NESTA Case Study

FreqOUT! has recently been included as case study in a recent pulication, funded by NESTA. Social by Social explores how new technologies are changing the way we engage communities, run companies, deliver public services, participate in government and campaign for change.
You can read the case study here

Summer Uni 09 Launched!

FreqOUT! has launched its Summer Uni programme this week. 11 young people are working alongside new media artist Jonathan Hall on the 'StreetView' project. The group is working to make short films, record interviews and take pictures of the local area in attempt to challenge Google's 'StreetView' application. We are sure theirs will be much better!

Transitions Film @ Young Co-operative Film-Makers

'Magic Number 13'n'23' has been selected for the Young Co-operative Film-Makers Festival in October. The short film made by 4 young people on the FreqOUT! 'Transitions' programme was produced by artist Rob Pyecroft Rainbow, formerly of The Light Surgeons.

The young people will travel to Bradford where they will watch their film along with an audience of 300!

Find out more about the Young Co-operative Film-Makers Festival here.

FreqOUT! on the Community Channel

FreqOUT! has been chosen to feature in the Meet the Future, a month of programmes celebrating the talents and creativity of young people up and down the country. 'From the Inside' was made with young people from Centrepoint as part of the First light funded programme in 2008.

Programmes showcase the work of young people, giving the most marginalised a platform to get their voices heard and understood.

This special month ties in with SHINE Week, 6 – 10 July 2009, a national campaign to celebrate the talent of all young people.

FreqOUT! Footie Crazy

Young people from the FreqOUT! project got to meet their hero Ray Parlour, who played for Arsenal. The group played a football match at the David Beckham Academy as part of the Private Equity Fundraiser. The trip was a thank you to the group who had worked incredibly hard on the project in the last year!

NESTA Award

FreqOUT! is being supported by NESTA to consolidate research into the benefits of using social technologies to engage socially excluded young people. FreqOUT! will be comissioning the research across the next 2 months. The investment by NESTA will build the capacity of the FreqOUT! project to extend its services to more young people.

FreqOUT! Showcase at the London Coliseum

An audience of 80 visited the FreqOUT! showcase at the London Coliseum to celebrate the achievements of the project over the last 3 years. The night was also a chance to watch 2 films made by young people from the Queens Park New Media Centre and Centrepoint. Both groups made their films under the professional guidance of MediaShed artists and film makers and were on hand to answer questions from event guests. The film project was funded by First Light Movies and Simon Marshall, Senior Programme Manager at First Light spoke about the scheme. Other guest speakers included Vicki Costello, Development Manager from NESTA, Donatella Grillandi, Area Business Manager from Centrepoint and Louisa Benjamin, Centrepoint Youth Worker. Vital Regeneration Chair of Trustees, David Bowler was delighted to introduce the event.

FreqOUT! hits local news

This week young people's achievements were recognised by the Paddington, Marylebone and Pimlico Mercury. They have been working on the 'Video Sniffin' project with artists from MediaShed to make a film using wireless cameras. The project is supported by the Lottery through the UK Film Council's First Light Movies initiative. The film will be screened at Vital Regeneration's Awards Ceremony on the 27th of November at the Cockpit Theatre.

Reaching Excluded Communities Successfully

The final showcase of 'Being Connected' at the Science Museum was truly inspirational! 13 young women from the London Tigers gave a musical presentation using their 'singing sculptures' made with artists from the 'Scrap yard challenge'. 50 members of the Bangladeshi community supported the young people on the night, many having never been to the Science Museum previously. One participant commented, "At first I thought hmm.. Science.. that is not for me, I don’t want to do it, it sounds boring! But then Jenny and Ruth showed us films and took us to the Museum to see the Listening Post and I thought it was amazing! I had never seen anything like it before and wanted to join in the project!"

Innovation Exchange - Share Your Idea

The Innovation Exchange is dedicated to fostering innovation within the third sector and as part of this, finding ways of improving relationships between third sector social innovators, public service commissioners and investors. The Exchange works through events, research, facilitation and online exchange. The Next Practice programme, provides the best innovations with support and access to a £200k fund from NESTA. This programme will enable evaluation, knowledge-sharing and seek to draw in further resources, helping cutting edge projects to develop and grow. FreqOUT! have launched a blog on the Innovation Exchange website where you can see an overview of our project and comment on future developments: FreqOUT! Innovation Exchange

Handheld Histories

Freqout! Design Intern Daniela Boraschi recently undertook a research project to build a ‘Mobile History Walk’ around ‘The Devils Acre’ in Victoria. The project entitled ‘Handheld Histories’ used a PDA device donated by BT. Daniella devised the walk using the ‘Create-A-Scape’ software developed by Future Lab which was downloaded onto the PDA. Using the software and PDA she was then able to successfully access the Wireless City Network.

After the first phase of research the next step is to work with young people to help them to develop their own bespoke walks based on their local area. Young people will be able to log on wirelessly in the centre of London so they can access information remotely, they are then free to learn on the move without having to return to their youth club or base. The project creates new and innovative learning opportunities outside of the traditional school environment and opens up discussion and debate through interaction with location.

Inspired Mobile Films

Artist Melissa Bliss and the FreqOUT! team worked with young people from Churchill Gardens Youth Club this week to create short films inspired by a trip to the Tate Gallery. Four short films were made on the day and the group devised innovative ways to use mobile phones to capture issues of importance to them. This method of low fi film making is encouraging young people to think more creatively what they can do with technology that is accessible to them.

Perceptual Landcspaes Launches in Church Street

Young people from the Marylebone Bangladeshi Society worked with artists Christian Nold, Daniela Boraschi and the FreqOUT! team to interview members of the Church Street community to find out what people thought about living there. The young peolpe used MP3 sound recorders to build a rich audio representation of their community. Christian and Daniela worked with the young people to transcribe their audio onto project laptops, and then created a digital diagram of the results in consultation with the group. The final maps will be exhibited at a display at City Hall in April alongside photographs from the workshops.