Sarah Ellis from Apples and Snakes has been going great guns - her interest in digital, stimulated at SXSW, has meant an exploration for her, and projects that have involved the poets she works with in a range of digital experiments.

First is "London Poems", in partnership with Andrew Wilson from Blink Media who was also on the trip, a three-year poetry text project working with audiences from all the London boroughs by 2012. The project invites the public through various forms of advertising (e.g. posters at bus stops, beer mats) to text poems about their city to a number.  This poem is then shared on a website and builds a body of work which is shared in a digital space.  Each poem will then be able to be shared with any member of the public who wishes to see what poems have been created in these spaces.  A map of London Poems will be built and extend the collaboration further by inviting performance poets to create work inspired by this poetry map, eventually creating an artist/audience collaboration.  It will be a large-scale event connected to the Olympics and also feed into a national performance poetry Olympics project for young people.

Second up, with Nina Steiger, Director of the Writer's Center at Soho Theatre, is "Who Is Writer X".  The project commissions a series of artists to take on the persona of Writer X and create a narrative through digital networks to see how audiences engage with interactive storytelling.

Thirdly, "My Place Or Yours".  Sarah secured £5000 funding to research and develop a creative collaboration with the British Council, also in collaboration with Nina Steiger and the Soho Theatre.  An international project in creative labs in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia that ask artists to build ideas based on personalised maps and place.  A creative lab will then be run in the UK with artists to exchange ideas between these countries and share the work in a digital space.

Not only projects, but on the back of what she picked up at SXSWi, Sarah created a digital training programme for performance poets and invited practitioners such as Chris Unitt from Meshed Media to lead innovative masterclasses that built artist skills in working with technology and creating work.  So what was learnt trickles down.
Added to that, Soho Theatre commissioned Simon Games to develop a 3 week game to co-incide with it's run of Sharadda - a love story between a gypsy girl and a council-estate boy, set against the displacement of the Hackney Romany settlement in East London as their camping grounds are redeveloped for the London Olympics.  The game, called "Drom", explored the precarious life of the Romani, also known as Gypsies - the generations-old nomadic people which once moved through England and other parts of Europe but now find their way of life increasingly threatened by urban expansion and changing council laws.

The game's two travellers caravaned through London's streets, searching nightly for a safe place to park guided only by recommendations from the games' online players, who made suggestions via email, Twitter or SMS. Players provided a location and a justification for their submission, but otherwise the travellers were utterly at the whim of the players.  Closest they got to the Theatre itself was Algate East.  Not bad.

A meeting of the group at the new Freeword Centre was in itself an example of the cross-fertilisation between artists and producers the SXSWi delegation produced - digital artists, gamers, theatre practitioners and musicians all meeting at the new home of literature and spoken word.  With all the members of the original delegation agreeing again the best part of the trip was getting to know and spending time with their counterparts from the UK.

The most valuable asset is the group you go with, take time to get to know them all.

Don't be overwhelmed by number of conferences, seek out what is most relevant to you, benefits occur post trip when you have had time to absorb the experience and knowledge acquired.
Throw yourself at the sessions early, but also take some time out of the conference hall to let things sink in and reflect.
Take work! SXSW is desperately short of content - UK content is compelling and excellent.
Do a panel.

Get to know the people you're going with as much as possible - the links we made before were really helpful and the support from the organisers was really important to a successful experience. It's a massive festival and the more people you're connected to the more opportunities will come from it.
Be open to a varied experience and range of people. Allow time to process this. Don't just go to as many things as possible. And walk out if it's sub-standard. Heckle and ask difficult questions if you have something to say. Otherwise listen, which is more difficult amid such a cacophony of voices and minds.

Inside conference centre

Reflecting back on the UK creatives trip to SXSWi earlier this year, and the things that seems to have impacted most on people who went were the network that was created between the UK group, the opportunity to almost breathe in all things interactive, and how useful it was to get away from day-to-day business at home.
12 people were selected by the Arts Council to go to SXSWi as the UK digital creatives delegation. The majority of the group who went (70%) were producers and half the group artists - some seeing themselves as both. The group being fairly evenly balanced between the two made for a good mix. 90% of the group had not been to SXSWi before.
The top reasons for wanting to come on the trip embraced the artistic and the commercial.
For some it was to develop the artistic opportunities of digital and interactive, to “find like minded digital content makers” and to learn more about developments for both creating and presenting work. People wanted to learn more about interactive production, to see great examples of interactive work, and be stimulated with new ideas.
For others, sights were set on getting market intelligence, exploring commercial developments and checking out the competition. Networking and promoting were also a big reason for making the trip, and to raise the profile of the organisations we represented with influential people in the US. Many of us were looking to make links and contacts and to use the trip to publicise and market our work.
Not really knowing what to expect, we met up in London before the trip, to hear from others who had been before. It was clear that we needed to do something unique to break through the noise and bring attention to ourselves, and we agreed to develop a group game, through which we could promote ourselves individually and collectively. The Hat Game was the result – a game involving a GSPS fitted hat and an online map that tracked where the hat was at any one time. The game was to find the hat, challenge the wearer and keep it for as long as possible. The person holding on to the hat for the longest wins. The Hat Game gave us a brand – the traditional British bowler – showed off the technical and creative skills of the makers, and gave us an ‘umbrella’ under which to organise the group.

There is more about the resulting Hat Game throughout the blog, including links to the coverage the game received and pictures and videos from the game itself.
We also decided we a) needed to hone our pitches and b) find out more about what we each did, and so arranged another meet-up to group pitch. This was really useful, allowed us to promote each other better, and was the beginning of a better understanding that has led to subsequent collaborations.
So, how did we do?

Commerical:
The Hat Game got some attention at the event, and gave us something to talk to people about, and organise around. The hat was chased around Austin for 2 days, played by the public as well as event delegates, and made a small ripple in the big lake of activity that was SXSWi. But it was online and in promotion at home that it really made impact, being picked up by the Guardian and the BBC.
The group was very focused on promotion and using SXSWi for its’ commercial potential, which we prepared for through the Hat Game and pre-pitching our pitches. On reflection, SXSWi wasn’t as much of a formal profile raising experience as we’d initially expected. The opportunities to promote were more in the one-to-one networking bars and parties and being introduced to people in the face of the aggressive – and generally very good – pitches coming thick and fast from our US counterparts.
50% of the group said they met more potential clients than they had expected to, although the other 50% did not at all. This suggests that the clients were there, but that they took finding, and it depended on how important or appropriate fishing for clients was for people. Most of us were more interested in taking in the range of talks, demos, conversations, parties and content on offer than specifically there to reach clients or pitch something specific. A third of the group said they had met more potential funders and investors than they had expected, though the rest of the group felt not at all. Again, funders and investors were there, but formal opportunities to reach them were rare – more a case of finding out where they were and schmoozing at a party or going up to them after their sessions.
The commercial links were there at SXSWi, but to make the most of them required that focus. For most of the group the trip was a voyage of discovery, to understand the landscape better and to meet people. Commercial opportunities for pitching projects, finding clients, funders and investors perhaps needs a second trip, and a concerted effort, plus a particular commercial need, which not all of us had. There is an opportunity here for the Arts Council or other UK public bodies such as UKTI, to be more proactive in creating opportunities for UK artists and producers to show their wares.

As the UK presence at SXSWi builds, creative ways of showcasing UK artists could be found – by working directly with artists and producers on how this could be done. On the whole, there was a noticeable lack of good quality work at SXSWi. Future trips could build on the Hat Game experience and, with more support, could provide inventive ways of showcasing UK interactive art and commercial products, and encourage collaborations between UK artists.

Networking:

Most people in the group gave the relationships that were built between other members of the group as the most beneficial thing about the trip.
“Spending time with people who I knew, and developing ideas.”
Networking was the undoubted main benefit of being at SXSWi. 40% of the group extended their network more than they had expected, plus 40% who did this exceptionally so. Clearly this was a winner and the main gain to be had from funding subsequent trips. The potential of a SXSWi alumni growing – artists and producers who have been on the funded trip before alongside newbies – increases the network amongst UK artists. The Arts Council should consider how it could create a good environment for this – for example by block booking a hotel and offering a good rate to UK delegates not on the official funded trip, to encourage links – as well as pre-festival get-togethers in the UK.
Networking with international contacts was a clear second benefit of the trip. Being out and about, meeting people, chance encounters.
As Dan Efegan, Director of Aardman’s new online unit put it, “just as I headed home I bumped into the Creative Director of Fallow in Tokyo…SXSW has so many people piled in here, meeting people is easy.”
These are the kinds of contacts it can take ages to develop without one-to-one contact. Everyone who is anyone in interactive was there at SXSWi and so speeded up the kinds of contacts that UK creatives were making – invaluable to business.
The group made contacts old and new. Best moments were described:
“Meeting a group of hackers/artists from New York/Montreal which is already leading into a collaborative project.”
“The other great opportunity for me was re-connecting with a group of artists/web geeks that I was close to a few years back in the early videoblogging scene. Tweets and emails are fine but it was so much stronger to meet with (and some for the first time) these old virtual buddies.”
60% of the group said that the networking was valuable, 20% that it was exceptional. The majority of the group made between 6-10 good contacts, with 20% making 10+.
Contacts made were both UK and international, and of a high level.

“Microsoft – we’ve now got an e-mail to discuss Silverlight as a potential platform.”
“Tracy Fullerton, who runs the EA Games Innovation Lab at USC…great to find out about what she does.”
“Brian Hickman - works at the University of Ohio - developing an archive for music, looking to develop links between Home Of Metal and Brians project.”
“Josh Klein - His work on creative commissioning and empowering the writer are fascinating and I'd like to see ways I can share this with poets in the UK.”
“Met developers from the Go Game and could be useful in understanding a lucrative business model for game-based corporate fundraising.”
“I met an artist from Montreal called Emilie Grenier, she makes soundwalks (like me) but has an interest in embedded computing and working with wearable objects…We are now working together on a soundwalk for the iPhone with distribution through the itunes app store…also being worked on by Mobile Pie who were part of the UKTI mission to SXSW”

“Met Peter Whybrow, Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA. Was invited to meet up next time in LA. Will definitely do that. He is interested in consumption and how this affects people.”
SXSWi provided a fruitful environment to make contacts, have conversations, build ideas and network. This was incredibly beneficial for people spread across the UK who hadn’t connected with each other’s work before. Again, it was other people in the group who were cited as amongst the best contacts that had been made – reiterating that the networking between the group was perhaps the most beneficial part of the trip as a whole.
The Arts Council could consider how it could sustain and build this network across the UK. Artists working in the kind of clusters like I-Shed provides in Bristol have this cross-fertilisation, which could be built on by a post SXSWi UK network.
The comparisons with others work which the SXSWi trip enabled were an important measure of people’s own work, which is sometimes difficult to get perspective on. On the whole the comparisons with work in the US were very positive for UK artists. More cross-fertilisation across the UK would extend this kind of comparison and stimulate quality work.
“At least as represented at SXSWi I didn’t feel we were missing out on much creatively in Huddersfield.”
“An affirmation that the work being done my peer group in the UK is actually really cutting edge.”

Artistic: What was learnt?

In terms of practical technology there was a shift throughout the trip. There was a mix in degrees of ability – ranging from around a third of the group who put themselves in the bracket of “expert – the work I’m developing is leading the way” to “proficient”, “a dabbler” and “an adopter”. 20% of the group put themselves in the “Follower – interested but I need to be shown” category at the beginning of the trip, but not by the end. By the end, 50% of the group had made it up to the “Dabbler – I can upload and I know how to make a blog” category (previously 20%). For all the hype about digital it’s often surprising how little people know. This total immersion in interactive-everything was great for getting stuck in. Less so for the developers amongst us, but significantly for the less technical, learning how to make a blog and getting to grips with Twitter were big gains.

Feedback is that SXSWi wasn’t the most inspiring place for new work. Ideas yes. How to market them, yes. But creating art pieces – less of that going on. Having said that, some of the artists in the group did create new work, and some showcased existing work, and some had seen work they wouldn’t have done otherwise. Overall feeling is there could be more of a focus on creating stuff at the festival – perhaps this is a gap the UK delegation could fill next time – and encourage on-the-spot collaborations with other artists and developers out there. An Arts Council funded (and marketed) ‘spontaneous’ installation, game or performance showcasing the best of UK interactive talent next year perhaps?
Collaborations this year? They happened. For some more than expected and for one person exceptionally. For 90% of the group though, having met someone they expect to collaborate with in the future happened more than expected or exceptionally so – so lots of meetings that threw up ideas and links with creators in the UK – most noticeably amongst each other, but also with international contacts.
Capsule and Germination have gone on to collaborate on an installation within Supersonic, Capsule’s annual music festival.
Simon Games and Nina Steiger from Soho Theatre look set to work together.
“We are really interested in working with dramaturges to develop performance and story in street games. The Soho theatre has a reputation for innovative, challenging work and Nina is a great ambassador for that. Enthusiastic, sceptical, entrepreneurial. We hope to do good stuff with her.”   The possible commission is for a story game to accompany autumn production of Shraddha by Natasha Langridge.

Nina from Soho Theatre is also designing a new 6-part curriculum with Brad King on distributed narrative to be delivered by Soho and to feature bursaries for guest tutorials for sxsw collaborators.

And Andrew Wilson and Sarah Ellis from Apples and Snakes were in discussion immediately after SXSWi.

“Had a very enjoyable and productive meeting with Sarah Ellis from Apples and Snakes when we got back to England…and I think we will…try a little trial project working together.”

This has turned into a poetry-related idea that they are testing at the Big Chill, playing with audience created work and involving the poetry robot!

Sarah Ellis is commissioning some online masterclasses to writers and performers on Apples and Snakes website My Place of Yours as part of their British Council partnership on South East Europe and will collaborate with some of the group on that.
Duncan Speakman and Nina Steiger have since worked together, Duncan making a soundwalk for Soho Theatre in Everything Must Go, which has also led (fairly directly he thinks) on to him being selected for the Vauxhall Collective 2009. Duncan is also teaching on Playwriting for the iPod Generation.

Soho Theatre has run a  Co-commission with Apples and Snakes for a cross-media project for writers that uses social media and game mechanics to create a distributed narrative, investigating evolving ideas of authorship, identity and live performance in the digital space. Consultants on the project include Simon Games, Duncan Speakman, and Hazel Grian from our group as well as Brad King (SXSW) and Ken Eklund.

Soho Theatre also worked with Alex Fleetwood and Holly Gramazio of Hide & Seek to host a day-long workshop in social games design and its possible links with theatre which drew writers, producers and other practitioners. The event was followed by a Sandpit social games evening held throughout the building and neighborhood.

Session Content:

In terms of the content of the sessions themselves, opinion was varied, tinged with some disappointment that the content wasn’t better. Was it partly a cultural thing – that British ability to spot sales pitches masquerading as sessions a mile off and turning our noses up? There was definitely some of that, but also a sense of wanting more.

People found their own needles in the haystack.
“Most useful is probably the blend of all the iPhone Apps. They’ve helped us develop a strategy for our own iPhone development.”
Bruce Sterling was a hit, as was “Tangible Interactions in Urban Spaces” and “What we can Learn from Games” which drew the following comments:
“Fascinating and inspiring, questioning, provided different view points and not afraid of questions from themselves and the audience.”
“Talk about game design, learning theories, collective intelligence, transmedia entertainment, and the value of play in a participatory culture."
“A progressive vision of how play and games can educate people for the world we live in - creative, collaborative, inventive, self-reliant. Inspiring and with serious, considered insight. The theory of what and why we do.”
Not something you get every day.
Improvements that people suggested:
“Very much a focus on marketing rather than artistic/creativity.”
“Deeper descriptions of specific work and more examples – tended to skim the surface – want to know more about how you make things and see into it – more intellectuals not just knowing how to turn a buck.”
“Too often it was like an echo chamber.”
There was also critique of the formats, with more interaction being needed to break up the panel formats.

Suggestions included:

“A blog or discussion space that allows for more conversation, more dissent, more dialogue.”
“More focus on audiences and creating a dialogue outside the conversation.”
(*Note to Self as a Producer of interactive technology based events.)
Since the trip in March, some of the group have submitted panel sessions for consideration for the 2010 event. This trip gave us confidence that UK artists and producers have a lot to add.
Session ideas include the ethics, design challenges and business potential of pervasive gaming, the quintessential 21st Century artform, how pervasive gaming could enter into the world of work and the barriers, open innovation across the boundaries between art and business, the future of collecting and how social technologies can ne a tool for change in community development.
A strong UK presence on next year’s platforms at SXSWi would act as a good legacy of this year’s trip.

Conclusions:
Going away together was good for learning and good for business.
Collaborations have happened since and good relationships have been formed which are continuing to work back home in the UK.
The trip raised the bar in terms of work being produced and the way it is marketing and promoted. In the main, the trip raised confidence in the quality of UK interactive art.
Future trips should include past alumni – the majority of this year’s attendees said they were likely to go again under their own steam. If there is another delegation in 2010 links should be made between them and this year’s group.
The Arts Council should proactively host pre-trip networking, and commission a work to showcase the group.
Link all the Arts Council delegates into it (the showcase, the wheeze) in a more explicit way.
Set up a base camp in a cool bar, maybe on South Congress - possibly hire/agree this with the bar and use it as a "fringe" venue. Emphasise the coolness of the UK stuff in comparison to the slightly "meh" American startup stuff. Invite independent US arts organisations as well as commercial contacts to the event beforehand. Distribute the invites to the group so they can add and invite their own contacts.
Pitching is key – any group going with the Arts Council should work on their pitches beforehand – it was great hearing from each other what we each did and are developing – it not only armed us with the information to pitch each other’s projects, but gave a snapshot of the digital/interactive work happening in the UK. It helped us to tell the bigger story that as British people we sometime find hard to tell, and that as lone artists and producers we’re often not equipped to.
Pick the group well – it needs to gel. This year was a good mixture of artists and producers and across disciplines. Having people from different regions in the UK also broke up the normal ‘circle jerk’ and encouraged work across regions post the event.
A first dinner/lunch or meeting out in Austin would help for orientation and for people to get to know each other, and how to work the event.
Book a cheaper hotel, and use the spare change to get platinum passes for all (earlybird purchases!) so delegates can mix in with the film festival talks and events as well.

All little snapshot of opinion - how valuable was the 2009 UK creatives trip?

90% of the group had not been to SXSWi before.
70% said that SXSWi was ‘maybe’ valuable enough to come again if they had to pay for it.
30% said it was definitely valuable enough to justify the cost.
60% said yes, they would like to come again.
The others said ‘maybe’.
No-one said they didn’t want to come to SXSWi again.
60% of the group said the networking opportunities at SXSWi were valuable.
20% said they were exceptional.
20% said variable.
40% of the group significantly improved their technical skills as a result of the trip.
50% found the content of the sessions valuable.
50% found it variable.

It was hard for us not to hear about the opportunity to come to SXSW - not only had we been on the look out after hearing all the great things from the other Bristol companies who attending last year, but the process was well supported from the mailing lists/groups we belong to such as SWScreen and Bristol Media. For us SXSW seemed like the perfect festival for what we were interested in - mobile having come of age, and indie games being the current hot topic. But we had other reasons for attending, more sober reasons such as getting to grips with how we could do business with American companies - important goals given our global outlook with digital downloads and the current weakness of the pound.

Preparing for the trip couldn't have been easier thanks to the hard work of Clare Reddington - and the great hints and tips from those who went last year. In many ways one of the best things about the whole experience was the mix of people who joined us, being able to discuss the topics raised during the talks with such a range of people was brilliant and the impact wouldn't have been the same if it was just Mobile Pie going. Before we headed out we made sure that we took advantage of the facilities available to us, using the SXSW website to arrange meetings with American companies and then meet them in the UK's Digital Mission stand (expertly run by the brilliant Chinwag). What was great about this was the amount of enthusiasm the US companies had towards us as Brits - they loved everything from the authentic tea served at the Digital Mission, to the Hat Game organised by the Umbrella Group.

The talks themselves were some of the most interesting and relevant ones I've ever been too. We were completely spoiled for choice as our two main areas of interest, iPhone development and indie games had some of the best talks of the week. So many times during the week I was able to meet some of the companies I'd seen at the top of the iPhone charts or read about in the news, only to discover that they were the same size as us, facing the same problems and getting their information from the same sources. Realising this, and armed with the great practical advice they freely shared helped us gain the confidence to change the direction of Mobile Pie and move towards creating more of our own original IP and concepts, with the aim being to sell them globally via digital download channels. Since we've been back in the UK, our focus has really shifted to making this a reality - with it influencing everything from the location of our new office (close to other creatives) to the jobs we're recruiting for (more design led people, less account handlers).

Receiving funding to attend SXSW was vitally important. As a small start-up we couldn't have afforded to attend without the help we received, and it's hard to see anything closer to home having the same sense of a global gathering that you get at SXSW. It is a shame that the UK doesn't have anything on a similar scale to SXSW - certainly I spoke to plenty of US companies who wanted to come over to the UK for something similar, but had trouble finding anything.

SXSW was the festival that most lived to the ideals behind Mobile Pie, and for that reason and the fact we got so much out of it this time, it'd be hard for us to keep away next year.

Another great benefit of the trip was being amongst a group of talented and diverse individuals from around the South West. Although I wasn't part of the Umbrella Group, I was very impressed by their promotional efforts and the results they achieved. Any activities that help to promote South West digital companies will always benefit my business. Having the opportunity to share ideas with members of the group was also helpful, and will hopefully lead to new collaborations in the near future.

The main result of the festival has been a renewed energy and motivation for what I do. A lot of the talks really helped me clarify HMC Interactive's market position, and offered me insight into new markets that will help us survive the harsh economies of the coming months. The insights into Human Centric Design and Tangible Computing in particular have given me the confidence to invest more into R&D in these areas.

I would certainly consider attending next year, and would also like the opportunity to bring a larger team from my company along. Firstly to cover more sessions, but most importantly because of the motivational effects that the conference has. I also believe I have some insights to offer the festival, and will hopefully pursue the chance to run a panel.

Public funding is an essential ingredient in allowing UK companies to attend these sorts of events. Although the UK has a number of similar conferences and events, nothing really matches the scale of SXSW, and the sense of a global community gathering in one place. For this reason, I think it would be hard to replicate the success of SXSW in the UK without similar funding being available in other countries to allow foreign companies to attend.

To sum up, being able to attend SXSW was a huge benefit. The shear size meant that even niche topics were covered, and a lot of people had some very interesting things to say about subjects that directly affect my business. I look forward to next year!

It's funny how the event was less geeky than I expected, but a certain level of geekiness helped in terms of getting the most value out of the panel sessions and keynotes. The session on the future of visual storytelling got me thinking about the narrative possibilities of the semantic web . The guy from Stink Media offered the provocation that the very notion of an 'interactive film' is perhaps a red herring, as a truly interactive visual environment is essentially gaming. Okay, so you shoot 14 different plotlines and allow the viewer to drive the narrative at certain points, but is that not 14 parallel, linear narratives punctuated by limited interactivity. Is filmmaking a fundamentally linear process because the script and production process demands that you produce a finished film at some point, unlike say web design where the site can remain active and may go through several iterations as a result of the way people interact with it. And of course Alternate Reality Gaming allows not only for the shaping of narrative possibilities by participants, but also the seamless moving between digital and physical environments in the determining of the narrative outcome.

Above all, sxswi gave me a profound sense of seismic cultural transformations that are taking place, mediated by technology.  I attended one of the fringe panels entitled 'Will the Afrosphere survive the Obama Era?' An all-Black panel drawn from blackbloggers.com and womenofcolour.org were questioning whether racially defined labels are still relevant. Personally, I've always felt that it's up to people to decide how they want to label themselves and who they want to talk to in what context. However, an articulate speaker from the floor argued that it was time for African Americans to drop the racial labels and open up some new channels of communication across traditional cultural divides. Obama not only transcends racial categorisations, he blurs the lines between personal, professional and political identities, he has re-defined how you mount an election campaign and his grasp of media tools enables him to connect locally and have global presence and reach. It certainly shows that integrity, charisma and flair, combined with a Blackberry and Twitter account, can take a very very long way in today's world!

This ability to overlay media onto urban environments brings up the possibility of skinning a space to suit a certain theme or occasion. Ben's conceptualisation of this includes a spacial CSS.  Just as web designers are currently able to redesign a data infrastructure with ease using data CSS. Design in urban spaces could be aided and standardised by the use of spacial CSS.

What We Can Learn From Games had a high powered line up. The three old boys, as they described themselves, Henry Jenkins of MIT, James Gee of Arizona State and Warren Spector Creative Director of Junction Point,  have long track records in games design and academia with Rich Wilson of Mobile Pie describing Deus Ex by Spector as his favourite game. They spoke with great erudition and self-deprecating modesty on how games can be used in learning. Gee was particularly good, describing how games teach you two very useful things : failure is good, i.e. Keep trying stuff in the game, keep failing and eventually you’ll work out what the move is and that collaboration is effective  - if you cant work out the move, go online and ask about it in a forum. Of course, these are the two things that school regimes are specifically designed to suppress : failure and collaboration. Yet, according to the panel, the type of visualisations and immersive modelling that games offer are closer to how higher academia and business now work.

The criticism of school is a familiar one and one that can be traced back to Illich (De-schooling Society) and beyond. School teaches the passive acquisition of knowledge, not how use it in the creation of effective models. School doesn’t cultivate an emotional connection with a subject, rather it so often alienates pupils from learning. However, it was really heartening hearing such eminent individuals voicing these criticisms within such a forum. SXSW might be many things but its not generally the place to find exciting, critical thought.

The panel talked a bit about how experiments around game play within school lessons during the 90s didn’t have much success. The structure of the school day didn’t accommodate extended game play very well and pupils had trouble integrating game knowledge and formal learning. Home schoolers, by contrast, fair far better. Obviously they have the flexible schedule that can allow for gaming, but they are also far better at taking ownership for their own learning and integrating experiential learning with formal bodies of knowledge.

Current work with games and education has games played outside of the classroom (with the obvious risks of social exclusion), then discussion around game themes, mechanics and physics taking place during lessons. However, Spector urged game designers to create the complexity within games that can model real world problems. It was also pointed out by Jenkins that game space learning needs to go along with basic media literacy. On these last points there was a really intriguing observation by the panel that, rather like with the beginning of formal film study courses in the 60s & 70s, game design courses are now producing a new generation of game developers and consumers literate in game aesthetics. This means the ideas and mechanics being deployed in games are beginning to become more complex and ambitious. Increasingly sophisticated game developers have a player-ship for their games. This historical change has given rise to a vibrant independent games community such as Manifesto Games. Oh and there’s a new school opening in New York that has been designed by game designers, building and curriculum. But now I am rambling.