Watershed's Pervasive Media Studio was invited to take part in this year’s Bordeaux Digital Week (Semaine Digitale), France’s foremost creative technology festival, exploring the very latest in digital experiences.

Bordeaux is reinventing itself as the digital capital of France, a future looking, connected smart city with a vibrant community of innovators at its heart. The 'Semaine Digitale' is their opportunity to celebrate the talent in the city, create new partnerships and demonstrate the value of combining the artistic and technological communities.

Our relationship with Bordeaux stems from the twinning programme that links our two port cities. In 2011 Victoria Tillotson, iShed Producer, gave a presentation at the inaugural Digital Week which inspired the Bordeaux team to visit Culture 24 at Watershed where they saw some of the fantastic Studio projects. Subsequently, we were invited to produce a showcase event to kick off the whole festival, bringing a cohort of creative economy partners with us to demonstrate their work, including Stand + Stare Collective, Nu desine and Mutant Labs.

Verity Alexander, Pervasive Media Studio Producer says:

“We are delighted to be working in partnership with Bordeaux as they develop the creative and technological capabilities of their vibrant community. During our short visit we were struck by the many similarities between the two cities, not least the collective spirit of openness and a desire to cluster practitioners from different disciplines to explore and champion new ideas.”

France and Europe’s growing digital community mingled with our team – artists and web developers, skaters and politicians, music labels and gamers. The response to the work shown was overwhelmingly positive and may lead to further collaborations in the future. The scale and warmth of our reception was made all the more impressive when we learnt that down the road from our salon in the town hall, Bordeaux were engaged in an epic sporting battle with local rugby rivals Toulouse (in case you’re interested, Bordeaux won!).

The Bordeaux contingent have promised to come back and see what we are up to here in Bristol later in the year and we are already looking forward to what even more ambitious plans Bristol and Bordeaux might hatch together for next year’s Digital Week.

Find out more about what happened in Bordeaux.

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