Episode 4 The Arts Show

You're very welcome to the first Arts Show of the season.

We're in Londonderry for CultureTECH -

a celebration of the fusion of culture, arts and technology.

Now in its third year, the festival attracts thousands of people

into the city for gaming, seminars and performance.

Its aim - to celebrate where arts and technology creatively collide.

We're here to find out what that impact is culturally.

Coming up:

The Royal Shakespeare Company's digital producer Sarah Ellis

and technology entrepreneur Mary McKenna

discuss the digitally enhanced landscape of creativity.

£50 plus 30 minutes equals one music video, thanks to a new application.

The prestigious competition

which headhunts our future digital pioneers...

There's an exclusive Arts Show performance from Little Matador.

And that's just for starters.

"Pleasingly literate indie stomp" -

that's how the Guardian described the band Seven Summits.

They are: Rory, Dominic and Joe.

Strong riffs and even stronger songs.

Here is Sing To Me.

APPLAUSE Two, three, four...

# Come

# Sing me a song before you have to go

# And waste away your day without me

# Come

# Make me want to ease a fading soul

# Something like Oh-oh-oh

# Something like Oh-oh-oh

# Come

# Come on home to me each evening

# Home

# These four walls we live between

# Come, come

# Don't forget what we are here for, no

# No

# Just sing to me Oh-oh-oh

# Just sing to me Oh-oh-oh

# I'm fading so low

# Just sing to me Oh-oh-oh

# Just sing to me Oh-oh-oh

# Just sing to me Oh-oh-oh

# Just sing to me Oh-oh-oh

# Come

# Sing me a song before you have to go. #

APPLAUSE

Seven Summits, and you can see another song from the band

recorded exclusively for The Arts Show on our website.

Now, "An epic festival of digital technology, media and music" -

that's how the organisers describe CultureTECH.

Mark Nagurski, festival director, tell me more.

Well, that's pretty much it, it is a big, long week

of anything from video games, to animations, to...

Anything that has technology and creativity wrapped in it,

we try to show it off and bring as many people to the party as we can.

When you put two words together like culture and tech,

it can make some people feel a little bit uneasy.

How do the two go together?

I think a lot of technology out there is kind of embedded in the culture.

So, if you're watching things on television

or playing your favourite video game,

there is technology at the heart of it.

Somebody's been creative using that technology,

and that's really what we're trying to showcase.

But at the same time there are other ends of the spectrum,

so we also have some of the more techier tech, so to speak...

MARIE-LOUISE LAUGHS ..and we also have a lot more of the fun things -

film screenings, music events, great bands playing like Seven Summits.

-That's the feel of the festival, so there's something for everybody.

-Where did the idea come from?

To be honest with you, we've been working with lots of local companies

who are in that digital space and they were really exciting,

but they didn't have an event of their own,

so we decided to create one.

The first year was good enough that we got a second year

and the second year was good enough that we got a third year,

and hopefully this one will give us a fourth year.

"Digital space" -

-again, two words that can make people slightly uneasy.

-Yeah.

How do you make people who work in the world of arts

get a sense of how much they can explore the digital world safely?

Yeah, I think...

For me, creativity comes in lots of shapes and sizes and forms,

and you can certainly be creative with a paintbrush or a guitar.

The software and the technology that's out there

is just another tool.

It doesn't replace any of those things, but it's a tool.

It can augment them,

or for some people that's how they express their creativity.

So, somebody creating a fantastic video game with the visuals

and the music and everything that goes into that,

for me, is just as creative

as somebody who's painting oil on canvas.

So for artists, I think it's about realising that creative spirit

in other people who just happen to use a different set of tools.

How do people get access to it?

It's a world that people imagine has got a wealth of money in it

and also a world in which they can make money.

It certainly is, there's lots of people who do.

But I think like any other discipline,

it has both ends of the spectrum.

There are certainly lots of things

which take a lot of technology and a lot of investments to get into,

but at the other end of things, most people have access to the internet

and, you know, simple web tools or their phone can give them access

to fantastic artistic content and also the tools to create more.

So, it is really accessible and I think like anything else,

as you take it more seriously, as you progress, as your skills develop,

then naturally you move on to some of the more complicated tools.

But for most people it can be as easy as picking up their phone.

But also, I suppose, people of a certain age

are maybe a bit phobic about technology,

with the young people coming through this festival,

it's kind of just a way of life, isn't it?

Absolutely. I think there's a great definition of what technology is,

and it's really things that were invented in your lifetime.

So, if you think of some of the kids who are here today

and they are 12 and 13 years old and they're having a fantastic time,

they've never known a world where there wasn't the internet.

Whereas a lot of grown-ups obviously do remember that.

So, I think there is a transition period of course,

but realistically people are using these technologies every day.

You know, if you're listening to the radio or you're watching this on your TV,

there's probably digital in there somewhere.

So, people are getting more used to it

and I think what we're hoping to do with events like this

is make it even more accessible, by demystifying it a little bit,

taking it out of the...you know, the ivory tower, so to speak,

and bring it onto the streets so people can see it themselves.

-Don't be scared.

-Absolutely.

-Thank you. Mark Nagurski, thank you very much.

-No problem.

Well, one man who wasn't scared is Diarmuid Moloney,

the founder of Rotor, the company behind a £50 application,

which automatically generates music videos.

It's getting huge interest from record companies

like Universal and Polydor

and it got its kick-start here at a CultureTECH competition in Derry.

# Today is the last day

# That I'm using words... #

# It's just a matter of time In the summertime

# You'll be mine

# All mine... #

The difference between these two videos

is that Madonna had a budget of 4.8 million.

She could spend months making her video.

The Rotor video is done in 30 minutes

and it just costs 50 quid.

What we've developed is a tool for creating music videos

that puts music video creation in the hands of the everyday user.

The way Rotor works is the user will simply go to our website

and they upload the song.

The next thing to do is to select a style for their video.

When they select their style it will prompt them to upload

a certain number of video clips to go with that style.

And if they don't have their own clips,

we have a free stock library of footage

that they can choose from.

All that's left to do is click go

and Rotor will generate a music video for them.

Now, after a period of about 30 minutes, their music video is ready.

They click the link and they get to preview the video

that was made for them.

At that point they can pay for their video and download it.

If not, they can go back and try again

until they're happy with the results.

I wanted to develop a tool that would create music videos

in response to audio.

I then entered that personal project into the CultureTECH competition

and that gave me my first introduction

into the world of the start-up company

and it also gave me the possibility to win a cash prize of £10,000.

CultureTECH itself also exposed me to industry professionals,

it helped me to make contacts

and it basically kick-started the whole process.

Winning the £10,000 at CultureTECH

gave me the budget to bring together a team of creatives,

to bring together a technical team

and to start prototyping out what exactly this product was.

It also helped me to formalise the business

so that we could move ahead to where we are now.

We're developing a mobile app which will allow the end user

to create a music video in their bedroom, on the train, on the bus.

They can do it in the coffee shop or wherever they like.

The record labels aren't generating the revenue they used to,

and producing music videos has become a problem for them.

The independent artists are under increasing pressure

to have a presence online,

and Rotor puts music video creation into their hands,

making it accessible and affordable to them also.

We are going to London for three months to take on investments.

We've had a lot of interest from the record labels,

so we're going to be working with those guys.

Where we go from there is we do a big launch in the States in 2015,

at which point Rotor will be accessible worldwide.

That's a clear indication of the benefits of technology and music.

But what about other art forms? What impact is technology having on them?

Sarah Ellis and Mary McKenna, welcome.

Royal Shakespeare Company -

even the Bard is getting in on the digital act?

-Can it be possible?

-It's completely possible.

The Royal Shakespeare Company

have been innovating with Shakespeare for over 50 years,

so it's only right that we should look at digital

as something to connect to Shakespeare and his work,

and what we're doing is looking at how our craft and our stage craft

can connect with audiences and artists

and ourselves as an organisation.

Where's the art, though, in that?

I think the art is Shakespeare

and the imagination that his stories unlock.

If we think about how theatre has developed

over 400 years since Elizabethan times,

we can see how technology has innovated over time.

But it's his stories, his work that's stayed in people's imagination.

And I think it's how we interpret them today

which is the important thing to do

and for us to connect with the next generation.

It's important for us to be part of that conversation.

So the conversation is very much skewed towards a younger generation.

I think it's about how you take your core audiences with you

but how you inspire the next generation,

and we look at the past, the present and the future as a company.

Mary, you're a technology entrepreneur.

Should technology service the arts,

or should it be the other way around?

Well, I think it's technology that services the arts,

because the arts have been here, as Sarah's said, for hundreds of years.

Technology's new,

technology's often used as a transformative medium,

and, for the theatre, anyway, it helps us bring about new ways

of engaging with existing audiences and new ones, as well.

You've done something quite innovative

when it comes to Shakespeare with Midsummer Night's Dream.

That is a play that we all know, we all love, we learned at school.

You can remember it so, so well.

So how do you innovate digitally with something so sacred as well?

You ask the right questions,

and I think that what digital unlocks for culture

is that we're now a network, and the RSC is part of that network,

so it's about how technology extends the reach of the live experience.

And the question within that project

was to see how far we could extend the RSC experience.

So we performed the play live in Stratford-upon-Avon

but we also created an online world where people could see glimpses

and parts of the play wherever they were.

And it allowed us to see what the potential was

around social media and reach

and just bring an audience that may not come to Stratford

but has a connection with our company.

And the story of Midsummer Night's Dream lent itself to the internet.

It's playful, it's fun, it's got fairies. We could...

That's a total internet world, is it?

I think so.

What it was about was about being playful on the internet

and seeing how Shakespeare could speak to a different audience

but also have the live experience at its heart.

So we perform that play in real-time, we perform

the scenes of the play at the time they were performed in the play.

So we started off Act 2, Scene 1 at two o'clock in the morning

and we actually had a whole different experience as an audience

witnessing that play at the time that the actors were performing it

at the time of the play.

And at four o'clock in the morning,

as the line in the play responds to the dawn chorus breaking,

birds outside started singing.

That we can't create online yet,

and it was the mixture between those worlds that we were excited by.

Could local theatre companies...

If we look at theatre - and your background was the Millennium Forum

here in Derry - could local theatres do something as innovative as that?

Or have they got the money to do it, as well?

It's hard enough to get the play on the stage.

I think it is a complex ask,

but technology's becoming cheaper all the time,

and with technologies like the Oculus Rift,

where you can actually be in immersive technologies,

but also Google Glass...

A couple of the opera companies have kitted out their sopranos

and their stage hands and their orchestra members

with Google Glass, and what that allows

is it allows the audience that's viewing the opera on the internet

to experience it apparently with the thrill

of a football match from the perspective of a midfielder.

How great is that?

Sarah, when you ring up somebody and say,

"I'm digital producer with the RSC," it's a huge calling card,

looking for funding, looking for skills.

People here locally don't have that at all.

They've probably got only about one person to man the phones

and clean the toilets and put the thing on stage.

What's your advice to somebody trying to be ambitious digitally?

I think it's about connections

and using the network that we are all part of in the culture sector.

And being at CultureTECH from the RSC is really important,

because I'm here to listen to ideas, I'm here to connect,

I'm here to understand what people are up to,

and we're interested in sharing our learning and our expertise

but also we're also interested in

the world and the sector that we're working in, and as a company

we have a responsibility to be an active member in that

and champion the theatre

and champion the innovation around theatre.

And our work extends in partnership across the whole of the UK.

In cinemas worldwide, we're now live to cinema.

And these are important stakes for us to be part of.

But, Mary, RSC, it's a brand, it's a global brand.

Locally, Northern Ireland, what are the skills

that somebody would need

to make themselves penetrate that market effectively?

I think that we have people in our theatre

that have world-class marketing skills

and that they're plugged in to all of these networks.

Everything today is far more connected.

With technology comes an increased pressure on the artist.

I think that applies to every walk of life in our modern world,

not just the arts, everything.

All businesses need to be able to market themselves better these days,

so it affects everybody.

Thank you so much to Mary McKenna

and thank you so much to Sarah Ellis as well.

Now, right outside here, slap bang in the middle of Guildhall Square,

is a videodome full of music and graphics wizardry.

We sent along our first-time reporter

Eimear Coyle of the band Wonder Villains to find out more.

I've played in some crazy places in the past few years,

but this is a new one for me.

That is the Dome, and to be honest,

it looks a bit like someone's built an igloo in Guildhall Square.

But on the inside it's a 360-degree video wall.

When the musicians are performing,

live visuals are being beamed onto the roof.

Imagine stepping into a music video. This is the future.

And this is the guy creating these images.

-Pedro, explain what's happening here.

-Well, this is the Dome.

It's with visuals. It has five projectors,

and we call it Full Dome.

And I am a VJ,

and VJs have different ways to express their work.

It's no more than a performance art.

Does the music that you hear affect the visuals that you choose?

Of course. The only reason that a VJ exists is because of the music.

So I tap the visuals in time with the music.

So if the drums go boom-boom-boom, I go boom-boom-boom.

And it's really fun, because I can have fun at work. It's fantastic.

And this dome's here as part of CultureTECH, and this just seems

bang on trend in that it's got art and technology mixing together.

This is actually like da Vinci! You know? Art and technology together.

-Wow.

-A couple of hundred years later, we go back to the same.

Collaborating alongside Pedro and United VJs

are some of Ireland's leading DJs,

including Anna and Conan, also known as Contour.

-Hey, guys.

-How are you?

Now, usually when you go and see a band,

it's a dark room with one spotlight on the singer.

This seems like the exact opposite! How are you finding it?

Yeah, well, we wouldn't really be the "dark room" kind of music.

We're crazy into the visual side of things,

-but we've never played anything like this.

-Yeah, it's fantastic.

-Are you looking forward to playing?

-Yeah, big time.

-This is the spot for it, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's going to be great.

All right, well, I think we've heard

enough about how it's all going to work. Let's see it in action.

# Curiosity

# Opened up into the dark

# Experience

# Lit a fire from the spark

# Wants to be a door

# Is a rolling stone

# Went too far

# Rolled downhill alone

# You better change your ways for good

# I see the figure in the black hood

# And he's standing over your shoulder

# And he knows you're getting older

# But you're still happy with your child's play

# Don't want to see you learn the hard way

# He's standing over your shoulder

# And he knows you're getting older. #

From hi-tech digital to analogue,

and an antidote to the world of smartphones and digital cameras.

The Starry Messenger: Seven Artist Film-Makers

is currently at the Void gallery here in Derry.

Its aim, to explore the analogue film-making process

and the need to protect the art form.

As film processing labs close, the exhibition is part of a campaign

by film-makers, artists and critics across the world

to ask for greater institutional support to safeguard the ability

to manufacture, shoot, process, print, make and project film.

So, in a digital age,

has film come dangerously close to being an endangered species?

Janine Davidson is one of the artists

taking part in the exhibition,

and Carrie Davenport - with her cameras - is a photographer.

Janine Davidson, can we say

that celluloid film-making is about to become extinct?

I don't think it's about to become extinct.

I think it's another option out there for artists and film-makers.

I think the inherent quality in processing the film

is kind of apart from digital.

A lot of digital camera makers are trying to replicate cameras,

behave in the same way as old 35mm. So it's still a viable option.

It's just become more expensive for processing.

What is happening here? What do you think?

I think basically everything's digital now,

there's no actual physical product, whereas people like that,

they like having something like vinyl or a bit of film or a print,

and I think people maybe don't tend to print digital photos out,

and they can be easily lost.

There's that kind of resurgence, people are starting to go back.

You see things like Instagram,

where people are replicating the old films and the old styles,

and then people like yourself are keeping it alive

and other people are taking it up, getting into it as something new,

a bit different from the digital, a bit more kind of hands-on.

Can you have, Janine, a digital photographer,

a viable digital artist working in that medium?

Well, I think you can work in both. I use digital cameras to do a test run

of what I'm going to produce on film,

cos you can cut out all the mistakes and have it totally finely planned.

But that's what you've said, cut out all the mistakes.

Are the mistakes not part of the joy of the artistic process?

Well, they are, because the piece that I have in the Void at the minute

was kind of a bit typically complicated in the beginning,

and the end result wasn't exactly what I wanted,

but I still think it gets across the message that I wanted to get across.

So it's beautiful.

But let's look at some of the cameras that you've brought in here.

They're beautiful. They're a little bit of history.

Some of them still work. Ones like this would still work.

I've used that quite recently.

Ones like this are more ornamental, really old ones like this.

My dad actually got this. It was scrap in a car boot sale.

It was in bits, and he rebuilt it for me.

And it's just nice to have that,

because if you don't keep these things, they'll just disappear.

So it's nice to have that...

Like, the Polaroid one, for instance,

loads of people still use these. The film is quite expensive.

There's a website called The Impossible Project

who started to remanufacture the film,

and it's great to see that come back

after companies like Polaroid disappeared.

But are they not a bit antiquated?

Yeah! But old things are pretty.

Pretty. But should they still be functional?

Should we not be celebrating the press-delete world?

Nobody seems to have redeye any more in photographs.

"I don't like the look of that!"

We can all Photoshop ourselves and we can all kind of...

I think it's kind of you can cheat a lot more with digital,

you can make things easier.

You can edit, you can airbrush, you can fix things, you can share them,

and we maybe take that for granted.

But then, when you look back at things like this,

there's something a bit more, like you said, hands-on.

You get the wee mistakes, you get the wee errors.

And then also it's just something a bit different.

It's more about the process,

and it's kind of more permanent, maybe, than digital

because it's not just a wee file that's invisible on your computer.

It's also about texture, isn't it, Janine?

And as an artist, that's key to creating a photograph, surely.

I know, and the lighting as well, and the depth of field

is quite different to what you can achieve with digital.

-And have you been admiring some of these cameras here?

-I have.

I picked up my actual Standard 8 camera in a car boot sale as well.

They asked for £20 with a tripod. It worked perfectly.

That's what I shot the piece on in Derry.

So it kind of adds a little edge to it,

that I acquired the camera myself. I bought it personally.

It didn't come from a shop, it had its own inherent history.

It came with films with it, which I used as well,

so there's these layers upon layers.

But do you think that maybe we're creating people

that are technically proficient at taking a photograph,

whether it be my six-year-old or you,

but we're really not creating

a world for people to be photographic artists any more?

I think to an extent.

I started off all film , all slide film and then transferred to digital.

When I studied in university, it was all still film.

That was a really good way to learn, cos you learn to do it right.

You have 24 or 36 exposures on a roll,

and you couldn't afford to waste them,

and so therefore you put the effort in and you got it right,

whereas digital does maybe make you a little bit lazier,

cos you can take hundreds. However, on the other hand...

And store them in a cloud.

See, you've got it all there, but it's really easy to lose.

And I teach a bit of photography, and you do workshops as well.

It's easier to let people try it if it's digital,

because they can take it and see it instantly.

They don't have to wait a week for films coming back.

So it kind of gives people a chance

to then get into it and see if they want to go further.

-But there's no anticipation any more...

-No.

-I know!

..that moment of waiting to see how many of your pictures made it.

I know, and especially with when you're shooting moving film, as well.

It's a lot more expensive. But then, all the labs now are in...

I sent my film to London and then it went to Berlin and came back again.

And one couldn't be developed, and that has to go to America, so...

-It's having a journey.

-It is, yeah.

Is photography art?

I think so, yes. But you may be better qualified to...

Erm, I think so, yeah. I think anything...

I think it depends on the medium behind it,

also the person taking the photo.

Maybe it's less important how the picture's taken,

more the ideas behind it and who's taking it.

I think there's kind of...

There was always this phrase that the camera never lies,

but now it's digital it obviously can very easily.

But I think it was always a case of

the camera told what the person behind it wanted to anyway.

So it's important not to forget that you're always getting that message,

and I think it's maybe not the same

as someone spending hours and hours painting something,

it's just a different way of telling a story.

It just lies better in the digital age.

-God bless it!

-It lies more convincingly. It lies easier.

Janine Davidson and Carrie Davenport, thank you very much.

And The Starry Messenger is at the Void gallery.

Now, Northern Ireland's knowledge economy

is growing faster than anywhere in the UK

thanks to a new breed of technology entrepreneurs.

Friday Night Mashup is just one of the places at which they meet.

This month it's based at Ebrington, and we met one of its founders.

I'm Aaron Taylor, founder of the Friday Night Mashup,

Ulster CEO of GoPrezzo.

So, Friday Night Mashup, it's a quarterly networking event.

It's there to highlight

the brightest and the best creative industries technology entrepreneurs.

There are so many cool companies in Northern Ireland doing great things

but really suffering from a lack of exposure.

The key thing for us is trying to raise that level of ambition.

Usually companies come along, share what they do, pitch to the audience,

tell them the various great things that they're doing in their business.

We also bring along really great speakers.

You get inspired with the people you're listening to.

You get to really connect and engage with the companies that are demoing.

That's the whole ethos behind the Mashup.

It's trying to inspire that one person who comes along

to want to do something really great

and to give them the framework to do that.

You could look at it as a huge party

or you could look at it through where the value comes from.

We also have a lot of people looking for work.

There's a lot of sponsors there

who would be obviously pushing out what they're doing.

We have been lucky that a number of people who came along

have actually ended up getting work with sponsors

who have been there highlighting what they've been doing.

We've had numerous sponsors, we've got clients out of it,

we've had companies that have got investment out of it.

We've had a couple of companies who have come through,

Chance Man for example, who won the very first pitch fest

at our first event, and they've raised £100,000

in a kick-starter campaign. Another company

that were kick-starter project of the month,

they were going through a kick-starter project at that time.

I think they raised over £50,000 on their kick-starter campaign,

which was more than what they were expecting to.

The big thing for us is building that collaborative network.

Having people there who are meeting other people doing something similar.

Meeting people who can help them shape something that's in their head

around an idea they have for a business.

Without having that awareness of opportunity you'll only ever

push to what you know. We're trying to make people believe

that they can do anything they want.

We're a small country, we only have 1.6 million people.

We can't afford to work in stand-alone silence,

we have to come together for the greater good.

'On a personal level, it's a way of giving back.

'When we started our company it was incredibly difficult to get things

'off the ground. What we are trying to do is fill those gaps now

'so that there are those networks in place.'

It'll make things so much easier for people coming behind us

and for ourselves again whenever we're trying to

start another company.

We've got pretty big plans for the mashup. We're tentatively aiming for

within this next couple of years is to look at putting on

a festival of music, technology and film in Northern Ireland.

So let's hope that happens!

Little Matador is Snow Patrol guitarist Nathan Connolly's

current music project. We caught up with him for a chat

and an exclusive Arts Show performance.

# I can't make sense of what you want

# Where do I go, where do I belong?

# I can't take it, I can't take it

# Why can't you give

# Why can't you give it up?

# I'm left dumb

# I'm left dumbstruck

# I can't take it, I can't take it

# I can't take it

# I can't take it

# Take my broken heart

# Tear it apart

# Gather the pieces up

# Steady your shaking hands

# Stitch yourself up

# So we won't come undone

# So we won't come undone

# You say the words left ringing in my ears

# It's on my skin

# You are all I want

# I can't let go, I can't let go

# Now you've given

# Now you've given up

# I'm left dumb

# I'm left dumbstruck

# I can't let go, I can't let go

# I can't let go, I can't let go

# Take my broken heart

# Tear it apart

# Gather the pieces up

# Steady your shaking hands

# Stitch yourself up

# So we won't come undone

# So it won't come undone

# Take my broken heart

# Tear it apart

# Gather the pieces up

# Steady your shaking hands

# Stitch yourself up

# So we won't come undone

# So we won't come undone. #

Little Matador are a dirty sleazy rock band

who are formed of five different members from five different bands,

some of who worked together before,

and we make honest...a lot of rock music,

and that's what we set out to do and that's what we've done.

We're very proud of it.

Being a front man, after being a guitar player on the left-hand side

of the stage for 20 years, yeah, it's something I never set out to do.

It's something that I'm really enjoying.

Over the last year I feel more comfortable with it.

It's time and certainly a different headspace

and I have even more respect for somebody like Gary or other front men

than I did before.

We've had a busy year playing all sorts of festivals,

our own shows. Great support with bands like Queens of the Stone Age,

Biffy Clyro just at Belsonic recently.

We had T in the Park, Reading and Leeds, so...

To be honest, we've achieved everything that we had set out to do

initially, the goals we wanted, which is amazing.

The one thing we know we want to do is make another record.

Whether that'll be in two years' time or sooner...

We're very proud of this one and we feel it's just the beginning of...

We still feel this band's in its infancy, so it's something

we'll come back to, for sure.

From a performer who's known commercial success to those

just starting out. The 48 Hour Music Bootcamp has got one goal -

to get from song concept to music video in just two days.

Is that possible? Peter Cinnamond is on the case.

Not all of the events at CultureTECH are taking place in and around

the heart of the city.

I've heard about a very special collaboration

taking place in an industrial estate right on the river's edge.

This is home to Smalltown America.

A recording studio, a record label,

and today they've opened their doors to a group of young musicians.

CultureTECH has set them the challenge of recording a song

and a music video and then release both all in the space of 48 hours.

But is it really possible to create something artists

spend months on crafting and do it in a mere two days?

Let's see.

The idea of an artist writing a song over three months in a studio,

or a couple of weeks to shoot a video, that's all gone.

We all know that and we all have these tools, right down to our

mobile phones, that allow us as creators to do all this stuff

really quickly. What we wanted to do, with Bootcamp, was to show

the accessibility of all these different parts of music creation

and how quickly it can be done without any sense of

artistic compromise on behalf of the artist.

The session has been opened up to local music lovers

and is a unique insight into the complete production process.

# Take your body... #

There's a definite inspirational thing that we want,

as well as a kind of pure...we want to scale our local industry up.

# Take your body home. #

Is that strange recording a song with an audience around you?

Yes, strange enough doing it in such a small space of time

with someone who I've never met before.

'To have the added dimension of making the process public

'makes it ever more intriguing.'

You guys are making this a very unique experience.

Now that the recording of the song has been laid down,

it's time to rush across the woods where we're going to

shoot the video.

This is what CultureTECH is all about, showing people new skills

with technology and what they can really do with it.

I feel, under the time pressures, we've coped very well.

It's enforced collaboration in a short space of time.

So there's been back and forth very rapidly with ideas,

throwing ideas out, keeping ideas, and it's forced us to be

very creative.

'So, that's a wrap here on the music video.

'It has been a jam-packed day full of stuff going on.'

To see the full video, make sure to head over to the website.

But for now, here's a sneak peek.

# This is the water running for you

# Take your body or your blood

# This is the water running for you

# Take your body

# Take your body

# As my eyes began to close

# All the water lines arose

# The love I know no more than floats upon a wave... #

And you can see the rest of the music video

at bbc.co.uk/artsshow. Now CultureTECH is all about

predicting the future of the creative industries.

The Honeycomb Creative Buzz Award is a prestigious competition

seeking out the top 20 digital creators of tomorrow.

These bright young things are in town, getting intensive mentoring

and networking experience, all hoping to win

an all-expenses paid trip to CultureTECH Brooklyn.

Honeycomb, the overall project, is

for the creative industries, and that covers a range

of creative industries.

The Buzz Award we decided to set up because we have absolutely

fantastic potential with young people, tremendous skills,

really innovative work.

What we wanted to do was to give them some kind of opportunity

for the best graduates from this year.

We had a lot of applications. The 20 winners actually come from

all sorts of different courses.

Creative work emerges from all sorts of graduate programmes.

We're trying to give these young people some skills

to really promote themselves.

It's designed around an elevator pitch, which is that

you have three minutes to sell your story.

What is illumine? It's an interactive

audio visual installation based on the four seasons.

Depending on how close or far away you are to that sensor,

you can have live rain or very little rain drizzle.

Thank you very much, and I'd really appreciate any questions.

We designed the Bootcamp to try to give these young people

the skills to really sell themselves and make more people in the industry

and in the regions aware of the great talent that we have here.

I entered a short animation that I had done called

Ennui, The Imp Of Boredom.

A small devil-type creature that was responsible

for why you were bored.

I heard about Honeycomb through my university

during our final year show.

There was a whole lot of flyers and information about it passed out.

One of my tutors came in, slammed the flyer down in front of me

and went, "You need to enter that."

I think it would be a good place to network. There'll be a whole lot

of people there doing similar stuff, professionals,

industry-standard people, you'll be able to get your work looked at.

I think ultimately I should be able to get a job out of it.

I heard about Honeycomb through my university lecturers,

who wanted me to enter the competition with my vest.

The vest is built with 18 sensors that interact with the game.

The players being shot, the person wearing the vest

feels the vibration.

-Where are you being shot at?

-Just here on the left-hand side.

The purpose of it was to make it more immersive, engage the user,

make it more fun to play.

There's more opportunities than I thought there was.

I figured I would just go back to doing what I was doing beforehand

and getting paid very little for it, but I know now that there's

grants and funds and organisations

and people who want to get the work out there,

especially in Northern Ireland.

There is a lot more coming out of here than there has been

the last couple of years, and it's doing incredibly well.

A lot of money, a lot of talent, a lot of production.

I didn't realise how important networking was until I came here

and talked to my peers and the experienced people.

It's opened my eyes to...

the stuff that you can learn from other people.

It's amazing.

Artistic expression and artistic projects perhaps push us

to make us think about things in slightly different ways.

We're a very creative culture.

I think that there's commitment from the various funding and

stakeholders such as Northern Ireland Screen to bring

the industry here and I think if we can connect up our pool of talent

with all of those people who want to produce in Northern Ireland

then we have a great future.

Well, unfortunately for John and Dominic it wasn't to be their night.

It was the night,

though, for a young music production graduate.

In terms of our winner, it was a difficult decision

but a unanimous decision, nonetheless.

And our winner today is Aishling Grufferty.

APPLAUSE

Honeycomb has definitely kick-started

my own business for me, 100%.

It's let me in the door

edgeways to maybe investors

or people of the industry that have years' experience above me

that I could learn so much more about them and it's

definitely given me that edge above

everyone else that's starting.

So, I'm so grateful for it!

I've won and I'm going to New York, where I've never been.

So, it's going to be a complete eye-opener.

Exciting times ahead, anyway!

Well, it's obvious to see from the buzz around CultureTECH

that the links between the creative arts

and technology are growing steadily but how do we build on that creative

confidence and take the next step to have our voices heard globally?

With me is Tim Brundle from the University of Ulster,

Christine James who is from Blick Studios over in Ebrington

and Jon Vanhala who is a musician,

music executive and start-up investor.

"Knowledge economy" has been used throughout this programme,

what is it?

Well, "knowledge economy"

is a phrase that's been used for many decades

and it was really to give a distinction between those people

who had access to information,

erm, against those who had access to means of production.

Where does creativity operate within that then?

Well, I'm not sure that "knowledge economy"

is a terribly helpful phrase.

I mean, we have the creative economy now being used, which is

to distinguish those people that are

using their creativity to create value.

Now, in one way that's a good thing

because it shows that we do all have access to information -

it's what we do with it that makes things really exciting.

CultureTECH is about those people who have taken their creativity and their

talent and applied it to technologies that they've found on the web,

to information, to things found out on the street and done beautiful

and interesting things with it.

Christine, is that what's happening over in Ebrington,

in Blick Studios, in these creative clusters, are they called?

Yeah, well, that's the plan anyway.

It would be a creative hub with shared work space

and facilities for creative businesses, from all different...

from illustrators, fashion, film, music, media.

That's the idea, is they all come together,

cluster and share ideas and inspiration

and help each other to grow their businesses.

-So, nobody has their hand around their homework?

-Exactly that.

And talking to each other.

That's the beauty of people coming from slightly different

industries, we find, because they're much more open to sharing ideas

and collaborating and working together.

And give us an update as well, as a side issue, to Ebrington,

to those buildings, 1881,

Turner was there last year.

So, is it still being retained as an art gallery?

Yeah, well, the decision for that was made before we were appointed as

operator but the plan certainly is to retain some of the gallery

space, the bottom two spaces as dedicated gallery space.

Hopefully that will be an opportunity that will be appreciated

by the local community and somebody will step forward and take that up.

We can hear music, Jon, as we're in here at the moment -

it kind of feels a natural fit.

Is technology and music...can it be applied as effectively to

other disciplines in the arts?

Absolutely, I mean technology

is a wonderful toolset enabling

toolset for all forms of creativity.

And I think that's the draw of CultureTECH

and it's the draw of this notion of the creative economy period

and while music has been a language even before we learn to speak,

it's by no means limited to music at all.

There's creativity in coders,

there's creativity in all forms of business, different nouns

and verbs but the way toolset through digital

and tech have just enabled access for all forms of creators.

Have you met anybody interesting...?

Many people and that's really why I came over

here from New York City to meet very smart,

cool people like the panel up here and others that drew me over.

It's a wonderful experience and it's

a perfect blend of culture, arts, tech.

It's sort of a sweet spot that I'm drawn to, personal passion point.

A sweet spot, Tim, I like the sound of that.

Yeah, and that's what this is.

There are stimuli right throughout

this week that range from music, from

film, from people using very, very interesting ways of producing things.

And it's the dialogue that continues throughout the day that makes

all of this so very, very interesting.

And it's why from the very first year CultureTECH was established,

we have had people from all around the world here being

part of that dialogue.

How does Northern Ireland fare outside of a wonderful

week of a festival?

I mean, everybody's pretty much-loved up

but they have to go back.

Yeah, and I think people are pretty loved up throughout the year as well

and the data would support that.

Creative industries are fast growing,

particularly within Northern Ireland,

we're seeing this massive growth in the creative economy that is

being fuelled by the universities,

it's being fuelled by the contact that people have with each other

at events like this and the accessibility of technology platforms

that enable people to make films and make music in short periods

and be able to broadcast that all around the world.

Christine, though, it has to be much more than a networking

exercise, as well, or does it?

Is it important that you do meet the likes of Jon,

you do have those chats over a coffee or whatever

and then you're able to continue the conversation the next day by e-mail?

Absolutely, erm, I think

especially that's one of the really interesting things,

wonderful things about starting a business in Northern Ireland

is that you can essentially be a big fish in a small pond.

It's so easy to make those few key connections that can really

push your business forward and can connect you to other people

and can make it a bit easier to get noticed.

So, who's in Blick Studios then?

Who's in that creative cluster at the moment?

-In Ebrington?

-Yeah.

-It's not open yet.

Right, OK, so when are you hoping to open it?

Fingers crossed, January.

OK, and how many are going to be in there?

Space for 50 individuals,

so that will be split up into...there'll be

an incubation programme which will select eight of the most

creative and innovative businesses, hopefully, in Derry-Londonderry.

Find people who are interested

and then there'll be co-working space for a further 16

and beyond that there'll be some private, dedicated office space.

Like, who? Who would you ideally like to see there?

I mean, are we talking animators, are we talking musicians?

There's going to be a gallery space there,

so there's going to be visual arts side too...writers, who's in there?

Well, we're basing it on our model in Belfast -

we have two creative hubs in Belfast

and we have a really broad range of creative business space there.

From freelancers, to small businesses, to tech start-ups.

So, we have fashion stylists, illustrators, sculptors,

gaming companies, software companies, design, media,

film, TV - it's really that mix of different

creative businesses that appeals to me.

So, anybody listening now, watching now,

they could...they still have a chance to get in in January?

Absolutely, yeah.

OK, Jon, what is a start-up investor fellow,

how does it work?

I'm with a company that I helped co-found called Thesis Ventures,

we're a company builder.

We invest our network, our connections,

our intellectual capital and we invest cash.

It's a fancy way of saying we put money

and sweat into early-stage start-ups.

Anybody here that you've seen over your few days?

There's a couple of very interesting entrepreneurs that have a very smart

approach that I'm going to continue to correspond with, for certain.

What have you liked?

Obviously you can't give away their identity

but what have you liked about them?

Have they shamelessly pitched themselves at you or has it

just been an incredible idea?

Shameless pitchsters.

You know, I respect anyone that hustles...I do.

-Hustling's good!

-I truly do!

But actually, that's not what gets you to the endgame.

I have respect for anyone trying,

I really do, but the ones that really make it that I'll be

maintaining connection with,

is they've really thought through their milestones

and they have a thoughtful plan, a core product,

they've thought about their brand and they've thought about what

they're doing over the next 12 months.

Maybe first and foremost,

they really understand who their audience is and how they're

solving a problem for demand and thinking through a need state.

And developing solutions to solve a problem for an audience.

Tim, I mean, that's incredible there and it's incredible and it's real!

Erm, how though can we really, truly go global?

Yeah, I mean, I think back to events like this, back to events like

CultureTECH, CultureTECH brings the density of people together

and brings that density of ideas together.

In the same way that Christine

and Blick Studios are helping with that clustering effect,

for people who are learning from each other, this is very much

a collaborative activity.

Back in CultureTECH this week we have...

..we have these great stimuli across

different sectors, we have great people learning from each other.

But unless we had that density,

people all here at the same time, we're not going

to get people like Jon who will have a reach

beyond these islands.

He will have a reach into America and all around the world and

so we need to be able to brigade our talents and capability

and creativity together and we need to learn from each other

and work together.

We need to help provide that shop window for the world's

investors and for the world's talents.

What I need to do now is let you guys sit together

and continue that dialogue but for the moment, Tim, Christine

and Jon, thank you very much, and we look forward to hearing who those

guys are that you are going to give your hard-earned cash to, thank you.

That's it from The Arts Show at CultureTECH.

You can join me live on Twitter straight after this show

and you can keep up to date with all arts

and culture on BBC Radio Ulster, Monday to Thursday, Arts Extra

and Pure Culture on a Friday, also at half past six.

You can also go online now to our website for behind the scenes

and extra content.

But for the moment, we leave you with the sights

and sounds of CultureTECH,

good night.