Archive for the 'Mind Expansion' Category
22 October 2010 at 11:26
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.
That’s a lot of TEDs.
A question from the floor
Yes, once again our MD brought along his itchy microphone finger. And no, it wasn’t just because our host, Mr Ingham, announced that the event was being filmed or that it was taking place in Bath’s Little Theatre Cinema (actually, it was a little bit of the latter).
What Owen wanted to know, even if no one else did, was how much influence could these global conversations really have, how could they change the world? The TED Conference steers clear of political, religious and commercial content / angles in its talks, so how can TED breakthrough the barriers to influence when so many of the big decisions that affect our lives are embedded in politics, religion and commerce?
The problem is, Owen couldn’t articulate the question in his head because he was being lulled into a dream state by the talk which, by this point, was being set to one of Peter Gabriel’s atmospheric soundscapes. So, he just asked whether, in this ultimate context of free speech, there were any speakers TED would not give the stage to. Yes, there were.
Another great event from Creative Bath
It was probably Utopia’s 5th outing to a Creative Bath event this year and, with this kind of calibre firing power lined up*, it’s hardly surprising that we didn’t hesitate to sign up as members (which we urge all our creative colleagues in and around Bath to do….do it here!).
What’s next for Utopia in Bath?
Aha, thought you’d never ask. Well, we have some exciting news to share, about which we are uber happy. We’ve recently won a new client in Bath, a name everyone knows and is about to know even more, but we’ll leave it there (oooh) and reveal all on our next blog. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of Chris Anderson talking:
Chris Anderson....talking
* Apologies if this jumble of words makes no sense, I was eating a mixed metaphorical roll as I typed.
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24 September 2010 at 11:24
The Holburne Museum’s prestigious portrait competition is a biennial event, which allows artists from the southwest to showcase their considerable talents.
This year’s competition has brought forth some stunning work in a variety of different styles and on Wednesday night, along with other corporate sponsors of the museum, we tipped up at The Chapel Row Gallery in Bath for a private view of the portraits submitted by this year’s finalists.
TTJ with Chapel Row's Peter Dickinson
Always made welcome by the Holburne Team
Made welcome as always by the stylish and unstoppably-social Marnie Whiting, sponsorship guru Christine Stokes, Clara and the team, we sipped and mingled and viewed in the company of our new collaborators and friends from Taunton: Lizzie and Stuart Ginbey from Teapot Creative and OccaMedia.
Lizzie and Stuart
A Bit of History….
Museum Director Xa Sturgis explained how Thomas Gainsborough and his eighteenth century contemporaries had turned Bath into one of England’s most important cities for portrait painting. The Holburne Portrait Prize was established in 2002 as a way of recognising this and also of allowing local painters to show their work to a wider audience.
Portraits today are very different to those painted by Gainsborough and friends. In his day, only the wealthy could afford to commission and they did so to prove it. The results, though invaluable barometers of the time in terms of fashion, style and painting technique, are often formal and poised; the imperfections of the subject often glossed over or painted out for vanity’s sake if not for posterity.
Real lives on show
What is inspiring about the portraits we viewed at Chapel Row is that the opposite is true. No touching up here, no illustrative botox: the subject is painted how he is, imperfections and all. These are celebrations of ordinary people with real lives; their stories are written on their faces and the twenty first century artist’s skill lies in conveying that to the viewer.
Roy Strong
The People’s Prize
The winner will be selected by a distinguished Prize Panel and will receive £5000 for a portrait of an individual identified with the cultural life of the southwest. But the people of Bath will have their say too: visitors to the exhibition will be asked to vote on their favourites and the artist with the most votes will be awarded the People’s Prize.
We had our favourites on the night – including The Handyman Can and Hope – and we voted accordingly, but the field is strong and any one of the 30 finalists on show could be in with a shout.
The Handyman
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16 September 2010 at 11:23
Mention the word strudel to our director Owen McNeir and it’s as if he has been transported back to his own personal utopia: rural Germany in the early 1980’s, where he claims to have spent a number of years as a child, eating bratwurst, drinking Heineken and wearing dirndl, as well as honing an impeccable German accent.
So when the invitation to Creative Bath’s social evening flopped into the inbox a few weeks ago, a pilgrimage to the Hansel and Gretel Strudel bar was also scheduled for the same day.
The 6pm Creative Bath gathering was to be preceded by a visit to Margaret Buildings for a ‘Ludwig’ and a slice of the traditional sweet and flaky apple cake, before joining our fellow hard-working creatives at Brown’s.
With its grotto-like interior, its zillion fairy lights, its cuckoo-clock-clad walls and its eclectic clientele, Hansel and Gretel clearly speaks to our own dear fuhrer and seems to provoke in him a resurgence of his love for the fatherland.
A New Look for Utopia
I’m joking, of course. But don’t be surprised to see the long-awaited shift in Utopia’s image coming soon to a website near you. If I were to mention the words ‘reindeer’, ‘lederhosen’, ‘fondue’ and ‘brand revolution’ – you’ll probably get the idea.
Lederhosen...naturlich
No visit to Bath or Margaret Buildings would be complete without calling in on Tanya at Uber. This is our very own sartorial Utopia, where laid back alpine chic meets a depleted bank balance and where we often have to be content simply to stroke the cotton, plaid shirts, the boiled wool jackets, the paisley-lined herringbone, woollen coats and the soft, shearling gilets.
And so to Brown’s and the buzz of a hundred happy creatives, relieved to be in the dry and doing what they love best…drinking pink fizz and working a room.
Greg takes the floor
Creative Bath’s director Greg Ingham asked us not to be put off by the new £25 membership fee, and urged us all to sign up. This new self-funding will mean free entry to all Creative Bath events: forthcoming speakers include the awesome Chris Anderson, local boy and founder of the worldwide phenomenon the TED Conference who is to be keynote speaker at the autumn event on 21st October.
Ingham answered more questions from the floor about funding and new business opportunities with his signature speed, accuracy and panache before we all drifted off to our respective burrows.
New Friends
Utopia were delighted to make new friends in the shape of conservation architect David McLaughlin and building historian Kay Ross of McLaughlin Ross llp; photographer David Killingback, Sarah Saumerez Smith of Architelier and Peter Whitehead of Radio.
I wonder if they like strudel?
ORM and TJTJ totally strudeled
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09 September 2010 at 11:22
A VIP invitation we couldn’t ignore
And why would we? Two of our number have degrees in Drama not to mention one’s background as Head of Press for The Royal Court and The RSC…so it was with much vigour and anticipation (not just at the impending canapes) that we joined Cllr Marian McNeir as her particular guests at the reopening of the Bath Theatre Royal.
After ribbon cutting by Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles (Oh, bring back To The Manor Born!) it was to the Jeremy Fry Bar and the aforementioned canapes that we ran. Would have been happy to linger all evening but the stage was set and Sheridan’s The Rivals beckoned. What 18th Century larks conjured by Sir Peter Hall!
Where will Utopia go next?
Next stop on our autumn nature trail, networking at Creative Bath on Tuesday…let’s see how their canapes compare…and come and say hello if you’re passing.
About to launch onto the red carpet
Penelope Keith & Peter Bowles poised to cut the ribbon and officially reopen the theatre - God's Eyelashes!
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22 June 2010 at 11:20
Celebrating Craigie Aitchison
The University of Bath put together an inspirational exhibition last week: a retrospective of the paintings of Craigie Aitchison. Held at the home of the Vice Chancellor in Lansdown Crescent, Bath from 15th – 20th June, this glorious collection of 30 paintings by one of Bath’s most adored Honorary graduates, was an unexpected treat and a triumph for the University Organising Group, chaired by Marian McNeir MBE.
Picture credit: Kennington News
The magnetic pull of Craigie Aitchison
It’s not often that an exhibition has an emotional as well as a visual impact but this one had both. Each painting had been generously loaned and many of the proud owners had travelled long distances to attend. There was a lot of love in the room as they greeted each other like close family members who had something very special in common.
‘I do mostly black people, dogs, religious pictures and still lives,’ is how Craigie Aitchison described his pictures. It is perhaps the 7ft high Dog in a Red Painting, showing a pale and forlorn (or is it pensive?) Bedlington terrier against a block, red background, which is his most recognised work. The scale of this particular painting is breathtaking and yet its simplicity is magnetic, pulling visitors back again and again to stand in front of the fireplace and just gaze upwards.
Affectionate portraits of a genius in carpet slippers
Indeed all his pictures, large and small, are affecting in their different ways: from the tiny, delicate Dog Tree Butterflies to the garish Bedlingtons are Best and from the numerous crucifixion paintings to the spare, colourful portraits, each tells a story with a unique kind of economic intensity. This collection was a rare visual feast and us Utopians felt honoured to have been invited to a private view.
Speeches by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Kevin Edge and by Marian McNeir painted their own affectionate portraits of Craigie the man; a gentle eccentric who shuffled more than walked, who climbed up on benches to paint, but fell off whilst totally engrossed and who received his Honorary Doctorate wearing a pair of carpet slippers. He adored his dogs, particularly his muse, Wayney the Bedlington, and inspired love and lifelong loyalty among friends and patrons alike.
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11 June 2010 at 11:04
Utopia wandered the lush, green lawns of the Imperial Gardens in Cheltenham on Thursday: the inspirational setting for this year’s Cheltenham Science Festival
We were there for London 2012: The Most Sustainable Games Ever? an event featuring a couple of really big hitters from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and The Commission for a Sustainable London 2012.
With construction of the Olympic site well underway, is the sustainability agenda on course for a gold medal?
The Olympic Delivery Authority has made unprecedented promises for a Games with a lasting social, economic and environmental legacy for the UK. Its Chairman, John Armitt joined Shaun McCarthy, Chair of the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012, the man charged with independently testing those promises.
We had to be there.
Utopia’s interest in all things sustainable has been steadily growing over the past year or so. Steve Tomlin, MD of our Bath-based clients MASCo Walcot , advised the ODA on sustainability during the early building stages of the Olympic Park in Stratford. Now, with the recent appointment of James Hurley, a sustainability expert from Hyder Consulting , MASCo Walcot is rapidly developing its Sustainability Consultancy & Services. Utopia is in the thick of it and learning fast. In May, we produced a preliminary prospectus for the new Sustainability Alliance between MASCo Walcot, Nash Partnership and Geofutures at Walcot Yard in Bath.
Back to the Imperial Gardens…
No one does a festival quite like Cheltenham, but on Thursday, with its rather strange start time of 4pm and competing with a simultaneous free event in the Town Hall, numbers for London 2012 were lower than they should have been for such an important debate. Nevertheless, the talk was lively and the questions from the floor, uncompromising and probing – no fudging or flannelling allowed.
The key matters for debate
The panel discussed a wide range of subjects including early site clearance, transport and alternative energy sources for the Olympic Park. From the audience, The Times Environment Editor, Ben Webster tackled the panel on the ODA’s promises to rejuvenate London’s canal network and transport millions of tonnes of goods to the site by barge. John Armitt had to admit that they had been over optimistic and that only a handful of barges had delivered materials to Stratford, instead of the thousands planned. Webster also asked whether it was true that solar panels could not be installed in the roofs of the main buildings on site, because they were too heavy. Armitt again admitted that the cost of large-scale solar panelling was prohibitive and although the organisation was still looking at ways to incorporate solar, other alternative energy sources were being considered.
Transport at the games was discussed in detail: we learned that £800 million has been spent upgrading the rail connections to site, that park and ride locations will be situated all around London, that there will be no car parking on site (other than for the media) and that people will be encouraged to walk and cycle to the Games. Air travel into the UK is clearly unavoidable, but those travelling into the country by Eurostar, especially international teams, will receive more media attention.
A testament to international cooperation and knowledge sharing
The Olympics represent the ultimate in competition, but in terms of sustainability these Games will be a testament to international cooperation and shared knowledge. Armitt and McCarthy told how lessons had been learnt from Sydney, Vancouver and Beijing and how, from the beginning, information has been gathered to inform the next Games’ hosts in 2016 and to allow them to achieve ever greater sustainable targets.
Leaving a legacy?
Perhaps the greatest question still unanswered is the one concerning the legacy of the Games: how will we use the site and buildings in years to come? Stratford, south east London has been taken over and regenerated by the ODA, but will the facilities benefit future generations?
The entire area has been designated a ‘Blueprint for Sustainable Living’. With renewable energy sources and captured waste, state of the art recycling, upgraded transport systems and even an Olympic Village which will become 50% affordable housing and 50% commercial units, the outlook is bright, but as McCarthy says, the site still needs to be zero carbon and it’s not there yet.
Our very own Mr Owen McNeir asked the final, most pertinent question, in his trademark dulcet / searching tones. What does the panel consider to be the single most important sustainability initiative or achievement of these Games?
Shaun McCarthy answered that it will have to be the publication of the Games’ carbon footprint. This means that the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the construction of the Olympic Park and for the period of the Games themselves is to be made public. McCarthy told the audience that if in future we can learn more about the embedded carbon in construction and teach others to construct more effectively, we, as a country, will have a genuinely exportable skill. This groundbreaking achievement, he said, would be the true legacy of the London 2012 Olympics.
Read the ODA’s carbon footprint study here
Holst conducts proceedings
Utopia’s Tamsin Treverton Jones engrossed in the Commission for a Sustainable London’s Annual Review
A sign of The Times
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12 January 2010 at 11:13
We meet Sara Thornton, Professor of English, L’Universite de Paris Diderot
A fascinating lunch with Sara Thornton, author of Advertising, Subjectivity and the Nineteenth Century Novel. This book is without doubt the must read for all academics and industry practitioners.
From the walls to the web
The Origin of the Species for marketers everywhere, Sara Thornton helps us to understand the digital world we live and work in now and takes us to the roots of the virtual, on a journey from the 19th Century language of the walls to our own 21st Century online walls.
Read Sara’s book. It’s not dry, it’s not weighty; it is full of insights and substance and it will make you think.
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18 September 2009 at 11:15
Never thought I’d write those words…except in my dreams (and in her Gladiator days, obviously). We’re ending a busy busy week of new client wins and oodles of marketing, copywriting and web activity for current clients with a trip to the GMG Village Fayre.
Olympic swimming ace and Cotswold amazon is speaking, freelancers are networking, companies are commissioning (we hope!), and ostriches / kangaroos are being eaten. Yikes!
If you’re looking for seriously sticky copy, graphic design, web design, SEO, social media, and PR, you’ll find it at Cheltenham Film Studios and the village fayre tomorrow 12pm – 5pm.
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