London 2012 programme: Unlimited

Today myself, the disability officer for the arts council, Northwest Disability Arts Forum (NWDAF) and FACT as the champion for WE PLAY – Abandon Normal Devices – met with the LOCOG lead for Unlimited – the UK disability arts programme for the Cultural Olympiad – to discuss the Unlimited programme structure and our Northwest regional priorities. Our aspirations here in the Northwest are to use Unlimited to drive new regional work/citizen debate around the regional theme of Body and Economy (See Cultural Olympiad in Northwest page on this site). Cross platform collaborations and commissioning of new media/disability practice through a focus on theme of normality was discussed through the context of the Abandon Normal Devices Festival. A £60k budget coming to the region for 2009/2010 each year for three years. It was recognised that AND and NWDAF provide rich contexts and platforms for showcasing Unlimited in the years leading up to 2012 and that this partnership could link to showcases in other Olympic cities. Priorities for soliciting bids were identified as follows: new collaborations which have the potential to mainstream disability practice, ideas which support the body and economy theme, cross regional projects and cross sector collaborations, collaborations engaging sport sector. projects which make links to the Paralympic World Cup in the northwest, projects which can bring match funding to the commission particularly from the sports sector/olymplic cities and projects/contexts which can provide a platform for advocacy and professional development in disability sector as well as the presentation and touring of national/international standard high quality work over three year period.

2012 Legacy: WE PLAY Launch, Velodrome, Manchester, 24th March 09

Visit blogroll on this site to access invitation to this launch event – this celebration of the launch of WE PLAY is where you can hear about the plans for the region, meet the producers of the programme and witness the Velodrome in action, live with a mock race. See you there. Just register. Its free and you get coffee/tea and some pastries (its a morning gig)

Vancouver 2010 – sites

Social housing outside parimeter of athletes village

Hotel IOC are expected to stay in - near vancouver art gallery - the best in town

Torch Relay route 2010

New ice ring in development - local response

Althletes village in progress

Countdown clock outside vancouver art gallery

Some branding ideas for 2012

ContainrR – think of a poster where the front side is the outside of the venue – this carries the brand but no other sponsor relationships and back side of the poster ie the inside of the venue lists the partner sponsors. You will notice from picture 3 that the same print has the olympiad credit and sponsor logos on it – degree of seperation.

Worth noting and meeting

Raincity – Robert Scales and Kris Krug – activists, communicators, nice guys, operating in the world of self representation from a ‘we’ standpoint. Rare.  Irwin, Executive director of W2. A great new community media resource and it will be fibre optic enabled.

There will be a collaboration emerging here linking WE PLAY  to Vancouver through a range of initatives – ideas and links to enable are linked to social media/blogging, telepresence events and a new media/disability events.  This collaboration could link the 2010 and 2012 games – i wonder if this has happened before?

Culture, olympics and identity

ContainR

I am sitting in a cafe on the corner of Homer and Robson Street and the hot spot is provided by Bell and as i look out the window i see the cultural olympiad banner hanging above me with a single sponsor credit on it – Bell. Last night on my route through the back streets behind my hotel, i came across ContainerR – a shipping container set up as a cinema showing a programme of short films on theme of sport and art. There were archive films (pre sound, of the olympics), contemporary dance, disability work, films from canada and from other countries including uk. I am going back later to finish of the film cycle. There are about 25 films running on a continous loop. A nice touch is the graf on the outside of the shipping container. Something about this work is very Vancouver or should i say west coast. I saw this following a tour of the olympic venues in the city, the athletes village, the hotels where the IOC are most likely to stay, the location of a new ice rink and the shop for official merchanidise (no pins for the Cultural Olympiad brand though). Whilst it appears that every games delivers the same (operational requirements), the identity, individuality and culture of the host place is transmitted and transmuted through the cultural programme that is staged.

Citizen Journalism and Olympics

I joined a panel led by Robert Scales and centered around Dr Andy Miah – a freedom of information advocate who want social media at the heart of the Olympics. The debate around inclusion, branding, embracing the new generation of amateur bloggers and hackers who will come with their I phones and create media around their experience about the games. Social media appears to sit in the debate around media centres, accredition, issues of IOC non recognition, matters of control which social media presents a challenge. I spoke about London 2012’s committment to inclusion, democracy and youth culture the flicker/utube platforms used for handover, the live debate going on around user generated content and London 2012 site sanctioning, the adidas campaign and also AND. London 2012 wants the games to be the Citizen Olympics. Lets bring this on, activate the social media debate, to open up and move on the olympics but also to enable the widest possible coverage and debate to be had in the Uk around the games. .Stimulating and dangerous stuff, this debate and discussion around user debate and reporting. Pics on flickr – northernvoice09 tag

The Wrap

What a great event, people have so much support and enthusiasm for it evidenced i believe by the 300 people who registered still being here – the theatre is packed for the last session. Northern Voice sold out in two days this year and want/need to grow. Next year, The Olympics are on at this time so NV lose their venue, hotels are booked out etc. Use the Northern Voice 09 tag to link to postings about the conference. I would like to bring this event/style to the Northwest – perhaps through AND in 2012 – it would be great to run an event that captured the next generation of bloggers in the Northwest… something to discuss with Robert and Kris and Andy.

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Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition – Vancouver

I met with two guys involved in programming the new media strand of CODE – digital edition of the cultural programme for Vancouver 2010. They have a budget and they work across whole of Canada. They had the freedom to create a theme for their programme. The theme for the new media programme is Bridges. They are now starting to fundraise for their programme from not for profit and government agencies. The structure of the Olympiad here is like a festival with different strands organised by sector. Quite simple to explain.

rock and roll photography

Speakers Bev Davis and kris Krug

Why are you taking photos?

1000’s of people have the pictures immediately when you post on flickr.

Provide the pillar on which a scene can be established. Recording /capturing things going on in our culture. People can do remixes, mash-ups, articles off the pics. They get networked through society.

Kris Krug – I take the camera with me everywhere. Capturing people being themselves.

What makes a rock and roll photograph is the emotional impact