Symposia Series

Comprised of three thought provoking conferences across four days, 2018’s symposia series brought together international experts, practitioners, commissioners and thinkers from the worlds of video-gaming, art, theatre, science, philosophy and technology to share, engage, showcase, debate and inspire thought.

In partnership with the British Games Institute (formerly the National Video Game Foundation) and Pilot Theatre, Continue put practitioners and decision-makers from across the country in the same room to debate, explore and collaborate on key issues facing the game and culture industries. Speakers over the two days included acclaimed video game designer and BAFTA award-winning creator of ‘Her Story’, Sam Barlow, artist and writer Leila Johnston, Gob Squad collective’s Sarah Thom and creative technologist Gorm Lai.

Stories of Solitude was major artistic and academic conference held in partnership with ​Dr. Eirini Nedelkopoulou from York St John University. Inspired by renowned MIT professor and psychologist Sherry Turkle, the programme addressed the assertion that a constant hunger for technology is preventing people from taking time to refresh and restore. The esteemed line-up of contributors included Estela Oliva​, ​creative director and curator, ​Matthew Causey,​ Professor in Drama and Director of the Arts Technology Research Laboratory, Trinity College Dublin;​ Natalie Kane, curator of Digital Design, Victoria & Albert Museum;​ Lisa Bortolotti, Professor and philosopher of the cognitive sciences at the University of Birmingham; multi-award winning artist Shannon Yee; Zeena Feldmann, Lecturer in Digital Culture at King’s College London; ​and Jude Brereton​, Senior Lecturer in Audio and Music Technology from the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York.

DotYork concluded the symposia. At this annual digital conference for inquisitive minds, the programme comprised four topical sessions focused on Survival, Identity, Freedom and Money. Speakers include renowned interaction designer and entrepreneur, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, author and lecturer in creative writing Matthew De Abaitua, Neil Costello Head of Marketing at Atom Bank, the UK’s first bank built exclusively for smartphones or tablets, and Kenda MacDonald, an expert in behavioural automation and founder of Automation Ninja, an organisation dedicated to finding new ways to automate marketing in ways that people previously thought impossible.

See below for more details on each of the speakers.