Curation
From Pat: "It's interesting that I've been asked to be a 'curator' in recent years. It feels like a combination of many of my career pursuits - commissioning like an editor, creating like an artist, project-managing like an entrepreneur, envisioning like a futurist.
"In a world where content, perspectives and activities are increasing exponentially, I can understand why clients want events and structures that can sift through, harness and make sense of this unstoppable flow. That's what I feel curation is about. It's both fun and important."
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RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:
Opening FutureFest 1, Shoreditch Town Hall, London 2013
FutureFest
In 2012, Pat was invited by Nesta's CEO Geoff Mulgan to devise an event which was explicitly intended to dispel the recessionary blues, celebrating possible new worlds amidst the post-Crash environment. Thus came FutureFest - a "Glastonbury of the Future", in Pat's words, which is now heading for its fourth event since 2013 (due 6/7 July, 2018, at London's Tobacco Docks).
Under his curation, FutureFest has featured speakers like Edward Snowden, Brian Eno, Vivienne Westwood, Paul Mason, Jon Ronson, Lily Cole, the makers of Google's Deep Mind, among many others. FutureFest has also hosted some "world-firsts" - the first ever neuro-driven thrill-ride, Neurosis, and the first ever Cybathlon (the "Bionic Olympics" event).
With 3000 purchasing tickets for each weekend, hundreds of press attending and millions of social media impressions, FutureFest has made a huge impact in London's event calendar.
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FuturePlayer - digital archive of FutureFest’s presentations, 2013-2020
Vimeo page of FutureFest material
One of the displays at e-Luminate, Cambridge's light festival
Play of Light
e-Luminate, Cambridge's light festival, asked Pat to curate a day and evening event for February 2017, titled "Play of Light". He brought together an amazing collection of writers, performers, artists, academics, gamers and scientists.
In the day session, speakers included Microsoft’s Helene Steiner, reporting from the boundary between technology and nature; artist Tine Bech showing the profound and playful way she uses light in her practice; and Cambridge educationalists Pam Burnard and David Whitebread, laying out their latest findings on the essential power of play.
The evening session had author Nick Hornby, writer of Fever Pitch and About A Boy, talking about his playfully creative processes; conceptual magician Stuart Nolan; and science-comedian Robin Ince (who explored, at great length, all versions and variables of the light-bulb joke!)
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Pat discussing Festival UK*2022 at SXSW, 2021
Festival UK*2022
In 2020, Pat was approached by Sam Hunt, one of the commissioners of FestivalUK*2022, to help the organisation design their R&D and collaborative innovation process. This process - comprising a series of online Creative Studios - aimed to help groups of makers attain maximum creativity, as they developed their projects for this major festival.
Conducted during some of the most severe and isolating periods of the Covid lockdown, these Creative Studios - where Pat was also involved as both interviewer and summariser of the days events - was where the “magic” of FestivalUK2022 began. Cross-disciplinary invention, STEAM but also SHAPE was enabled by Pat and the F2022 team’s design - as we’ll see from the final ten commissions.
In this video below, as part of a presentation by UK House at SXSW in 2020, Pat joins Sam and two other members of the F2022 team, explaining both the R&D design process, and the ambition and philosophy behind it (Pat starts at 17.47).
BT VOX
Pat hosting and curating at BT Vox: Global Leadership Weekend
In 2010, JP Rangaswami - then Chief Scientist at BT - asked Pat, in collaboration with the innovation consultants Tinker London, to host and curate two days of exploration and creativity with BT's Global Leadership group. The events took place at the company's historical engineering headquarters Adastral Park (where the first silicon chip was manufactured).
Pat gathered together a stimulating range of speakers around the theme of "The Power of the Voice" - including Adrian Hon on voice-operated mobile gaming, Alison Black on social media research, and Cereproc on voice simulation.
With Alex Deschamps-Sonsino of Tinker, Pat led the room in stages of design iteration - see this slide collection for the general hubbub of invention and serious fun.
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