At the NEC showcase in Battersea, London

Previously…

Last year (2010) we ran a project here in Birmingham called ‘Invisible City’ that culminated in a ‘Media Circus’ event in Fazeley Studios in October.  You can view the short video of the final event here. The project invited people to nominate their favourite creative projects, events, companies or people in six categories – Things that make me think, things that make me smile, things that make me proud, things that taught me something, business and cultural things. We had 120 nominations and 5500 votes online. From is we created a final event, book and video.

The project was entirely voluntary, unfunded and run on the goodwill of everyone involved.

In 2011…

This year we’re inviting the people involved and nominated last year, and anyone else to get involved in a follow up project revolving around working with Digital and Non-digital together. We’re partnering up with a host of different people to create and exhibit innovative ideas here in Birmingham. Media Circus expects to reach tens of thousands of people involved in the digital and creative industries by engaging with it’s parties over the development of the project.

Innovation and collaboration

The format is this. In May we will be exhibiting some of the very latest technologies for delivering digital content, including Augmented Reality, large multi-touch touch screens and glasses-free 3D. We are inviting collaboration between digital agencies, freelance individuals, non digital creative industries and university graduates to create content and ideas around the theme of using digital WITH non digital.

The categories, still to be finalised, will be:

• Creative use of content for new digital technologies
• Digital engineering
• Digital Art
• Future publishing
• Digital with Fashion

The opening event (mid may, date to be confirmed) will be a presentation and open session for discussion and brainstorming for each of these categories – with an exhibition of screen technology, with starting point examples. An online platform will be available throughout the summer to discuss idea development and pull together ideas and call outs for expertise. There will be a few informal events throughout the summer for people to come together in a physical environment to discuss their ideas. And finally in the autumn (most likely October, date to be confirmed) an exhibition of finished ideas, unfinished ideas, demonstrations, art and commercial applications will culminate in a Media Circus awards night where the very best innovative, commercial and artistic collaborations will be rewarded. It will be even more visually exciting than last year.

There’s a lot of take in, and a lot of opportunities to get involved and showcase your ideas in front of a large audience. Please come along in May and see how you can get involved to create something exciting, and something cool.

Invited partners

• NEC
• Birmingham City University
• Aston University
• Birmingham Post
• New Media Age Magazine
• Birmingham Book Festival
• Marketing Birmingham
• Digital Birmingham
• Fazeley Studios
• Microsoft – Rare Games
• Custard Factory
• Think Tank
• Birmingham Civic Society
• Princes Trust
• Pebu
• Gadget Show
• Blink Animation
• Birmingham News Desk
• Business Birmingham
• Birmingham Chamber of Commerce
• Birmingham Hippodrome
• Fierce Earth
• BBC