Alan Sillitoe by Dom Henry. Artwork Paul Fillingham.
The Space is a new multimedia platform funded by the Arts Council in collaboration with the BBC. It has funded 53 organisations to the tune of £3.5 million. The Alan Sillitoe Committee was one of the few selected literature organisations alongside the London Review of Books and Faber and Faber. I can’t quite convey how intensely proud this makes us, particularly as we are one of three successful projects from the East Midlands, with UK Young Artists and Vanilla Galleries. You don’t get to say that often. The main logic behind the bid was to go in at the low end, hoping that then you wouldn’t be competing with the big boys (John Peel project – £150,000) and so would be like a ‘stocking filler’ that was harder to turn down.
I was made aware of the project by James Urquhart. His support was really important as I’d previously resisted applying for such funding because the forms were so scary. His kind words and encouragement meant I was able, at the very least, to tick ‘filling out a ten page arts council form’ from my ‘things you’ve got to do before you die if you’re serious about literature’ list.
The idea of creating a literature-based Mobile Phone trail was started two years ago after a casual conversation with Paul Fillingham at the Nottingham Writers’ Studio. I quickly wrote the App from the perspective of the two swaddies in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, chasing Arthur Seaton around Nottingham and using various locations from the book as a means of delving further into the novel and the city. The App could also be navigated by a modern-day Arthur Seaton, which gave an updated version of the novel. But unfortunately, the funding fell through for Paul and we weren’t able to go ahead. Until now that is.
If the project is successful and it achieves its ambitious goals of drastically redefining the relationship between the arts and media, we will have been pioneers (ok, guinea pigs) for a completely revolutionary form of digital interaction. And I don’t say revolutionary lightly. The Space is described as ‘a canvas, to take advantage of the different artistic possibilities offered by emerging technologies’. It is pumped up with vitriol, demanding rid of ‘the tyranny of fixed durations of an hour or half-hour’, it calls for ‘the reliance on and requirement for well-known presenters to be toppled.’ But perhaps most astutely it makes a plea for knowledge to be ‘extended to embrace experience.’ That will be our primary goal from late April to October 31.
February 29 2012 was certainly a leap day I’ll never forget. I may not have received a marriage proposal but my life was completely transformed. This was the day I sat in the Southbank Centre with Paul Fillingham and other commissioned organisations as the arts council and the BBC unveiled a demonstration of the platform that we would be helping to fill with content. I’ve barely slept since. I’ll be blogging about the project as I go along and hopefully sharing some tips and experiences that could encourage you to do similar. There may also be opportunities for writers, so keep checking this space. And this one on May 1 The space