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Brendan Arnold

@brendanarnold.bsky.social
711 followers 2.9K following 106 posts

#CreativeTechnologist :: Policy Lab, HM Government :: Tech practitioner/Design thinking/Policymaking/Making :: Cleethorpes/Bristol/London

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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Such a beautiful obsession - collaborating with chance and wife Meg, deeply personal but needing a community to view it. Complex, messy algorithms, fragmented, growing and decaying - reminds me of when computers were more recognisably human #CreativeTech - So cool www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is8N...
youtube.com
He Won’t Stop Building a Map to an Imaginary Place
YouTube video by People Make Games
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
I was brought into this group last year by @patcon.bsky.social who I met in Newspeak House atending Pol.is related gatherings - a chain of events which speaks to the grassroots movement of the Voxit Community and the value of these convening places. www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...
linkedin.com
#policyinnovation #collectiveintelligence #innovationinpractice #publicsectorinnovation | Policy Lab UK
Collective Intelligence methods are evolving – and Policy Lab’s practice is evolving with them.   We recently joined partners from across Europe in Helsinki to test new approaches to large-scale digit...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
... part of the MoJ Re-use Library ❤️
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Not tried but Ben Fraser has been working on this markdown file as context for working with AI & Prototype Kit dev.reuselibrary.service.justice.gov.uk/assets/ai-co...
dev.reuselibrary.service.justice.gov.uk
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Friend of mine has merch in the V&A Dundee, unbelievably cool if you are into knitwear and coding (knitware?) and you have some ££ cannot recommend more… shop.vandadundee.org/products/sco...
shop.vandadundee.org
Alice-Marie Archer | Repairing the Riverbank Luxury Knitted Wool Scarf
Developed in connection with the Garden Futures: Designing with Nature exhibition; this gorgeous exclusive scarf extends the ideas behind Alice-Marie Archer’s Repairing the Riverbank — a large-scale k...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Looking to head up in the new year, last year's was 🔥🔥🔥 - hope to see you there!
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Studio manager role at Policy Lab! 🎉🎉🎉 - run our team-wide operations in a really amazing policy innovation team in central gov - Apply before 12th August www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...
civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk
Quick Check Needed
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Great paid opportunity for early-stage designers to get experience in a policy design context in UK central government - massively recommended! #PolicyDesign #Placement www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...
linkedin.com
Applications now open: Policy Lab Design Placements | Policy Lab UK
Applications now open: Policy Lab Design Placements   Policy Lab is offering a limited number of paid placements (~6 months) for graphic designers, other designers and creative practitioners who thriv...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Policy Lab are looking for an entry-level film ethnographer to join our team - www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...
civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk
Quick Check Needed
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
People in government .... www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...
linkedin.com
Are you a UK civil servant looking to build your skills in innovative policymaking? | Policy Lab UK
Are you a UK civil servant looking to build your skills in innovative policymaking? Policy Lab, a cross-government innovation team, is offering 4–6 month placements for civil servants interested in e...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
What a title… Aesthetics and Communication lead going at Policy Lab. Open to Bristol peeps - 3 of us here already, can we get Policy Lab SW?? www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...
linkedin.com
🚨 We are hiring! 🚨 Can you be Policy Lab's Aesthetics and… | Policy Lab UK
🚨 We are hiring! 🚨 Can you be Policy Lab's Aesthetics and Communications Lead? We are looking for an ambitious and talented individual to lead the development of Policy Lab's visual aestheti...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Kal Dosa is amaze - if you want a bit closer to centre maybe Chido Way if you fancy a nice Mexican place?
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Running the online debate on the Future of Civil Service Skills with Policy Lab, come join - civil servants only! 👀 If you aren't a civil servant but know a few, please do let them know! - www.linkedin.com/posts/policy...
linkedin.com
#civilservice | Policy Lab UK
Policy Lab and Government Skills (Cabinet Office) are calling on UK civil servants to join a groundbreaking online ‘collective intelligence’ debate, using our innovative Pol.is system, to revolutionis...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
🧵 3/3 - ... delighted to be able to carve out time to collaborate on Collective Intelligence open-source with Citizens Foundation (citizens.is). @robertbjarnason.bsky.social and myself looked at how we can collaborate, meet UK gov criteria and prep the software for our sandbox
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
🧵 2/3 - ... #VideoGames featured again with a viewing of Grand Theft Hamlet (www.undiscoveredcountryfilm.com) and Operation Jane Walk (totalrefusal.com/home/operati... ) at Hafnar Haus, meeting the developers of Nuts (noodlecake.com/games/nuts/ ) as well as even a visit to Baldurs Gate ...
Picture of ab Icelandic road sign labelled 'Baldursgata'Screen showing a still from Grand Theft Hamlet (people in a casino playing slot machines) from the perspective of an audience member in communal spaceBanner for the Nuts video game - stylised image of a forest with a camera and squirrel semi hidden
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
🧵 1/3 - Beyond the landscape, recent #Iceland 🇮🇸 trip highlights included a micro-residency at hafnar.haus, talks, discussions, brilliant socially conscious creatives in the former Ministry of Welfare. Lunchtime food parades and possibly the best office view ever ..
Brendan giving a talk in the cateen at Hafnar Haus, people watchingDoor showing the original Icelandic Ministry of Welfare decals alongside Hafnar Haus brandingPerspective of someone carrying a big bowl of salad entering a large room full of peopleA modern office desk looking out of a bay window over a view of mountains and harbour
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Taken by how Icelanders seem to know my hometown of #Grimsby better than people in the UK do. Isolated Icelandic villages often had better ties to coastal towns around the world than Reykjavik. Got quite reflective, took a trip out to the Westfjords - came across a wrecked Grimsby trawler on the way
Rusty scrap remains of the Grimsby trawler wrecked on a black sand beach with a glacier behind itMorning view out of a window of a small fishing harbour with lights on with a Fjord bluff behind itHand holding a bottle of Lysi cod-liver oil An array of dried fish heads on display on a white tiled wall
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Took some time out from my trip to 🇮🇸 to chat with Josie Maltinsky Gaitens from East of Moon about being a Creative Technologist in Policy Lab ... #EastOfMoonTransmissions #CreativeTechnology -
eastofmoon.com
A Creative Technologist with the UK government | East of Moon
Laboratories for community centred innovation.
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
This is an incredibly annoying feature for other people too when e.g. putting together a workshop plan I don’t want everyone to know about my half-baked document…
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
Love the idea that writing blogs is writing letters to AI
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 4/4 - ... really feel we should be more proud of the things we do to fend off corruption and keep government sovereign, we need to be more transparent and help people understand what they see under the covers - so important for trust and resilience
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 3/4 - ... it reminded me a lot of #Government. Trust is low, we hide so much complexity and it's seen as a monolith yet we strive so much for #OpenStandards, checks and balances which is partly why it seems slow - government is actually like a #RaspberryPi but we put it in a Macbook shell...
A Raspberry Pi board in a hand
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 2/4 - ...it felt transgressive and is maybe against IT policy but its important to know what's under the covers. Inside is a network of patterns and black boxes which we could be tempted into conspiracy ("is there a spy chip in there?") (image: Demon symbols from Ars Goetia @goth600) ...
An array fo symbols of demons from Ars Goetia next to a photo of a circuit board with similar looking symbols  (Original: @goth600 on X)
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 1/4 - In our fortnightly blue-sky session #ImaginationStation we took a closer look at the electronics around us as part of an art exploration. Part of this was logging off of Teams, shutting down the Macbook and removing the back cover to see what was inside ...
Filming of the cover removal of the Macbook on a conference tableRemoving the cover of the Macbook with a screwdrivers
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 4/4 - ... really feel we should be more proud of the things we do to fend off corruption and keep government sovereign, we need to be more transparent and help people understand what they see under the covers - so important for trust and resilience
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 3/4 - ... it reminded me a lot of #Government. Trust is low, we hide so much complexity and it's seen as a monolith yet we strive so much for #OpenStandards, checks and balances which is partly why it seems slow - government is actually like a #RaspberryPi but we put it in a Macbook shell...
A Raspberry Pi board in a hand
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 2/3 - ...it felt transgressive and is maybe against IT policy but its important to know what's under the covers. Inside is a network of patterns and black boxes which we could be tempted into conspiracy ("is there a spy chip in there?") (image: Demon symbols from Ars Goetia @goth600) ...
An array fo symbols of demons from Ars Goetia next to a photo of a circuit board with similar looking symbols  (Original: @goth600 on X)
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
🧵 2/3 - ...it felt transgressive and is maybe against IT policy but its important to know what's under the covers. Inside is a network of patterns and black boxes which we could be tempted into conspiracy ("is there a spy chip in there?") (image: demon sigals from Ars Goetha @goth600) ...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
3/3 🧵 - … thanks to the organisers which are all volunteers - great event
A man in pink shirt punches air in front of screen that reads - Cross Government Software Engineering Community
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
2/3 🧵- @edent.tel great talk on what it takes to make government software open-source - here a comment is mad fuel for conspiracy ppl…
A slide with a code comment that reads - When the signal is received, terminate all non-responsive children. Do not log any data about this, and spawn a new daemon.
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
1/3 🧵 - Cross government software engineering conference today at GDS Whitechapel, presenting talk on Creative Technology in Government …
Presenter next to screen with abstract image of face on it
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
Ah amaze, @larakinneir.bsky.social has blue sky wings 🦋!
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
Such a buzzy vibe at #ukgc25 with really some really thoughtful discussions. Policy Lab represent with @prateekbuch.bsky.social and Lara Kinneir - Moawr pls!
Selfie of Brendan, Prateek and Lara in the audience at UK GovCamp 2025 at MoJ Building, Petit France, London
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Very Useful Library all-round - its in my bookmarks!
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
#Bristol #Hackspace Christmas #RobotWars
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
When our #Ethnography researchers showcased this to the team it was amazing to see how the discussion in-game was different to that in the participant's home - two completely different complementary bits of insight, both so rich 💡 openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2024/12/11/w...
openpolicy.blog.gov.uk
Why we are experimenting with ethnography in the metaverse
Over the past decade Policy Lab has established a foundational practice in film ethnography. Throughout this time, we have continued to push the boundaries of how this method can support policymakers ...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
🧵 4/4 - ... #FuturesThinking captures the imagination, is massively important and has moved on in 20 years but in all this piece feels reassuring in its inaccuracy - existential bugbears are nothing new, keep them in mind but don't lose it on the way - long live #Futurism!
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
🧵 3/4 - ... in the years I've been following, the AI predictions seemed wildly off but now are back, nanotech has taken a backseat, some seemingly flippant one-line threats feel very possible now and are the topic of #GlobalMegaTrends from Defra and others ...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
🧵 2/4 - ... Moore's Law was still a thing and so lots of massive AI compute was predicted as well as advanced compute in tiny form factors (robot insect pollinators), the big #ExistentialThreat of the day was nanotechnology and 'grey goo' and features massively (nanobots in toothpaste) ...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
🧵 1/4 - I've been tracking the prediction in this 2001 BT Exact whitepaper for well over 20 years now (brendan.sdf-eu.org/downloads/the_fu…) lots of interesting predictions but perhaps the most interesting thing is how much it said about the time it was written ...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Policy mini games? WarioWare for workshops? A Policy Lab #ImaginationStation session building and publishing experimental games in Downpour (thanks to @v21.bsky.social for the amazing toolkit)
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Really thoughtful and well presented futures work from Natural England 🍃 'Ecology Re-Wired' at Horizon House, Bristol. #GenerativeAI imagery, natural artefacts and especially love the quiet office pod converted into a listening booth 🎧
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
🧵 3/3 - .. not sure I'd want to buy all my stuff like this but there was also a real human element to the process, like everything was 'finding a way to agreement' which reminded me of policy work and you could get really creative with the offers - no 'computer says no', just interactions
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
🧵 2/3 - ... stuff wasn't tons cheaper than home and I know that locals got better deals but it felt OK since you wouldn't go to another store and see the same thing for less with no prices on display. Its a cool example of a distributed pricing policy supported by people that mostly works...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
🧵 1/3 - 'Café Les Négociants' sits on the corner of a busy intersection in Marrakech - people (mostly guys) come here to make deals and people watch. When I arrived I really didn't like the negotiations when buying stuff here, no prices on anything, but after a week I started to get into it ...
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Hey @patcon.bsky.social, Edward Foale set up Collective Intelligence Lab where we run pol.is and Josh Smith, then at Demos helped us set it up - don’t think they are on Bluesky tho, @prateekbuch.bsky.social currently leads it, Celyn Bricker also does some of our pol.is operations.
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Bristol Urban Forum manifesto event, culmination of a years worth of experiments in Bristol on #CitizenAssembly
Perspective of talk from seat showing the Bristol Urban Forum manifesto on lapParticipants discussing themes identified by the citizen assembly process
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 03/11/2024
Ah unfortunately in not due to be in London then, really enjoyed the previous in Tokyo, will keep an eye out for next time!
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
Matina surely?
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Brendan Arnold @brendanarnold.bsky.social · 29/10/2024
Huge privilege to write about and continue the work here by Amy Ramdehal, Christie van-Tinteren and Stephen Bennett openpolicy.blog.gov.uk/2024/10/29/a... - "how can Natural England better work with early-stage creatives on protected sites across the country?"
openpolicy.blog.gov.uk
A role for the creative sector in protecting environmental sites
Policy Lab has a 10-year history of convening diverse voices to contribute to policymaking, including those of creative practitioners. Our ongoing collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research C...
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