Summit to Do in Manchester: THE SHARP PROJECT Opens its Doors

All that was missing was a ringmaster as a circus atmosphere blasted its way into every nook and node of THE SHARP PROJECT on Wednesday night. Coloured light sprayed the darkened walls; the spectrum of musical moods poured forth from invisible speakers; and over 450 people immersed themselves in it all while tenants threw open their doors and invited them in to their workplaces. The occasion? The formal opening of THE SHARP PROJECT – a celebration of what has been achieved and a media-spangled vision of what is to come.

The opening followed the afternoon’s Creative & Digital Summit, with the highest echelons of our creative industries and local government gathered around one table. Present were representatives of Manchester City Council, the BBC, MediaCityUK, Cisco, The Cornerhouse, THE SHARP PROJECT and many others. Discussion included ways of making the turbulence of local rivalries into something more laminar so that the region as whole could move forward and be recognised as a centre of digital dexterity. Challenges from small digital business surrounding The Table reminded us all that the dispersed majority need to be heard by the concentrated power-brokers. There will be much more to come on this event, and there’s certainly more to thrash out, but the talking has begun and long may it continue. The Digital Summit was supported by Manchester City Council and Arts Council England.

At six o’clock sharp, legally approved drinks were served to delegates, courtesy of Ward Hadaway solicitors, whose creative industries office is based in one of the containers here at Sharp. Over in the Campus, the café-bar, run by Teacup, manned the pumps and the main doors flung open to admit one balmy home-time sky plus one eager crowd all so professionally registered by the Kennedy Media Travel team.

Many would be visiting THE SHARP PROJECT for the first time. Only those who have witnessed its development will know how far it has come, but new arrivals, seeing the “finished” product, marvelled at the size, the space and the activity going on in the building. Unlike many opening nights the assembled will have been party to, THE SHARP PROJECT has been a productive workspace for about a year, since Project:Simply took on the first container. Days before the opening, the Campus itself was finally completed, and some shiny newcomers had moved in to the perimeter units, appearing like executive boxes to proceedings outside (in fact, anyone was welcome to sample G&Ts; many accepted). In the Winter Garden, footage from Reification was being booted up.

At 7:15, proceedings proper got going by human dynamo Rose Marley. Mi’s ahd168 film was beamed onto the Campus screen. It was a little incongruous seeing our familiar friend leaping around an empty building that in reality it was a mingling melee, but seeing the film  in all its high-definition beauty at full scale was the perfect introduction, juxtaposing potential with fulfilment.

A key moment was to follow, with speeches from project managers Mace’s Steve Gillingham and construction company Bramall’s Paul Hughes leading up to the formal handing over of the keys to Sir Richard Leese, representing Manchester City Council, and the people of Manchester. The “keys” were actually a gift-wrapped box with a huge bow, symbolic enough to be useful. He went on to talk about the project and the summit, expressing pride in his involvement in both.

Sir Richard handed the microphone to Sue Woodward, whose impassioned speech took us from the wet, daunting, early days of the project in a building that had become an abandoned harbinger of tough times ahead. Somehow an idea by The Boot Room’s Keith Jobling and Kennedy Campbell made it through the council chambers and funding was set up for this brilliant scheme, where the collective brainpower and ideas of the region’s innovators could be allowed to thrive in conditions perfectly suited to the digital future. The two modestly accepted Sue’s gratitude from their humble royal balcony. Her closing comments were stirring and understood by everyone here: “We are a disruptive market force that questions the old rules in order to ready us all for the change that’s coming. To make us all focus on our city region’s futures.”

The next section, a superb film made by some local schoolchildren with animators Kilogramme, as a part of the SharpFutures Carbon Innovation Fund scheme, undoubtedly got the biggest cheer of the evening. Professional, amusing and optimistic, it followed a group of penguins forced off their molten icecap to become part of the city community. At the end its young makers stood on the platform and took the sincere, unpatronising applause and whoops in their stride.

Rae Morris and Mechanical Bride are two singer-songwriters who are on the ascendancy thanks to unbelievable talent at their hyphen-bound skills. With 80Hertz studio also celebrating its opening night (after a sleepless 72 hours, it must be said), an ambitious plan had been hatched to showcase its space and its acoustics. The grand piano-playing singers (thanks Forsyths!) played live, accompanied by strings arranged by Joe Duddell and watched by a live audience who filled every possible space in the duplex studio; Rae’s soulful performance was telecasted to the big screen in the Campus for all to see. The colour of the sound coming through to the control room was stunning, and this was from a room full of bodies. When the studio is finally perfected and the environment is more controlled, this is a place artists will be clamouring to record in.

Over on the big screen there were live dancing robots courtesy of residents MoCapOne and their legendary bobble suits. Then things started getting more random as the Flyka steadycam dollies (not a dance troupe – a means of filming moving subjects without rails) launched into action in the container phase, filming NOTE store skateboarders and BMXers from impossible angles as they kickflipped, ollied and carved their way around the perfectly flat floor. The boarders and bikers did some tricks too.

Over in the Winter Garden Peter Saville and Malcolm Garrett were “In Conversation”. Although on paper they are the brand design team behind THE SHARP PROJECT, in reality they were much more, lending credibility and weight to the dream and pushing it through with imagination and honesty. Among other things, they talked about the still-talked-about Reification of 2008 (when Steve Coogan, Dr Brian Cox, Paul Morley hosted a series of conversations a year after Tony Wilson’s death) and what came of it (apart from one of the hosts now being a household name and celestial pin-up – but that’s what appearing on Late Review can do to a former NME hack).

The final event was a performance by poet and local champion Mike Garry in tribute to the project. No doubt it will be published somewhere and we’ll point you to it when it is. But just when the security staff had at last managed to coax out those soaking up the final moments of the project’s opening do, collecting their Holiday Inn promo bags on the way, Garry recited an abridged version to the final few who were gathered outside the lobby by the twinkling sequined frieze. It was captured on mobile phone and posted on Twitter within hours. This is probably how the opening night of the Parthenon ended.

The real work, says the cliché, begins now. But every project needs one of these moments, the kicking of an idea into the public arena. The next day the tenants would be back at work bright and early, but just possibly a little more excited about what lies ahead

Charlie Hankers