Above and BEYOND
Micro-doses of the now-future
BEYOND ‘23 - On my right, the bronze bust of a white man and a shelf of moth-eaten books with titles like “Science, Man & Morals”, “Transgenic Plants” and “Modern Vacuum Practice”. On my left, the great and good from the ‘creative industries’ fume and swoon over funding streams and virtual production (see issue #1!)
There is a room of Oculus headsets and TVs on wheels, showreels rolling. A panel discusses creative opportunities in the Middle East whilst an entirely non-white staff of waiters and wardrobe assistants administer coffee and coats. Words like “authenticity”, “narrative” and “pipeline” drift through the lobby.
I’m not being snarky, I promise! This is how it is in the Royal Institution for BEYOND 2023. Good intentions, shiny plans and, in a side room, open-hearted heckles from standard bearers for more inclusive practice: Clare Reddington, Rachel Coldicutt and Sarah Ellis. If the structure and governance doesn’t change, the equity balance will never meaningfully change.
VOYAGE - Across the pond, the Las Vegas Sphere has opened. One might reasonably ask why so much dollar ($2.3 billion) has been poured into making a really big (20,000 person capacity) TV screen (260 million pixels). U2 have a residency.
On our shores, in East London, Abba Voyage is hosting 21,000 visitors per week in a custom-built, supposedly de-mountable building. Its roof was re-designed three times to house the lighting, of which there is a rig only used once in the show. “Be generous to your audience, invest in them.” Svana Gisla (Producer) holds court with refreshing humility and dry humour. She is a disarming combination of ambitious visionary and humble pragmatist.
Costing around £141m, raised privately with a healthy chunk from ABBA themselves, the project was crafted through lockdown. Industrial Light and Magic leant 1,000 VFX artists from four locations. It’s a music concert that merges physical and digital worlds. “The trick is geometry. It’s not a hologram,” she confides.
Every inch of the physical space has a piece of tech in it, but audiences leave having had an emotional experience. “We’re pack animals, group experiences are more natural for humans.” Some fans have visited 30 times. And they live in Portugal. A new show is on the slate, but we’re not allowed to talk about it.
CoSTAR - Another creative industries conference, another acronym. This one means three ‘labs’ specialising in different areas of innovation. “From virtual production in live performance in Yorkshire, to world-class computer games R&D at Abertay University and advanced technology film production at Studio Ulster.”
There are BIG sums of money involved. In practice, this is about the increasing confluence of production methods in what were once silo’d industries like theatre, film and games. Motion capture, real-time CGI and interactivity is bringing them closer. Aside from the technological advancements that make new formats possible, this is also driven by changing audience appetite, a generation that want to be IN movies, not just watch them; to participate, rather than passively consume. The forthcoming reboot of Gladiators on the BBC will use virtual production. I’m not entirely sure how that’ll work either.
“We’re living through the fastest period of change in human history and yet it’s slower now than it’ll ever be.” Chris van de Kuyl
ZX - Want to nurture innovation? Make shit cheaper! This could be apocryphal, but Dundee has more game designers per capita than any UK city. Chris van de Kuyl reckons it’s because assembly line workers at Dundee’s ZX Spectrum factory sold ‘damaged’ ones out the back door for 1/10th the price. And lo! An industry was born!
THINK OF THE CHILDREN! - Here’s another nail that Svana and Chris hit bang on the head: there are genuine, long-term career opportunities in the creative industries but our education system is largely failing young people. The summer camps at ABBA Voyage for local teens look amazing. The National Film and Television School is smashing it. But we need to be talking about creative careers at primary school. The parents need convincing as well.
The UK has a bright future as a leading creative, knowledge-based economy. Our jobs won’t be replaced by AI, but by people who know how to use it. Estonia is one of the world’s leading education systems because it’s entirely de-centralised, giving schools room to innovate and be agile. The stuff that works spreads quickly to other institutions. Schools become places of facilitated collaboration rather than repositories of static knowledge.
ARCADES - When did you last go to an arcade? It’s all kicking off! I saw a man let 100 shots of Tequila Rose slide from his tray to the floor while his semi-naked, glaze-eyed entourage drift out of the private karaoke booth. Couples cackle as they tap out dance rhythms to falling coloured blocks. A man in angel wings plays the slots. Tired parents play pool, perhaps their first night away from the babe. Air hockey, but now on curved tables. The classics: Time Crisis. Jurassic Park. Mario Kart. But all souped up and elastic-banded to oblivion. However drunkly you drive, you’ll cross the finish line together. And then basketballs. The only game where you break a sweat; the only game they can’t game because it’s just ball through hoop. Beer jugs sluice from hand to hand. Batmen, Superwomen and punk-goths strut the bar. It’s not even the weekend.
NEOM - Meanwhile, as Derby’s Museum of Making drowns and a Just Stop Oil protestor sprays orange cornflour onto a replica dinosaur skeleton, NEOM rises from the Saudi desert like Milton Keynes on acid. NEOM means ‘new future’. It is a region in the north west of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia featuring mountain-ski resorts, palatial island paradises and a 100km long city. It is truly staggering in scale. Laugh. Cry. Carry on with your life.
D&D - Try this self-led, free, live-action D&D adventure at the Natural History Museum. It reminds me a bit of Breadcrumbs (seems to have died) and of course Capture the Museum (10 year anniversary!)
ITS ALL IN THE EYES - Pretty basic gameplay but something to bookmark in the ‘making artworks playful’ category?
CLOCK - I have a hundred things I could share about AI (the V&A made a good guessing game; artists are highlighting the issues of copyright by creating images that ‘poison’ the LLM; there is a glut of terrifying ‘tools’ wading in on the Israel-Hamas war) but let’s go with this poem clock that uses AI to create a time rhyme every minute.
This is the 20th edition of “Or So Ben Thought” and if you liked this one, or any of them, please forward it to someone. Can you believe it’s been three years already!?
In all likelihood this will be the last links-n-thoughts before dead trees pile up on the pavements. But do enjoy the season! Try not to buy too much junk. Get cosy. Bake some cakes! Bye for now,
B.
PS - this week, we’re going to print with CRACT! The slightly silly but surprisingly useful card game about critical thinking and creative acts. See what we did with the name? There will be 100 editions printed. Shout if you want one. This graphic is out of date now, but I like it.
