Last week, I was asked to talk at Ludic Rooms' Random String Symposium, about the role of producer/facilitator and how collaboration can inform the dialogue between technology and creative practice. I thought it might be useful to post my talk (with links), so here goes:

Hi,

I’m going to begin, by telling you a very short story about the invention of the teabag.  Slightly left field, but bear with me…

The tea bag did not exist in the 17th century. When citizens of this era took their tea, they used removable infusing devices such as metal tea eggs or tea balls to make their brews.

However, in around 1908, Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea merchant, began to send samples of tea to his customers, in small silken bags. Some assumed that these were supposed to be used in the same way as the metal infusers, by putting the entire bag into the pot, rather than emptying out the contents. It was thus by accident that the tea bag was born.

[reference: The UK Tea Council]

This example does not use any great technology or artistic idea, but what it illustrates, is that when you let other people loose with your ideas (no tea pun intended I promise), unexpected and amazing things can happen.

I also like this story, because it’s an example of accidental collaboration. Thomas Sullivan had created a great product all on his own, and did not set out to collaborate with his customers, but when – serendipitously - he did, he radically changed the way whole societies consume tea.

So how does this relate to what we do at Watershed? … Well, I would say that a large part of what we do, is ‘manufactured serendipity’ – we create ‘collaborative spaces’ where unexpected conversations and collaborations can happen, and everyone’s ideas get better as a result.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Victoria Tillotson and I’m one of a team of Creative Producers who work at Watershed.

Producers have existed in many industries for decades. However, it’s only in the last few years, spurred on particularly by Jerwood’s publication of ‘The Producers – Alchemists of the Impossible’ – that we’ve witnessed an identification of the role of ‘creative’ or ‘digital’ producer in the arts, which I would roughly define as people who make brilliant things happen.

As a producer at Watershed, I work to create collaborative spaces, and then support and nurture the brilliant people and communities that reside within them.

So what do I mean by that?

Well, collaborative spaces can be physical or conceptual, exist on and offline, and often overlap.

An example of a physical space would be Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio, a space inside Watershed’s building, that brings together an active network of over 150 artists, creative companies, technologists and academics to work on new and emerging ideas.

Within this infrastructure, conceptual spaces are the residencies, labs and development programmes we produce there.

Our spaces purposefully put art and artists alongside agencies and scientists (under our founding principles of generosity and interruptability) in order to encourage cross-pollination, sharing and bettering of ideas.

I should also add that the Pervasive Media Studio is a formal partnership between Watershed, the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol, and as such, is a massive collaboration in itself.

So by creating these environments - open places where people from differing perspectives can meet to exchange ideas – Watershed, as an organisation, enables collaboration between technology and creative practice, but what value do these spaces, and the support we offer within them, bring to the practitioners operating within this ecosystem?

When I wrote the short text for this talk, I’d imagined pulling on lots of case studies to illustrate different points, but in actual fact, I’ve since decided to centre my thoughts around one project, which I feel tells a wonderful story:

In 2012 contemporary artists Juneau Projects applied for one of our open Studio Residencies at Pervasive Media Studio, proposing to develop new work in collaboration with artificially intelligent, thinking machines. Their idea was to research how they could employ technology as a collaborator in the making of new artworks, rather than just a tool employed in the process.

We thought this sounded hugely interesting, so we awarded them the residency, giving them time and space at Pervasive Media Studio, an opportunity to become part of the Studio community, production support from our team, and budget to cover travel, relocation costs, fee and production.

They began their research, by attempting to create paintings with existing entities like Cleverbot – an artificially intelligent online chatbot, that you can have conversations with. Their collaboration with Cleverbot went like this:

User:  OK. I am an artist. I want to make a painting. I would like you to help me with it if you are ok with that?
Cleverbot:  Alright, I suggest zombies.
User:  Great, I'll do a painting of zombies.
User:  What colour should the zombies be?
Cleverbot:  Gold.
User:  What else should be in the painting?
Cleverbot:  Robot clothes.
User:  What should the title of the painting be?
Cleverbot:  You'll never believe anything again.
User:  So shall I call the painting 'You'll never believe anything again'?
Cleverbot:  Yes, I will pray for you.

And this was the resulting work …

Although this is obviously pure genius, as a producer, I figured it was probably a good moment to intervene, and introduce them to roboticist Dr Adam Spiers. At the time, Ad was working in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the University of Bristol, researching haptic technologies and looking at their application in hospital surgery. However in his spare time, I knew that Ad had a passion for rescuing robots from production lines, and refurbing them into machines that could draw. I felt this could be the start of an interesting relationship.

It didn’t take long for them all to become mutually excited about how they could work together to create a brand new drawing robot, that had agency in the creation of new works. Contracts were drawn up and signed, and after a good bit of research and testing, they created Bartleby.

Bartleby was able to take suggestions given to him, and render them in his own style. These drawings were then painted by Juneau Projects and became part of a larger body of work, subsequently exhibited at the Ceri Hand Gallery in London, as part of their solo show ‘The Infocalyse Stack’. Each day of the exhibition, Bartleby created a new work, that was added to the exhibition.

So why did this collaboration work?

1. Juneau Projects had dabbled with technology, buying off the shelf kit, experimenting, and to be fair to them, creating really interesting work like Capexhagon (landscape paintings made collaboration with a robot kit):

But, they would never have been able to make anything as sophisticated as Bartleby, without the expertise Ad brought to the project. The collaboration enabled them to develop a deeper understanding of the systems and behaviours that underpinned their work, and learning about what the tech was potentially capable of, also opened new artistic possibilities, that they had not previously considered.

2. Ad Spiers is really creative and has a passion for art and culture. But, Ad’s previous drawing robot was quite limited in how it was able to move and was not aesthetically considered in the same way as Bartleby. Working with Juneau Projects enabled Ad to push his skills, creating a robot with a range of fine movement - research that actually fed back into his medical work. It also created understanding of a deeper conceptual basis for this work. Ad would never have had his work exhibited somewhere like Ceri Hand Gallery without this collaboration, and he was thrilled about it.

This collaboration really worked. There are various reasons why it created such rich dialogue, including some things we quietly did as producers, to avoid collaborative trip hazards, these were:

Create a flexible space for play in which anything can happen
The structure of the residency itself, created a neutral, flexible space in which Juneau Projects and Ad Spiers could meet to research and develop ideas. We were not didactic about outcomes, which left everyone free to explore and make discoveries along the way.

We looked for mutuality
The collaboration brought value to everyone involved.

From my experience, projects that bring technologists in as ‘service providers’ - treating them as coding monkeys there to serve the artist – are often less interesting and successful, as dialogue tends to centre around reaching the fastest most cost effective conclusion, rather than approaching problems and ideas in a more exploratory way. I think exploration enables more unexpected things to emerge.

Everyone had creative freedom
Juneau Projects and Ad Spiers had equal freedom to be creative within the projects’ development.

Although I have been doing it within this talk, I actually think there is an inherent problem in categorising people in camps of ‘creative practitioners’ and ‘technologists’ – as technologists are hugely creative - they are as much masters of their form, as any artists I know.

Learning languages
Everyone had the patience to learn each other’s languages.

By the end of the residency, Juneau Projects were as comfortable talking about the emergent behaviour of machines, as Ad was about different drawing styles and techniques. Sometimes language can be baffling. Don’t be afraid to put your hand up if something doesn’t make sense, as it’s bound to run both ways.

Make things fast, test early and often
At Watershed we always encourage people to be open with ideas, make things fast (great talk from Leila Johnston about Making Things Fast here), test early and iterate.

Juneau Projects and Ad both signed up to this process of working, which enabled them to move through a number of ideas quickly. Agreeing how you’re going to work from the outset, is hugely important. As a producer, I also always encourage people to be clear about timescales, and punctuate the development period with lots of sharing events.

Don’t get carried away with the technology
Ad and Juneau Projects worked together to make a drawing arm, rather than a whole robot.

Not getting carried away with technology is really important. Make something that is appropriate for your idea, rather than something that’s all singing and dancing. And bear in mind, sometimes smoke and mirrors or what we like to call ‘a wizard of oz’ approach, will do the job just as well.

Conversations are important
From the outset, we factored in time for conversations. This included conversations between the project team, between Watershed and the project team, and conversations with the wider community. This is super important.

which leads me to - Listen to your audience
Juneau Projects and Ad made a few different versions of the arm before settling on the final design. Throughout this process they were in constant dialogue with the Studio community, who helped them see things in slightly different ways.

Also remember, the tea bag was only invented because of consumer intervention – being prepared to change direction and make it up as you go along are really important.

and finally - Enjoy yourself and keep an open mind
Juneau Projects’ residency finished in December, and they found themselves getting fully immersed in the Studio Christmas Party, for which they made a hex bug reindeer run:

What began as folly, subsequently turned into a new piece of work - a musical performance in which the bugs triggered sound samples as they scuttled around:

They were very surprised that a game they made for fun as part of the residency, unexpectedly fed back into their practice:

Producers are vital in the arts, because they help people to interrogate thinking, take risks, scale ambitions and explore the value in ideas. And all those points I just listed, we make sure they happen.

I was thinking about how to describe the role of producer in a bit more detail, came to the conclusion that it’s a bit like being a cross between a head teacher, a dinner lady, a football enthusiast, and a magician – for example –

- We keep everything running, we manage the budgets, we develop strategies, we spot opportunities, we look after the governors.

- We create safe spaces to play, we suggest games, we watch the time, we encourage cliques to play together, we mediate, we make sure everyone is fed, and we’re always on hand to fix grazed knees.

- We are our projects’ biggest fans. We track the league tables, we write reviews, we get people talking about it, we’re at all the events, we wear the merch, we sing the theme tunes.

- And most importantly, whatever happens we can usually work some kind of magic, and we’re always prepared to pull a rabbit from a hat.

On that note, I thought I would leave you with a short film of one of our latest residencies, in which magician Kieron Kirkland spent time at Pervasive Media Studio and the University of Bristol, working in collaboration with technologists from the Bristol Interactions and Graphic Group.

Kieron was interested in bringing together magic and the maker movement, creating new tricks using accessible technologies and seeding a community of people interested in doing the same thing. His residency culminated in a two-day magic hack, in which the dialogue led to technologists becoming magicians and magicians becoming technologists – it was also a totally great way to start collaborating. I thought the film would give you a sense of the buzz at the Studio, and allow you to see a creative tech dialogue in action:

Thank you.

(I then finished with a shameless plug for this years' Playable City Award - which is now open for applications)