Jonathan Shaw said:

My work portrays the flow of objects in space, recreating perceptions of movement as something fluid. The viewer is presented with a sea of human bodies captured as they move to the sound of the beat.

Flesh, faces and limbs blur into one and as Jonathan added:

Occasionally there are moments of clarity as a face or a feature emerges in focus from the heady scene.

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition with texts by Jean Baird. The exhibition continues until 6th September. The New Art Gallery Walsall is in the heart of Walsall town centre. It is open Monday to Saturday 10am-5pm and Bank Holidays and Sunday 11am-4pm.

Final delegates leave Play The Game 2009
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JENS ANDERSEN closed the conference earlier today with a short speech at the Cathedral. He challenged international sports federations, politicians and sports business people who are still reluctant to attend the event. “What are you afraid of? Do you only want to be in touch with people who always agree with you like friends and partners?” writes Colin Robertson

He added: “Democracy is about the right to contradiction,” explaining open dialogue between the whole sports community is a sustainable solution to crisis. He said that “open democratic conversation develops character” and “this free culture is the spirit of Play the Game.”

Andersen summarised the many issues that have been covered this week. Human rights issues, match fixing, and doping among many others were debated by experts in the field.

He explained that further empathy supporting the requirement for establishing an anti-corruption body had been expressed by many of those attending this week’s conference and he “hopes that some action will be taken before we meet again in 2011.”

He was again immensely grateful to all that have attended the conference: “Thank you all for throwing your coins in the wishing well that is just Play the Game.”

He concluded: “It is you who makes it live, and that is why I really hope you return again and bring some friends in 2011.

Closing speeches and presentation by Andrew Jennings:
http://www.playthegame.org/conferences/play-the-game-2009/on-demand-streaming/closing-session-and-play-the-game-2009-award.html

The product and its appeal has shocked even hardened hacks like me and my fellow lecturer Andrew. The students have seen and scaled an online Olympus.

Let the figures speak for themselves: over 5000 hits  in four days before the conference has ended; hits received from all over the world and overnight they go up 500; 100+ posts for the week – the daily record so far is 30, from a staff that never exceeded ten. All contributed by students, bar two lecturers giving help and advice.

We’ve provided print, audio and video and a link to a live-stream of some of the events. These lessons in live journalism have taken place in the blogosphere and are very transferable.

But, Content is King. Keep putting up real and interesting stories in all media. The audience will find them and find them very quickly. One video on drug testing had 50 hits in the first five minutes.

It’s the video and audio which sells, especially if original and exclusive. Keep refreshing the stories with new one and new angles. People will come back to find the new. Vary the texture of stories with length and embeds. Remember that you are writing for a net generation with the concentration span of a gnat.

Tease and trail the speakers, profile them, preview them and then report them. Remember what happens in the conference hall (sometimes the live audience was, er, all of 15) is just the front-end; your audience is out there on the blogosphere worldwide. Via the internet, you can reach and refresh parts that many thought could never be reached – and do so in seconds and in some style.

But the central lesson is the obvious one. Produce good readable and accessible journalism. Assemble motivated hacks manqué, get them working quickly and accurately, finding angles and writing the stories up well. But make sure they are subbed and checked – one student was surprised to learn that the Lord Mayor of Coventry had changed since last year… But the mantra should always be – as Jim White of the Daily Telegraph once put it to my students – ‘good copy delivered on time…’

Whatever the platform, whatever the technology, it’s the stories, stupid. No stories, no content, no audience. It’s a lesson we have all learned quickly.

ohn Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He ran cutoday.wordpress.com at the 2009 Play the Game Conference.

Play the Game Communications Officer Ida Relsted Kærup revealed that over the past two weeks, former actor and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed up to the Play the Game’s online “experiment”, along with the two head to head cycling icons Lance Armstrong and Greg Lemond.

Ida also claimed that the eight year dispute between Play the Game attendee LeMond and Armstrong will certainly raise awareness about the need to ask questions that are rarely asked in sport. Ida was baffled as to the reason why Schwarzenegger, best known for his leading role in Terminator films, signed up to the conference’s page. She suggested that he has a “vested interest in the anti doping industry” due to his history and interest in the body building industry.

The phenomenon of Twitter has helped deliver Play the Game to a global audience. The cycling association is particularly fixated on the Twitter page the LeMond – Armstrong saga.

Ida said: “When Greg LeMond spoke at Play the Game earlier this week, we of course published a story about his main points and accusations towards Lance Armstrong

“And it seems that Armstrong picked up on it and commented on Greg LeMond’s appearance at Play the Game” Ida told CU Today.

While links to such renowned world figures are expected to gain a lot of attention, the format of Twitter means that non members can view Twitter members’ pages. The figures are therefore expected to be a lot higher than the current 60 official members signing up to the Play the Game’s status.

That figure though is expected to rise considerably, as the page was only created two weeks ago, and after it’s attraction to big names already, Ida believes that the online presence of the conference needs to be looked into more thoroughly before anyone gets carried away.

“After this conference we need to go back and rethink out our strategy, because this twitter and face book  were attempts that were just meant to be experiments” she stressed, but freely admitted that the experiment “ seemed to prove themselves worthy of attention which seems to be working”

As well as allowing live and on demand streaming of speakers from Coventry cathedral, organisers are also informing the world via Twitter and Facebook on immediate conference news. However, what effect is this going to have on the attendance of delegates to future conferences when access to the important issues in sport is becoming increasingly easy.

Ida Relsted Kærup, Communications manager for Play the Game 2009 told CU Today she didn’t believe this would have an impact on the number of attendees at future conferences.

“ I think most of the attendants chose to attend Play the Game 2009 months ago, the academics did and the journalists decided about a week ago…they get interviews with people they wouldn’t normally get. I believe the people watching online are the ones who didn’t have chance to come.”

For an event which is funded by official Danish associations and whose revenues would struggle to cover running costs, utilizing these forms of ‘New Media’ is essential in publicizing the event and representing the important issues in sport. Twitter and Facebook are another example of organisations adapting to appeal to a society becoming more occupied with micro blogging and social networking.

Ida added: “It is sort of an experiment…it’s my personal interest in New Media that’s made me go here and ask if we can try it. It’s not part of a very official strategy; it’s more of us pushing for it.”

Play the Game strives to address “democracy, transparency and freedom of expression in the world on sport”, and getting this message to as many people as possible is seen as fundamental. There is clearly a demand for live streaming of Play the Game conferences, but is interest outside journalism and those in the sports industry limited?

Ida concluded: “We do find people who are interested somewhere in the blogosphere on one particular part of the conference, but you won’t find anyone who will sit for five days watching us live… If you know about Play the Game you can go and find the events and if you don’t maybe they’ll stumble across some of the big names.”