posted by Emma in: Events | Add a commentiShed attended the Picnic 07 Festival in Amsterdam at the weekend, dropping in for Come Out and Play, the first European outing for the New York based urban games festival. Over 3 days, the Picnic conference explores the intersection of technology, media, entertainment and art, celebrating creativity and innovation. Come Out and Play is the perfect chance to shed your inhibitions and try out games from across Europe, USA and Korea which embrace Picnic's ethos.
With a base just outside the city centre, some of the games were confined to the wind and rain swept industrial landscape of Westergasfabriek, while others saw players head off into central Amsterdam. Games on offer ranged from: reworkings of classic arcade and mobile games such as Human Snake, Pong and Fuse Invasion; a strand of the global photographic scavenger hunt Snap Shot City; London-based Blast Theory's popular 'Can You See Me Now' which pits their street runners against online players in a virtual city; and a theatrical rerending of tradition boules.
The games became oversubscribed online fairly quickly as limited numbers were able to play each game, and after the players had departed HQ on their missions, the festival site was a pretty barren environment. It did raise questions as to how much of a festival momentum is possible when your delegates are glued to a laptop or insulated by headphones, but the evening party was a more lively affair with an impromptu round of (the not so snappily titled!) Offline Multi-Mirror Reflector Positioning Game
All in all, it was a great opportunity to sample a range of imaginative uses of both lowfi and technological urban games - it's a great way to see the potential for fun in your urban environment…looking forward to the next one.
