cooking up a branestawm

Late November saw the first open discussion session to kickstart the DCRC’s Pervasive Cookbook idea. As a part of the Knowledge Transfer Fellowship with the Pervasive Media Studio, we will be working with the studio community to identify the necessary content for the cookbook: what are the ‘recipes’ for pervasive media projects, introducing the ingredients, how do we combine them, etc.

This blog will be one of the places we can share and test out ideas for what is needed for a cookbook with those people who can’t come to the face-to-face sessions. The edited blog posts will form the skeleton of a book to be delivered in 2011.

The first session saw a dozen people from the pmstudio community respond to the call for input. Discussion was lively and showed that we all have a different idea about the sort of cookbooks we like: whether we read them for instruction or inspiration seeming a key element to consider when planning one ourselves. It also became clear that we can and should lay claim to the territory, and that the cookbook should document and describe the activities of the pervasive media studio: The cookbook is to the Studio what River Café cookbook is the restaurant. WE have a restaurant and this is our cookbook. What we do here defines what is pervasive media…….

Suggestions for taking the idea for the Pervasive Cookbook forward:

• define the audience; creative media professionals, students, people who know a bit about some aspects of pervasive media or some of the projects and want to find out more
• recipes as case studies of projects: they need to start with a description of the experience. We need to define the ingredients and methods and emphasise the need for iteration when developing projects.
• This Cookbook is not precise or literal, nor encyclopedic.
• Need to include different perspectives written in non-specialist language; these could help to show integration of user feedback into iterative design.
• Who are the celebrity chefs? The studio is the celebrity. But – it would be good to get cultural critics and external practitioners to write about projects and/or their work with the studio community.
• How do we capture and represent ‘the experience’ of pervasive media?
• Cookbook could use QR codes etc to link to web content. Online blog version could embed short video illustrating recipes/case studies
• What is in the home economics section? Essays and introductions and definitions and glossaries.
• It should be a mix of practice, culture and inspiration, that can be read cover to cover or skipped through
• Cookbooks often have themes: seasons, types (mezze, student, cordon bleu) – what are the pm equivalents?
• Develop workshops on different aspects of ‘pervasive cookery’ that we can document and feed into the blog/book e.g how to use QR codes, how to use RFID…..

And not forgetting the memorable tagline for the back cover “As practised in pmstudio workshops”