2020 Control Shift

About the festival:

Control Shift 2020 was an ambitious city-wide programme of installations, walks and hybrid workshops. The programme provided different lenses and approaches to explore how we connect digitally.

Screenshot of a video caller talking while sharing their screen with text that reads "this city is too loud for me"

Data Poetics

– Artist talk and discussion on data in the arts

By Naho Matsuda & Paul Angus

Close up of a wooden ouija board with the alphabet laid out in an arch, numbers 0 to 9, five emojis, and 'goodbye' written at the bottom. The letter 'S' is illuminated red.

The Departed

– Part séance, part installation bridging the gap between physical and virtual realms

By Sarah Selby & Tim Kindberg

A gif of squares showing a mouth and an eye, moving around leaving a glitchy blurry trail behind them

Get this position

– Exhibition of DIY augmented reality filters by young people from Knowle West

By Control Alt Delete

A screenshot showing two windows. In one window, a video call shows a person playing the trumpet. Next to it is a sketch of this scene with code written next to it.

Art, Code and a Bowl of Fruit

– Workshop to make coding tools to draw still-life

By Alice Haynes, Pete Bennett and Dave Webb

A collage of images showing hands knitting, a person holding their knitting up to their face, a knitting machine, and knitting next to binary patterns.

Knitwitter

– An invitation to encode secret messages into your knitting

By Wisterlitz

A screenshot of video callers with a screen-sharing of a web browser with text. The first line is 'accessibility in the arts: a promise and a practice'

Alt-Text as Poetry

– Workshop for creating alt-text poetry

By Shannon Finnegan

A person stood in the middle of a residential-looking street holding a white piece of paper which has digital text reading 'where is my space?'

Where is my space? AI for Others

– Discussion on bias coded into algorithms

By Tracey Bowen

Six coloured highlighter pens next to a drawing of yellow, blue and pink prisms each with '=C', '=P' and '=I'

Critical Voices in Data

– Talks exploring what is new, challenging and possible in data

By SWCTN Fellows

36 small images of a person pulling different positions with their arms. Next to them, text reads 'output' with categories of 'sea, sky, star, in, small, big, over, low' Next to 'sky' is a bar which says 100%.

AI For Nervous Humans

– Hands-on workshop creatively training AI using just pen and paper with analogue code

By Dave Webb

Screenshot of a video call which shows mechanical arms drawing onto paper.

Robots With Pens

– Workshop to make experimental robot drawings using code

By Joseph Wilk

A cardboard structure which has been placed over an open laptop. A person rests their hand on the structure, which tilts at a 45 degree angle down towards the laptop.

DIY Solutions to End Tech Pain

– Workshop designing speculative treatments for the symptoms caused by excess digital technology use

By Dasha Ilina

A window display inside a shopping mall. There is a back metal shutter covering the middle, with exhibitions either side showing mannequins wearing prototypes, a TV screen, and the words 'centre for technological pain' on the glass.

Center for Technological Pain

– Exhibition of DIY solutions to health problems caused by digital technologies

By Dasha Ilina

A person touching a photo of the mona lisa on their phone, which is wired to a screen attached to a yellow door.

Face / On

– Interactive installation playfully engaging with facial recognition technology

By Rachel Smith

A laptop surrounded by plants and crystals. The screen shows a video caller with their eyes shut meditavely.

Oracle Bots

– Workshop for coding bots that provided spiritual advice

By Danae Tapia & Annika Kappner

Projection of text onto a building which reads "This city is the most cycle friendly city in the UK, but still has a huge car problem"

This City Is

– Large scale projection describing Bristol through the eyes of the internet

By Naho Matsuda & Paul Angus

Screenshot of three people on a video call with text that reads 'thinking the digital through the indigenous'

Thinking the Digital Through the Indigenous

– Panel discussion with invited filmmakers exploring the new languages for technology

By Russel Hlongwane, Dilman Dila & Danae Tapia

People sat on benches in a dark space, facing a projected film of a person typing on a computer.

Indigeneity and Digital Entanglements

– Programme of film shorts offering a counter to technology as a western construction

By Russel Hlongwane, Dilman Dila, Tabita Rezaire & Francois Knoetze

A rippling amorphous digital object made up of neon coloured pixels, stripes, and spikes.

Live Coding Visuals

– Live coding visuals workshop using Improviz

By Antonio Roberts

Inside Bristol Library, a person is viewing a glass cabinet filled with batteries, wires, and embroidery materials in front of a plaque which reads 'electronic needlework by Irene Posch.

Electronic Needlework

– Installation of textiles and needlework tools adapted for electric engineering

By Irene Posch

Interwave

– Podcast series delving into unfiltered and intersectional narratives on Zoom fatigue

By KASAVA

A phone screen strapped to a person's chest using black fabric and elastic bands.

Proxy Politics: Making and Unmaking Perspectives on Access

– Workshop exploring disability activism and accessibility with video calling devices

By Arjun Harrison-Mann, Benjamin Redgrove & Kaiya Waerea

In dark neon lighting, a mobile phone is secured to a body using chainmail. The screen of the phone shows a person whose face is obscured by a camera.

Three Perspectives on Visibility

– Film vignettes considering how ways of seeing and being seen have reshaped the nuances of accessibility under lockdown

By Arjun Harrison-Mann, Benjamin Redgrove , Sky Cubacub, Ebony Rose Dark & Sophie Hoyle

People holding large pieces of paper in a green space with a tower in the background.

Maps of Consequential Paradox

– Artist walk exploring networks in Brandon Hill park

By Heath Bunting

Two people holding their embroidery hoops together, both with cats and dotty lines and numbers.

MIAU ID

– Workshop exploring networks through embroidery whilst playing cats

By MELT (Loren Britton & Isabel Paehr)

A person wearing headphones dangling a wire into the river.

Deep Listening

– Artist walk exploring underwater perspectives of the Bristol floating harbour

By Kathy Hinde

Supporters & funders for Control Shift