Creative
Fuse North East, an action-research project led by the region’s five
universities and creative businesses, will be sharing its early results at a
free conference on the 10 and 11 July.
The
Creative Fuse Conference will bring together SMEs, freelancers, creatives and
academics from across the region and beyond to showcase and celebrate creative
innovation projects.
Project
Director, Mark Adamson said: “The programme provides a mix of presentations,
panel discussions, workshops and performances – as well as an interactions
gallery which offers a first look at some of the outcomes from the Creative
Fuse Innovation Pilot projects that were funded through an open call earlier this
year – it’s going to be a fantastic event, a culmination of everything the
project has achieved so far, blended with a consideration of future
directions.”
Through
the Creative Fuse Innovation Pilot programme, 31 creative, digital and cultural
organisations received seed funding to team up with researchers and work on
innovative ideas.
During
the conference, the Interaction Gallery will showcase some of the
collaborations developed by Creative Fuse NE.
The
Innovation Pilot project, Passive Management of Building Environments Using
Thermal Sculptures, will be one of the projects featured. A collaboration
between Full Blown, an Ouseburn-based metal studio, and engineering researchers
from Northumbria and Newcastle universities, the team has developed a method of
encapsulating a thermal regulation substance within an inflated metal casing.
This could be shaped into sculptures, office partitions, and other structures,
to passively regulate a building’s temperature in an energy efficient way.
Also
featured is Mymo, a collaboration between Washington-based
micro-business Shoes2Run and researchers from Sunderland and Northumbria
universities. Shoes2Run has developed a portable, wearable tool for gait
analysis, which uses an artificial intelligence algorithm developed by
Northumbria to match a person’s gait to the most suitable type of running shoes
on the market. The University of Sunderland are working with Shoes2Run on the
Big Data elements of this project.
The
Bowes Museum will also be exhibiting, showcasing the early results of their
work with researchers at Durham, Sunderland, Newcastle and Teesside
universities. The project team, which explored potential uses for Virtual
Reality, Augmented Reality and other digital tools within a museum context,
will be presenting a first glimpse into the Bowes Centre’s experiments with
photogrammetry, creating an interactive experience with museum objects.
Scheduled
speakers for the Discussion Panel sessions include: Alan Welby, Innovation
Director at North East LEP; Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council
England; and Caroline Norbury, Chief Executive of Creative England. The Keynote
speakers are Zoe Laughlin (Institute of Making) and Jo Lansdowne (REACT Watershed).
Performances on Tuesday evening will include local bluegrass band, The Often
Herd.
The
Creative Fuse Conference will be held at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle, and
is part of the Great Exhibition of the North ‘Inspired By’ Programme.
The
Conference will be livestreamed, and can be watched via the Insights from Workshops and
the Interactions Gallery will be posted live on twitter and Instagram @CreativeFuseNE,
#FuseCon18.
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