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May you live in interesting times

Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff played host to the Bloc: Cardiff Festival of Creative Technology entitled ‘May You Live in Interesting Times', from Thursday 22 October to Saturday 24 October.

This three-day Festival is all about ‘do-it-yourself’ with a programme that celebrates the latest intriguing uses of everyday technology and social innovation, enabled through shared ideas. There’s a fantastic range of commissions, exhibitions, a tinker faire, discussions, workshops, screenings and participant-driven events.
 
May You Live In Interesting Times has commissioned a number of projects for this year’s Festival. Highlights include Alfred Sirleaf: an analogue blogger from Liberia,the first Micro Maker Faire Wales; The People Speak; an unConference, a Blogging residency with Cardiff-based writer Ciron Gruffydd, and You May Fund commissions from artists based in Wales, including Switchboard Mobile Radio Station.

Events are taking place at locations across Cardiff, including Chapter Arts Centre, Castle Arcade, and at Ffotogallery in Penarth. For further details view the festival website here.

Ciron Gruffydd, pictured above, is leading the creative blogging residency supported by Academi. He shares some of his thought here:

Bright future for creative technology

As a young writer in Wales today, it’s impossible not to notice how social networking sites, and the web in general, successfully brings creative minds together to work on different projects.

Recently, the Harlech Biennale was a great success with over twenty artists working on pieces inspired by the theme of International Crosscurrents. Some of the performance pieces were broadcast on the web into galleries in Napels, Italy and Toledo, Spain. A perfect example of international creative collaboration.

Other projects combine different styles, like the poetry of American Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, with animation on YouTube. This has opened the door to a world of poetry for many, and they notice and appreciate poetry for the first time.

Younger writers use social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to raise the profile of their work and to produce new audiences for their work. Poet and writer, Laura Dockrill, has broken new ground by using these sites to organise events. She also works with singer Kate Nash on a regular basis.

With support form the Academi, the chance of working with artists and bloggers in the May You Live In Interesting Times will be a fantastic opportunity and will spark our imaginations to new and exiting ideas and opportunities.

I hope my time as a resident blogger will encourage more of us to share our ideas and inspirations through the Welsh language within Wales and beyond. If it’s possible for us to do this, then we can also captivate audiences, writers, artists and other creative minds to create new projects that bridge styles and bring Welsh creativity firmly into the twenty-first century.

Ciron Gruffydd, October 2009