HullCraft at The Space Digital Arts Day

Hannah Rice and Joel Mills (middle) showing participants the HullCraft world.
Photo courtesy of The Space. Taken at The Space’s Digital Arts Day 2015.

On the 19th March, I ventured to Birmingham with Joel Mills for Digital Arts day at the Custard Factory, hosted by The Space (BBC & Arts Council England). It was a fantastic day showcasing a range of work by artists experimenting with digital technologies and how these impact on audience engagement.

We were kindly invited by Helga Henry, Director of The Creative Shift to provide demonstrations of our HullCraft project in their Digi Den enabling people to participate at the event.

The HullCraft project is about engaging new audiences with archives through the fun "digital LEGO" game Minecraft. Participants at Digital Arts Day could come and build real historical architecture from the Hull History Centre's archives on our live server, beginning with the works of the architect Francis Johnson. Minecraft expert or beginner, there was a building to suit all levels.

Participants exploring HullCraft, photo by Hannah Rice.

With thanks to The Space, we had a host of laptops set up for people to be involved with the project. 

During the two Digi Den sessions Joel and I were available to supervise the building and chat to people about HullCraft, Minecraft and archives.

This was a great opportunity for us to gain some feedback on the HullCraft experience and see how we can improve the project for future games sessions.

We had a brilliant day speaking to a variety of people about the project, and we even shared the DigiDen with the BBC Blue Room who were demonstrating exciting technologies such as virtual reality headsets!

Have a look at The Space's website and Storify of Digital Arts Day to see more images, information about the speakers and people's thoughts from the day. #bdw2015

You can also read our blog piece "Introducing HullCraft" on The Space blog.

Hannah Rice

Transforming Archives Trainee

H.Rice@hull.ac.uk

Here are a selection of photos from HullCraft in the DigiDen. (photos by Hannah Rice).

Lots of Francis Johnson architectural plans for participants to build.

Our recycled archive box Creeper made an appearance.