Lancaster October 2011. Bristol Mayfest 2011.

Where next?

Fortnight by Proto-type Theater. An app for cities. Technology by matter 2 media.

We have just launched roundness.org — a site for devotees of round content: media and things that are either round-framed, viewed in the round, or both.

We aim to build a community around roundness. So send in your contributions. And tweet on #roundness. Let the world know that you’re proud to be round!

The poetry turntable in the Market Theatre played poems by Simon Barraclough, Jacqueline Saphra and Tim Turnbull, who are reading at the Magma Roadshow, 2:45pm on 8 July at Burgage Hall; and by Magma’s Karen McCarthy Woolf, who is reading with Rowyda Amin, 2.15pm, 10 July, also at Burgage Hall.

The poetry turntable also played clips of poet Jean Cocteau‘s films La Belle et la Bête and Le Sang d’un Poète.  Then there was the interactive Pool of Poets.  Who are they, and what were they staring at? 

In addition to the poetry turntable, there were (are?!) poetry in motion signs around Ledbury where you can download poems over the course of the festival.  Each sign provides poems on a theme, and adds new poems every other day.  Visit magmapoetry.com/poetry-in-motion for their locations.  Each sign has a QR code, and a loctcha for those who don’t have a code reader.

Poetry in Motion is powered by matter 2 media’s Krstl.

The Poetry Turntable at the Market Theatre plays Cocteau, turning the film to the viewer…

Connect to the Poetry Turntable using its QR code or loctcha (obscured — you have to be there!)…

A Poetry in Motion sign for downloading poems on the topic of Food at Cameron and Swan café, 15 The Homend…

Attendees were sent a VIP pass containing an RFID tag, which they could swipe at special plinths with RFID readers and screens. When they swiped their pass at each of five zones at the event – Music, Food, Golf, Driving and Gadgets – a personal greeting appeared on the screen plus a post on their Facebook wall. If they swiped at all five zones, we entered them for a prize draw. There were around 500 swipes on the night.

So, you’ve tried ‘checking in’ to places.  Now touch something.  A simple touch can unleash mobile & embedded experiences and, if you want, ripple into social media.

It’s a touch thing.

Watch this space.

something lovely is coming to Bristol from fortnight on Vimeo.

  
matter 2 media’s Tim Kindberg and artist Steve Chamberlain have created Heads, a new type of interactive experience at The Public in West Bromwich.

Visitors can upload pictures from their mobiles using Bluetooth or email. Heads then extracts the faces, which become part of a multi-screen animation along with celebrity heads. Urban seagulls pick the uploaded heads up and carry them from one screen to the other. Will your head end up in Rightworld or Wrongworld? Visit The Public to try it for yourself…

matter 2 media provided the video turntable: a prototype interactive installation at Encounters international short film festival in Bristol, November 2010.

The video turntable plays trailers from the festival. Film fans attending the festival – and only those attending the festival – connect to it on the mobile web (no app required). From the turntable’s web page, they select trailers to play on the turntable and download them to their mobiles.

The projector hangs from the ceiling like a lamp; there are no electronics below it. As the clip of the turntable shows, the projection surface is an ordinary bar table, providing an intimate experience of the films as conversation pieces. Want to talk about the one we’re both going to see later, or the one I saw yesterday? Let’s call it up on the turntable and we can discuss it.

If you look carefully, at one point the video turns to face one of the people standing around it: it senses the presence of those around it and turns to face them.

The experience is casual and informal. If you like, you can place your beer on it while it plays. There are flyers about the turntable laying on it, but the turntable itself explains how to connect to it between videos. It’s a crystal, so only those at the event can connect to it and its content can be made exclusive to them. One way to connect is to read its QR code – see the video below. There’s a simple alternative for those without a code reader.

Contact us if you’re interested in a video turntable for your film festival or cinema lobby – or for any other event where you’d like to distribute content as a conversation piece, exclusively to your attendees.

By the way, the video playing on the table above is a trailer for Farat by Velislava Gospodinova