[Music] so [Music] well hello and welcome to this session on creative process innovation part of expo north 2022 and expo north as you know is a creative industries conference and convention that um usually based in inverness and still based in inverness but happening virtually this year as it has done the two years through the pandemic and that allows us to reach out to um fascinating people all over the world and innovation is very much part of the dna of exponents and as a pan creative industries event and also all year round development program the the way that we create and the what we do with that creative work and the innovations on how it's made and what we do with it are very important to us all and so i'm delighted to be discussing that topic today with um three guests i'm really pleased to join us caroline crispin and helen um i'm gonna pass over to them in a moment and we'll we'll go through various talking points and we'll see how we get on um uh with um with this this rich topic that um i'm sure we could talk about for a long time i i'm google permanent uh sector specialist with expert north and i also run a content company in a year and i'm chair of music trade buddy the scottish music industry association and i work across the creative industries in lots of different ways but let's meet our guests um and caroline can you introduce yourself please and um and give us a bit of an overview of the the projects you work on and or the the companies you work with sure hi everyone i'm carling parkinson i'm sector engagement manager for the creative industries edinburgh futures institute and i also volunteer to support the move summit scotland's animation and vfx summit and i guess the main project that people will be aware that i work with is creative informatics and so you can check that out as another year or possibly longer to run and and hopefully people in the room or the virtual room have been engaging with creative informatics in various ways so that's the project i mostly work with obviously we're also building edinburgh futures institute and in a way that's a project and the building will open next summer and we started work regardless of whether we're in or out of the building and new programs have been written and are launched so that's actually um i guess the day job the main project um and so that's really what i'm working on so my role is to work with you in the industry to help you with your skills needs your research ambitions and your innovation that you'd like to see realized in your business or in your culture organization or in your practice and to help enable that in any way that we can so that's really my role great thank you and crispin can you introduce yourself and tell us what you've been working on who are you working with hi there um yeah i'm crispin perry i run a an arts development agency called british underground and and we really specialize uh in showcasing or i guess promoting in uh uk talent at uh international showcases and that the history of that really we started about maybe over 20 years ago at an event called south by southwest in austin texas at a time when i guess international showcasing wasn't a kind of main feature topic of culture i mean we didn't do a lot of that at that point and along with agencies sort of government agencies and trade bodies like bpi we created a uk showcase for south by south southwest and over time i guess we we built things like a space called the british music embassy there which was a piece of real estate which hosted artists from scotland wales northern ireland and england in one place um we actually kind of stepped away from that a little bit and more now associated with more specialist work from kind of grime and jazz and and and maybe heavy metal getting into genres from the uk rather than just uk nations or or other kind of broader themes but that's working really well and we've worked with people like stormzy and going way back people like amy winehouse but it's a great place to to do work south by and and out from that we started building projects and showcase programs at things like womex just come back from folk alliance which is a hybrid event which i'm sure i'll talk about a little bit later on and classical next where we co-produced the opening ceremony the opening gala there in hanover with an organization called black lives in music so we do lots in that space and more recently in the last few years a project called future art and culture which looks at technology in the arts and culture sector and showcases work from that space in vr and ar and xr specifically at south by southwest within a couple of programs they run there but it really is at the cutting edge of how you can promote and create art within the digital space so i'm going to talk about a little bit of that later on i'm sure as well brilliant thank you and helen um yes tell us about yourself and and the amazing projects you're working on at the moment especially uh sure so my name is helen scarlett o'neil and i am a interaction designer and producer creating participatory experiences and my most recent project is with story futures academy a project called story trails which is led by david olasoga the historian and we are working on a strand which is mobile augmented reality um and um we'll you're gonna get to show us a bit of that um but later on um and i think there's a lot to unpack in there um great well thank you um we were talking before we started the session about about all the different ways that we're seeing technology being used and that we're using ourselves at the moment um but uh caroline if i could start with you like in the work that you do um especially across different networks and and you you i didn't mention that so you ran a brilliant conference um at the end of march um creative tech scotland gathering um which brought together um creative people and technologists and um in a very exciting way i thought um i really enjoyed yeah yeah um and then we saw some really interesting uh innovations in tech at that event but how how do you see technology used currently in the creative industries yeah thanks for that actually i shall talk a little bit about ctsg as i call it um but yeah edinburgh futures institute is a data driven innovation hub so data is obviously the first thing that i see people using and that's my if you like day job but obviously that is data driven so it engages into many many things many tools and so i'm seeing a whole raft of tools being used in digital creative tech data driven innovation so we're seeing people use chatbot and cryptocurrencies and blockchain and creative cred machine learning and ai internet of things obviously ar vr mixed reality 360 4k filming robotics and fashion and also looking at haptics and robotic touch touch lab we're working on that and anarchic 3d and applied art scotland through the distance project are looking at distance collaboration and use of haptic feedback photogrammetry and 3d scanning lidar audio and sound triggered things and in creating with sound design obviously other things as well that are a bit more performative so i'm starting to see people move into how they can use digital and creative tech integrated with their craft or with their music or whatever it may be with their performance so i think during covert we're all playing with and harnessing digital and and maybe lived a little bit too much in digital maybe because i'm starting to see people kind of going right what can i keep from that phase and pull into ah being more face to face with people and doing things in exhibition or audience engagement or performance or working together with someone else what can we bring into the if you like tangible um combination so i'm starting to see people working with um with each other using the tech and so that's really interesting to watch and i'm looking forward to how that will move forward and as you saw at creative tech scotland gathering people were using the tech in various ways so you had re-interactive with mark daniels creating atmosphere os which is a data driven and creative tech sense or enabled triggered film experience so you're watching a film and things in the film sequence are triggering a real atmospheric reaction wind or or an another sound or whatever it may be and obviously they're experimenting with how they could make that an immersive um experience um using atmosphere os and there was drake music scotland who demonstrated making making music through all the different devices they've developed to help people with locked in syndrome and various disabilities to make music including making music with their eyes which is was totally blowing everybody away so that's just a couple of examples i mentioned the distance project they were there with an arctic 3d and touch lab i put them all in one room since they all relate to touch and i'm hoping that maybe a collaboration might come out of even putting them all in one room but people are starting to bring the tools together with what they want to do in their creative practice or in their business so that's what i'm starting to see great yeah thanks i mean uh i think there was some fascinating stuff um being demoed and um and even used at your event um the unity um 3d gaming game authoring platform being used as a great live demo live on stage um to me to show how you can use it to make um live-action animation essentially to make animation using live actors yes was was really exciting but i think what really captured yeah a lot of imagination and really amazed me was what was happening in music tech um especially there was some cool coding for kids kind of like music making through coding through using world objects and put like whether that's movie built that was the lego enabled uh playable tech yeah by by ben shugler playable tech yeah and that was fantastic how you children can put the lego pieces on and the various intervals create the pitch and rhythm difference and then you can add others drums and bass and so forth and they could actually make music by playing lego which is just a fantastic thing it's called beat blocks yeah yeah that was really exciting and then the the drake stuff dried music scotland who've been pioneers for a long time in the use of technology working with people with a whole range of different disabilities and different uh and different abilities and um the the the site piano the what i piano did the i can't remember the name of it but yeah um difficult to get the hang of but but actually after using it even for a short time you can start to literally see how it's used um by you know it's tracking the motion of your eyes and then triggering um notes accordingly and um that was wonderful as well as some other um apparently look look quite simple innovations with a lot going on behind the scenes to enable people who couldn't um absolutely um significant mobility issues to perform um crispin you yeah and i think it's harnessing all that tech and bringing it together that is the key isn't it now yeah yeah and and using it um productively and uh chris when you've talked to me in the past about some of the innovations that you've seen showcased um in music and and audio more widely but um what have you seen recently or what you know what has caught your eye currently so i think the gaming world is really interesting and and you're seeing it i think post-pandemic or maybe maybe during the pandemic coming closer to some of the things that that we might do in culture and the arts and um i'm going to take take you back a couple of years to when uh little nas x performed on the roblox platform now not many people i guess in our world will have seen that and it's quite a famous story now and i believe at the time it did pick up views of around 30 million actually people actually witnessed that and i was one of those people but i got to see that because my 11 year old twins who would have would have been probably 10 at the time um were on that platform seeing how it worked it's an open world um i guess metaverse style platform and you have an avatar and you can play games build worlds and do what you like and that was it's used a lot by kids um and it's a really interesting space to see what the future of that kind of thing what they're calling the metaverse might be because a lot of the the development is being done there and my kids are native in that world they buy their t-shirts they buy their currency they buy their real estate there and they see that as no different to buying a team in fact they prefer to do that and to buy a real t-shirt from a shop it does cost money that that we as parents have to provide through a through an exchange of robux um but i saw that um show uh there and i just thought well well wow at some point that's going to hit my world of showcasing and we were still in lockdown at the time and i was planning the south by southwest i guess it was an online show and a talk to the programmer within their xr space their kind of digital space that they were building and he said well can you find some some music that really shows off this kind of technology and he said you know we'll help you build it we'll help you put a platform to put that on so i kind of explored that and we did end up creating a 3d avatar um for the south by southwest xr platform uh built around the the tuba player theon cross and it was it's an amazing there are videos of it and and i would i would seek it out but it's i mean we think it's one of the first sort of showcasing avatars to ever be built certainly the first um tuba playing avatar ever to be built uh and this was you know a couple of years ago now so it was before that avatar building was really something you could just go on to a program and do yourself you needed to be a specialist we had a big team build that avatar but it was a really useful experience to see what some of the future might be like and i know we're much more aware of the metaverse and avatars and what that kind of story and how that story is developing now uh and i still think we're in the foothills we haven't really uh quite figured out certainly within the cultural space what the metaverse might mean to us in a few years time and maybe we can talk about some of that on this on this discussion um but yeah it was really interesting seeing roblox and it's kind of the other things like fortnight and minecraft they are where um the the sort of future users of our world the future population the future kind of uh people who will be making the culture and the arts that's going to be their experience they're going to know what that is and i think it's really useful within this discussion to to be aware of that and and i mean there is some you know a slight snobbiness around games but actually have a look at those things they're very accessible um and they are the places where a lot of this culture will be built and so we do need to be aware of what they are again we might talk a little bit about that uh later on and i did um get lucky enough to meet the um the one of the directors from roblox at south by southwest this year and we did talk a lot about where they're going and they are building programs for music makers and and artists now so that those things will be embedded in in their world so yeah that's that's just a little reflection on where we're at right now thank you yeah that's really interesting i i think there is there's so much potential there in these um virtual worlds that are you know there are worlds the there's there is um there's of course there's a marketplace there there's opportunity to perform to engage to interact there um and um uh helen um uh you actually you before we we started this you were talking about about a bit about those worlds as well but um how do you um how are you using create technology in your own creative practice at the moment sure so um i'm going to show you some stuff because that's probably the best way to describe what i'm doing at the moment and but i should have probably in my introduction mentioned a little bit where my background was because that really has uh influenced where i've ended up in terms of tech and what caroline was saying in terms of you know how do you bring the real world and the tech together that's definitely what i'm trying to do in this project so my background is what you might say in immersive theater so site-specific immersive theater to be precise so creating worlds that are layered across existing sites in a meaningful way so for example secret cinema productions both the digital pre-narratives and the the physical experiences uh finding buildings that work for them finding artists that can build parts of those worlds to kind of put us in dialogue with the cultural artifact in our modern times with what's going on now so we did terry gilliam's brazil in croydon in the tallest building which was a bt block and it was right across from the home office at the time of the hostile environments and it was you know we really enjoyed kind of bringing that modern layer to the cultural artifact and to the physical site um i also worked with the national trust and the national archives to bring hidden histories to life on the locations in which they happened that included suffragette city which we did in piccadilly circus and it was a recreation of the recruitment and deployment and training of militant suffragettes during the window smashing campaign which took place in piccadilly circus and that was using uh recreated archival artifacts both in the digital world and in the physical world um so this project which is led by david olasoga is very much about also bringing hidden histories to life and one thing i think that that tech has really brought us to is decentralizing and democratizing how we look at uh museum culture and archive who's a creator where those places have to be and who can access them um so essentially we're making augmented reality trails in 15 locations across the uk with creatives in each location the two that are in scotland are dundee and freeze and i'm actually going to show you a wee bit of lambeth because that's what i've been working on today because we're right in the thick of production and i'm not going to show you the finished product because we're not at that stage yet i'm going to show you some of the programs that we use in order to get there and actually what i'm going to show you first is something in reality composer and it's actually built by our creative and dundee duncan cowells but for patricia lala who's our creative in lambeth let me just find the right window so this is a scan outside of brixton library and if i just press play you can see that the the real world uh we've added objects to it and the the technology basically we're working with nexus who are working with location mapping and placing technology and if i stop sharing for a second hope you guys all saw that okay and essentially we're using scaniverse which is now readily available on uh apple phones you can go out and scan and so there are 50 librarians across the country and our creatives who've been trained to use this in order to capture physical locations which we can then uh layer uh virtual elements across including archive from the bbc and the bfi and our various partners so that you can go to that site you can hold your phone up essentially and you'll see the the virtual scans will just basically snap into position and all you will see is what's been layered on top of it and you can walk around it and interact with it as if there are real objects in this actual space uh you can also view it at home as a diorama and just you know pinch to size the the scale of the environment which you're putting into your living room or on your kitchen table or whatever so what you saw there is reality composer which is how we get part of the editorial process done in terms of specializing the content it then would go to the developer so that they could put it into unity and build it in there but the next stage which i'm going to show you is actually the stage before reality composer which is an editorial program called the script so a lot of the creatives that we're working with have a background in uh documentary filmmaking and we're launching the story trails project at sheffield dock fest on the 26th of this month and so this is patricia lala in lambeth and this program is essentially a scripting program which we're using to try and represent what information is given when the audience trigger certain objects within the 3d environment so i'll just play a little bit of it to give you some idea hello i'm calling about your application to be a roadie well congratulations you've got the job your musical artist is winnie fo i haven't got time to give you the full lowdown but see what you can glean from that radio then check in at the old piano over there for your first day on the job i'll fill you in later go on tap to tune it so i'll just stop showing it there it gives you the idea it's essentially a scripting tool and that plus reality composer gives our developers what they need in order to build uh these experiences cool thanks very much for that um so you're building it's script-based but you're building it as an interactive experience so the the user the the audience member can take it in different directions so it's not strictly linear is that right this actually is a linear journey so the interactions are to do with how the audience navigate the space and they can input into it so there are some elements that we call hope notes which essentially is allowing for the audience to input information into the trail at one point which comes back at them in another point as part of an installation which adds a layer of understanding to that current point in the story so we are still it's interactive to a certain extent at this point and but it is linear storytelling as well but uh the approach in all of the trails is very much about the audience journey so it's not about giving them information it's about them uncovering information as they go what like what part of it because like with your background in immersive theater and and this kind of storytelling um i completely understand how you can can create something like this and make this world but um what um how has the the technology that you're using enabled the project what has you know has it has it opened up things that you wouldn't have been able to do without that tech yeah i think for me the the thing that it's enabling is a layering of moments in time which is something that i'm very interested in as somebody who loves working with archive i really love that you can go to a place and have another moment in that place layered over the top of it through video footage through archival material for example if there was a protest in a square you could put that protest back in the square if it's video footage of that protest you could use machine learning to extrude it in 3d so that you could walk around it in that's that same space i think there's something really powerful about walking in the footsteps of people that have gone before us and and trying to tune into that moment in time and what they're feeling through the actions that you're taking to engage with the story yeah yeah absolutely and um i think it's really interesting how you're using evocative audio that's you dramatize your audio great sound design um with these visual interactive tools as well um and lovely archived pieces um how how do you think technology is helping the creative process in terms of removing obstacles and refining workflows and finding the way things are done um crispin is this something that you've seen much evidence of i think the the the interesting thing about where we are now and we're still obviously trying to figure out fully what the world looks like for culture and the arts uh kind of post-pandemic but i mean you can you can get a sort of sense of where it might be going at the moment and i think what's interesting you know the pandemic forced us to think about ways of doing our work where we might be in one location and we needed to get whatever art we were making to somebody else and there were already tools and processes and ways of doing that but actually this forced us to really look at how we might do that so as a producer of real world showcases that happened in various spaces um around the world we clearly couldn't do that anymore and one of the things that we had been looking at as a sort of uh an arts agency trying to figure out new ways of getting our our or the work of of artists out to people was looking at video and actually during the pandemic well we have to do this now and i think one of the the things that that was interesting is there were early on people that get the guitar or their piano or whatever it was and they'd put their computer on and they would film themselves and that was seen as sort of good enough for where we were at that point and actually it did enable communication it did enable people to connect and collaborate but as time went on and netflix production and people we've got much more used to watching a lot more tele with much better high production values and there was a lot more demand people became more demanding i think and i think we responded to that by really trying to make much more i guess documentary style showcases where you would actually add a lot more context into the story so one of the we we did a big showcase uh with an organization called jazz refreshed and we thought well how do we make this something that resonates to our american colleagues who would recognize that not only are we to hear doing this in a venue but they'll know that venue and they'll know it's an important and and something to be it's an important place and something to be cherished as they watch it so we went we filmed the whole thing in abbey road studios which of course was known to americans so that became one of the parts of the story and the experience of those artists very new artists going into that very famous place that had a lot of history some of the artists didn't know any of the history which was great too but a lot of that history they were able to articulate through their stories of what they you know how they responded to her and then their music was part of that as well so making much more narrative based showcasing was really good and actually we got to a point at the end of of this year where we've started to make sort of documentary showcase films that accompany the live showcase now and at the event we've just done in folk alliance in kansas city we delivered the keynote even though the film was shown to a packed venue in um the the the hotel room the conference room in kansas city it was filmed in somebody's house and we packaged it up and edited it really nicely showed it and it was screened to a big audience outside that room but also the audience in the room had a a communal experience as well so we're starting to figure out this sort of stuff i'm not sure we're 100 certain as to what it is yet but definitely the combination of things that can be done online the avatar projects i talked about before and ways of bringing people into the room to to watch somebody do something live these i think particularly with the environment and ideas around that being important to explore as well we've been forced to have to have to address this and this this is where we're going right now it's sort of a hybrid way of thinking but i don't think we're at the end of that thought process yet but it's really useful to have gone through that actually we're making some new things and that's really interesting that the way that process has evolved and you're taking bits of what works well during the way we had to do things in the height of the pandemic [Music] and combining that um with what you want to do in the real world and and sometimes that's technology driven and sometimes actually that's just about the way that you execute the the experience you know the way you bring it to life the way that um you design it um and um that will continue to evolve i guess as we you know sort of find our feet with this new i mean yeah i think that's right dougal yeah i think people are trying to think to themselves okay we did a lot of experimentation i guess at that point it was about bringing ourselves to our audience with our creative expression and we weren't so worried about can we monetize this how do we protect et cetera but then there was the benefits okay i'm traveling less this is good for the climate and environmental impact and carbon offsets and as you know the music industry we're interested in in that um to go because i think the smi have been talking about hybridization and can we retain some of the benefits for access for people and being able to enjoy it if you can't make it to the gig and also the secondary income from being able to watch something digitally so i might be able to buy a digital ticket if i can't make it to wherever to see whoever so you know that was also how can we retain that and so in terms of creating something that would allow that um people start to explore okay is the audience ready for that what's the value for that how much do you charge for that and also who owns the broadcasts and who owns the performance and how do you pay the artist appropriately for the second part and then if you were to play again later is there a charge for that to the audience member and is there a payment to the artist and the venue and who shares it and what's the actual fair split of that now all these questions were being asked of people who were thinking about doing it and the fnr and eindhoven took it further and took their isolation sessions and looked at the artist owning the broadcast because the venue took the view that i hire a band so to speak and they go on the stage it's ephemeral they play i can't keep it there's nothing to retain it's in everyone's memories um so when i pay them a fee and we're all happy yeah so they say well if there's no performance there's no venue additional gig so as far as i'm concerned the artists should own their performance and so in that case there's a royalty to them there's a fee to them and it's a different model it's more like the broadcast model and they looked at the ip and how digital payments could be made how the broadcast is recognized uh protected and paid and the artist remunerated quickly so they were looking all of that that platform they now want to white label and make available so this is interesting people have been trying to look at solving it other things that people were looking at is exhibition online and how you might enjoy a 3d immersive exhibition and i thought some of the platforms that came out during the pandemic to allow you to do that yourself were pretty fascinating um in terms of your first question around creative workflow and process i think at creative informatics i've seen a lot of practitioners and innovators and culture organizations thinking about gaps and how we can shorten certain processes and fill gaps and so we're seeing a lot of people applying their minds to shortening that creative process and you've got stage port early resident entrepreneur 3d scanning venues so that people had a digital venue replica and then that could be used by touring companies to design their set for that venue ahead of time and so if every venue had that that could enable touring um black goblin black black goblin audio looking at how visual artists and people who are maybe not familiar with sound are starting to use sound and make their own tracks and how can they simplify that with their audio plug-in system that they're creating and making that accessible for visual artists and and so on so i'm seeing creatives thinking about other creatives and creative process and centerline creating a touring system a database touring system and then scotty creating a ticketing and marketing system for theater and social convention creating a performance platform then all three of them realizing in beta we could really join these up and make it into one system for performing arts so it's great to see creatives thinking about other creatives and creating solutions for them yeah yeah um because that helps push things forwards and um there's uh there's just endless potential with that really but it but it's about what is going to be genuinely useful and then and help move things forwards um helen what do you think um in terms of processes removing obstacles and making it easier for things to get done well um obviously the big one that's been removed is distance in a way especially on this project working across 15 locations with people i hadn't met in real life until literally a few weeks ago i've been working with them for a year you know just a very intense way exploring new ways of working and then seeing everyone in real life for the first time such a kind of an emotional relief but the the fact is that we managed to work um completely remotely learning new skills together training testing it's it's really just incredible how we can work in such a deeply connected way across great distances now and that's the major blocker i suppose that has opened up a project doesn't have to be in one location anymore it can happen almost simultaneously across different locations he can be thinking about projects that are global even and so that's very exciting for me especially someone whose practice has been very sight-based um i think it's been a bit the case of the good the badly ugly in terms of processes go and in terms of ease of processes so obviously remote working has been pretty incredible and but then when it comes to new technologies there are some processes that definitely need smoothing out and again as caroline was saying you know realizing that some systems could be joined up and it would be a lot better and easier for future creatives and i mean we're definitely coming across moments like that we're like wow why is this going to america and we're waiting three days for for x to happen uh you know there's definitely flows that can be improved uh so maybe not so much the bad but some of the ugly especially like getting from ra from the script which is one of the programs that i showed earlier uh into other programs i mean it's a wonderful as a visual tool for conveying information but if you want to get that information out of it into another program you know i mean they keep updating the script every single day but it's very much a work in progress and we're constantly encountering bugs and issues and so it feels like kind of a brave new world in those in that regard in terms of how those technologies work or don't work yet and how they could be better joined up to refine our processes so so yeah to be continued i think and in terms of the um what's possible um is there anything that that you've used that you're using that um makes it possible for you to do things that were previously impossible um for instance from for me uh in in my content um production company um we've been amazed by some of the the tools that we've got now for you that use ai to do things like upscale images or increase the resolution of video um or with um really um really effective audio restoration or emulation and then things like the uh what we i mentioned that in the carolinas conference that um creating animation in a live action way or you know working with live people to manipulate avatars um is there anything that you use helen that um wouldn't have been possible previously i think the the the tech that has excited me most apart from this mobile scanning being accessible to everyone and the way it can snap into place and you can walk around you know mixed reality environments i'd say that the most impressive technology that we work with that's more specific than that is the the machine learning applied to archive video and there's something really beautiful and unnerving about scenes coming to life in 3d through machine learning there's some i mentioned if there was a protest in the square you could put it back in there there's some footage that we're not using for various editorial reasons but it is of a protest and that's the first one that i saw tested with the the machine learning extrusion and um you could see the the tactics of the the police and the crowd in the scene really emphasized when it was drawn out into space and you you just felt connected to the logistics and emotions of the space in a very different way when it was extruded in 3d so i mean that surprised me and i found that it was quite exciting um and you know it's one of those technologies yeah or how's that how does it work not the original uh archive clip and then the machine learning creates 3d model based on it it's a bit simpler than that um it's essentially it's the the the program has learned how to differentiate from foreground mid-ground background and that tracks objects throughout the the film footage in those regards so it makes a guess and usually it's right sometimes it's not and it's quite hilarious and but it makes a guess and then it applies it to the whole footage and what you get essentially because we're putting it into 3d space is um it's it stretches out like a light ray and it's kind of almost like putting the film footage back to reality so in the same way the light bounces off of objects in 3d space and forms the footage we're kind of trying to reverse it and put the people back out there and so you get everyone specialized back into space with these pretty cool kind of stretchy light light beams in between the bits that it can't quite figure out so you can walk around people but they don't have a back side if you know what i mean um because that wasn't ruined but um it's kind of like if you've seen minority reports uh the way the the film footage and that is specialized when uh the investigators looking at evidence uh also reminds me of detroit become human if anyone's played that there's a crime scene where you can recreate the crime scene that happened there with these extruded figures in space um yeah it's it feels pretty futuristic i think it's one of the things within the project that looks like we're pushing the boundaries it's almost struggling on the edge of very cool yeah i look forward to seeing um some of that um caroline uh what about you have you seen any examples of making the previously impossible possible i i still am amazed by the live capture into animated background you know the 360 4k studio and you can see live action and then drop it into unity and and put it in an animated background or as you say create an avatar from it and then loving seeing chagall in her performance triggering her avatar at the same time as triggering her music using the mimi gloves and using her body sensors to trigger other effects and she's got a motion capture camera triggering other things and so the whole thing is she's i don't know how she does it it's like her brain and her fingers are all completely then she added drones um and so drones were actually moving as well so i think that it's it's that sort of thing that makes me just get the goosebumps and um in a more practical way the thing that i would love to see happen and it's possible it's just not connected yet is things like um fashion design that can then is seen you can see in the ar until you can see the fabric moving everything that's possible and you can have a fashion show like that then you could take it to vr where oh i could try that one okay and then buying it okay that still has the same transaction if you like if we can move that to remote printing where you have a design it can be printed or 3d printed or created close to your locale then it travels this tiny distance to get to you because it's already designed digitally transferred digitally printed digitally and and so you can imagine remote production and you could then apply that to furniture making and all sorts of things where design could be designed somewhere but it's made elsewhere and just trying to look at the circular economy and things like that so i think that there's still things that there's pockets as helen was saying there's things that we the technologies are there but they need the connections or the business model is maybe not quite there so but these are the two things that really really interest you yeah thanks um crispin the same thing that you've seen that is intriguing in that way what uh i have to say i'm always uh kind of blown away as soon as anything even minor comes my way i think technology is extraordinary we sort of are in an interesting time for it now as well um i guess you know i mean i've been working within i mean i've worked primarily in music and then shifted very quickly into the kind of hardcore of technology and ar and xr and vr and ai and all of those initials all kind of hit me really hard but i ended up being very lucky to work with some of the best uh of that within the art so things like dream the the rsc production that was a virtual reality live production that happened again another pandemic inspired project i think but very large scale and very much at the very forefront of what is likely to happen in that space so i don't think you know you're not going to get many of those coming along at once right now but those are the other projects that are going to i guess right write the story of what's coming next um so um yeah i don't deal i don't work necessarily within within the programs i'm just watching and supporting how those programs help artists but i i think within all of this technology it feels like we're still in the very early days of it kind of coming together properly certainly being adopted by the majority of the population and you know outside of my work not very many people are comfortable with headsets and and and are really that aware of what's happening in vr and ar and stuff so i think we've got a long way to go till we get it and maybe we need to abandon headsets for all of that to really happen and things the interactivity needs to come from somewhere else perhaps and the immersion needs to come from somewhere else and i think you know phones and watches and glasses will probably take on some of that in the future but these are just my hunches as i see what happens you know around me but i think we're we're in a really interesting time i think we don't need to get too distracted by the metaverse because i think a lot of that is made up we may already be in that anyway um but i know one of your questions yeah yeah coming on to it yeah is what are the dangers of some of this what are some of the warnings that we should be aware of but it would be interesting to to talk about that because i think you know i work with real live performers real live artists crafts people people who work in culture and it's their work that we're really interested in supporting and all of the technology helps that it isn't the work that we're supporting you know that that is there to to create um those works and help bring them to life but it is not the thing we're interested in so technology like like throughout history is there from from lighting to a stage to whatever it might be is there to support uh those artists and i think we we can easily get distracted by silicon valley's kind of really hyper way the hyperbole around technology can sometimes be quite overwhelming and actually i think we do need to always put the artist first in that conversation certainly from where we stand so one of the warners is not to take the the silicon valley um version of where we sit right now in the world too seriously and and and explain what's good and just yeah remembering the humanity of it doesn't you know keep the artist front and center and um and not getting carried away for technology for the sake of it um yeah and i'm glad you brought that up because yeah i was thinking about what about when technology isn't the answer or even a cause for concern um uh caroline is is that you know something that you think about or you know you've seen yeah that i think about that i do i think about that a lot i know that sort of i'm going to sound like an old woman but i remember the analog days and i i worry um i worried about the full digital immersion that happened during covers and as a dancer you're very connected to i guess your physical being and your performance space and it was very difficult to sit still at a computer for two two years well so i'm concerned about that i'm concerned about data ethics obviously being in a data project and how vulnerable we are with our data actually um and we've obviously seen data manipulation and you know you don't need me to talk about that that's a concern i'm sure people have i'm concerned about the green impact of things i mean nfts which we haven't mentioned yet they're obviously immersed in is very fascinating but are they green same issue we have with cryptocurrency and blockchain um i've heard an inventor say if you don't need to use blockchain don't use it so definitely concerned about the green impact i've seen a recent article around a server that was driven by algae and it went on and on and on much longer than they thought it would and you think okay next generation servers well literally that would be green streaming and um i guess i'm concerned about i'm just concerned about everyone thinking that digital is the answer and it's a tool this is a tool and it's just a tool and we have all these colors in our palette and we can use all these things and play with them i just i think i'm just have that 80s girl mentality of this far and no more i'm a bit nervous about how far do you think um for you or in your experience um well i think uh before the pandemic because the pandemic certainly did fully immerses in the digital world and i think uh especially in terms of interaction potential a lot of people found it to be lacking in terms of in that in that regard and a lot of colleagues before the pandemic were very anti the the spread of tech and digital interaction and wanted to kind of throw off and go full in on on the physical um and i think part of that is also to do with seeing uh social media and gaming as kind of low forms of interaction and um i think what we learn in the pandemic is that you know they can be used in interesting ways but actually some of the interaction that we do have in digital space is very limited still and we do need to stretch the potential of what that can mean um and i think as chrisman was saying about putting the artist in the center of it our artists do i think need to step up to help push the limits of the technologies that we use especially those that we use very often on a daily basis and that shape our interactions beyond digital space i think um unless we're pushing the boundaries there we will end up with the lowest common denominator for our everyday mainstream digital interaction which i don't think is a good thing um but in in terms of overusing tech because you're talking about style over substance there's something that uh kim lee at nexus who's one of my colleagues on this story trails project says she says um if you're using tech to do something that couldn't be done any other way then you're using tech right and i think that that's a good rule when thinking should i use something so that's something that she said that stuck with me which i definitely like to interrogate that's a great smile that's a great rule and a great thing to keep in mind and actually you know that that's in line with what you were saying crispin about you know keeping the artist at the at the center of it you know and just making sure that we're we've got the right intentions um and we we're only using the technology to help us move forwards um what um well we'll finally you know we'll wrap up in a moment but is there anything that um excites you about future potential um that you know coming back around to a more positive um uh way of thinking you know what what are you excited about next or what would you like to get your teeth into all right carolyn i would love to see what we can do now with 5g and performance and outdoor performance and harnessing the power of that and mobile and really doing something you know begging power outdoors i still get a buzz out of everything that we're all doing and don't get me wrong i might have you know this voice on my shoulder but i still get really excited and i'm still struck and wonder in all the things that our creatives do i still get a complete buzz out of it so i'm always excited about what they want to do next and try and push my reservations to the back um so i'm i'm excited about what's possible with with 5g and an outdoor performance that's really getting me excited um and so i think yes no i love that especially getting outside and um uh yeah and getting into the real world um yeah crispin what were you excited about just sort of going back to the thing we started where i started talking about and my kids on roblox and and that sort of space and i think it's exciting to think that actually the world of gaming which i think is far far ahead of in a lot of these conversations particularly in in the way that it brings narrative and depth and all sorts of things that perhaps we don't think about within that space i think the fact that we in the kind of culture and the arts are moving closer to that i think there is a a really interesting space opening up uh of culture and the arts and gaming where we have a sort of hybrid uh kind of entertainment that might be coming down the pipeline so i'm looking at that space yeah and getting quite excited understandably so and and helen well um whether it's something you're using or something that you'd like to use or just you seeing what's what's exciting for you sure um so uh james bennett who's another colleague of mine he's the head of story futures academy which is the parent for steroid story trails and he used a term which i really liked yesterday which was um the people's metaverse because one of the things that really excites me is accessibility of mobile technologies for people to create and interact directly with things in ways they haven't before and as i said before the way that technology decentralizes our the way we approach culture heritage museums i think that that's a very exciting future one where it's everywhere all around us and we're part of it yeah um yeah that's definitely an exciting future well um loads to think about and lots for hopefully for everyone to take on board there and to get into um and uh and so much so much innovation going on in the creative world and using technology but also using just different ways of thinking about things and taking some of the bits that we liked from the way that we were working during lockdowns and so on and um and mixing it with you know getting rid of the stuff we didn't like in them or trying to put that aside anyway and move away get away from always being at the screen or certainly being sedentary at it um and um and so so many uh amazing projects and um activities going on to explore as well and we'll um we'll try and we'll share some links with people as well um through exponent channels um um but yeah thank you very much um thanks very much for joining me for taking part and helen caron crispin um it's been great having you and um hopefully you can do do this again thing again in person at some point soon but yeah thank you thanks dougal great thanks thank you