The second Continue event of 2018 took place yesterday in the illustrious setting of the British Library and in partnership with UK Young Artists. After welcomes from Roly Keating (Chief Executive of the BL) and Michelle Bowen (Director of UKYA) things got underway with a fantastically interactive session.
Game Jams are one of the richest, most adaptable mechanisms for rapidly stimulating creativity and collaboration, so it was an honour to have Gorm Lai and Jo Summers (respectively, founder and exec producer of the Global Game Jam) to explain what Game Jams are and how they can be deployed within different cultural event contexts. Following this overview, attendees were fired into an hour long micro-jam where they designed and prototyped a series of new games to play.
The day continued with some fascinating presentations and discussions with speakers and attendees from the British Library, Lancaster Uni, UCL, Cambridge University, the British Council, Screen South, the Algorave movement, a host of independent artists and (of course!) UKYA & the BGI.
A particularly valuable and candid talk came from Paul Homer, project manager for Screen South’s ‘A History of Place’ project. Paul discussed the problems and pitfalls that they, as a commissioner, discovered whilst funding a series of original videogame projects.
Paul’s talk was emblematic of one of the qualities we really hope that Continue can provide. A frank, clear and above all USEFUL place for discussion with people from other parts of the culture sector.
The next event takes place on 16th August at The University of Edinburgh Business School.
To find out more, check out – http://thebgi.uk/continue