Where is 'Digital Butetown' headed?
David Barrie
months and I wanted to just update you on what's going on.
Gavin Porter and Butetown.org has been doing some amazing development
of the site over the last month or so, including a poll of priorities
for the regeneration of the area in November 09. The outcome: Local
Training and Enterprise Centre - 23%, Grants Scheme - 20%, New
Community Centre - 17%, Estate Improvements – 13%.
In November, Tom Beardshaw of Native HQ pointed me to The National
Theatre of Wales and Leanne Rahman's plans for The Soul Exchange -
more here: http://nationaltheatrewales.org/whatson/performance/ntw10 -
an art event that aims to wend its way through the streets of Butetown
in a year's time. Tom and me talked about how this connection of
different places in the area through performance might link to or act
as a catalyst for or generally meld with future dispersed support for
'hyperlocal' digital activity. The idea reminded me of the Wayfarer
"locative social media" event that happened in Melbourne in November
09 - http://www.wayfarer.net.au/. Tom is thinking about how the
occasion of The Soul Exchange and online participation in general
might be of mutual benefit in the future and plans to talk to some key
local figures in the New Year to start to develop some thoughts about
how this all might work. [In the meantime, see the outcome of Tom and
Native's great work with the National Theatre on their new online
presence http://community.nationaltheatrewales.org/.]
I've been pretty much absent from Cardiff through the last quarter of
this year, largely because the first round of British Council Wales
investment came to a close and our other sponsor - igloo Regeneration
- has been deep in discussion on the possible occupation of their site
in Cardiff Bay by BBC Wales. The site is prospectively the location of
a BBC 'production village' for several key, heavyweight BBC drama
productions. More here:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/cardiff-news/2009/12/05/bbc-s-drama-village-would-bring-tv-shows-to-cardiff-bay-91466-25324899/
. In December 09, a construction contract for the site was publicly
tendered and featured a "Digital Media Centre: 40,000 sq ft of space
over 4 stories". igloo have created Digital Media Centre in several
other locations in the U.K., including Leeds, Barnsley and Leicester.
(More at http://www.igloo.uk.net) Whether and how online social media
and public participation might benefit from this development in the
future is not certain at this time - but obviously this *could* be a
catalyst to the ideas discussed in very general terms by this project,
local people involved and the wider community who have expressed an
interest in the development of community websites in the Bay area.
Watch this space.
In other part of the forest, following up on a lead provided by Mike
Flood Page of Illumina - participant in the second Digital Butetown
workshop - and a sketch proposal for a multi-media project written by
Gavin Porter, I have had a couple of meetings in London with people
speculating on a possible link between Gavin's ideas on an augmented
reality/mobile media 'take' on the life and times of Butetown and
access to the BBC's archive by local people and its exploitation for
local social and knowledge benefit. Also a possible linkage to new
employment in the creative industries for the young unemployed, such
as you'll find in some of the work of the Future Jobs Fund Initiative
in England and the ideas of arts coalition New Deal for the Mind -
http://www.newdealofthemind.com/. These ideas are advancing but most
effectively await consolidation of the BBC's direct interest/or not in
the area, a comprehensive series of 'bottom-up' local events re online
engagement and the wholehearted, focussed consultation, co-ordination
and involvement of the many strong organizations in Cardiff and Wales
who have a stake in and commitment to digital participation.
So it's right to say that small advances are now being made towards
lining up the institutional 'tectonic plates' that might support a
second, new round of Digital Butetown activity: a round of activity
inspired by the ideas raised at the second workshop back in July and,
going forward, more integrated with local people, grassroots community
organizing and the NGO and not-for-profit sectors.
As the new year progresses, we'll keep you posted here on what's going
on here. Obviously, we'll embrace members of the group in the
development of the next stage of work - should a robust, well-funded,
effective platform for action emerge.
In the meantime, I'd just like to thank all of you for joining this
group. Thank you to all of those who supported our three small and
short phases of activity in 2009. I hope to open up some new vistas
for all next year. But for now, please have a very Happy Christmas and
good New Year. I feel sure that for most, if not all of us, 2009 was
been a very challenging time. Here's to a better 2010 - a year in
which the nascent interests and enthusiasms for people in Butetown to
do more stuff, and more socially productive stuff online is realised.
D