DCRC - Digital Cultures Research Centre

At the end of October I crossed flightpaths with fellow DCRC researcher Sam Kinsley. He was heading back from carrying out field studies in California as a follow up to his doctoral work, while I headed toward San Francisco for the first Storyworld Conference and Expo.

Since relaunching this website at the beginning of September the DCRC team haven't stopped! Director Jon Dovey has been striking ground on the South West AHRC knowledge exchange hub REACT, Sam Kinsley has been conducting British Academy funded research fieldwork in California, and Constance Fleuriot has been working on the Pervasive Media Cookbook with Jess Linington as well as concluding research at Knowle West Media Centre for our Connected Communities project 'Keeping in Touch'.

Pearl and Dean have given permission to use the Asteroid ident for the Projection Hero installation.

Pervasive media is neither a sci-fi pipedream or an exotic research agenda in a secretive corporate research lab. Media has, for the developed (and mostly Western) world become something like pervasive by virtue of the significant expansion of the global internet infrastructure. We have come to assume the presence of this infrastructure as an unseen, and taken for granted, substrate of everyday life.

In July 2010 the DCRC held the first intensive five day course for producers of pervasive media projects, held at the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol. The summer school was aimed at those who have some experience working in digital media and want to explore using context aware platforms to deliver a project.

As we close another week of busy activity, DCRC marks the culmination of a stimulating and really productive Creative Producers Summer School. This second Summer School (the first being in 2010) ran here at the Pervasive Media Studio in partnership with iShed. The 2011 summer school was supported by Arts Council England.

Recent DCRC appointment Jess Linington is documenting the inspirational and informative discussions taking place as part of the Creative Producers Summer School, which is being conducted as a part of Professor Jonathan Dovey's Knowledge Transfer Fellowship concerning Pervasive Media in concert with iShed and with the support of Arts Council England.