Brighton Fuse is a 2-year, million pound project aimed at supporting and enhancing the connections between artists and creative practioners in the city and the digital, media and technology cluster.
In the past there has been a bit of a tendency towards a year-zero attitude with some of the digital community, i.e. because digital technology was confronting and reinventing so much in so many areas – from journalism to the music industry to healthcare – then it didn’t have much to learn from the arts and the craft based traditions it was so busy challenging.
This project is based on precisely the opposite point of view – that those producing in the digital domain have a lot to learn from the skills, techniques and knowledge of those active in the established arts and humanities traditions and also that those working in those areas can similarly benefit from engagement with the digital sector.
Of course it’s not as if these connections aren’t already being made. For instance, Disney’s locally based games studio Black Rock recently got its games designers to work with sculptors to understand how they thought about mass and form. Web developers I have spoken to talk about consciously trying to create websites in the same way an architect thinks about the built environment with attention to coherence, accessibility, signposting and hidden pleasures (it is called web architecture, after all). I’ve watched digital designers pour over old typography books and heard bloggers engaging enthusiastically with authors.
It would be interesting to understand how it might also have an impact the other way round – what did those sculptors learn from the Disney games designers? What might a building architect also learn from a web architect?
There is something absolutely energising about people with different skills sets coming together to develop new skill sets and new ways of working and thinking. That’s what this project is all about – taking two areas where Brighton has an international reputation and understanding in detail how they work together already and how we might be able to support and build that process so that new ideas, practices and business opportunities happen.
We want it to generate economic value for Brighton through this project (through sustaining and building innovative activity across the creative digital IT sector) and also create social value for the city (ensuring a more interesting and rewarding place to live and work). After all, a successful city should not just be about what you do, but also what you want and what you feel.
Brighton Fuse is a partnership between Wired Sussex and the universities of Brighton and Sussex with active
support from the BBC, the AHRC and the CIHE. It starts in June. Really looking forward to it.
Phil Jones
Great news. Sounds like a really worthwhile project that will benefit those involved, and the broader economic community here and in the UK.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to more news on this.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting project, can't wait to see what happens next...
ReplyDeleteFascinating to attend the Miltos Petridis presentation at the Skiff last night and in separate conversations to hear about Brighton Fuse. On the one hand as a postgraduate student (Masters in Open & Distance Education with the OU and the OU MBA module 'Creativity, Innovation & Change') I am fascinated in how collaboration works (Engestrom's Activity Theory is the model I like to use to illustrate how minds meld between people and teams to solve problems); as a web agency person (coming to Brighton in 2000) I understand the employer position too, indeed the agency I worked for blossomed from 9 to 50+ at this time. With so may micro-companies though, is Brighton more like a cluster of artisans rather than the South Coast Silicon Valley? Where are venture capital funded labs? A year with the OU has give me some insight into Tertiary Education and distant and applied learning, though the model I would also draw upon in relation to Brighton Fuse is the School of Communication Arts (SCA) which provides art directors, copywriters and designers into the advertising world. As they would/will do when employed people are teamed up. They work towards a job, via placements and real briefs (which they may receive payment for if developed. A qualification is now offered, though I wondered if this is a mistake and a distraction? That working to pass exams and to meet academic assessment criteria can be very different to working on and completing a commercial project. Instead of a marked assignment might money made or saved be the measure? At the SCA mentors come in from industry, including many of the heavy weights from the likes of BBH and Saatchi. It is a hybrid studio, part of the working world but distinct from it. There is talk though of moving their base from Vauxhall to Soho next year so that industry people can simply 'drop in'. There is no use of webcasting which is a lost opportunity and common place in industry both from the desk and from boardrooms.
ReplyDeleteFor electronic arts, I wonder if this team of two ought to be a team of three, that a visualiser working with a copywriter needs a programmer in order to develop ideas with this 'third dimension'. The analogy I would use is a band that requires a drummer, bass player and lead guitar/singer.
During the course of the evening having spoken to several people from Brighton University I realised there is a fourth requirement: the entrepreneur i.e. the band's manager?
This is based on the view that ideas come to fruition through commercial exploitation by an entrepreneur (in may experience someone who sells well, who understands that a fresh idea will turn heads and open doors). The mindset of the innovator and the entrepreneur are very different too.
All in all, this calls for collaboration, team working, acknowledgement of gaps in our own knowledge that our only filled not by gravitating forever to like-minds, but to different minds with complementary skills. A micro-business of one is surely not a business at all. Might 3 be a minimum?
In this respect both The Skiff and The Works sound like valuable places to mix and through proximity and serendipity make things happen.
Mentoring students is two way, not exploitative, but a way to formulate and refresh thinking. Academics benefit from the interaction with their students while those in business benefit from a combination of being challenged and perhaps being reminded of how playful business can be.