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Media City

On the former dockland, Salford Quays, the city’s shiny dream factories have sprung up, with tv creators, game makers and game changers finding space to succeed

From the derelict Salford dockyard, over the last two decades Media City, or MCUK, has mushroomed, spanning 200 acres of state-of-the-art tv and radio studios, apartments, offices, cafes, bars and restaurants. The BBC, ITV and a delicatessen of production and tech companies have moved into the glass towers overlooking the Ship Canal, to the point where there are something like 3,500 residents, 900 businesses and around 25,000 people working there.

Dig Media

Dig Media, based in Media City, is the counter culture production company at the forefront of tech surprises that has produced this Echo Salford app.

Longtime collaborators include the University of Salford, Salford City Council, Manchester International Festival and more.

Jack Henry Moore's archive

Jack Henry Moore

One of the most influential arts advocates to emerge from the 1960s and 1970s international underground scene.

A video pioneer in the decades that followed, Jack Henry Moore amassed a personal collection of 2500+ unreleased tapes of lost cultural gems.

Starting with one of the earliest portable video cameras, Jack dove onto the scene and documented pivotal moments in international counterculture, until his death in 2014 when Dig Media acquired his archive.

Digital Archive Restoration

Digital Restoration

Dig uses multiple techniques to restore and enhance media.

These include old technology with time base correction through to newly formed AI driven software, returning media to original states, and in some cases upscale and improve them way beyond it.

What Happens at MCUK?

In the piazza, there’s a giant screen showing stuff from the Beeb, while concerts, demos and all sorts happen here. The wider area includes the Blue Peter Garden (wooo!) and lots of planters with inspirational words slapped on them, like ‘Create’…plus the art and dining experience, Box On The Docks, which showcases music, theatre, exhibitions and all kinds of outdoor and in-pod experiences.

The University of Salford’s media campus is here too…Media City aims to be a futuristic slice of the now, housed in streets with no names, just colour coded thoroughfares with ambient lighting to match. Dirty Old Town, this is not!

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