Following a pilot tour of Scottish schools in Autumn 2020, and a recent win of Best-Not-For-Profit at the British Data Awards, Edinburgh-based Civic Digits are inviting Science Festival fans to join in with their ground-breaking, immersive experience The Big Data Show this July, which tells the real-life story of a teenage who hacked into Prince Philip’s email account in 1984.
The Big Data Show blends storytelling, gaming and digital tricks to expose some eye-opening truths about living in the digital age. This interactive online performance for anyone aged 10+, follows two young hackers, Cy and Bug, as they bite a bit off more than they can chew and land themselves in digital hot water.
In 1984 Civic Digits’ Chief Technical Officer Rupert Goodwins was an 18 year old student. But he was also Prince Philip. He’d hacked into BT’s Prestel system and directly into Prince Philip’s email account, sending messages as His Royal Highness. This did not go down well. Two of Rupert’s fellow hackers were found guilty of forgery, but were later found innocent by the House of Lords. Leading to the first cybercrime legislation. Since then, what have we learned about our digital security, and keeping our secrets safe online? Who knows what about you? What are you agreeing to when downloading an app? Who has access to your secrets? And most importantly, how do you stay safe and sane in this digital age where friendships and relationships are often counted in likes and expressed in emojis. The Big Data Show cleverly uses digital tricks to engage audiences in this vital discussion.
Edinburgh-based Civic Digits was formed in 2017 by playwright Clare Duffy and hacker/tech journalist Rupert Goodwins. They focus on what it means to be human in the 21st century, and explore the boundary between gaming and performance.
Clare Duffy said:
We are incredibly excited to be bringing The Big Data Show to Edinburgh Science Festival. We hope audiences at the festival will be excited, surprised, shocked and delighted by the experience. The Science Festival has such a great reputation for creatively teaching about science, that it feels like the perfect fit for us.
The Big Data Show by Clare Duffy and Rupert Goodwins is produced by Suzy Glass and Robyn Jancovich-Brown for Civic Digits, with co-producers Perth Theatre at Horsecross Arts and Unlimited Theatre. The project received National Lottery funding through Creative Scotland. It is also funded by the Scottish Government and the Garfield Weston Foundation and is presented as part of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework.
The Big Data Show team also collaborated with the Institute for Design Informatics at The University of Edinburgh on the Introduction to cyber resilience and digital citizenship workshops (accredited by SQA) where pupils create motorised emojis using facial recognition and open source data sets. For this, Design Informatics are re-purposing the Dynamic Wall Visualisations. Pupils who complete the workshops as well as the digital show will get the SQA qualification.