Staff from across the Faculty of Arts bring in external funding for a number of new cultural Olympiad projects
15 Aug 2013
The Faculty of Arts celebrates the success of a number of its researchers in their bids for Creative Campus Initiative project funding. Over fifty competitive bids were received and funding was given to Katrin Bohn, Dr Catherine Harper, Professor Steve Miles, Catherine Speight, Sarah Atkinson and Marley Cole, demonstrating the strength and diversity of the faculty.
The Creative Campus Initiative is a dynamic programme of high quality cultural events and activities in response to and leading up to London 2012, reflecting the distinctive strength of the arts and creative practice in South East higher education. This is one of the largest consortia of HE institutions in the UK, intended to open up the cultural resources of our campuses and provide access to world leading, practice-based research in the creative and performing arts. The unique programme seeks to connect the arts and sports in innovative ways and build widening participation through higher education partnerships with schools and communities.
Katrin Bohn attracted external funding of £6,000 from the Creative Campus Initiative (Cultural Olympiad) for a project titled 'UNLOCKING SPACE : Mapping Spatial Opportunities in Brighton & Hove'.
This project proposes to map and visualise open urban space in Brighton & Hove that has scope to be more intensively used for both, sportive and communal activities. Using the expertise of the lead researcher in designing for productive urban landscapes, the resulting Opportunity Map (Output 1) will identify underused open space in Brighton & Hove that could be enhanced in a sustainable way through a superposition of different public uses by different members of the public and including uses for urban food growing.
The resulting Opportunity Map will be visualised in one (or more) of the following ways to generate a public discussion within the local community on issues related to public space use, active lifestyles (leisure and commercial), personal health and urban sustainability:
Catherine Harper's funding of £5K is for a project titled 'Bodies Beautiful: Paralympic sportswear and equipment design'.
This project focuses on one aspect of diversity and widening participation in the context of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and in the particular context of the latter. This proposal seeks support to develop a paralympic sportswear and sports equipment design research project, working with the Fashion, Textiles, 3D Design, Materials Practice and Sustainable Design staff and students of the School.
In tandem with our current community partners, The Crew Club, and our academic colleagues in Inclusive Arts Practice and Sports Product Design, we will draw on previous KTP contract with sportswear and equipment manufacturers Grays of Cambridge and our doctoral research expertise in Knitted Textiles for Body Fit and Product Design for Medical and Physiotherapy Devices, as well as key knowledge in Plastics and Bio- and Techno-materials, to devise two staff/student/Crew Club projects that will culminate in a University of Brighton exhibition and online publication/image base.
Steve Miles, Catherine Speight and Catherine Harper have together successfully attracted an additional £10K from the Creative Campus Initiative (Cultural Olympiad) to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. Building upon Steve’s research that looks at the the impact of Generations 2012 for the Cultural Olympiad on the young people of the North East (75K) as well as work on the social cultural, and economic impact of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture the research offers a participatory means of researching the ‘lived experience’ of the people involved in the CCI. The framework for the evaluation will be designed around the involvement of students, academics, practitioners and audiences and specifically around these groups’ utilisation of creative resources. The evaluation is designed to offer an innovative participatory approach which allows HEI partners to reflect on the degree to which their own evaluation practice is achieving a sufficient depth of analysis and innovation. Steve Miles will lead the research, Catherine Speight will act as participatory research coordinator and Catherine Harper’s role is to liaise between the evaluation teams and the HEIs.
Sarah Atkinson and Marley Cole, based at University Centre Hastings, were awarded £5k to undertake their project – ‘Auditoryum’ - A site-specific three-dimensional interactive sonic soundscape.
Auditoryum is an immersive, three dimensional environment which uses both hypersonic and 7.1 surround sound design techniques and artistry. The technologies used within the installation move beyond the horizontal spatial sound created by 5.1 cinematic systems. The sonic effects also occupy the vertical auditory plane, where sounds are experienced not just from ground level, but also from above, below and emitting from within the actual space itself. The installation moves into new forms of interactive storytelling by allowing visitors to create their own unique experience each time that they visit. When entering the installation the visitor is directly placed into the sonic environment of an Olympic sporting arena; the ambient sounds of the arena will be audible as visitors step into the space; then specific audio sounds will be triggered by the visitor’s movement through motion sensing. For example spatialised 360-degree sonic instances periodically occur; the sound of runners feet, swimmers bodies, cyclists and horses traverse through the speakers, which surround the space. Site specific audio moments will also occur; the sound of a starter pistol, of a javelin pole rushing through the air overhead, of a divers’ body cutting through the water of a swimming pool.
Sarah and Marley will be working with 2012 athletes as they train for the games during the creation of this work, which will be exhibited at sites in Brighton and Hastings in June 2010.
Further success in the competition came from Jess Moriarty, who was awarded a further £5,000 for a dynamic project seeking to develop a creative partnership between the University of Sussex, the University of Brighton, the University of the Third Age and the wider Brighton community. The project aims to explore new and existing connections between art and sport through the medium of creative writing and hopes to inspire and motivate the students and staff from the two universities to share their stories, real and imagined, relating to the themes of ‘Sport’ ‘Olympics’ and ‘Challenge’. This will culminate in a creative workshop with students from the universities and members of the University of the Third Age and a collaborative anthology from all partners (with ISBN number) that will be available for purchase in local bookstores.
