Battersea Arts Centre and The Space helped 13 creatives develop ideas for online art.

BAC Scratch Online asked artists to submit ideas for interactive theatre projects that would bring all the best things about live performance to an online audience.

Together, Battersea Arts Centre and The Space supported them to develop their ideas using BAC’s Scratch process, by testing unfinished ideas and talking about their works-in-progress with audience members.

Thirteen artists submitted ideas and came along to a Scratch Lab, where they took part in a coding workshop and worked with programmers to develop their ideas, before pitching them to a panel of digital and creative experts.

The three finalists – Deborah Pearson, Ben Pacey and Rhiannon Armstrong – were each paired up with a programmer to create a digital Scratch of their idea.

Deborah’s idea was Another You, an alternative Twitter account created for a willing participant, exploring what their life would be like if they had made different choices.

Ben planned an intimate one-on-one experience that gave audience members the chance to meet an ‘artificial intelligence’.

Rhiannon’s project, The International Archive of Things Left Unsaid, was the BAC Scratch Online winner. It is an an online collection of real-life human confessions, donated anonymously.

About this artist

BAC Scratch Online was run by The Space and Battersea Arts Centre.

Deborah Pearson is a writer/performer and co-director of Forest Fringe. She has won a Herald Angel award and been shortlisted for the Total Theatre award for innovation, the Arches Brick award, a Dora Mavor Moore award and the Rod Hall Memorial award.

Ben Pacey is an artist and designer whose work includes writing and digital design for Midsummer Night’s Dreaming (RSC/Google), co-writing A Small Town Anywhere (Coney), and creating the short animation An Illustrated History of Bearmingham (Library of Birmingham) and the exhibition Mister Volder Goes To The City (mac Birmingham).

Rhiannon Armstrong is an artist whose work uses performance, installation art, curation and research. She is excited by collaboration between different artforms, performers, creators and and audiences. Rhiannon is a core artist with Kings of England and Coney Ltd, and artist in residence at The SHM Foundation.