Companies producing chocolate that tells stories, new musical instruments and robotic art are among those taking part in Artful Innovation, a new business development programme taking place this week by Watershed, Bristol’s pioneering arts and media centre.
Artful Innovation is a five-day intensive course supporting small creative technology companies to examine their practice and strengthen their business cases. 
Led by programme director Stephen Gatfield, the course has been inviting participants to enter into a task-based journey of learning, sharing, building and evaluating. It will give participants the tools to take their ideas from prototype to marketplace.
The course includes case studies and insights from influential speakers including Tracey Follows of London-based The Future Laboratory, Samantha Payne of Open Bionics based at UWE’s Future Space innovation hub, Alex Fleetwood and Alex Bertie of Sensible Object, Rohan Gunatillake, the creator of Buddhify, Dr Michael Johnson from Glasgow School of Art, James Touzel of Bristol-headquartered law firm TLT, Paul Archer of London and Bristol-based Daredevil Project and Greg Taylor of brand design consultancy Elmwood.
Understory, based in Watershed’s pioneering Pervasive Media Studio, is a storytelling chocolate company with a practice divided into chocolate and sweet products, events, consultancy and filmmaking.
Formed by artist, poet and cook James Wheale, it has worked incredibly hard over the past couple of years to develop its products and processes, and is now piquing the interest of investors.
It applied to participate in Artful Innovation to help tighten up its business case, gain a better understanding of the financing landscape and learn from its peers.
Joining the course from Manchester, Noise Orchestra is a duo of sound artists who are developing a series of electronic noise machines that translate light into sound.
This is their first foray into developing market ready, tested products and running a business. They’re particularly excited about interrogating ideas around potential markets and learning more about the process of launching products from people who have been through it.
Bristol-based Rusty Squid is an experimental robotic engineering and design studio that works within the contemporary arts. From large scale interventions to intimate encounters, its work connects audiences with the physical and emotional space between body and machine. Audience testing has proven the ideas.
Studio Meineck is a social design studio based at the Pervasive Media Studio specialising in designing with people, rather than for people. Collaborating with charities, organisations and academics, it develops well-considered products to help make peoples’ lives better. It is at an incredibly exciting point in its development, having just manufactured a small batch of its first product – Music Memory Box, a beautiful, evocative reminiscence tool for those living with dementia. Artful Innovation comes at a perfect time, as it looks to scale the team, figure out the investment landscape and examine the dilemma of balancing profit with creativity, quality and meaning.
Artful Innovation has been taking place since Saturday and ends today, Wednesday.
Sessions have been held in venues in and around Bristol including Watershed, Triodos Bank, Ashton Court Mansion and The Forge. Each venue was chosen to reflect session themes.
