Digital Venue Reccy - 01 - Kumospace

I’ve had the idea to produce and host a digital field trip. To take a small group of producers, creative producers and self producing artists and visit a number of digital venues or look extensively at one platform both for an audience experience and performing or screened content perspective.

Following Chris Grady’s Show Me producers festival of workshops a fellow producer reached out to me and we started meeting to explore digital venues and perception around audience and production engagement.

We have AltSpace, SecondLife, GatherTown, RoBlox, to name a few on the immersive list. There are 2D, 3D and VR options. We visited Kumospaces. 

Kumospaces are 2D top down themed rooms. Participants inhabit small circular video portals moved around by the keyboard arrow keys. There is an interesting propinquity compulsion to place your portal window on furniture, lounge chairs or bar stools in the roof terrace there are pool inflatables.

Go drop in on my PCM Adventures Hall. 

But you need to be aware of first time obstacles to entry. This is surprisingly common... the audience the account holder invites don’t have a guest entrance or a indicator that if they are visiting and don’t want the sales pitch to sign up it’s not obvious how you enter the space you expect to enter by clicking direct link you give out as host.

No sign up or download should take the invited guest to the optimal point of entry. If it’s unique selling point is easy access and immersive simplicity I expect to click a link and it take me to where I need to be.

There are 2 options the admin can set for entry. Guests can be required to Register to enter or enter using a text link to Continue without an account.

Once a guests has entered without an account the browser resolved the direct URL as expected.

On arrival the guest enters with the camera tight on thier oen video portal. For a first arrival this can be disorientating. In the bottom navigation is a Map.

A full overview of the space is revealed with the placement of fellow guests displayed.

I'd like to see a better enterence interface for guests. The capability to embed kumospace to a page would be nice too.

What I do like is the special audio. Move towards the grand piano and lounge musak can be heard. Getting a digi-drink at the bar and watch it slowly dry. Nice early days touches.

Very interested in the development of Kumospace.

References & Context.

Competitors to Kumospace - https://craft.co/kumospace/competitors

Co Founder Brett Martin

Kumospace Venture Capital and Private Equity Financings

https://www.alleywatch.com/2021/04/kumospace-immersive-spatial-video-chat-platform-real-life-brett-martin/

An 8.5 hr Zoom call. #WriggleSymp21

Wriggle Dance Symposium 

I love supporting projects. I love supporting produced events requiring digital support and audience access.
Latest project Wriggle Dance Theatre’s Early Year’s and Families Symposium took place today.

Lights Camera Action ... mic / mute

It’s all in the planning and prep.
The Symposium took place in one Zoom Meeting. It used Polls and Breakout Rooms, it pinned and spotlighted, its shared audio, QuickTime video, keynote and PDF preview. A Whereby video room as a helpdesk was open throughout running in parallel. Closed Caption and live transcription was available too.
Alongside this an online feedback board was created using Padlet. Attendees were invited to leave feedback and share insights in real time.

All digital presentations, performance, workshops and the attending audience but it’s time to explore the hybrid of Digital and Physical. The paperwork won’t change the delivery will be more complex.

Today marked the premiere showing of Wriggle Dance’s film version of their stage production of Squidge. In conversation panel showcased CO directors Lucy Knight and Kath Kimber McTiffen legacy and guest panels presented rich practices hi lighting the power of movement, dance and touch for early years children.

 
The pandemics indelible stamp extending work from the sector in to digital featured also. 
To conclude the day Coventry Dance facilitated a speed networking opportunity. Ending the day in conversation. Finishing the day with a blog post.

May Day

May is on its way out. The world has stopped but moves on a pace. Filled with horror and calm. 

I struggle with dyslexia. I see it has positives and I spin my experience to this end. However it’s left it’s legacy of insecurity.

My own self deprecation know depths that leave me shuddering in the dark. 
I feel the light I don’t understand it. It’s success and I travel towards it.

This is my year.

 

God damn it Twitter - again?

News sourcing and cross referencing to evaluate credibility is not easy. No one should take their news from a single source. 

I take glancing news from bbc news. Deeper insights and wider stories I use Ground News, NewsFlash and UK Press. To observe and keep in check my peer bubble I use Nuzzel. Over the last week I noticed it stopped updating.

I final asked Google “Why is Nuzzel not updating?”

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/05/06/twitters-scroll-acquisition-could-give-it-a-personalized-newsfeed-that-cuts-out-all-the-usual-toxicity

“Twitter is working on a subscription service, hoping to get people hooked with incentives such as an Undo Send button. In its latest attempt to spice up this service Twitter acquired Scroll, which lets readers support their favorite publishers(including us) while blocking ads. This development also sunsets a personalized daily news service called Nuzzel, which is owned by Scroll.

If you're not aware of the app, it creates a personalized newsfeedusing the accounts one follows on Twitter (LinkedIn and Facebook too). The team at Scroll claimsit tried its best to keep the service alive but just couldn't make it happen. However, the CEO promises that the Nuzzel experience will be built right into Twitter in the future.”

Again... a service I use that is like no other. It’s been “acquired”.

It was the best news aggregator I’d found that showed me the interests of my direct network.

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Long Eaton 360 - #1

Our towns and cities are not getting good press. Slow death, suffocated by big 24/7 supermarkets. It can seem that way. Retail is along from my career experience and it’s for that reason it’s a world that makes my high street part of my life and nothing to do with my work.

I want to keep A high street. It’s a social space designated for commerce. What can I do? I can share what’s here. I wasn’t sure where to start. I knew I wanted to do something like this. In town today I stood outside Ucig a local e cigarette shop where my partner was buying vape liquids. 

I turned it the spot and noted the shops. A real mix. I was stood looking around. Here is the geolocation. https://goo.gl/maps/KRRCuPyceeKKDBcV7

1. ShoeZone - https://www.shoezone.com/Stores/Long_Eaton-1770
2. Ucig - https://www.ucig.co.uk 
3. ProStart - https://www.prostartuk.co.uk
4. EE Phone Shop
5. M&B Nails - https://m.facebook.com/Manhbnail/
6. Rowells - an old family store soon to be an indie micro pub https://www.micropubmagazine.co.uk/news/plans-revealed-for-a-new-micropub-in-former-long-eaton-shop
7. Willow Tree Butchers - gone online https://willowtreebutchers.co.uk
8. Howitt Street
9. Kim’s Handmade Gifts - https://www.kimshandmadegiftshop.com/
10. B&M - https://www.bmstores.co.uk/stores/long-eaton-237
11. Ezone - https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063699962544
12. Gibbs Street
13. Café Brûlée’s - https://m.facebook.com/Cafe-Brule-100969105191566/
14. Empty

Not every shop has a dedicated customer website. Some only have Facebook pages. Is that ok? Does a high street retail or hospitality outlet need a web presence?

How can a town support it’s high street and make it thrive.

Performance and Participation - Audience and Actor

Immersive experiences blur these lines. Who is paid and who pays. That isn’t blurry. 

Being part of the story or being the story. What does technology do to an experience? Entering the unknown or entering the familiar. A regular theatre goer returns to a familiar venue to see a new show. Where does lockdown position the theatre goer reside? At home in front of a screen or at home in a VR headset. Immersive mindset and consciousness. In reality or in virtual reality, what about suspending disbelief.

Where does watching Netflix sit with watching a show on a computer screen? What devise do people watch theatre?

Going forward the physical experience of theatre will be new again. The digital is a compromise and virtual is the absurd and unknown.

Audiences are curious.With digital entering the familiar what can this give to the theatre maker? What about the concepts of digital merging with technology?

The use and application of technology to the production environment.

East Midlands Participatory Forum. I’m keen to explore more, make and produce.

DYP - Developing Your Practice

I have a staged immersive production in my mind which will utilise a 3D real-time blended environment augmented with motion capture where the audience are also part of the set without it being implicitly declared.

I am putting an R&D application together with a fund writer and I have heard good things about a VR immersive graphics studio. I’m talking to the studio director on Monday to begin the realisation of the technological production components.

I'd like some costings and find out more about how studios work with production clients. There is a crypto NFT component I’m exploring. The production will be hi-tech, low-carbon footprint.

The production environment provides a sustainable stage with solar and eco power sources all this taken to the most remote location I can secure and the audience who reside there. Extreme Theatre! Living the dream Digital Producer & Theatre Maker. Taking extraordinary theatre to ordinary places far from the metropolitan population sensors. The most amazing theatre right on their doorsteps.

I have a plan to write.

No Internet or No Phone

Hanging out with Club House there are 2 worthwhile regular session you should drop in on.
Clubhouse Breakfast Club

https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/breakfast-w-brett

9am in London - No Agenda, Only Vibes…

https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/nineamlondon

In the Breakfast Clubhouse, What does success look like? “I get to live life the way I want.” Was one response. I aspire to this wholeheartedly. 

I’m Caron. Creative Producer and Theatre Maker. I help creatives work smarter with technology. https://www.joinclubhouse.com/@pcmcreative

The conversation in the 9am In London... No Internet or No Phone? A compelling discussion with surprising responses for the hosts. There was a service, solution... apples or oranges fragmentation. Laptop or Mobile vs Wifi or 4G Data. It was interested to hear each respondents dilemma and definition. Voice call and Camera was set against Netflix and Laptop. Distraction or Detox were weighed up against self sufficient solitude or access to family.
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Zoom is not the stage of the future... it’s the opera box

Keeping events simple is important. Friday’s Royal Historical Society virtual lecture was an intro and speaker, a Q&A then an end. Plus an audience. 

It has to be well presented. Music as the audience enters. The same sound to everyone. All hearing the same in preparation for the reason they are all there. A collective image is key also. A title slide reassuring attendees as they arrive they are in the right place and haven’t missed the beginning.
A well coordinated start and neatly concluded close are the next step. Online with everyone in or looking in the same direction, a screen is the collective experience.
It is time to blend. It’s time reimagine audience attendance. Scatter the points of presence and unify they in one point of focus.
Where is your camera pointing?--





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The day to vote is the day to stand.

9.00 am I walked down the street, turned left at the corner and in just a few minutes I’d arrived at Long Eaton town hall, votes and was heading home.

It was a duty but felt empty and unimportant. What would give it meaning? 
Today I submitted my nomination to stand as a candidate for the Equity committee elections. Standing for the Stage Management Committee.

My 2021 candidate statement.

“Stagemanagement in 2020 went 100% digital. It’s been digital to varying degrees ranging across an array of tasks and duties since social media emerged from Web2.0 victorious in the mid-noughties. I’ve been a Stagemanager since the late ’90s (digital since 2007) and stepping out from the pandemic digital stage-managing once again kicking and streaming! I’ve been an Equity member since 1995, I’m chair of the Online Branch. I’ve served on the SM committee several times. I’ve worked the fringe, toured on ITC contracts, resided seasons on UK Theatre agreements and currently I’m a freelancer using equity terms experience to guide me. My career has taken me from Butlins to Billingham from Reykjavik to Rome. The industry needs SM’s, we need solid, suitable contracts and expertise at the table to look after all our interests in the modern Physical, Digital and Virtual blended worlds. Vote me onto the committee.”

Are you an EquityUK member?
Elections take place with online voting that closes early July.