What’s New

South West Creative Technology Network: Data Showcase

Friday 26th March 2021, 9am

On March 26th The South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN) invite you to join them online for their Data Showcase.

It’s a day to share, reflect on and challenge ideas in DATA, INCLUSIVE FUTURES and CREATIVE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT.

Explore the inspiring work of the Data Prototype teams, and learn more about their developing work, as well as diving into the deep thinking done by our Data Fellows.

Face Unlock: A Pervasive Media Lunchtime talk with Teresa Dillon

Friday 5th March 2021, 1pm

Join Teresa Dillon, artist and Professor of City Futures at UWE, to explore the world of facial recognition & its intersectional histories.

Our technologies are never neutral.
Embedded within their design and articulation are nested decisions that propagate certain views and ways of being in the world, over others. This talk focuses on the histories of facial recognition software, drawing on research into early photography, anthropometric techniques and the normalisation of the ‘criminal profile’.

In 2020 The South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN) launched their Data Fellowship as part of a year of thinking about Data. Now with the prototype strand in full swing the team are looking towards their Data Showcase on 26 March, an online day of fun and adventure exploring data, new forms of investment and inclusive futures. 

This talk is in partnership with SWCTN.

Catastrophe to opportunity: Covid & the creative industries in SW England

Wednesday 24 February 2021, 12.30

The creative and cultural sector as a whole faces an uncertain future as a result of Covid 19 and subsequent policies, with long-term unemployment and business closures a reality for many.

In this talk, chaired by DCRC member Dr. Tarek Virani, we will learn about the key findings of research undertaken by UWE Bristol’s Creative Economies Lab.

During 2020, the team carried out a detailed survey aimed at understanding how Covid-19 had impacted the creative and cultural sector in South West England. Led by Dr. Tarek Virani, Associate Professor of Creative Industries at UWE Bristol, the survey aimed to learn how the sector was being affected by the pandemic, how it was adapting and planning for the future.

Tarek will be joined by Melanie Rodrigues, Founder/Creative Director, Gritty Talent , Jack Gibbon, Director, Bricks Bristol and Alex Duarte-Davies, Executive Director of Theatre Royal Bath’s Theatre School inc. The Egg Assembly

Amplified Publishing opportunities for Industry from
Bristol + Bath Creative R+D

Deadline for applications: Monday 15 March 2021, 10am

Bristol + Bath Creative R + D are excited to announce a new funding call for six Fellows and four to six Industry Partners to join the programme to explore Amplified Publishing and interrogate questions around the future models of content creation, discovery and distribution.

Successful applicants will be given between £5k and £12k – depending upon which opportunity they apply for – along with various other opportunities including time, space and resources to focus intensively on exploring an area of interest in the field of Amplified Publishing.

We’re looking for SMEs and freelancers working across publishing, games, video, XR, etc, in the broadly defined field – people working on creating and disseminating content. (We’ve already recruited our academic fellows).

Deadline for Applications: 10am, Monday 15 March 2021

Image credit: Jazz Thompson

Making Through Failing
A Pervasive Media Studio Lunchtime talk with Rob Eagle

Friday 5th February 2021 – 1pm

We are looking forward to hearing from DCRC Member and PHD researcher Rob Eagle as he discusses Making Through Failing.

Inspired by Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure, this talk embraces techniques of failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking and not knowing. These are actions and feelings many artists, academics and queers know all too well by ‘not fitting in’ or achieving the usual societal metrics of success. Once we embrace our outcast status, everyday failure can open up opportunities for us to live non-normative lifestyles, form alternative kinship groups and create work that is true to who we are and how we see the world.

This talk was broadcast live on Watershed’s Youtube Channel – Link below.

Image Credit – Rob Eagle

Publication launch of Making It Real: A Policy Programme for UK Documentary Film

Tuesday 2nd February 2021

DCRC Members Steve Presence, Alice Quigley and Andrew Spicer have just announced the publication of Making It Real, following on from the UK Feature Docs’ previous report, Keeping it Real: Towards a Documentary Film Policy for the UK, published last summer.

Based on a survey of 200 leading UK nonfiction producers and directors, Keeping it Real outlined a chronic lack of funding, support and coordination at the heart of the UK’s feature documentary film sector. This new report represents the sector’s response to those original findings in the light of global events including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

It ultimately comprises a new industrial strategy for documentary based on inclusivity, sustainability and the creation of optimum conditions for success at home and internationally.

Introducing Container
A Pervasive Media Studio Lunchtime
talk with Alice Quigley

Friday 9th February, 1pm

Join Alice Quigley from the Creative Economies Lab for a lunchtime talk at the Pervasive Media Studio.

This is a fantastic opportunity to find out more about Container: a new online magazine about creative tech. Container explores the world we live in by looking at & questioning how we use technology for social & cultural purposes.

Container is based in Bristol and born out of a long-term collaboration between Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio and UWE Bristol’s Creative Economies Lab, alongside leading creative and technology-based labs and research centres across the South West.

Creative Technology Lab talk – Rod Dickinson & Sarah Selby – Control Shift / The Departed

Wednesday 9th December, 4pm

Find out more about the ‘Control Shift’ digital art programme Rod Dickinson co-curated with Martha King and Becca Rose Glowacki in Bristol in October 2020. Sarah Selby will discuss ’The Departed (A Digital Seance)’ a digital artwork which she made with Tim Kindberg for Control Shift.

The Control Shift programme brought together both international and Bristol based contemporary artists whose artworks and workshops explored ways that we can reimagine and rethink our digital tools. The programme was part online and part IRL with physical installations situated across the city.

Control Shift Network is a collective of artists, technologists and producers.

https://www.control-shift.network/

Image Credit: The Departed image by Ibi Feher / Control Shift image by Becca Rose Glowacki & Control Shift Network

Research Seminar: “Family Migration, Separation and Communication – Visualising the Hostile Immigration Environment” with Dr Emma Agusita

Wednesday 25th November, 10am

DCRC member Dr Emma Agusita is presenting her work “Family Migration, Separation and Communication – Visualising the Hostile Immigration Environment” through UWE Bristol’s Global Migration Network this week.

Emma is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Media Communications in ACE (Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education, UWE).

This seminar presents insights from a research study, Visualising Love, funded by UWE Bristol, that explored impacts on partners and families of cross border separation caused by restrictive UK immigration controls. www.vizlove.org

If you have any questions about the seminar, please contact the Global Migration Network coordinator Dr Artjoms Ivlevs (a.ivlevs@uwe.ac.uk)  

Keeping it Real: Towards a Documentary Film Policy for the UK

Policy Report

‘UK Feature Docs: A Study of the Feature Documentary Film Industry’ is an AHRC-funded study of the UK’s feature documentary film industry.

The project will map the industry, historicise its development and explore the manifold challenges involved in the finance, production, distribution and exhibition of feature documentary films in the UK.

In 2019, the team launched what became the largest survey ever conducted of UK feature doc producers and directors. Keeping it Real: Towards A Documentary Film Policy for the UK, is based on the survey findings and reveals a sector that was in urgent need of intervention even before the advent of COVID-19.

Bristol Arts Channel: Reaching local audiences through lockdown

Wednesday 9th December 2020, 12.30pm

Bristol+Bath Creative R+D are running a series of research based discussion events. The first one up is on the Bristol Arts Channel, where Clare Reddington, Watershed CEO, Katherine Jewkes, Curator Bristol Arts Chanel and La Toyah McAllister-Jones, Executive Director of St Pauls Carnival will be discussing how they  brought a diverse programme of in-person cultural content online in record time.

Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters webinar

Friday 20th November 2020, 4pm

Please join us for “Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters” part of the BVI Seminar Series put on by Bristol Vision Institute. This talk will be introduced by BVI Director, Professor Dave Bull.

Professor Kirsten Cater, Principal Investigator University of Bristol, and Co-Investigators, Professor Danae Stanton Fraser (University of Bath) and DCRC Director Professor Mandy Rose (UWE Bristol) will share findings from the three year EPSRC Virtual Realities: Immersive Documentary Encounters project, examining the application of virtual reality for nonfiction.

Is Fake News a Digital Problem?
Join Marcus Gilroy-Ware in conversation with a special guest panel for the launch of his new book After the Fact?

Thursday 12th November 2020, 6pm

The words ‘fake news’ have become an ominous symbol for an informational landscape where nothing is quite what it seems, any factual assertion can be thrown into doubt, and who you believe has almost entirely to do with your pre-existing political persuasions. Is it as simple as blaming the digital technologies we use to learn about politics?

DCRC member Marcus Gilroy-Ware will be joined by special guests Dr. Sivamohan Valluvan, Professor Jo Littler and Professor Natalie Fenton in a discussion about his new book After the Fact?, which looks at fake news and conspiracy theories, ‘bullshit journalism’ and the resurgence of the far-right.

Find out more: http://www.mjgw.net/

These Pages Fall Like Ash – Immersive Storytelling between two worlds online event

Tuesday 10th November 2020, 7pm

Launched in August 2020, the new edition of These Pages Fall Like Ash now has over 300 copies live across the globe, spanning 30 countries and 4 continents.

Join the creative team – Tom Abba, Duncan Speakman and Emilie Grenier, alongside special guest Nick Harkaway – for a conversation about the project and what’s next for this new form of storytelling.

Author Kate Pullinger will be moderating this event – http://www.katepullinger.com/

Find out more – and buy the book! https://pagesfall.com/

The Ethics of VR documentary
MIT Open Documentary Lab in conversation (online) with Mandy Rose

Tuesday 27th October 2020, 5pm (GMT)

Community Conversations 3: i-docs and multi-perspectival thinking webinar

Wednesday 21st October 2020, 5pm

We are delighted to be supporting the third i-Docs Community Conversations webinar – i-docs and multi-perspectival thinking.

In this webinar i-Docs Co-director, Judith Aston, and Stefano Odorico, Director of the International Research Centre for Interactive Storytelling (IRIS), will present their ongoing work on i-docs and multi-perspectival thinking.

Central to this work is their research into polyphony, as a means through which to promote intercultural dialogue and exchange in a context of increasing polarization.

August sees the release of These Pages Fall Like Ash Second Edition

Published August 2020

DCRC Members Tom Abba and Duncan Speakman are releasing a second edition of These Pages Fall Like Ash – an immersive story told across time, place and the pages of two books. One book is a crafted, physical, familiar artefact, a guide to an imagined world, and a reminder that your own world is just as unique. The other is a digital text that weaves the two books together. Immerse yourself from August 20th 2020.

Composed by Tom Abba, Duncan Speakman With Emilie Grenier, Nick Harkaway and Neil Gaiman.

Hot off the press in July a new edited collection: Contemporary Radical Film Culture

Published July 2020

DCRC researcher Steve Presence, alongside co-editors Mike Wayne and Jack Newsinger, have announced the publication of their new edited collection – Contemporary Radical Film Culture: Networks, Organisations and Activists – the first book to emerge from the Radical Film Network.

With essays from some of the leading scholars and practitioners in the field, this is the first book to investigate twenty-first century radical film practices across production, distribution and exhibition at a global level.

DCRC to collaborate in new
multi-million-pound creative
hub for the South West

5 year project will start Autumn 2020

DCRC researchers will join a new creative media powerhouse called MyWorld which is set to create more than 700 jobs and further the South West as an international trailblazer in screen-based media, thanks to £46 million funding.

Led by Professor David Bull at the University of Bristol, the initiative will develop major new research and development (R&D) facilities and partnerships connecting regional, national and international creative industry and technology partners.

DCRC’s Mandy Rose will lead the UWE Bristol team in MyWorld, working with Simon Moreton and Jon Dovey. The UWE Bristol academics will contribute expertise in immersive media production,  and draw on a significant body of research into creative industry ecosystems to understand the impact of the MyWorld project in the city region.

Photo – Creative Producers International Residential Lab at the Watershed, Bristol.

Photo credit: Shamphat Productions