And the stars look very different today...

By Helga Henry, Director of Organisational Development at Birmingham Hippodrome 

For another year - my 9th in fact - I have the pleasure of hosting Hello Culture, just as I hosted Hello Digital back in 2008 and all the events in between.  I've just watched the stream from the 2014 conference and in my introduction I mention that there is someone in the audience wearing a Google Glass.

Remember them?  Only three years ago and yet they are already technology history, withdrawn from the market in 2015.  Technology years are more like dog years than human.

The theme of this year's conference is story telling and how new technologies are changing the way we create art and the audience experience.  There are all sorts of scary new words for us to encounter:  "posthumanism", "interactive and embodied experiences",  "digital avatars".   As ever, it's part of my role to be the resident techno dunce (not "technophobe" - I like technology but don't really know much about it) and to ask the questions that will help me - and delegates - make the most of the vast array of expertise offered by our speakers and panellists.  To pull the strands together and make connections that may be useful to you as you listen and learn with me.

Hello Culture will share some examples, let us hear from the artists on the forefront of this work in performance and also those working at the interface with science.  We will also explore how technology is having an impact on the way we see and understand the world, how it helps us tell our stories and how it opens up the opportunity for a variety of stories - personalised and reflective of the experience of  our diverse population - to be told in thrilling and evocative ways.

The modes and means of story telling - of actors and performers using their craft in live performance as enhanced by technology - look very different today.

Join us at Hello Culture to come and take a look.