Guest post – Biome
A guest post for NEoN Digital by Niall @Biome.
Biome Collective Video Showcase
Biome Collective are a digital arts collective based in Dundee. We’re a group of artists, game designers, programmers and producers who work together and separately on a variety of different projects, and also organise community events like game jams, weekly sharings, workshops and play parties. So when NEoN invited us to do a Biome Collective showcase for their window we thought the most ‘Biome’ thing to do would be to run a jam to figure out what we wanted to do with the space.
Our plan was to use the jam to come up with a way of showcasing as much of Biome’s work as possible, as Biome members work on quite a lot of smaller scale, more personal projects that don’t tend to get as much of a public spotlight as the larger headline ‘Biome Collective’ projects. At the same time, we are a collective of people who primarily work with interactive media, so we didn’t want to create a passive, static showcase, we wanted to create something interactive!
At the jam we went through a series of different ideas, from games that could be played from the pavement outside, to a more traditional playlist of Biome member’s video showreels. In the end we went with a blend of the two: We wanted to keep the focus on Biome members’ work, but keep things playful and interactive. So we came up with a system where a playlist of Biome members’ work will play on the big screen, but passersby can vote (with a tug-of-war-style interface) on which video will play next.
Biome logo animated end cards
Originally, we were thinking of setting up some simple sensors at the window so that passersby could interact with the big screen by just walking past it. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that the sensors we had did not work through glass, so we had to rethink things. We settled on a web interface that people can access via their phone, and which links to the currently-playing video for anyone wanting to know more about it.
As is often the case with jams, building the system to run this interactive video showcase was a little stressful at times, but I think we’ve ended up with something that does a really good job of offering a more expansive look at Biome than the outside world sometimes sees. We had a launch party on Friday 21st March where we watched back last year’s Biome sharing videos* and had a VIDEO BATTLE on the pavement before it got a bit too cold and we had to come back inside.
Image of Biome Collective engaged in a Video Battle
Image of Biome Collective engaged in a Video Battle
The Biome x NEoN Window Showcase is up and running now, so feel free to check it out!
If you can’t make it there in person, this link will show you the video that is currently playing on the screen: https://biome-video-showcase.glitch.me/screen
And you can vote for the next video with this link: https://biome-video-showcase.glitch.me/
– Niall Moody, Biome Collective
Credits: The showcase itself was primarily built by Claire Morwood, James Morwood and Niall Moody, with help from the other jam participants: Bea Livesey-Stephens, Matthew Cormack, Rhoda Ellis and Vale Blackwood. The videos included in the showcase playlist cover work by almost every active Biome Collective member.
* – Every week we meet up (online or in-person) to share what we’ve been working on that week. Since 2020 we’ve been recording those sharings and editing them into small videos. We’ve now built up a 5+ year video archive of Biome Collective work; you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/@BiomeCollectiveCommunity/
