New Media Art/ New Funding Models

Investigates the current state of funding for new media artists, with an emphasis on the support structures for innovative creative work that utilizes advanced technologies as the main vehicle for artistic practice

WEAR Sustain

A presentation on the WEAR Sustain EU-funded project's progress, challenges and values on ethical and sustainable wearable technologies and e-textiles

WEAR Sustain Network: wearable technology innovation

Purpose: As wearable technologies and eTextile sectors mature they are being increasingly used in couture and high street fashion. However, much of the innovation in this space has been driven by technological and commercial imperatives. It is time to re-consider this technological landscape in the bigger picture of a sustainable human-centred world. Approach: This paper reports on initial findings from 48 projects supported through the EU funded WEAR Sustain network to examine sustainable and ethical approaches to wearable technology design. Case studies of collaborations between artists and technologists in designing and realising sustainable and ethical wearable technologies are presented. Findings: An initial set of themes emerging from detailed analysis of WEAR Sustain network project updates are outlined highlighting the importance of cross-disciplinary hubs, mentors, and networks. A survey of wearable and eTextile stakeholders highlights the challenges faced in ethical manufacturing and production of wearable and eTextile products which blur the boundaries between digital and physical. Value: This paper offers the reader insight into challenges and opportunities in the emergent Creative Economy sector of wearables and eTextiles which have the potential to transform the fashion industry. By reporting on case studies of recent near-to-market projects this paper grounds concerns of ethics and sustainability in wearable and eTextile design and production in real-word experience

WEAR Sustain (Wearable technologists Engage with Artists for Responsible innovation): Sustainability Strategy Toolkit

This paper presents the results of the EU-funded innovation action project Wear Sustain (Wearable technologists Engage with Artists for Responsible innovation) which involved a total of 46 teams in 2 rounds of seed funding with the goal of setting the stage for the sustainable and ethical transformation of the field of textile wearable technology. Looking at three of the funded teams, we especially focus on both the process of how they were motivated to challenge their own practice, but also how the project supported them in transforming it into a more critical, sustainable practice, taking into account expert consultations, network events, and stakeholder workshops. Here, we introduce the Sustainability Strategy Toolkit (SST) and Wear Sustain platform, which was built to cater to the aforementioned challenges and provide textile wearable technologists with sustainability and ethics resources, a self-assessment tool, a viable network of peers as well as thematic hubs which provided hands-on support for the teams. We argue that this platform in conjunction with the SST may provide a starting point for novices as well as experts in the field of sustainable and ethical wearable technology, and will help push the field towards a common language regarding a more responsible practice. It supports in informing and subsequently empowering artists, designers, and technologists to implement a more sustainable and ethical approach in their practice. Furthermore, we critically assess the barriers we encountered with the inclusion of diverse stakeholders, providing arguments for stronger involvement of industry and their collaboration with individual artists and small teams. Finally, we elaborate on the discrepancy of a global innovation paradigm and the everyday reality of wearable technologists (drawing from the experience of the teams involved in the project), and how this impacts further development of the Wear Sustain platform as an arena for debate regarding the transformation of textile wearable technology practice towards more responsible, sustainable and ethical innovation

Framework for the implementation of urban big screens in the public space

In the last decade, big urban screens have appeared in town squares and on building facades across the UK. The use of these screens brings new potentials and challenges for city regulators, artists, architects, urban designers, producers, broadcasters and advertisers. Dynamic moving images form new architectural material, affecting our perception and the experience of the space around us. A new form of urban space is emerging that is fundamentally different from what we have known, and it seems that we are ill-equipped to deal with and analyse it. We are just beginning to understand the opportunities for public information, art and community engagement. Most of screens at present serve mainly commercial purposes, they do not broadcast information aimed at sharing community content nor do they support public social interactions. We need to see more negotiation between commercial, public and cultural interests. The SCREAM project addresses these new challenges by looking at the physical urban spaces and the potential spaces created by the new technologies

Media Innovation Studio Interactive Review: Volume 1

The Media Innovation Studio’s founding aim in 2012 was to work across disciplines to explore the potential of creative and digital technologies to bring about positive change. Our ‘action research’ approach is lodged in a desire to create inclusively-designed prototypes as responses to real-world issues. Originally positioned within the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLan) School of Journalism and Media, and now part of the College of Culture and the Creative Industries, the Studio’s remit is to inhabit ‘liminal spaces’ between disciplines. It hopes to explore, research and innovate within the digital ecosystem evolving around us. The human race is more socially, economically, politically and technologically interdependent than at any time in its history. Yet, inequality, instability and unsustainability remain. Collectively, the Media Innovation Studio is trying to understand whether technology has a contribution to make to resolving this broader set of fundamental social issues. Perhaps more interestingly, we’re asking whether there are an emerging series of ideas bound up in the creation and use of Information Computing Technology as it is repurposed by global communities to support activities that make our lives better. We do not believe that technology enables everyone by magically bridging the ‘digital divide’. Nor do we believe that its use by supporters of ‘digital democracy’ is any more democratic because of the use of ICT. Instead, we have discovered through a combination of talking to people, building relationships and making things together, possibilities for change are created. Thankfully, there’s plenty of evidence to demonstrate we’re capable of this. This review shows some of our projects, approaches and methodologies which combine disruptive design techniques, traditional social science and established practice-based methods from the arts. Focussing on the last 12 months of activity, the book also incorporates earlier projects that helped shape the thinking that brought us together to create the Media Innovation Studio

Generating Mobility and Power Through Art

This paper explores ideas of mobility and power using the case study Pedalpower for Bybrua, commissioned for ‘Stavanger 2008’ – Capital of Culture. Three pedal powered generators were made available to the community of Pedersgata - during daylight hours these devices were located in a number of public sites and situations - during nighttime, the stored energy was released as part of a pedestrian lighting system installed beneath the City Road Bridge ‘Bybrua’. This paper will focus on the only mobile generator; Bridgit – so called for it’s capacity to offer transit from one side of the bridge to the other. In an oil rich nation what would it mean to introduce more modest forms of energy production? How would the installation of a human powered lighting system change the way people perceived the underpass space? How might ‘human power’ change human behavior? What might the social, economic and environmental benefits be? This project demonstrates a number of practical interventions inspired by the critical writings of Ivan Illich and Henri Lefebvre. These sculptural devices allow the problems of contemporary mobility to be seen as generative opportunities – both in terms of dialogue and energy

Rising Occupational and Industry Mobility in the United States:1968-1993

We analyze the dynamics of worker mobility in the United States over the 1968-1993 period at various levels of occupational and industry aggregation. We find a substantial overall increase in occupational and industry mobility over the period and document the levels and time trends in mobility for various age-education subgroups of the population. To control for measurement error in occupation and industry coding, we develop a method that utilizes the newly released, by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Retrospective Occupation-Industry Supplemental Data Files. We emphasize the importance of the findings for understanding a number of issues in macro and labor economics, including changes in wage inequality, productivity, life-cycle earnings profiles, job stability and job security.Occupational Mobility, Industry Mobility, Career Mobility, Sectoral Real-location