The Pervasive Media Studio is a collaboration between Watershed, UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol. It hosts a brilliant community of over 100 artists, creative companies, technologists and academics exploring experience design and creative technology.
In 2011, Watershed, University of Bristol and UWE Bristol entered into an extended partnership to undertake collaborative creative technologies activities together. Through this partnership the Pervasive Media Studio creates unique opportunities around research, knowledge exchange, innovation, incubation and teaching. The partnership enables the linking of creative practice and leading edge research to pioneer innovative creative technologies, novel applications of digital media and socially engaged experimental methodologies Researchers from the two universities work with Studio residents and local communities in an open innovation environment to explore ideas that can deliver new applications of creative technologies, new content, new experiences, new research questions and new business opportunities. The strength of the studio’s research lies in this eclectic mix of experience and perspectives within its projects.
Based within Watershed on Bristol’s harbourside, PM Studio is an open plan studio enabling the different businesses that work within the space to collaborate together.
UWE Bristol’s Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC) makes its home at the Pervasive Media Studio, as the strategic research partner of a unique and diverse community of artists, creative companies technologists and academics exploring experience design and creative technology.
Jo Lansdowne, Executive Producer of Pervasive Media Studio
Over the last 16 years Pervasive Media Studio has developed an international reputation for creative technology; producing cutting edge creative products, award winning cultural experiences, globally leading research outputs and leveraging millions of pounds of money into the region.
Our diverse community imagines more hopeful futures – ones where art, technology and society come together for everyone’s benefit – and works to make these futures happen.
I think that it is incredibly rare for universities and cultural partners to have such a high degree of openness and trust – by not predefining the outcomes of our collaboration we have enabled extraordinary things to emerge.
Current projects:
The PM Studio has a huge array of projects. This is a small snapshot of work currently taking place within the Studio:
Grounding Technologies
Grounding Technologies, a six month pilot project from Bristol + Bath Creative R+D, will support those engaged with climate action in the region to explore this question with us. We want to nourish new regional collaborations, unlocking imagination and sparking conversation. Bristol+Bath Creative R+D is a collaboration between UWE Bristol, Bath Spa, University of Bath, University of Bristol and Watershed, which has spent five years working to create a more equitable environment for innovation to raise the bar for the region’s creative industries.
The project invites those involved in climate action, together with creative technologists, artists, designers and creative practitioners to propose new and distinctive ideas that will bolster climate action in our region.
My World – Strength in Places
Over the next four years Watershed is part of a programme called MyWorld which will showcase pioneering new digital formats and technologies to create innovative experiences across fiction, documentary, games, and live performance.
With a unique set of creative partners and research collaborators MyWorld will present a set of trailblazing augmented, experimental and immersive experiences. Technologies taking centre stage in MyWorld include the latest developments in film and television visual and audio production; volumetric capture, mixed reality, motion capture, virtual production, digital doubles, remote robotics, avatar creation… and much more.
Playable City Sandbox
Playable City Sandbox is a creative research and development programme. Watershed’s Sandbox methodology provides a facilitated space where participants have the chance to transform an experimental idea to a working prototype over three months of rapid research and development.
Six teams have been commissioned to create new innovative prototypes that push creative boundaries. The commissioned projects place play at the heart of the city, sparking imagination and conversation about inclusion, sustainability, surveillance and the future of cities.
We Don’t Bite
We Don’t Bite was a research and design project which explores early stage thinking towards how the Pervasive Media Studio can become a more equitable space for young people. The project was carried out by Joe Hill and Sumaya Hassan-Murphy, independently of the diversity and inclusion research and thinking already taking place within the studio.
The project ran during the first few months of 2022, and involved a mixture of conversations and workshops with young people and organisations.
Focus, but where?
As part of the 2023 winter residency, Focus, but where? aims to examine our misplaced attention when faced with climate change issues by creating an interactive web-based zine. This publication will playfully unpack our current information environment and help reimagine more productive (and hopefully kinder) ways of public engagement from the standpoint of a digital content creator/consumer.
Find out more about the amazing work happening at the Pervasive Media Studio