DCRC - Digital Cultures Research Centre

The end of January and the beginning of February has seen several projects start to wind up and some interesting new opportunities for the DCRC. This delayed double week, or 'fortnight', note rattles through what we've been doing in the last two weeks.

In May last year, the artists YoHa held their 'Pneumatic Database Soiree', part of the DCRC commissioned 'Invisible Airs' project, also part of the Bristol City Council 'open data' scheme. DCRC collaborator, and UWE colleague, Alistair Oldham has, in the last two weeks, been putting the finishing touches to a film about 'Invisible Airs'. The film has already been previewed at CCA Glasgow and is going to be shown at a number of festivals this year - check back for further details. The event was a performance lecture with contraptions. YoHa have posted a video of the community sessions that led up to the event:

On the theme of video, DCRC Director Jonthan Dovey's keynote lecture from 'Expanding Documentary', a conference held in New Zealand last year, has been posted on YouTube by the conference organisers. You can find the videos in an earlier post on this blog.

On 24th January iShed Director Clare Reddington tweeted about the workshop which considered the research findings of the DCRC's exploration of measuring cultural value. Clare paraphrased some of the discussion from the research team concerning the complex area of 'network governance':

"When trying to understand your organization, start by comparing yourself to the mafia."

"In the future we want creative economy to refer to a currency around meaning, not when creativity unlokcs value in the money economy."

Clare concluded with this open question: "How can we stay open to conversations we don't expect?"

Responsive interest was quick, with Dr. Dave O'Brien enquiring, on Twitter, about when a published report would be made available for the public. It is expected that the AHRC press Connected Communities site should have this information in March or soon after.

DCRC PhD researcher Tomas Rawlings recently presented his work, both academic and professional, at the 'Playability' event held in Exeter. Convened in the Geography Department, the event gathered together a wide range of contributers including several current and past Pervasive Media Studio residents.

Many of our readers may have already seen the Code/Space bibliography posted on this blog recently, which has attracted quite a bit of attention. DCRC are looking to post more material in that vein so please keep uptodate with our blog posts. You might also find the recently posted bibliography of the English translations of work by Bernard Stiegler of interest.

UWE colleague, and Research Skills Officer, Paul Spencer recently convened a 'Digital Researcher' day-long training course on campus. Colleagues were introduced to the use of social media to promote their research, some interesting comments were made on twitter using the hashtag #druwe.

As we enter February we're approaching the second i-Docs conference concerning the evolving nature of the interactive documentary format. This year's conference is two days of fantastic speakers followed by a third day of hands-on workshops introducing cutting edge applications and techniques for this developing medium. Please visit the i-Docs website for more information and read our Creative Research Fellow Mandy Rose's excellent introduction.

Also looking to the near future, DCRC Research Fellow Sam Kinsley is giving the Pervasive Media Studio lunchtime talk this Friday, 10th February, on the theme of 'Design Fiction'. 'Design Fiction' describes ways of using storytelling techniques, especially in the form of video, to make speculative design ideas feel real. Sam offers some insight into uses of design fiction drawing on his extensive research into the relationship between technology development, time consciousness and future prediction.