Public 2.0: Culture, Creativity and Audience in an Era of Information Openness, University of Westminster 21 July 2011

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21 July 2011 10.30am - 6.00pm
Location: University of Westminster, Regent Campus, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2UW

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In recent years significant changes in the technological, social and media landscapes have redrawn relationships between cultural producers of all stripes and the people previously called readers, audiences and users. In parallel with this, unprecedented amounts of information have entered the public domain as a result of both top-down policy pressures and ‘bottom-up’ social activism. This process in turn has given birth to new cultural movements, opportunities for creativity, forms of information visualisation, and modes of content production.

This free one-day conference brings together journalists, academics, developers, artists, activists and business people to reflect upon these phenomena, show work, exchange experiences and signpost future trends.

The conference will be followed by an exhibition opening of work produced as part of /Data Art/, an AHRC funded research project exploring how broadcast and news data can be reformatted, explored and navigated using information visualisations. The project is the result of collaboration between: the Centre for Research in Education Art and Media (CREAM), the University of Westminster; BBC Learning and BBC Future Media and Technology.

Invited speakers include:

Tom Corby, conference convener, artist, academic and writer working at the University of Westminster.
Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian Datablog and Datastore.
Ian Forrester, Senior Producer at BBC R&D and emergent technology expert.
Roland Harwood, co-founder of 100%Open an innovation agency.
David Gauntlett, writes and teaches on how digital media gives people new opportunities to create and connect.
Rob Myers, artist, writer, hacker and Chief Technology Officer for Philter Phactory.
Drew Hemment, associate Director of ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, and Director of the FutureEverything Festival. (TBC)
Julian Tate, lead developer on the Manchester Open Data Cities project for FutureEverything.
Ruth Catlow, media artist and co-founder and co-director of Furtherfield.org media arts organization.
Santiago Ortiz, Co-founder and research director at Bestiario.

In addition a ‘show and tell’ session will feature art and design works by independent companies and developers including the Bestiario design company, Andy Littledale, Gavin Baily and Harry Robbins.