This week we’ve had exciting playtests, seen the launch of the fantastic Mayfest and our lovely Studio residents have been planning some awesome events coming up. Read on to find out more...

On Monday and Tuesday we were joined by Pan Studio to work on their winning project for our Playable City Award. Their project Hello Lamp Post invites you to tune in to the secret conversations of the city and communicate through lamp posts, bus stops, post boxes and other street furniture. Part game, part story, anyone will be able to play by texting in a unique code found on the city’s familiar street objects.  You can check out some awesome pictures from the playtests here.

Next Monday Studio resident and documentary maker Mandy Rose is demonstrating her latest work as part of Bristol’s Festival of Ideas. Fifty years ago people on the streets of Paris were asked: Are you happy? in a documentary experiment with the new film technology of 1960 – hand-held sync sound. Searching for Happiness takes advantage of a new era of creative technology to ask the same question today. In a documentary first, producer Mandy Rose has brought those recordings together with live feeds from the web to create a documentary experience which never plays the same way twice. Searching for Happiness is a meditation on culture, values and the meaning of life. Mandy Rose will present a live demo of the project, and will be in conversation with Executive Producer Jon Dovey. Book your ticket here.

We’re super excited about BikeTAG's Colour Keepers taking place in Bristols Enterprise zone on the 18th and 19th May after dark. Join them and help librate colour back into the world! Part exploration, part battle, part collaboration, part art experience. Colour Keepers is a fun opportunity to play on bikes in the city, to set colours free and co-create light trails using led lights. The event is completely free and can be booked at Watershed. Colour keepers is a unique commission for Bristol Temple Quarter using the new artist-designed BikeTAG light system to create an innovative participatory street game to light up Bristol’s Enterprise Zone.

Luke Jerram's project Voxelate, a 3D pixilated sculpture commissioned for Bristol Temple Quarter is nearly complete. As with a heavily pixilated two dimensional image made of squares, from a distance the sculpture can be easily read. As the viewer gets closer the object appears to fragment into cubes. You can find out more about the project on Luke’s website, and find out about all the Bristol Temple Quarter commissions here.

Yesterday we were joined by Hilary Perkins who is the multiplatform commissioning editor and executive producer for Channel 4. She came to learn more about the Studio and talk to Studio residents about how C4 commissions multi platform projects and some of the projects they have recently commissioned. It was a great session and we look forward to welcoming her to the Studio again in the future.

Then in the evening the fabulous Mayfest launched at Bristol Old Vic. Mayfest is Bristol’s unique annual festival of contemporary theatre running 16-26 May. Check out some of wonderful shows that our residents are involved:

Turning the Page - Stand + Stare Imagine if your well-thumbed, outdated guidebook could talk. Through this intimate installation you are invited to investigate a series of clues hidden within a guidebook that magically come to life as you turn the pages. You can now check out Turning the Page for free in Bristol Library, so pop in and pay them a visit.

Kathy Hinde’s Vocal Migrations developed in the Studio is inspired by how bats use sound to navigate using the reflections of their ultrasonic calls. Use Echo Location to ‘see’ your surrounding by listening carefully to how your own vocal calls are altered by a distance sensing voice-sampler. The experience runs for half an hour all day Wenesday.

Then catch the fabulous show Maskboy in the evening on Wednesday. In Mask Boy, James Wheale uses poetry to retell his harrowing time in Sierra Leone where he faced suicide and malaria, experimented in time travel with a witchdoctor and created a superhero alter-ego to rescue himself from madness. Studio Residents Splash and Ripple are producing the event so it’s sure to be a corker!

Next weekend we see The Memory Dealer by Rik Lander open. Somewhere between theatre, game and out-of-body-experience, The audience enter that world and become part of a story which is revealed by headphone audio, media installations and encounters with live performers.  

Temple Songs is an a-cappella chorus led by composer and director, Jennifer Bell, and a Bristol Temple Quarter Commission. To mark the end of a series of flash close-harmony concerts in Bristol Enterprise zone during Mayfest, they are inviting all comers to an intimate, one-off performance in an empty office. You can find the full programme of events, and book tickets for all the shows on the Mayfest website here.  

We’re excited to announce that Ghosts in the Garden developed during our REACT Heritage sandbox will be running at the Holburne museum throughout May and June, and is launched this Saturday, forming part of the Museums at Night festivities. Developed by our Studio residents Splash and Ripple and produced in collaboration with the Holburne Museum and the University of the West of England, Ghosts in the Garden enables you to tune into the past via an antique time radio to discover the characters that once inhabited Sydney Pleasure Gardens in 1824 and decide their fate via the choices you make. Come and experience the adventure for yourselves, meet characters from Ghosts in the Garden and hear ghost stories in the galleries. Saturday 18th May, 6pm. Find out more.

Next week we’re excited to announce that we are handing the lunchtime talk over to you. If you have a project on the go, something coming up or an idea bubbling away, this is your chance to share it with us and with the lunchtime talk audience to get some support, feedback and inspiration. We will adopt an informal, open mic format and anyone is welcome to contribute, or just to come along and hear from some interesting people. There will be information from some of the Studio residents about what they are currently working on and plenty of space for you to tell us about things that we don't know about yet. If you have any questions or want to discuss anything before the session you can email Verity our Studio Producer on verity.mcintosh@watershed.co.uk.