Sorry I’ve been all quiet on the blog front, things have been busy over in Thailand where Ultralab (1990-2006)‘s Jonathan Furness and myself have been working on a digital creativity workshop project for the British Council Thailand.

We’ve been having an amazing time out here, based out of Phuket working with Children from the town of Pattani, a seven hour drive away. We arrived last Sunday, and are staying in a resort hotel, with lots of swimming pools and a really nice atmosphere.

Our objective is to give opportunity to young Muslim children who have no experience in the potential of digital media. We’re interested in how they will cope with a tough challenge, with no skills in the area of digital film technology. What we’ve discovered in the past week is that children with absolutely no experience with technology, fly with it.

Photographs of Matthew Eaves and Jonathan Furness of Ultralab (1990-2006) in Phuket Thailand working with young people at a Digital Creativity Workshop for the British Council

The young people spent a day with us learning how to use Apple‘s iMovie application, a free programme which allows users to make a movie very easily with an Apple computer and a digital video camera.

We set the young people (aged between 15 and 17) the challenge to make their first movie by the end of the day, a challenge which was well received and produced exceptionally high standard work (in comparison with previous Summer School projects).

The young people then went on to learn Garage Band (to make their own music) and iStopMotion (to make stop frame animations).

The Muslim Thai children who are working on the project have a real hunger to learn and are keen to push the technology. Rus, one of the female young people on the project commented: “I’ve been learning how to make movies, and I always wondered how Television was made, and now I know”.

We’ve had an amazing time so far, and week 2’s children are just as capable, and creative as week 1’s. The language barrier is not an issue, the children are extremely resourceful, and incredibly talented at demonstrating their potential.

I wonder what young people who’ve not ever touched computers for creative purpose, or even a video camera could do in a month, considering the outstanding ‘Points of View’ movies they created in just five days.

On a less serious note, Jonathan and myself have had a great time relaxing in the pool, on the beach, para-gliding and riding on an elephant.

We love Phuket! Many thanks to the British Council, I’ll write more research findings at the end of the project, consider the above a taster.

Now go look at the photo’s