Hide & Seek: the bug and the city

Inspired by Nosocomial, the healthcare science-drama collaboration between playwright and UCL Creative Fellow Nicola Baldwin and GOSH Healthcare Scientists, Hide & Seek takes place during National Pathology Week 2019 asking the question: isn’t having scientists, developers, designers and creatives in the same physical space but working in different silos on the same complex problems, a waste? How do we break down barriers to better communication? Can co-creation help spread our ideas?

Part of the UCL Urban Laboratory and the Institute of Advanced Study's annual research theme of Waste.

Aims

Across the week, we’ll explore how information can affect attitudes and encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration between the micro and the macro. We’re posing 23 questions.

The 23 questions underline 10 half-day sessions. Participants can attend as few or as many as they are able but should commit to at least two. On Monday, we’ll agree communal, group and personal aims for the week. Our overriding aim being to share the stories of science.

We want to spark plays, performances, podcasts, films, stories for digital platforms; to explore new ways to communicate. We value authenticity, integrity, curiosity, mutual support and networking to support everyone, from whatever discipline or level of experience to enjoy finding new ways to express themselves.

What you need to know

It’s free to take part and open to anyone who is interested. We hope you will participate actively, to share your process and progress during the week. We want you to enjoy it – we will encourage you, but never pressure you, to try new things

Interested? Please email Nicola Baldwin at UCL n.baldwin@ucl.ac.uk before 1 November.

Agenda

Monday am – possibilities and ethics of collaboration

• Nicola Baldwin and Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green, and Nosocomial participants, share their experience of collaboration. Introduction to IAS at UCL.
• Set up individual and group aims for the week. The 23 questions.

Monday pm – how do you understand the world? Self-expression and evaluation.

• What does healthcare science and the arts have in common? Where are they furthest apart?
• Personal storytelling in blogs and social media. Understanding evaluation and data.

Tuesday am – share our resources to avoid waste

• Victoria Heath, Healthcare Scientist, with Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green, on the importance of building networks, and practical steps to network-building.
• What are the overlapping processes in our work? Who do we know and what do they do? Sharing resources of expertise, but also of curiosity so we can inspire each other’s work. What can we create together that we can’t do on our own?

Tuesday pm – expert or authority?

• What does it mean to be an expert? What happens when we assume authority?
• We’ll work in pairs and small groups to explore what happens when you shift ‘register’ between unqualified, expert, authority. Identify our own resources. We are all experts in ourselves. Based on 23 questions and participants’ own interests, think about the stories you want to tell, how you want to tell them, and in what media.

Wednesday am – observations

• Participants explore UCL campus, as research for your story. Think about using space and public intervention creatively. Finding your audience or letting the audience in. Participants to blog, photograph, record and upload the creative process as it happens on ‘Hide & Seek’ social media.

Wednesday pm – blogs, podcasts, videos

• Playwright Nicola Baldwin and director Hannah Jones, on finding our own means to record what matters to us individually, as well as the aims of our group or network. How can we express our ideas creatively and authentically? What is our story? Working in groups to create a script, and recording or videoing work, or creative discussions.

Thursday am – riding the news cycle

• Dr Lena Ciric, Senior Lecturer at UCL CEGE on media training. How to negotiate getting one’s message across through news media.
• Writing a press release for an imaginary project based on your /group ideas.
• Presenting to camera or in a podcast to get your message across.

Thursday pm – ‘Hide & Seek’ around UCL Campus

• Create maps and clues to find your work. We will go on a theatrical, experimental, science / drama treasure hunt around UCL, participating as audience and presenter/ performer at creative responses to the 23 questions.
• Discussion on our aims and why we are making the work this way. What if your story could only communicate One Thing. What is it?

Friday am – elevator pitches

• Write elevator pitches for our creative science ideas. Practice pitching, and using our social media creative imagery and blogs in support.
• Prepare and pitch ideas to our panel in a series of short performances/ presentations.

Friday pm - performances

• Performances of works in progress from the week to an invited audience, also proposals and pitches for new ideas. Reading of scenes from ‘Nosocomial’ – feedback on all ideas from perspective of science, waste, creative development possibilities.
• Prizes will be awarded to ideas (categories to be set during the week).
• Debrief on group and personal aims and ideas for future networking.

Supported by the Society for Applied Microbiology and the Royal College of Pathologists

• Facebook event