In partnership with Dreamstake we have been running monthly events at Club Workspace in Clerkenwell since last August. BIG BANG NIGHTS are networking events using films to trigger open discussions or crowdversations, an open platform to enable collective, constructive and meaningful discussions. In the case of BIG BANG NIGHTS the overall theme is culture, creativity and innovation for social change. For each night we launch a topic based on the issue that the film is touching. Our role as curators and facilitators is making sure that the content is exciting and challenging enough for people to join us in.

Crowdversation 1: Creative Communities
Crowdversation 2: Arts and Health
Crowdversation 3: Culture, conflict resolution (West-Eastern Divan Orchestra)
Crowdversation 4: Older people and financial inclusion
Crowdversation 5: Corporate Memory and urban futures
Crowdversation 6: Co-creativity and collaboration (BOW workshop)

The crowdversations start from the issues on the film and then we move swiftly to new territories depending on the contribution of each individual with questions and opinions recorded live on camera shot by any person next to the speaker in the crowd. It is not a Q&A as we know it or a panel discussion. It is a many to many conversation.

The event finishes with drinks where people have the chance to interact at another level but already in tune with others as we promote active participation during the discussions. It works because it is niche and small, worthwhile chit chats that can lead to new personal and business relationships.  We are also experiementing with new ways of integrating online media with the offline experience as a full circle before and after the event.

We have launched a LinkedIn group open to anyone interested in the big theme. You can join here www.culturalsocialresponsibility.org We also encourage for the events the participation via twitter using the hashtag bigbangnight to enable a level of interaction with anyone willing to put forward any question or remark before the event.

On Monday the 19th we celebrated the first series of BIG BANG NIGHTS with a tester of our flagship programme of co-creativity in action, the Balloon Orchestra Workshop and had a crowdversation on creativity and collaboration with the participants after their amazing performance.The winning team was the Fab Five with their piece tidal waves. Check out our audio channel on soundcloud. It was the best way to say thanks to all who has supported us during 2011 and celebrate the new year with excitement!

Read this blog post about it written by our unconditional fan Ben Goldsmith from Workspace Group.

Balloon Orchestra Workshop (4) Tidal waves / winner! by Big Bang Lab audio

This new venture is combining the social media platform of the spoken word,  AudioBoo with a wiki platform  to engage people all over the world with our flagship project  and cultural social responsibility programme, Global City Symphony. We are inviting to get contributors to a wiki open to individuals that speak more than one language to translate the texts, upload an audiofile using  their voice in order to create a series of multilingual messages.

More important for us is the opportunity for us to allow people to engage and contribute to this collective effort and become local and global ambassadors of Global City Symphony. We are looking for individuals interested in social change in the context of the city and the role of culture to bring the city alive and change the approach to tackle other aspects neglected in the development or urban planning agenda. We are confident people will connect with the vision and mission of the project using language skills by translating content to another language, but also taking ownership of the project to engage with and become future volunteer ambassadors.

visit us now!

Multilingual Ambassadors   http://multilingual-ambassadors.wikispaces.com

Collective interviews video co-created by participants to the VII Campus of Cultural Cooperation which took place in November – December 2010 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, organized by Interarts. To learn more about Euroamericano, the VII Campus of Cultural Cooperation, click here alturl.com/​x32tx

Music soundtrack composed and performed by Javier Infante, from Gran Canaria javierinfante.com

The Canarias Government, Organization of Ibero-American Status for Education, Science and Culture (OEI), Interarts Foundation and Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AECID) organized the 7th Euro-American Campus on Cultural Cooperation, which took place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) from the 30th of November until the 3rd of December in 2010. The theme of the meeting was “Culture, Cooperation and Local Development.
________________________________________________________________________

Video de entrevistas colectivas co-creadas por participantes del VII Campus de Co-operación Cultural organizado por Interarts en Las Palmas de Gran Canaria durante Noviembre – Diciembre 2010. Visite la página de Euroamericano, VII Campus de Cooperación Cultural alturl.com/​x32tx

To watch other videos produced by Big Bang Lab for conferences visit the channel Shared Voices

The video was produced by Big Bang Lab for Otakar Kraus Music Trust, a leading music therapy charity based in Twickenham, London. The video is used as promotional and evaluation tool showing the process during a series of creative music workshops involving children with disabilities and their siblings.

They all participated together in a Summer Music Club in August 2010 supported by the Aiming High programme in Hounslow, London.

We took the opportunity to interview some of the parents to learn about the programme and the impact of music in their children. Some parents shared some open views about unconditional love and the power of non verbal communication that will inspire other families with autistic or down syndrome children.

We are sure you will be as inspired as we were during the making of this documentary by listening to the music created with joy by the children.

The outcome of this project is a new silent digital film (8 mins) as part of a collaborative interdisciplinary creative learning project, created and delivered by Sergio López Figueroa for Brent Holocaust Memorial Day

Creative Partnerships cross curriculum project combining music and maths

Big Bang Lab and the curriculum Who says maths has to be boring? Year 7 and Year 8 students had an opportunity to explore the relationship between graphic notation, geometry, music composition and moving images using a balloon orchestra! We use photography and flash animation during the sessions.

The ensemble’s finale was a live performance to a especially commissioned  silent 3D animation. The project explored new sounds with balloons and the use of geometry to create individual and collective rhythmic patterns and sequences. We use non-standard notation on purpose. Delivered in the classroom during a six week period, students embraced the limitations of using balloons as musical instruments and we all made a hell of noise!

The use of non narrative in the film  was used by the workshop leader to help the students to stimulate the imagination. They came with concepts of infinity, order, chaos and another abstract concepts, the visual internal rhythm helped them to perform live as a grand final of 40+ students in combination with a small group of instruments and other musical objects. We are looking forward ti new ways of improving this project to make it more attractive to students and adding melody represented without traditional notation using X and Y axes.

Visual Rhythm project

project description  and a video of the workshop