December 2012 – Pan Studio

The Playable City

Sam Hill

14th December 2012

We’re very excited to announce we’ve been shortlisted for the Playable City Award 2013.

The Playable City Award offers artists and creatives from across the world a unique opportunity to make something wonderful using creative technologies. The 2013 award will produce a work which surprises, challenges and engages people in exploring the playable city.

Pushing the boundaries and encouraging experimentation, this international award sits at the intersections of technology and culture and will champion Bristol as an international hub for cutting-edge creativity.

The commissioned work will cross cultural contexts and will be toured. It will use technology in an integrated and interesting way. It will inject a sense of wonder and meaning into public space.

The shortlist gives the public the chance to comment on the finalists ideas, critique them, and ask probing questions. Our entry is OPEN NOW for review, so have a look and share your thoughts with us.

We developed Hello Lamp Post! in collaboration with designer/ technologist Tom Armitage and media artist Gyorgyi Galik.

Our Proposition [Abridged]

To provide a clear idea of what we’re proposing, we decided to make a condensed version of our pitch document available online for public perusal. Here it is:

Downloadable version:

Individual slides:

The Santa Scores Advent

Ben Barker

5th December 2012

This year our advent calendar is called The Santa Scores. It is the only advent-calendar tv-listings site that picks a film from that day, and then rates it for Christmasiness, against other films that are also on, but on different days.

Last year our advent calendar reviewed pre-packaged high street sandwiches. This year we’re asking what gives films a festive feeling. We’ve been scanning the TV listings for you. Every day we’ll choose a film that looks like the most Christmassy one on and then we’ll review it for Christmasiness. You can exploit this information as you choose.

From an experiential perspective, we think the “Christmas feeling” is very interesting. It’s a weird compound emotion – a mix of apprehension, nostalgia and suspension of disbelief; synonymous with feelings towards family, reward, comfort and pop mythology. Though it must be unique for everyone, a lot of people understand it as a concept and have had personal experience of it. When it begins is very subjective, and the subtlest of details can trigger it – Christmas lights going up, decorating the tree, or other tropes and rituals – including, we suspect, certain films. We’re keen to find out which movies have the best chance of triggering a ‘festive cascade’.