Digital arts trailblazer makes its way to the City of Culture 2017

Digital Utopias, funded by the Arts Council and Google, will bring together international arts organisations and specialists with delegates at Hull Truck Theatre on Tuesday, January 20.

The programme includes showcases and debates on everything from generative literature – a cutting edge form of literature where the texts are produced through a computer by means of a set of formal rules to the
award-winning video game Minecraft.

Delegates will be able to network with award-winning and international artists like Thompson and Craighead, Matthew Plummer Fernandez, and Memo Akten.

The day will finish with an immersive digital art work by Marshmallow Laser Feast and Alexandra Whitley Dance Company, described as a “duet between human movement and the digital world”.

Chief executive of the Culture Company Martin Green said it was an ideal opportunity for some of the biggest names in the field to meet digitally creative businesses in the city.

Mr Green said: “This is part of our wider plan to establish Hull as a growing hub in digital technologies in the build up to UK City of Culture in 2017.”

Building work has begun on the new Centre for Digital Innovation, called @TheDock, on land next to the old dry dock at the mouth of the river Hull.

Together with new office space the £13m development is intended to act as a catalyst for the Fruit Market, providing a home for start-up digital design firms as well as established businesses.

Sir Peter Bazalgette, chairman of Arts Council England, said: “Digital creativity has the potential to bring arts and culture direct to the widest possible audiences and bringing together leaders in these fields will help to explore the opportunities that these innovations might create.”