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All Improv Perfomers All Improv Gigs Roberto Bellatella Double Bass Performer Bio (Max 1000 characters) London and South East improv gigs Boat-Ting Sep24 2 September 2024 Boat-Ting Sep 2024 http://Website or social media email or phone number

All Improv Perfomers All Improv Gigs Veryan Weston Performer Bio (Max 1000 characters) London and South East improv gigs ImproVox #11 29 September 2025 Performer notes, message or style description http://Website or social media email or phone number

All Improv Perfomers All Improv Gigs Andrea Bazzicalupo Guitar Performer Bio (Max 1000 characters) London and South East improv gigs FlimFlam 29 October 2025 Performer notes, message or style description http://Website or social media email or phone number

Gravesend Innovation Showcase 2024 events, locations, talks, speakers and times. < Back Green Yonder - Sustainable Design Futures Start Time 10:00 Running Time 5 Hours Location 2. St George's Church Hall Event Type Demonstration About the Event Introduction Explore how emerging technologies like AI and IoT impact sustainability through hands-on games and repair challenges. Join us to learn essential skills for a circular economy in a fun, interactive setting for all ages. More on the event lead Dr Michael Stead Michael is Lecturer in Sustainable Design Futures at Lancaster University’s School of Design and Imagination Design Research Lab. His practice-based research explores the systemic opportunities and challenges emerging data-driven technologies (including AI and IoT) pose for achieving climate goals like Net Zero and Circular Economies. Cutting across Design and Computing, he advances Speculative, More-than-Human and Participatory Design approaches to develop strategies with communities and industry that support adoption of sustainable and equitable data- driven technologies and practices. Michael’s funded research projects include EPSRC InterNET ZERO, AHRC Generation Fix, EPSRC Fixing the Future, EPSRC-ESRC Repair Shop 2049 and EPSRC Edge of Reality. He leads the Sustainable Regenerative Design Futures research group at Imagination Design Research Lab. Violet Owen Violet is a Senior Research Associate for the EPSRC Fixing the Future: The Right-to-Repair and Equal IoT project for which she is exploring how Serious Games can be used to encourage social transitions towards cultures of smart technology repair. Violet is also a Postgraduate Researcher at Imagination Design Research Lab. Her doctoral research focuses on Creative Evaluation approaches, and how these can be used to establish the social impact of Social Innovations. Professor Paul Coulton Professor of Speculative and Game Design Research Overview Paul is the Chair of Speculative and Game Design within Imagination and the School of Design. His practice uses research through design to create experiential futures which deliberately mix a present experience with a speculative future that are concretised by combining immersive scenarios with artefacts produced as design fictions or speculative designs. His work has helped establish a particular form of Speculative Design; Design Fiction, as a research method exploring futures for areas such as the Internet of Things and Artificial intelligence. His current research focusses on more-than-human design to expand design approaches so that they play greater consideration to human and non-human actants within the complex assemblages in which new product and services exist particularly in relation to sustainability and climate change. Event Information This event is Free Open to all ages, fully interactive. This event is ideal for individuals of all ages interested in sustainability, repair culture, and the environmental impact of technology. It’s especially suited for eco-conscious tech enthusiasts, educators, students, designers, and community members keen on learning hands-on repair skills and exploring how AI and IoT devices can be made more sustainable and trustworthy. Families and young learners will also enjoy the interactive, game-based approach to complex issues. ___ Even more information ___ More on Michael: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lica/people/michael-stead More on Violet: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lica/people/violet-owen The EPSRC Fixing the Future: The Right to Repair and Equal IoT project explores how new design and legislation can both support and hinder the repair and reuse of ‘smart’ Internet of Things devices. Our interactive RepairLand game embodies these tensions, challenging players to find the best way to fix a broken smart gadget called Pet Tap. The AHRC Generation Fix project is developing open-source educational electronic tools to accelerate Digital Circular Economy education within local communities. Our Re:Play game repair toolkit and ROBB·E the Robot GenFixer pendant soldering kits are designed to teach essential electronics fixing skills. The UKRI TAS Hub InterNET ZERO project has been investigating how the environmental impact of AI affects its trustworthiness. Play our Energy Master game and meet a new AI aiming to manage its own and the local area’s energy supply and consumption. But can Energy Master really be trusted? Previous Next

< Back Peter Rodulfo Great Yarmouth Artist: Paintings of Great Yarmouth The abstract dreamlike paintings of Peter Rodulfo of Great Yarmouth sought to invite visitors to see and consider the town through an alternative lens and think of how technology could transform it for the better. Peter Rodulfo (b. 1958, Washington DC) is a British artist and sculptor. He spent much of his youth travelling across India and Australia before settling in Norfolk. Peter studied at the Norwich School of Art and Design between 1975 to 1979. His first solo exhibition was in 1980 at the Margaret Fisher Gallery; he has continued to exhibit widely over the next forty years in the UK, Europe, Asia, the USA, and South America. For the past decade, he has resided in the Norfolk coastal town of Great Yarmouth, where he has absorbed the novel visual experience of the urban environment and popular seaside culture. The subject matter, style and imagery of his paintings have remained broad and experimental, possessing a variety of meanings while directly addressing the viewer's powers of association and imagination. Peter's work inhabits the world between what we know and dream, treading a line between reality and imagination. His artworks evoke a kind of instability, a sense that change, like the end to a long British Winter, is only constant. info@fourthportal.com Summer and Autumn 2022 To play, press and hold the enter key. To stop, release the enter key.

All Improv Perfomers All Improv Gigs Hannah Marshall Cello Performer Bio (Max 1000 characters) London and South East improv gigs Boat-Ting Feb19 4 February 2019 Boat-Ting Dec22 5 December 2022 ImproVox #10 30 June 2025 Performer notes, message or style description http://Website or social media email or phone number

< Back Quantum Computing’s Hard, Cold Reality Check Hype is everywhere, skeptics say, and practical applications are still far away IEEE Spectrum 22 Dec 2023 The quantum computer revolution may be further off and more limited than many have been led to believe. That’s the message coming from a small but vocal set of prominent skeptics in and around the emerging quantum computing industry. Quantum computers have been touted as a solution to a wide range of problems, including financial modeling, optimizing logistics, and accelerating machine learning. Some of the more ambitious timelines proposed by quantum computing companies have suggested these machines could be impacting real-world problems in just a handful of years. But there’s growing pushback against what many see as unrealistic expectations for the technology. https://spectrum.ieee.org/quantum-computing-skeptics For more: Machine Learning, Security, Protocols, AI, Algorithm, Quantum Previous Next

< Back Quantum Compass GPS-free navigation nears reality with quantum breakthrough. In a nutshell: Today's typical navigation-grade motion sensors are about the size of a grapefruit, helping steer ships, planes, and vehicles in conjunction with GPS signals. This means they always need satellite connectivity to function, but a new breed of "quantum compass" could eventually let us ditch the satellites entirely. TECHSPOT 20 Aug 2024 GPS-free navigation nears reality with quantum breakthrough Integrated photonic chips enable compact, low-cost quantum navigation The idea of using quantum technology for navigation isn't exactly novel. The technique relies on sensors called atom interferometers that can track position and motion without any need for GPS satellites. But the problem was that to get the required navigation precision, it had to be monstrously huge to hold six large atom interferometers – big enough to fill an entire room. However, this is changing. A team at Sandia National Labs has developed ultra-compact optical chips that can power those quantum navigation sensors in a package small enough to stick basically anywhere. It's all about replacing the bulky laser systems normally needed for the atom interferometers with tiny integrated photonic circuits. The scientists say that reducing dependency on GPS is important because satellite signals can be disrupted or spoofed. This can cause major headaches for military operations or automated transport systems. By Zo Ahmed August 19, 2024 at 7:29 AM READ ON... https://www.techspot.com/news/104330-gps-free-navigation-nears-reality-quantum-technology-breakthrough.html For more: CPU, Decoupling, Design, GPU, Quantum Previous Next

< Back A Dystopian Nightmare: When Our Fiction is Real George Orwell — 1984. This book is so prolific that people use ‘Orwellian’ as an adjective, even though they might be using it wrongly. Does the concept of inescapable surveillance seem familiar? Instead of a totalitarian state of Big Brother, we might have sub-contracted this control to tech giants who can read your emails, hear your conversations, and monitor your search history. Synopsis of the full article on Medium. Medium 24 Aug 2024 George Orwell — 1984. This book is so prolific that people use ‘Orwellian’ as an adjective, even though they might be using it wrongly . 1984 is often said to be a book about fascism and state control, but it’s a bit more than that. It tells of a vile and gritty world where a totalitarian government wages perpetual war against a changing enemy. 1984 is also a world where all actions and even thoughts are under inescapable surveillance only to be used as weapons of destruction against the individual. Words have no meaning and history no longer exists. Does the concept of inescapable surveillance seem familiar? Instead of a totalitarian state of Big Brother, we might have sub-contracted this control to tech giants who can read your emails , hear your conversations , and monitor your search history. Even Winston Smith had a private notebook. Between WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook (Meta?), Google, Apple, and Amazon, you could probably learn more about a person than Orwell could have imagined the Ministry of Love would be able to do. [..] Information, Truth, and Media. The biggest direct comparison between these three books, these three worlds and our own is the way in which information, truth and the media are categorised. They are a tool of escapism, sedation, and oppression. In Brave New World characters have everything they need to avoid facing the truth about their own situations whereas the antipode of this is in 1984, the absence of education and lack of information veracity hide the truth. As a combination to these, in Fahrenheit 451 people are simultaneously denied the truth and bombarded with mass-saturated media to distract them. [...] Overall, we are not in one dystopia, we are not in a dystopia at all. We are in the most liberal, peaceful and progressive time in global history; but there are frankly quite scary existential concepts in fiction that are becoming real. Rejection of modernity, technology and progress is not the cure, but one must be wary of such quickly evolving societal norms, for what today seems progressive may turn out to be Orwellian. Author: Alexander Archer , Dec 5, 2021 https://medium.com/@TheWorldIsHard/a-dystopian-nightmare-when-our-fiction-is-real-675b938b3d7c For more: Algorithm, Neural Network, VR Previous Next

< Back Genie: Generative Interactive Environments Genie, a foundation world model trained from Internet videos that can generate an endless variety of playable (action-controllable) worlds from synthetic images, photographs, and even sketches. Deep Mind 1 Mar 2024 A Foundation Model for Playable Worlds The las t few years have seen an emergence of generative AI, with models capable of generating novel and creative content via language, images, and even videos. Today, we introduce a new paradigm for generative AI, generative interactive environments (Genie), whereby interactive, playable environments can be generated from a single image prompt. Genie can be prompted with images it has never seen before, such as real world photographs or sketches, enabling people to interact with their imagined virtual worlds-–essentially acting as a foundation world model. This is possible despite training without any action labels. Instead, Genie is trained from a large dataset of publicly available Internet videos. We focus on videos of 2D platformer games and robotics but our method is general and should work for any type of domain, and is s calable to ever larger Internet datasets. Learning to control without action labels What makes Genie unique is its ability to learn fine -grained controls exclusively from Internet videos. This is a challenge because Internet videos do not typically have labels regarding which action is being performed, or even which part of the image should be controlled. Remarkably, Genie learns not only which parts of an observation are generally controllable, but also infers diverse latent actions that are consistent across the generated environments. Note here how the same latent actions yield similar behaviors across different prompt images. Enabling a new generation of creators It only takes a single image to create an entire new interactive environment. This opens the door to a variety of new ways to generate and step into virtual worlds, for instance, we can take a state-of-the-art text-to-image generation model and use it to produce starting frames that we can then bring to life with Genie. Here we generate images with Imagen2 and bring them to life with Genie. It can even step into human designed creations such as sketches or real world images. A stepping stone for generalist agents Genie also has implications for training generalist agents. Previous works have shown that game environments can be an effective testbed for developing AI agents, but we are often limited by the number of games available. With Genie, our future AI agents can be trained in a never-ending curriculum of new, generated worlds. In our paper we have a proof of concept that the latent actions learned by Genie can transfer to real human-designed environments, but this is just scratching the surface of what may be possible in the future. The future of generative virtual worlds Finally, while we have focused on results from Platformers on this website, Genie is a general method and can be applied to a multitude of domains without requiring any additional domain knowledge. We trained a smaller 2.5B model on action-free videos from RT1 . As was the case for Platformers, trajectories with the same latent action sequence typically display similar behaviours. This indicates Genie is able to learn a consistent action space which may be amenable to training embodied generalist agents. Jake Bruce*, Michael Dennis*, Ashley Edwards*, Jack Parker-Holder*, Yuge (Jimmy) Shi*, Edward Hughes, Matthew Lai, Aditi Mavalankar, Richie Steigerwald, Chris Apps, Yusuf Aytar, Sarah Bechtle, Feryal Behbahani, Stephanie Chan, Nicolas Heess, Lucy Gonzalez, Simon Osindero, Sherjil Ozair, Scott Reed, Jingwei Zhang, Konrad Zolna, Jeff Clune, Nando de Freitas, Satinder Singh, Tim Rocktäschel* *Equal contribution https://sites.google.com/view/genie-2024/ For more: Neural Network, AI, Design, Machine Learning Previous Next

Drilling for Oil was an immersive day of sculpture, discussion, participation, and performance, bringing together over 100 people from near and far. On an exceptionally cold and windy summer Bank Holiday Saturday, the gathering took a light-hearted yet thought-provoking look at our dependency on fossil fuels. Drilling For Oil | An Immersive Performance < Back 31 August 2024 Drilling for Oil was an immersive day of sculpture, discussion, participation, and performance, bringing together over 100 people from near and far. On an exceptionally cold and windy summer Bank Holiday Saturday, the gathering took a light-hearted yet thought-provoking look at our dependency on fossil fuels. Previous Next Drilling for Oil | An Immersive Performance – A Day of Exchange, Performance & Reflection From the first discussions in the afternoon to the final musical notes of the evening, Drilling for Oil | An Im mersive Performance brought together over 100 people in an open, participatory exploration of fossil fuel dependency, environmental impact, and artistic response. Beginning with a thought-provoking discussion led by Professor John Wood, the day evolved through sculpture, live music, and spoken word, creating space for deep reflection and shared experience. On Bawley Bay, the Wavelength Orchestra responded to the movement of the Thames, blending human and natural rhythms in a powerful sonic collaboration. As the sun set, the audience joined a sculptural procession, carrying Alice Helps’ steel oil rig and crab into the Fourth Portal, where immersive projections and live classical music transformed the space. With opera, poetry, and the gentle hum of conversation filling the room, Drilling for Oil concluded as it began—an invitation to engage, reflect, and imagine new possibilities for the future. Drilling for Oil Discussion, Prof. Emeritus John Wood, Alice Helps, Liam Handley and Naomi Boyle Opening Discussion: Rethinking Energy and Extraction The day began with a lively discussion hosted by Professor Emeritus John Wood ( Gold smiths), bringing together artist Alice Helps, plant biologist Dr Liam Handley, and artist Naomi Boyle to explore energy alternatives and the environmental impact of resource extraction. Set in the informal setting of Fourth Portal, the conversation welcomed input from the audience, reinforcing the venue’s role as a space where art, science, and public discourse intersect. Alice discussed her response to the UK government’s decision to grant new North Sea oil drilling licences, and her BA First-Class dissertation accompanying the sculptures is available to view by pressing the Documentation Page at the bottom of this page. Liam provided insight into the fragility of marine ecosystems and how fossil fuel expansion threatens biodiversity. Naomi Boyle brought a unique perspective through her passion for clay and natural materials, reflecting on how industries reliant on extraction shape both the environment and artistic practice. Professor Wood steered the conversation towards rethinking our economic reliance on fossil fuels, inviting participants to consider alternative models that promote sustainability and long-term environmental responsibility. His New School Futures project provides a new curriculum for environmental education, building on his earlier Metadesign research and his work developing the first Design Futures MA and department at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 1990. This interactive exchange set the stage for an afternoon and evening of participatory performances, grounding the event in critical thought while emphasising the role of creativity in addressing urgent environmental challenges. Clip of talk and audience engagement Sculptures Alice Helps’ sculptures explore environmental activism through welded steel, highlighting the tension between industry and nature. Her oil rig sculpture, made from recycled scrap steel, was inspired by her reaction to new oil and gas licences being granted in the North Sea, driving her to question extractive industries and their environmental toll. Alongside it, a towering steel crab, influenced by the Japanese Spider Crab and the evolutionary process of carcinization, confronts viewers with its immense, alien-like presence. Drawing from Louise Bourgeois’ spider sculptures, the crab symbolises deep-sea resilience against human impact. Throughout the installation at the Fourth Portal, projections of digitally sculpted undersea creatures, created in Blender, surround the sculptures, immersing visitors in a world where industry and marine life collide. Wavelength Orchestra at Bawley Bay As the tide receded, Bawley Bay transformed into a performance space for the Wavelength Orchestra, an open-access group of musicians brought together to create a slowly evolving, site-specific composition. Led by Richard Sanderson, the orchestra’s score was the natural rhythm of the River Thames, with layers of improvised sound building into a rich, immersive experience. Musicians of all skill levels joined in—some seasoned, others picking up an instrument for the first time—adding to the orchestra’s organic, ever-changing soundscape. The result was a meditative and powerful auditory experience, captivating both participants and the audience as the sun dipped toward the horizon. A Procession of Sound and Sculpture As the final notes faded, the Wavelength Orchestra and audience joined together in a procession, carrying Alice Helps’ steel oil rig and crab sculptures from Bawley Bay into the Fourth Portal. The slow, deliberate movement of the crowd mirrored the steady evolution of the orchestra’s music, creating a moment of transition—from outdoor performance to indoor installation, from public space to intimate reflection. An Evening of Opera, Classical Music, and Spoken Word As the sculpture procession entered the Fourth Portal, the evening transitioned into an intimate, multi-layered performance that wove together opera, classical music, poetry, and spoken word. Rachel, co-owner of the Compass Micro Pub, filled the space with a soaring operatic performance, her voice resonating through the room, meeting the sculptures as if in dialogue with their industrial forms. Accompanying her on piano was Julian Jacobson, one of Britain's most accomplished pianists, returning to the Fourth Portal following his lauded performance in February 2024. Julian’s set, inspired by rivers and the sea, included works by Debussy and other composers, each piece evoking the movement and power of water—a theme at the heart of the night’s discussion. Poetry and spoken word performances were interspersed throughout, creating a natural ebb and flow between music and language, reinforcing the event’s exploration of our complex relationship with fossil fuels and the environment. As projections of digitally sculpted marine creatures illuminated the space, the music, words, and visual elements merged into a deeply immersive experience, inviting the audience to reflect, engage, and participate in this unique artistic response to the climate crisis. Reviews: Capturing the Power of the Evening The impact of the evening concert and entire day was best expressed through the voices of those who experienced it firsthand. Reviews were incredible, with many describing the event as unlike anything they had attended before—a unique blend of art, discussion, and performance that resonated deeply. These video reviews from Gravesend residents capture the energy, emotion, and power of the night, highlighting the lasting impression left by the immersive performances, thought-provoking discussions, and the collective experience of music, sculpture, and spoken word at the Fourth Portal. Event Promo Page DRILLING FOR OIL | AN IMMERSIVE PERFORMANCE 31 August 2024, 15:00–23:00 Fourth Portal Register Now Support The Fourth Portal would like to thank Gravesham Borough Council for its kind support of Drilling for Oil | An Immersive Performance. Visit Event Page MORE ON THIS EVENT BELOW Previous Next Event Documentation Previous Next

The Papermaking session was an opportunity to drop in and have a go at making a piece of handmade paper with the former head papermaker from Empire Paper Mills, Greenhithe and award-winning print artist in residence, Dawn Cole. Papermaking Drop-In < Back 28 September 2023 The Papermaking session was an opportunity to drop in and have a go at making a piece of handmade paper with the former head papermaker from Empire Paper Mills, Greenhithe and award-winning print artist in residence, Dawn Cole. Previous Next About the event Tony Thorley Tony Thorley 82, started at Empire Paper Mill (Greenhithe) in 1955, aged 15. He took Reed company's papermaking training course, which lasted for 5 years & then worked his way up through the company to become production manager. Dawn Cole Kent-based artist Dawn Cole works primarily as a printmaker using numerous techniques that utilise personal archives and national collections to explore themes of recollection, memory and memorial. Winner of the 2011 V&A Print Prize, Dawn also founded the Pushing Print Festival in Margate. Dawn was the first Artist-in-Residence in Canterbury Cathedral 1500 year history and has received several Arts Council England awards. Empire Paper Mills Background The Empire Paper Mills (formerly Ingress Abbey Paper Mills), constructed between 1906 and 1975. The Mill was located on the south bank of the Thames Estuary, in the northeastern corner of Ingress Park, the Formal Gardens and Park associated with Ingress Abbey. It closed down in 1993. The site is now being redeveloped as part of a housing development. Other points of interest: The paper making process uses vast amounts of water and to supply the mill two wells were sunk inland. One was at Greenhithe, but the main well was sunk at Southfleet, 2km inland from the mill, from which water was pumped to a holding reservoir of half a million gallons capacity, between the well and the mill. From this reservoir it was pumped into the complex as required. Fire prevention was of paramount importance, hence the steel framed structure and concrete floors. The mill was also fitted with self-closing fire doors. In addition the mill was provided with a fire pump house, hydrants, sprinklers and latterly its own fire engine, housed in a garage close to the pump house. Attention was also paid to the quality of life of the workers. A model housing estate was erected to the south of the mill, which still survives as the Knockhall estate. The mill itself was provided with catering and dining facilities, recreation grounds and gardens (although the latter are not located, the mill's position within the grounds of Ingress Park and Gardens suggest an answer to this). The Mill appears to have been plainly decorated for most of its life, although there was some evidence of a 'corporate colour scheme' of green and white, when the Mill was owned by Reed Group. ( https://webapps.kent.gov.uk/KCC.ExploringKentsPast.Web.Sites.Public/SingleResult.aspx?uid=MWX17331 ) This event series has concluded Visit Event Page MORE ON THIS EVENT BELOW Previous Next Event Documentation Previous Next