Digital birds, 3-D body scanning booths, crowd-controlled balloons and a GPS-enabled umbrella – all these ideas and more are featured in the ten shortlisted projects for a new award aimed at artists working with technology.
The Playable City Award, an initiative produced by Watershed, Bristol, is offering £30,000 to the eventual winner, who will be commissioned to complete their idea in time for a summer 2013 launch, before the work is then toured internationally.
Launched in October, the award attracted 93 entries from 24 countries and is supported by, amongst others, Bristol-based Aardman Animations, the people behind Wallace & Gromit. Clare Reddington, Director of Pervasive Media Studio and Playable City chair, said: “The strength and diversity of the applications we received from artists all around the UK and beyond shows that [the idea of] the Playable City has a bright future and one we are very excited about.”
The judging panel – Tom Uglow, Creative Director of Creative Google Labs in Sydney; Imogen Heap, musician; and Claire Doherty, Director of Bristol-based art commissioning organisation Situations – will meet to discuss the shortlist on 14 January 2013 and the winner will be announced on 21 January.
The full shortlist for the Playable City Award is:
The Arc Project (Ivana Basic, Kyle Macondald, Gabriella Levine, Jack Kalish), New York: 3-D scanning booths with special viewing bubbles.
Baloonometer (Ludic Rooms with Talking Birds and Splash and Ripple), Coventry: Crowd-controlled installation using balloons, microphones and fans.
Cast (Nicky Kirk and Ed Carter), London, UK: Site-specific interactive pavilion and immersive environment.
The City You Dreamed Of (Laura Kriefman), Bristol: Building blocks with embedded sensors tumbling out of a tip-up truck touring the city.
Hello Lamp Post! (PAN with Gyorgyi Galik and Tom Artmitage), London: A city-wide conversation taking place through street furniture.
Interactive Album (Fred Deakin), London: An album as a series of installation experiences in locations around the city.
Jolly Brolly Mystery (Andrea Hasselager and Rune K. Drewsen), Copenhagen: City-wide clues on rainy days and a GPS-enabled umbrella.
Playscape (Hide&Seek), London: Public digital displays that provide free public play.
Robot Runners (Seb Lee-Delisle), Brighton: A massive city-centre spectacle involving up to 100 robots.
Sing A Little Song (Lucky Frame), Edinburgh: Digital, wirelessly-connected birds installed around the city.
View an overview of the shortlist here.
