ditto is delighted to announce that in May, our very special guest at Campfire will be Ruth Mackenzie, an arts director with an enviable pedigree. As general director of the Manchester International Festival, Ruth debuted daringly original works including Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s opera Monkey: Journey to the West. She was also director of the Chichester Festival Theatre and headed up the Scottish Opera.

Her biggest project to date, however, is as director of the Cultural Olympiad, which in 12 months’ time will be launching an unparalleled programme of arts events under the banner of the London 2012 Festival. Timed to coincide with the Olympic and Paralympic Games, names already confirmed include Cate Blanchett, Damon Albarn and David Hockney.

Ruth has a wealth of stories and insights to share, from starring as a singing snowflake in The Nutcracker to working with the Gorillaz, so make sure you don’t miss out on what promises to be a very special evening.

Check out our short interview with Ruth here.

Ruth’s Campfire will take place at ditto’s Lighthouse Thursday 19^th May – drop us a line at campfire@ditto.tv for free tickets, and we’ll see you there.

The Campfire crew recently headed over to the Editworks in Soho to interview television producer, artist and musician, Grant Philpott in an edit suit whilst he was busily overlooking the production of Harry Hill’s latest TV Burp DVD. Grant has had a 20 year career in TV, during which he as worked on everything from The Word, to Room 101 and has in recent years won a number of BAFTA’s with Harry Hill’s TV Burp, he will be presenting December’s Campfire.

Grant Philpott pre Campfire Interview from ditto.tv on Vimeo.

Grant will be presenting his Campfire on December 16th, all are welcome, the address of the Lighthouse is available on our contact page.

The Campfire crew recently headed over to Borough market to interview interior designer and architect, Ben Kelly at his design studio. Ben and his company have built their reputation producing high-profile innovative spaces, such as Manchester’s legendary night-club The Haçienda and will be presenting the November Campfire.

Ben Kelly Pre Campfire from ditto.tv on Vimeo.

Ben will be presenting his Campfire on November 18th, all are welcome, the address of the Lighthouse is available on our contact page.

The Campfire team caught up with Jan Pulsford, aka JaNa KyoMooN, an accomplished composer, producer, songwriter, keyboardist, virtual artist and explorer in the world of music and technology, has worked with the likes of the Thompson Twins and Cyndi Lauper. Today Jan performs as the virtual artist JaNa KYoMooN to a global online audience.

Jan Pulsford pre Campfire interview from ditto.tv on Vimeo.

Jan will be presenting our next Campfire on 21st October where she will be telling us her story.

The ditto team recently caught up with esteemed Martyn Ware, the presenter for the September campfire. Founding member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, with a range of hits, production accolades and currently working with Illustrious, creating new forms of spatialised sound composition using a unique three dimensional AudioScape surround-sound system, we at ditto are extremely excited about having Martyn in to tell us the story of his journey.

Martin Ware pre Campfire interview from ditto.tv on Vimeo.

He will be telling us his extraordinary story on 16th September, so put it in your diary now for what will surely be a very interesting evening.

The Campfire team caught up with Jamie Milne, brand ambassador for Glenfiddich. Jamie will be presenting our next Campfire on July the 15th where he will not only be talking about his work with the worlds most popular malt whiskey, but also giving us some insight into how he came to being there from a degree in aeronautical engineering and career in IT consultancy.

Jamie Milne pre Campfire interview from ditto.tv on Vimeo.

The Campfire team caught up with Liam Wells, course leader in Film & Video at Norwich University College of the Arts. Liam will be presenting our next Campfire on June the 17th where he will not only be talking about his work but introducing the second Sunrise Film Festival for ditto.

Liam Wells pre campfire interview from ditto.tv on Vimeo.

We are delighted to welcome two very special guests to Campfire, as filmmaker Mike London and musician Richard Norris come to The Lighthouse on May 20th to talk about the award winning film ‘Hope’, shot specially for ditto’s inaugural performance at The Roundhouse last May. This wonderful collaboration was shortlisted for the London Independent Film Festival Award for Best UK Music Video, fending off stiff competition to win at the ceremony on April 24th.

Mike London has been an advertising creative for nearly 20 years, working at some of London’s top agencies including Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe, where he is currently based. In that time he has written award winning ads and commercials for many of the worlds major brands including Land Rover, Virgin Atlantic, Daewoo, Lloyds TSB and Danone to name but a few. He hopes to share some of his insight into the process of realising pitches as he take the Campfire audience on a journey through ‘Hope’.

Mike will be joined on the night by Richard Norris. Richard is a veteran of the music industry, and the man behind acts The Grid, Beyond the Wizards Sleeve and The Time and Space Machine. His unique and off-kilter take on music production created an inspirational soundtrack for ‘Hope’, and we look forward to hearing some of his insight into what it takes to create such a beautiful and cinematic accompaniment.

So join us for another wonderful Campfire Story, and stay tuned to the Campfire blog for exclusive interviews as the night draws nearer.

Blast Theory is renowned internationally as one of the most adventurous artists’ groups using interactive media, creating groundbreaking new forms of performance and interactive art that mixes audiences across the internet, live performance and digital broadcasting. Led by Matt Adams, Ju Row Farr and Nick Tandavanitj, the group’s work explores interactivity and the social and political aspects of technology.

At April’s Campfire session we’ll be joined by Julianne Pierce, Executive Producer, who has worked with Blast Theory since 2007 when she relocated from Australia. Julianne is a curator, writer and producer specialising in digital and media arts. From 2000 to 2005 she was Executive Director of ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology), and is a founding member of the influential computer artist group VNS Matrix, who exhibited widely in Australia and internationally from 1991 – 1997.

Blast Theory confronts a media saturated world in which popular culture rules, using video, computers, performance, installation, mobile and online technologies to ask questions about the ideologies present in the information that envelops us. Join us for a very special night, as we explore their work at the bleeding edge of innovative gaming.

Next month’s Campfire takes a look at innovation in communication, courtesy of BT’s Jappy Takhar (Head of Innovation and Emerging Technologies) and Apu Mitra (Director of UCC and Software Services Sales for Capital Market). We recently had the pleasure of interviewing Apu and Jappy at BT tower, the world famous landmark overlooking central London, and we’ll be bringing you some highlights of that interview before their session on March 18th.

Jappy has worked at BT for over twenty years selling, developing and delivering value added solutions to BT’s Trading Systems customers. Well known in the industry as a customer-focussed professional, he is recognised as an innovator in creating collaborative propositions for the global investment banking community, delivering improved trading effectiveness across the trading cycle.

Apu has worked in the IT services industry since graduation, focusing on the Banking and Financial markets sector. During this time he has founded his own software technology company, been actively involved in a number of start-ups leading to IPO and contributed to development of innovative business propositions resulting in excess of £500millions of product portfolio revenues.

They have together recently been pioneering the new innovation BT iTrader, the first collaboration platform to bring together Traders’ desktop applications with voice platforms. With years of experience at innovation within the corporate behemoth that is BT between them April’s Campfire is shaping up to be another impressive and engaging night.