UNI TO UNICORNS - TATE EXCHANGE 2020

UNI TO UNICORNS
WITH DIGITAL MAKER COLLECTIVE AND GUESTS, TATE MODERN, TATE EXCHANGE, 3 - 8 MARCH 2020
VISIT EVENT WEBSITE: UNI2UNICORNS.INFO

Unpack the creative power of the tech industries. Help us create a new space where the art world meets the tech world.

Join the University of the Arts, UAL Digital Maker Collective and guests from the creative and tech industries. Help us transform the Tate Exchange into an open and accessible ‘Test Bed' for creative tech. A place for all to explore, question and learn about the world of tech business and future technologies. 
 
The UK is third in the world for producing successful tech companies and unicorns which are privately-owned tech companies valued at over $1bn. UAL are at the centre of this tech revolution, yet the gap between tech business/giants and everyday society is continually widening. How do we reconcile this gap and bring the tech world into arts, but equally important, how do we bring arts creatives into the world of tech?

What responsibility do the arts have in restoring trust and empowering society to stake its claim in this new land of opportunity and in defining the language of emerging technologies?

Event clusters: 

  • Meet-up: Join us for presentations and informal chat, networking in a mixer space.
     
  • Ideas lab: We all have great ideas, but we don’t normally get the opportunity to pitch them to others. This is your chance to level the playing field and air your ideas at the Tech Innovation Hub, however serious or wacky, we want to hear your ideas. Visitors are invited to give a quick informal pitch, on a first come first served basis, and are open to anyone, any age and any level of  knowledge or experience.
     
  • Collective Incubator: Come chat and get hands on with the Digital Maker Collective, UAL staff and students and our guest start-ups/creative innovators. See work and tech prototypes in progress and also start to prototype, develop and test your own ideas out, with others !

Incubator Themes:

  • Creative Data: How do creatives & public better understand the power of data?
  • Smart Mobility and City: Tech and citizen-centred innovation from self driving cars to internet of things
  • Spatial Computing: Virtual, Augmented & extended reality, new immersive experiences
     
  • Innovation Hub: A place to share and demo ideas, work in progress and creative tech prototypes and/or launch your new creative start up plans to the world.
COMMON Theatre, The Diversity School Initiative & Happy Finish at DMC Beta Society event 2019

Image above: COMMON Theatre, The Diversity School Initiative & Happy Finish at DMC Beta Society event 2019

What role do arts graduates and creative industries play in the world of tech business? 

  • Should tech companies be more like art schools or art schools more like tech companies?
  • How accessible is the world of the tech, business and startups? 
  • Do tensions exist across art, creativity, money, profit, not for profit organisations and business? 
  • How independent, autonomous and critical can creative startups be in questioning ethical business cultures and its social responsibility?
  • What control and power structures are at play between the independent artist, designers, collectives and big institutions and business.

Event is led by:

The Digital Maker Collective (DMC) is a volunteer led, informal Research & Development (R&D) group, made up of University of the Arts London UAL staff, students, alumni who share common goals in exploring digital & emerging technologies in the context of arts practice, education, society and the creative industries.

Event partners and guests TBC.

If you would like to find out more about this event, or you are a creative startup or startup organisation and interested in sharing your experiences of the startups and the creative industries then please contact Chris Follows c.follows@arts.ac.uk

The DMC Tate Exchange story so far:

Since becoming a founding Tate Exchange associate in 2017. The DMC have delivered three large scale public events which actively engaged over eight thousand visitors, and collaborated with hundreds of UAL students, staff and alumni as well as sector/industry partners and community organisations.

  • In 2017 we aimed to uncover and highlight the hidden digital making activities happening within art school with the event: Digital Making Arts School 
  • In 2018 the DMC explored digital making art school practice in more detail and asked how this work could change the art school and shape the future of work: Arts Work of The Future 
  • In 2019 we collaborated with many partners in order to look beyond the art school and technology and put societal issues first, through exploring socially engaged practice: Beta Society.
  • For 2020 DMC and guests will demystify and unpack the creative power of the tech industries, exploring the world of creative tech startups.

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