Project Archive
Mission, Models, Money
Mission, Models, Money was a national action research programme and a campaign for change. Its purpose was to address the challenges faced by individual arts and cultural organisations and their funders in developing mission led financially sustainable businesses. Through a range of actions it aimed to promote new approaches and new solutions to key issues that affect sustainability and explore the scope for and challenges of introducing new business models and ways of funding. The setting up of iShed was one of seven MMM exemplar projects and is recieving funding and business development support to enable this change in working practice and to share learnings as the new model develops.
Connecting Bristol
Connecting Bristol was the city’s response to the Digital Challenge, a government competition to identify a national showcase for ICT innovation. Bristol fended-off regional and national competition to win a place in the final top-ten.
MeiGeist ARG
"I really wanted a chance to work side by side with technologists. The outcome was great, I was inspired by their application of forward-looking ideas into actual technology. They seemed to welcome my input of creative ideas from an outsider's viewpoint" Hazel Grian, Licorice Films
An ARG is an interactive narrative that uses multiple media and game elements (blogs, text messages, email, live events etc), to unravel a story over a set period of time, like a treasure hunt, which players must engage in and share information to get to the end.
ARGs have intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real-time and evolves according to participants' responses, using characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and often work together with a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities.
In 2007, Watershed and Arts Council, England awarded writer, director and comedian Hazel Grian a £10,000 research placement at HP Labs, the result was Alternate Reality Game Meigeist. Blending fiction with reality, 30,000 people around the world took part in the game, referring to it as ‘the funniest game of all time!” and “the ARG event of the year!’
The first publicly funded ARG, Meigiest was nominated for a Media Innovation Award in 2008 and profiled in Creative Britain, the Government’s white paper on the Creative Industries.
Since completing the placement Hazel has worked as story and script writer for KateModern the successful interactive drama hosted by Bebo, and as a writer and consultant for the British Red Cross HIV Awareness campaign. Hazel is now based in Watershed and HP Labs’ Pervasive Media Studio in central Bristol.
SE3D
Building on a relationship that stretched back over six years, in 2004 Watershed and HP Labs set up the SE3D animation showcase, offering ten groups of UK animators free access to HP Labs’ experimental Maya® Rendering Service.
Based on HP Labs research into Utility grid computing, SE3D gave HP the opportunity to research how their digital animation rendering service would perform with multiple users under real-world conditions. Managed by Watershed, the animators were also given creative, technical and administrative support, with an advisory group opening up access to a network of industry mentors.
The first of the SE3D films were presented at the annual Animated Encounters film festival in April 2005, and subsequently at Cannes Film Festival as part of an HP promotion. They continue to screen at Festivals and events around the world.
SE3D offered:
Artists
• access to cutting-edge emerging technologies
• a community of advisors (creative and technical) and peers to share ideas and discuss problems with
• a community of potential collaborators for future projects
• competitive advantage via early access to tools which are likely to become mainstream
• retention of the intellectual property rights to their films (allowing their use in securing future commissions
• Promotion and exposure as part of a larger scheme
HP Labs
• a real-world test of their research
• an opportunity to explore potential uses for its technologies outside their original purpose
• better understanding of how people in the real world will use the products and technological solutions they are developing
• highly creative and professional films to use as promotional tools
Watershed
• new knowledge and capability in the digital and pervasive media sphere
• an opportunity to explore and refine new models of collaboration
• research around and legiticmacy for the role of broker/intermediary in collaborative/interdisciplinary R&D.
SE3D created a clustered community of researchers and artists, working together on an area of emerging technology through the lens of their own practice and interest. Whilst the project had specific outputs, an ethos of networked, open-ended investigation prevailed, creating a community that has continued to flourish and have influence well after the project has ended.
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