Free - Open to all
OBX Connects is a series of talks and informal meet-ups for anyone working with or curious about creative technology. Whether you're an artist, maker, technologist, engineer, dancer, musician, activist—or just interested in how tech intersects with creativity—come along and connect with others pushing boundaries in their fields in Hastings.
🎤 Talks for this session
Bruce Gilchrist – Demolish Monsters on the Rocks: Reimagining Artistic Practice
Traditional art forms often struggle to reflect our evolving ways of understanding and making meaning. In this talk, Hastings-based artist Bruce Gilchrist shares the combinatorial strategies he uses to navigate complex, interconnected systems in his work.
As interactions with corporate AI become an increasingly unavoidable part of everyday life, the artist’s role is shifting—from creator to curator, selector, and translator across human and technological domains. This new terrain calls for speculative leaps and imaginative “fictioning” to open up space for reflection and new possibilities.
Mark Stanley (Thingitude) – Internet of Things for Community Projects.
Mark Stanley is the founder of Thingitude, an award-winning IoT company based in Hastings that helps local authorities use smart tech to improve services and reduce costs. This commercial work enables Thingitude to also support community-driven tech initiatives and provide young people with pathways into tech careers.
A strong advocate for community-led innovation, Mark believes local residents and businesses—not just tech giants—should shape the future of their smart cities. He is the UK ambassador for The Things Network, co-organiser of The Things Conference UK and a much valued ‘regular’ at them Observer Building’s Co-working space.
Biographies:
Bruce Gilchrist is an artist with a background in performance and digital live art. His projects typically take form as hybrid, intermedia artworks—combinations of emerging technology, performance, and conceptual approaches. In 2020 he was a Thoughtworks Arts (New York) and Baltan Laboratories (NL) fellow working collaboratively on a creative investigation into the social impacts of AI technology. The resulting interactive project, Smart Hans, received the Jury’s Main Prize at Lab30 Medienkunstfestival (2022). Following this he was a BeFantastic Beyond Fellow (2022-23) as lead-artist investigating the ‘aesthetics of recognition’ to create the artwork, Poetics of Garbage, for FutureFantastic Festival, Bangalore (2023). He presented the durational intermedia performance Stop Searching Else Loop Forever at Project78 Gallery in St Leonards in May 2025. In a former life, he co-created ensemble performance projects with several groups performing worldwide, including Station House Opera, Blast Theory, and People Show among others.
Image credits:
Image 1—Stop Searching Else Loop Forever, installation view, Project78 Gallery, Bruce Gilchrist 2025.
Image 2—Plastic Prāyaścitta, ‘FutureFantastic Festival’, Bangalore, video still, Bruce Gilchrist 2023.
Image 3—Idling in the Unreal, ‘Can We Ever Know The Meaning Of These Objects’, Tickner
Bell Young & Lebenson Gallery 46, London, animation still, Bruce Gilchrist 2021.
Artist website: https://idling-in-the-unreal.net/ Instagram: @office_composing_machine_
Further Details
There'll be a pop-up bar open from 6:30 for you to buy drinks, and the talk will start at 6:45. During the evening there will be an opportunity for you to share your ideas with the community, call out for collaborators, or perhaps plan ways to move your project forward.
Admission is FREE! However, due to limited capacity, we kindly request you to RSVP in advance.
