Cultural Exploration & Digital Storytelling

Lancashire County Council and Preston City Council are working in collaboration with the Sandbox in using new cultural mapping strategies to explore cultural and social relationships in communities and for business alike.

The sandbox uses mobile phones and GPS technology to allow participation to document, record and write experiences in real-time and upload those files via video, SMS, sound and image directly from the mobile phone to a website to be shared with the all participants. Web-based projects provide a space for communities to utilised new social media tools to connect to others and be active author in promoting their values and local needs.
Sandbox facilitators employ new creative media tools, designed specifically to enable participants to gather and store relevant information, to bring people, their stories and digital technologies together in a creative and user-friendly way.

Bike Sharing Solutions :: Cyclocity

How can Lancashire raise the bar to provide 4th generation bike sharing facilities in the future?

1) The first generation of bike sharing began in 1967 in Amsterdam!! Normal bikes without locks simply painted white where provided for public use - as you can imagine, things did not go as planned as some people abused the system.

2) In the late 1990's, the second generation of bike sharing was launched in Copenhagen, Denmark. These bikes were specially designed to be picked up and returned at specific locations (racks) with a coin deposit (like super market trolley).

3) The third generation of sharing bikes uses electronic locking racks, or bike locks, chip cards, mobile phones and internet. These new systems 'know' who uses the bikes and people can be tracked. In 2007 Paris started Velib, ran by advertisement company JCDecaux. The success of Velib generated enormous interest in bike sharing around the world...

There are a variety of bike sharing options and a lot of case studies to learn from all the existing systems to choose the best model to work in Lancashire! Here are a few different systems:

• Clear Channel: Barcelona, Washington DC, ....They provide a turn-key program in 13 European cities and recently started its first American program, the one in Washington.
• JC Decaux: Paris, Lyon, ...
• Call a Bike: Berlin, ...
• Next Bike: Germany
• OV-fiets (Public Transport Bike): Netherlands

Short Shap Shorts - NW of England

Short Shap Shorts was a ground breaking mobile phone film making competition commissioned by North West Vision+Media in 2007. The competition was open to 18-24 year olds to create stand alone films by just using the video function on their mobile phones. The idea for Short Shap Shorts was for the NW screen agency to identify, meet and support hot new young talent in the region and to engage them in the latest of film making techniques - using mobile media devices!

To see the selction of winning flims please visit the short sharp shots myspace site.

This project followed a growing trend for exploring new broadcasting models to reach new audiences especially those of younger people. Example of film festivals exclusively for mobile film content are now creating a new strand of digital entertainment and creative talent forums all over the world.

MOBI FEST
made for mobile movies

Mini Series
Experience the visual seduction stories told for the mobile generation.