Talkaoke

    Talkaoke

    Talkaoke is a pop up talk show that is has been gaining popularity in festivals, clubs, galleries, conferences and on the street. it consists of an illuminated round table with a host sitting in the middle on a swivel chair. Participants sit around the outside and are passed the microphone whenever they want to talk, [...]

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    Who Wants to Be...?

    Who Wants to Be…?

    Who Wants to Be…? is the ask-the audience game show, where the audience asks the questions, comes up with the answers, and sets the rules! Using two visualisation systems, some gameshow glitz and a visual voting system, a large audience can brainstorm, feedback, and generate the most incredible ideas together. In its simplest form each [...]

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    One Night Grandstand

    One Night Grandstand

      One Night Grandstand: stadium for a night! One Night Grandstand infuses a normal kick-about with the excitement of a football stadium. Games have a live, amplified commentary, floodlighting and stadium style screens above the pitch, complete with sound effects, live motion graphics and action replays. Watch the One Night Grandstand promo video to see [...]

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    The People Speak Media Lab

    The People Speak Media Lab

    We don’t just document our own events but have along history of filming and editing performances, talks, exhibitions and workshops, from vox popping on the streets of Hornchurch to filming a 24 hour performance marathon at The Serpentine Gallery. Through our work on facilitation and Talkaoke we are experts in asking the right questions and [...]

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    Segue

    Segue

    “Basically, it’s a kind of film-making-production-line that squeezes the imagination out of anybody who comes along, mixes it with everybody else’s and puts it on video.” Segue – new experimental format from The People Speak, devisors of Talkaoke, One Night Grandstand, Who Wants to Be …? and Gazebo TV. It has come out of workshops [...]

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    Unlecture

    Unlecture

    Unlecture takes the standard lecture format and turns it inside out. Instead of an expert talking to an audience with a couple of questions at the end, Unlecture empowers the audience to actively participate and exchange their own expertise. It encourages open discussion and debate between people on specific subjects. Our facilitators employ different techniques [...]

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    blog

    Live satellite link to the opening of a doorbell.

    Getting people to create things collectively- and be happy with the result.

    Opening of the democracy doorbell

    Yesterday was just another day at the People Speak. I was asked to make a short speech for the opening of a doorbell at the V2 electronic arts centre in Rotterdam. The reason was that the doorbell had been commissioned as the result of our unique game show decision making format,  “Who Wants to Be…?” which was put on by The People Speak. Somehow, the participants decided to spend their collected money on a doorbell, after rejecting other great ideas such as a brewery for kids, a guerilla nut tree campaign, or an artists’ bootcamp for politicians.

    In a great example of how democracy works, two ideas; a commemorative plaque and an artists’ doorbell were merged to produce the plaque commemorating the doorbell.

     

    Apr 18, 2012 | Categories: blog | Leave A Comment »

    Poprowadz dyskusje przy okraglym stole Talkaoke!

    Zapraszamy do udziału w warsztatach prowadzonych przez grupę The People Speak w Galerii Awangarda we Wrocławiu.

    Jeśli jesteś zainteresowana/y metodami prowadzenia dyskusji, chcesz dowiedzieć się jak poprowadzić talk show lub po prostu przyłączyć się do rozmowy wyslij maila do asia@thepeoplespeak.org.uk lub zadzwoń tel. +48 71 790 25 89

    Bezpłatne warsztaty Talkaoke

    Data: 1, 2, 4 i 5 Maja 2012

    Czas: 14.30 – 18.00 (16.00-16.30 przerwa)

    Miejsce: BWA Wroclaw, Galeria Awangarda ul. Wita Stwosza 32, 50-149 Wrocław

    Warsztaty prowadzone w języku angielskim. 

    Osoby które wezmą udział w warsztatch będą miały możliwość poprowadzenia samodzielnej dyskusji przy okrągłym stole w Galerii Awangarda pomiędzy 7 Maja a 17 czerwca

    Warsztaty są częścią projektu OUT OF STH vol.3  Les Fleurs du Mal – New Art from London
 / Kwiaty zła – nowa sztuka z Londynu. 
wystawa zbiorowa
, galeria Awangarda, BWA Wrocław
 30.04 – 13.06.2012

     

    WIECEJ O TALKAOKE

    Stół Talkaoke oraz metodologia Talkaoke zostały zaprojektowane, by służyć jako zabawny i spontaniczny think thank, podczas którego ludzie mogą swobodnie wymieniać się doświadczeniami i dyskutować. Okragły kształt stołu umożliwia wszystkim uczestnikom równoprawny udział w dyskusji. Jest to idealny format do zaangażowania ludzi w interaktywną, prowadzoną przez nich samych dyskusję oraz do generawania nowych idei.

    Pozwolenie przypadkowo zebranym wokół stołu osobom, by sami zdecydowali o tym, co jest dla nich ważne czyni całe przedsięwzięcie niezwykle spontanicznym, otwartym i pouczającym.

    Wyposażony w mikrofon moderator, który siedzi w środku stołu na obrotowym krześle, ułatwia, ale nie kontroluje rozmowy. Pomaga stworzyć przestrzen, w której uczestnicy czują sie komfortowo i wystarczająco pewnie, by przyłączyć sie do dyskusji. 


    Apr 18, 2012 | Categories: blog | Leave A Comment »

    The productivity of play. Night of talk at the Fo:rem

    The Fo:rem is a monthlyish event organised by the knowledge arm of Secret Productions, the people who brought you Secret Garden Party and a host of other festivals. It happens at Shoreditch House and every month there is a different theme. Last week’s theme was “play’ and speakers from many different fields presented including live art, science communication, play work and philosophy. The People Speak were invited to augment the event using our Heckle software. View the Heckle cloud below, and you can see a high res version here.

    Click to Enlarge

    Robert R Smith explains the spectrum of life from extreme play to extreme rules.

    The event came to a climax with a powerful presentation by Deborah Frances White. Her message was that if you are having fun then you are being productive. Play enhances work. Through her stand up expertise, she had the audience energised. The message is that in order to be more productive, one must play more. I was inspired. The next day, back at work at the People Speak, I had a great time, having a laugh with my colleagues, and generally messing around. But I didn’t get much done. I am still catching up with the backlog.

    Let’s get things straight. Humour is essential in what we do at the People Speak, and play, and creativity. But so is writing emails, filling out forms, and updating websites. Being on the phone to the tax offfice, it’s hard to make it fun. I have tried my best, and if anyone has any suggestions please comment.

    Just as in the previous Fo;rem, which dealt with the subject of time, but gave the speakers strict time limits, the space to play was limited in the event. It is limited in our lives in general, not because we are self-conscious, business minded adults, which was implied, but because we have other stuff we need to do. Any spare time and space we have, we use for fun, or spiritual awakening or creative practice. Right now I have got a whole bunch of emails to write. I would like to be able to play more and write the emails at the same time.

    Apr 12, 2012 | Categories: blog, News | Leave A Comment »

    Vocabulary: Talkaoke

    We really enjoyed the blog that Phil Wade posted about Talkaoke on his English school’s blog. 

    Talkaoke is the latest craze to sweep the nation. A modern twist on Karaoke but without the singing, it’s gaining fame in the trendy areas of London and abroad.

    It’s based on one simple rule which is that the participants or ‘Talkaokeyists’ make the agenda. Talkaoke is a modern form of open debate where practically no topic is off bounds. Participants debate whatevertakes their interest with people they know or have never met before. Things can get quite heated, especially when people disagree with each other but this just adds to the fun and appeal.

    Talkaoke is all about drawing participants in and creating a platform where people feel inspired to talk about what’s important to them and then comment on what others have to say. Pauline Wu, a local student, says that “it’s like a night at the pub but without the beer and is a great way to make new friends. It’s also a great way for student sof English to practise their vocabulary”. Whereas, Philippe Gomez finds it addictive because “it’s the only place I know where I can really talk about important issues in a serious but enjoyable way”.

    For an onlooker it could appear a little bizarre as the debaters sit around a large doughnut-shaped pink table nicknamed the “flying saucer of chat”. In the centre is the host who manages discussions. Thanks to his/her microphone, some large speakers and a video projector, the audience can watch and listen to the whole event. A recent upgrade has introduced a ‘heckle’ system where images are projected onto the screen which represent the exact words from the discussion.

    Invented by a London art student called Mikey Weinkove in 1997, Talkaoke has been gaining followers in the UK and abroad ever since. Recent saucers have been spotted in the National Theatre and the London Science Museum and bookings have been made for Brazil, Italy and even Saudi Arabia.

    Mar 06, 2012 | Categories: blog | Leave A Comment »

    Is this a five minute argument … or the full half hour?

    Justin Sutcliffe the photographer took those excellent photographs from Talkaoke Session last month. He published a blog post of the event. You can read it on his blog or below. 
    When the Independent on Sunday asked me to photograph a growing trend in socialised discussion this week called ’Talkaoke’ I confess that the images which immediately sprung to mind were of focus groups, talk shows and a Monty Python sketch.
    What I did not expect was a round-table chat with a speakeasy vibe and Blade Runner aesthetics.
    The principle is a disarmingly simple one, see what happens if you gather a group of people, seat them round a giant illuminated donut, encourage them to choose interesting subjects on which to express their opinions and moderate the whole thing with a person in the centre on a swivel chair wearing a headset for their own contributions and holding a microphone out to the guests in turn. Adding to the experience there is a live video feed of the participants projected onto one wall with snippets of imagery gleaned from the Internet to illustrate the points being made by each speaker.
    On a deserted semi-industrial street in Hoxton last Thursday night I found myself heading towards an unassuming recessed doorway with light spilling out through the frosted glass. On the other side of the door was a circle of people bathed in a peach glow, engaged in an animated but calm discussion of the relative merits of atheism and monotheism.
    There was a much wider demographic than I had expected, slightly more women than men but a small margin.
    The gender balance constantly changed as speakers occasionally took a break or went outside for a cigarette.
    On the face of it, a group of people talking to one another does not instantly present itself as a good source of pictures and I had expected the biggest challenge of the assignment would be bringing a rather dry subject to life. But the imaginative, atmospheric way in which founder Mike Weincove has fused debate with instant feedback and technological innovation meant that it was actually extremely immersive.
    What quickly emerged as a visual theme was how thoughtful everyone’s input was and how careful they were in their choice of words. Intrigued by the faces, I started to treat it almost as a portrait essay.
    The fact that everyone has to wait for the microphone in order to speak and all the topics are chosen by the members of the group meant that no single person monopolised any discussion and nobody felt trapped in a discourse they didn’t care about. There were brisk and fascinating changes of topic as new moderators swung their legs carefully over the flying saucer table and took the helm’s chair – swivelling and leaning this way and that, as hands were raised around the circumference by those waiting patiently to make their point.
    In a society where instant messaging, social media, and micro-blogging platforms sit in the ringside seats of communication, where the relative anonymity of the Internet allows anyone to be as abrasive as they choose, there was something really uplifting about the simple fact of strangers and acquaintances coming to exchange ideas and discuss issues face to face. No shouting, no trolling, no aggressive posturing. Just spending an evening swapping opinions with people you may or may not know. Blending some of the best aspects of social media with the immediacy and personal interaction of a live round table, it seemed simultaneously old-fashioned and the most contemporary thing I had photographed in ages.
    Demand for Mike Weincove’s “Saucer of Chat” is flourishing and not just here in Britain. He and his illuminating idea will be visiting countries as diverse as Brazil, Lebanon and Norway this year.
    •••
    My colleague, Sarah Morrison, wrote a far more detailed article for the Independent on Sunday. So if you would like to discover more, you can read it here.

    Mar 06, 2012 | Categories: blog | Leave A Comment »