Shift Happens was again a great mix of case studies and stories of new and exciting digital technologies and projects for the arts and learning sectors. Produced by Pilot Theatre, with keynotes from Sir Ken Robinson, artist Jonathan Harris and Alice Greenwald (9/11 Museum & Memorial); lots of great immersive and participative digital experiences in the foyer; and tons of networking, the event in York on 5th & 6th July sold out.
John Popham summed it up on the Shift Happens network thus:
“It was another great event, as we all knew it would be. It seemed to me that the debate on technology, social media and the arts has moved on from where it was at Shift Happens 2009, there was much less dissent about the role it has to play, and, as more that one speaker said, it is no longer “what technology?”, it is now “why are we using it?”
John McGrath of National Theatre Wales showed off his highly developed green digital skill of presenting to conferences via Skype. He mentioned their work with us and reflected on how NTW’re getting on making theatre with communities and artists who are based online (in the cloud).
I spoke on the subject of “The Digital Planet”, thinking about the next iterations of the internet as finally being appropriate for live, digitised core content which gives cultural organisations a greener way of increasing reach, scale, impact and accessibility. Slides and links to the videos available here. The videos of all the speeches will be released over the year, so I won’t spoil the content of them.