Our last First Friday of 2012 is… Nigel Kneale’s The Year of The Sex Olympics

The BBC first broadcast The year of the Sex Olympics in 1968. Nigel Kneale (author of the Quatermass series) wrote it, it starred Leonard Rossiter and an almost unimaginably young Brian Cox, and it predicted reality-TV nearly 30 years before Big Brother arrived. In the play’s dystopian future the underclass are kept pacified by lowest-common-denominator TV – porn, cookery shows, and a reality show where strangers are stranded on a remote island.

And we’ve decided it’s the perfect way to round off this Olympic year. Join us for a rare screening on 7 December. Lights down and curtain up at 6.30pm.

GEEK 2013: Hide&Seek to curate launch event; order your limited-edition ticket vouchers

Picture credit: Mike Massaro

We’ve signed up a guest curator for opening night…

We’re beavering away like, well, beavers to make GEEK2013 bigger and better than GEEK2012. So we’re delighted that Alex Fleetwood of game design studio Hide&Seek has agreed to guest-curate the opening event.

Hide&Seek believe that play – as a theme, a way of being, and design tool – is integral to understanding how culture will develop in the 21st century. And they’ve done some fascinating things, like their 99 Tiny Games for the 2012 Olympics, and their Drunk Dungeon game for New York University’s Game Center. We don’t know what to expect, but we know you’ll want to join in.

…and you can buy Xmas GEEK vouchers now

We’re releasing bespoke ticket vouchers to 50 lucky gift givers – and just in time for Xmas. Just call +44 (0)1843 282 219, tell us what you need, pay for it, and we’ll send you a voucher with your gift-ee’s name on it.

Our coworking space will help seaside-loving Amy Lamé develop her ‘turns’

Our coworking space is home to independent workers who want a flexible way to have as little, or as much, work space as they want. And it’s a place to get a dash of inspiration, a seaborne whiff of what-could-be.

Which is why Amy Lamé has chosen Marine Studios for a creative retreat. The Huffington Post described her recent one-woman show Unhappy Birthday as ‘a fantastically entertaining, retro throwback of a knees up’.

But while Amy’s a writer/producer/presenter/performer and a nightclub promoter, she’s never done a ‘turn’. So she and her seaside-loving producer, Scottee, have booked in to develop a few ‘turns’ (music-hall lingo for a short performance) to follow up on their success with Unhappy Birthday.

You can catch Amy at the Tom Thumb Theatre on 17 February at a charity performance of the Vagina Monologues to raise money for the Oasis Women’s’ Refuge.

A rainforest entry for The Great Tree

Our first AIC3 entry lumbers in...

We’ve had our first entry for Adventures in Comics 3 (AIC3), all the way from Sarawak, Malaysia. Sarawak has vast areas of lowland and highland rainforest, but one of the highest deforestation rates in Asia. Maybe the brief for AIC3, The Great Tree, struck a chord.

3 years in Margate!! Come to our birthday party. Fantastic live entertainment from Abigail Cardwell and Sleeping In City Lights

Three years ago we packed our boxes and moved to the seaside. Join us to mark the move, celebrate local creative talent with live entertainment from Abigail Cardwell and Sleeping In City Lights

We are also marking the launch of our coworking space.
Here’s Wikipedia’s explanation of coworking.

Find out more at our new website.

Come see for yourself on 2 November.

First Friday - 6pm-9pm @ Marine Studios

We’ve already signed up our first co-workers come along and find out more.

Help us celebrate three years in Margate – and maybe find your new workspace.

Bigger, better, geekier – we’ve won Arts Council funding for GEEK 2013

We’re delighted that we’ve been awarded Arts Council funding for GEEK2013, the second-year edition of our festival of gaming.

Last year’s GEEK2012 was a white-knuckle ride – if it had flopped we’d have had a nasty financial bump. Fortunately the hard work of all those involved – and the support of the ticket-buying public – made the festival a success.

The Arts Council funding will help us take GEEK2013 to even geekier heights – stay tuned for more news as we’re busy hatching plans.

We want to hear from more sponsors, games people, and fringe eventers

There’s still much to be done and there are opportunities – and potentially Arts Council funding – for games people and fringe eventers. We want to hear from:

• Sponsors. We’d love to hear from further sponsors – we want to put your name up in lights (well, on a banner and in adverts at least). Maybe you can help us fund a free-ticket day.

• Games people. Get in touch if you’re a developer who wants to test a game, a game-maker who wants to demo or sell your game, or if you have an idea for a workshop.

• Fringe eventers. Last year’s ranged from games-themed poetry to a theatrical mystery and chip-tunes disco. Tell us your idea and we’ll try to find a way to get your game-face on.
So don’t keep your geek-tastic thoughts to yourself – get in touch.

Can you hear the great tree calling? The third Adventures in Comics call for entries

If you’re a comics fan who creates – or longs to create – their own comics, then we invite you to pick up the third annual Adventures in Comics (AIC3) gauntlet.

We’re proud that AIC is now in its third year and that Paul Gravett, author of ‘1001 COMICS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU DIE’, will once again help organise the festival.

Call for entries – let your comic talents climb ‘THE GREAT TREE’
AIC3 throws down a two-page A4 comic challenge to all comers and this year’s title is ‘THE GREAT TREE’.

Follow these links to see previous year’s entries on the titles Mechanical elephant (2011) and Lifeboat (2012).

You can send your entries to AIC3 to info@hkd.uk.com.

And our alter egos are off to outer space via Hong Kong’s space museum

Busy, busy, busy. That’s us this year.
The ‘us’ in question is both Marine Studios – the people who brought you the aforementioned GEEK2013 and AIC3 – and HKD, the award-winning museum and exhibition designers.

By day we’re Marine Studios, a CIC company who are all about events, communication, and regeneration. And in our parallel corporate life (also by day – even we need to sleep sometimes) we wear our HKD hats.

Well, we would be wearing our HKD hats except we’re throwing them up in the air because we’ve won the job to redesign Hong Kong’s space museum. The museum’s egg-shaped dome (actually an ovoid hemisphere according to the project team) is a Hong Kong landmark, just next door to the famous Star ferry on Kowloon bay.

The project budget of roughly £2.4m will cover the refit with a host of new interactive exhibits. Our working brief is: ‘The story of the cosmos – back to the big bang, and forward to new adventures in space exploration’.

We’re already rolling on a tight schedule that will see the reworked and rethought museum re-embrace the universe in 2015.

Its a busy 1st Friday 5th October

The Wonderful Pushing Print is back! Dont miss it! 6th-27th of October.

In addition to the main festival there are a number of fringe events. We are one. We welcome back Sophie Herxheimer now joined by Susan Mackervoy. Their show, Unruly: Print into Poetry opens with a 1st Friday at 7.30.

Catch up with Sophie and Susan earlier in the evening, they will be at the Pie Factory at 6.15 for a bit of Unruly live poetry.

Marine Studios 1st Friday 5th Oct. All are welcome. We'll be reading a few poems at 8 pm - and we're hoping that people will bring along a poem or a piece of work to share, too (maybe work inspired by Margate?).

For more details of the Festival, take a look at the Pushing Print website here.

GEEK2013 Public Meeting save the date

We are busy playing, dreaming and scheming but now its time to call on people to come and help us to build GEEK into a great festival of Play and Games.

We are working with friends here in Margate to sort out a venue then we will be inviting people to come along to find out more about what is being planned and how people can get involved.

Save the date 11th of Oct - email us to make sure you get an invite.

Visit GEEK2013.co.uk or  GEEK2013 facebook for more information.

Marine Studio Coworking launch

The count-down has begun. Marine Studios is launching a new coworking space. Come and work with views of the sea.

Look out for our new website - then bring your laptop along and join us for a few days to see if coworking by the sea is for you.

Benefits of being part of our community:

• Flexible membership options -  affordable working space
• Free wifi
• Events, Meeting Room, Library and Games
• Free tea and coffee
• A say in how we run the space

For more information visit our website marinestudios.co.uk or email info@marinestudios.co.uk.

Another wonderful Hide and Seek Weekender

(Picture credit Mike Massaro)

A little review. Our friends at Hide & Seek have just held their fifth weekender event at the Southbank in London.

Games from all over the globe were present, with a special emphasis on games that are both fun to watch and play. Knowledge, skill, dexterity and guile were all on display as was a little cheating - a fantastic custardy, dazzling event. We very much hope that we can work with these guys in Margate soon.

Talks included:

• Joshua DeBonis of indie game studio Sortasoft told us about the bizarrely named Pigeon Piñata Pummel. We want to Play! Please please bring it to Margate. See more about the game here.

• Punch the custard! This brilliant game was devised by George Buckenham. Two players are put head to head to find out who can punch their custard quickest. See a video of the game here.

Does Public Play have a role to play in Regeneration . We think so and said so.  Find out more here Wired.co.uk article here.

Visit the Hide & Seek website for more information on the Weekender here.

Leaving the Beach, off to play in the City

Annual Picnic - with games

We are off to play on the South Bank in London this weekend at the The Hide&Seek Weekender.

Look at all this fun  http://weekender.hideandseek.net

There is also a conference on the Monday - which looks amazing - its a great honour to be part of it. http://weekender.hideandseek.net/conference/

Sales pitch ...There will be showcases from artists, producers and technology companies, networking sessions, its going to be a great day come along.

We are looking forward to learning lots and meeting some interesting people and discovering new works and Artists. .... and if you are thinking about being part of GEEK next year come and say Hi!

We’ve had to delay Adventures in Audio, but our summer-activity cup runneth over

We’re still listening out for your audio postcards

The bad news is that we’ve had to delay our September First Friday, ‘Adventures in Audio’ (AiA), scheduled for 7 September. We’ve given the artist, Sam Thomas more time to produce a bigger and better event later in the year.

But we still want to hear from you if you have any memory-rich audio recordings of places or things. Send them toinfo@marinestudios.co.uk and put ‘AiA’ in the subject line.

If you want to get a feel for just how evocative sounds can be visit theMuseum of Endangered Sounds – the sci-fi warble of the 80s modem is the current studio favourite.

Two events in August and September: Open Studios andreCyculture

The good news is that we have two other events on in August and September:

• We’re an Open Studios venue for RamsgateArts’ A Summer Squallfestival. You can meet five Thanet artists in our studio between 11.00am and 4.00pm on Saturdays 18/19/25/26/27 August. See programme here.

• reCyculture will make an intervention on our balcony next week in time for the beginning of September. reCyculture is a project that will explore physical and virtual installations inspired by, and created with, local communities across Kent in response to the county’s hosting of the Paralympic Cycling Events in September 2012. Find out more about reCyculture here.

Sophie Herxheimer’s (of Pie Days and Holidays) is back in town with a new art project

We’re excited that we’ll be working with Sophie Herxheimer again in October. Sophie’s illustrations were a big part of our Pie Days and Holidays project, and we’ve featured her paintings on a range of ceramics that are on sale at the Turner Contemporary (and at ouronline shop).

Sophie will run our October First Friday on 5 October. The event will be part of a new project, 'Unruly: print into poetry' that Sophie is working on with fellow artist Susan Mackervoy.

We’ve found our second apprentice (please don’t tell Sir Alan)

Regular readers will remember that we’ve been working with Employ Thanet to find two apprentices who want to enter our world of creativity and community. Kim Steward came aboard in June and our second apprentice, Rebecca Hughes, joined the studio (and tea rota) in August.

We welcome Rebecca and her impressive organisational skills – she ran shop-openings for Wilkinsons and juggles a home, a job, and three month-old daughter Millie.

Note to Sir Alan: You’re too late. And our sea-views beat your shouty showdowns any day of the week.

Glimpse of the magic of the Squall; five artists showing as part of Thanet Open Studios

Five Thanet artists are showing at Marine Studios as part of Summer Squall. The studio will be open 11-4 on the 18th, 19th, 25th, 26th and 27th. Look forward to seeing you – here’s a snapshot of the five artists: 

• Lesley Gray grew up in Zambia, Central Africa. She’s been drawn to the sea ever since she studied art at Michael's School of Art, University of Cape Town. She’s now settled in Ramsgate to capture Thanet skies and sea.

• Col Longmore will show his series of paintings titled  ‘Horns’. He sees horns as symbols of bestial power and courage that have had an abiding attraction for artists since the time of cave art.

• Samantha Scott lives in Ramsgate and draws inspiration from the local population. Her oil-on-canvas paintings often place figures on bright-coloured backgrounds that focus viewers on the captured moment.

• Denis Smith is an artist and photographer who worked for major ad agencies in London and across Europe but is now a full-time artist. His exhibition and commissioned work is gaining a reputation in the south east of England.

• Joan Ward has been making felt for about 20 years. First she makes the felt and nuno felt – where loose fibres are bonded to a sheer fabric. Then she makes it into wearable hats, slippers, bags and coats.

Want to know more? A full programme of all events including the other open studios can be found here or email them oninfo@ramsgatearts.org

We’re pleased to welcome one apprentice, Kim Steward but we need one more

We worked with Employ Thanet to find two apprentices who wanted to enter our world of creativity and community, and were prepared to grind through the details that deliver a successful project. Kim Steward joined in July and has already meshed with the well-oiled Marine Studios machine. Outside of office hours you may see Kim on stage at a stand-up comedy night or out and about in her role as a reviewer for Hipster, a soon-to-be-published Thanet events magazine.

Our apprentices will get an Edexcel Level 2 NVQ Certificate in Business and Administration (QCF) when they’ve worked with us for one year.

If you’d like to come on board as a paid apprentice, email your CV and a short letter (250 words max – we’ll count ‘em) toinfo@marinestudios.co.uk

Listen up. Get an audible sense of place at September’s First Friday, ‘Adventures in audio’

What was that? Did you hear it? Well, no, you probably weren’t listening. Most of us are so caught up in the visual that we often miss the sound of a place or significant event.

Not so for Sam Thomas and others who record the sound of special places and events. At our September First Friday (7 September) Sam will show us how the sound of a place can be as evocative – or even more evocative – than a photograph.

As ever, we’re keen to involve others. So if you have any audio recordings of special significance get in touch via info@marinestudios.co.uk

Want to know more? We’ll update you nearer the time. Meanwhile if you want to hear the sound of an iceberg, listen to this New Scientist itemon the songs that icebergs sing.

Our Thanet souvenir-mugs are leaping off Turner Contemporary’s shelves

When we noticed that visitors to Thanet couldn’t buy decent-quality souvenirs we decided to create some. We worked with East Kent College and developed a range of souvenir mugs.

But while we’d solved the production side we were stymied by the lack of retail outlets. Enter the Turner Contemporary’s souvenir shop and their enlightened buying policy.

We’re delighted to report that the first batch of 60 souvenir mugs have sold out and the Turner have re-ordered. At the moment the mugs are produced in Stoke-on-Trent but we hope to move production to Thanet kilns before the end of the year.

Want to know more? You can buy our range of Thanet souvenirs from our online shop, or from the Turner Contemporary’s shop in Margate (they don’t have an online shop).

Wild and woolly surrealism at our 6 June First Friday event

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years you may still think that knitting is something that aunties torment nephews and nieces with (think garish, shapeless sweaters and weirdly ornate babywear).

The knittterknitknitknit gang are part of the knitting-is-fun revolution and ringleaders Jenny Duff and Emily Tull will spread the woolly word on Friday 6 June. These Thanet artists will explain how they create little oases of beauty in surprising places – and show you how even novice-knitters can get started.

So get ready to cast-off at 6.00pm Friday 6 June.

GEEK 2012 was a record-breaking success

When we set out to start a retro-gaming festival we were low on time and money but long on ideas and enthusiasm. Sometimes we thought we might have bitten off more than we could chew, but the gaming gods were with us and GEEK2012 (Games Expo East Kent) was a joystick jiggling, pixel-pumping success.

We had over 2,000 visitors, got great visitor feedback (‘fun’ was the most popular word on feedback forms), and gained the confidence and resources to plan a bigger and better GEEK2013.

To cap it all we’ve made it into the Guinness World Records. The officials were on hand to certify that 256 players took part in the world’s largest Pong tournament.

Want to know more? See the GEEK Facebook page here, and the GEEK2012 website here.