Mark Wright
I am interested in the relationship between technology and culture. In particular the design of new forms of digital media.
The cultural significance of technology is its power to create new forms of embodied and embedded interaction with the world and each other. In doing so it brings into existence new way of doing, thinking and being. For the arts and creative industries this means the digital is not just a way to conduct practice by other means but an opportunity for radical evolution of that practice. I am interested in the process by which this happens. The creativity, innovation and exploration inherent in the design process plays a central role here. Rather than the analytic requirements capture of some approaches or the passive ethnographic study of existing practice we use design interventions as a research tool to embed technology into complex social contexts and thus to reveal something about those contexts and developments of new digital media and their use unfold together. This also forms a very powerful model for Knowledge Transfer and Commercial innovation. We form collaborative networks of researchers, users and entrepreneurs to co-create new forms of digital media companies, products and services which benefits society and forms an enhanced network for further research and innovation.
Mobile and Locative Media:
Using image matching and similar technologies we have been able to turn urban spaces into "tagscapes" which allow the design of social applications based on new signifying practices.
Haptic Design Media:
A great deal of the skill of the artist and creative practitioner is "tacit" in the interaction of their bodies with the world. Haptics allows the transfer of tacit knowledge into digital tools which are currently largely disembodied. We have created new tools for design and animation using this approach and other applications in heritage. We are also using haptics to explore embodiment in dance practice.
Narrative:
In "Walking the City" De Certeau describes the people moving through the city as invisible authors unaware of the "text" they write across the face of the urban landscape. Mobile and other networked digital media make it possible to see this "text" and make it available as new forms of parallel interactive narrative media.We are exploring the possibilities of these new media for new forms of storytelling and memory practices.
Virtual and Real Worlds:
We conceptualise the virtual not as a seperate "place" but as a set of parallel universes constantly avialable to augment and communicate with the real world. We have explored the use of social network, media repositories and the metaverse second life as "memory spaces" linked to the real world through mobile and web technologies.
Knowlege Transfer;
I have been involved in the creation of two spinouts in mobile and haptics and have acted as a mentor for many more. I see knowledge transfer as an important element leading to continued collaborations and new concepts.
Present Role:
I am FACT Lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University. I work closely with FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, an internationally acclaimed digital media arts organisation in Liverpool. I teach in Fine Art and help engage students with the digital at FACT.
Professional Activities and Bodies:
I am a co-founder of Eurohaptics the European level haptic research body and am on the steering committee.
I am on the steering group of the World Haptics which is the international body for haptics research. I was Co-Chair of Eurohaptics, the leading European Conference on Haptic (touch) technologies. I am a member of ACM Siggraph
I have recently talked at ACE Arts Council England on the interdisciplinary between LJMU and FACT
The cultural significance of technology is its power to create new forms of embodied and embedded interaction with the world and each other. In doing so it brings into existence new way of doing, thinking and being. For the arts and creative industries this means the digital is not just a way to conduct practice by other means but an opportunity for radical evolution of that practice. I am interested in the process by which this happens. The creativity, innovation and exploration inherent in the design process plays a central role here. Rather than the analytic requirements capture of some approaches or the passive ethnographic study of existing practice we use design interventions as a research tool to embed technology into complex social contexts and thus to reveal something about those contexts and developments of new digital media and their use unfold together. This also forms a very powerful model for Knowledge Transfer and Commercial innovation. We form collaborative networks of researchers, users and entrepreneurs to co-create new forms of digital media companies, products and services which benefits society and forms an enhanced network for further research and innovation.
Mobile and Locative Media:
Using image matching and similar technologies we have been able to turn urban spaces into "tagscapes" which allow the design of social applications based on new signifying practices.
Haptic Design Media:
A great deal of the skill of the artist and creative practitioner is "tacit" in the interaction of their bodies with the world. Haptics allows the transfer of tacit knowledge into digital tools which are currently largely disembodied. We have created new tools for design and animation using this approach and other applications in heritage. We are also using haptics to explore embodiment in dance practice.
Narrative:
In "Walking the City" De Certeau describes the people moving through the city as invisible authors unaware of the "text" they write across the face of the urban landscape. Mobile and other networked digital media make it possible to see this "text" and make it available as new forms of parallel interactive narrative media.We are exploring the possibilities of these new media for new forms of storytelling and memory practices.
Virtual and Real Worlds:
We conceptualise the virtual not as a seperate "place" but as a set of parallel universes constantly avialable to augment and communicate with the real world. We have explored the use of social network, media repositories and the metaverse second life as "memory spaces" linked to the real world through mobile and web technologies.
Knowlege Transfer;
I have been involved in the creation of two spinouts in mobile and haptics and have acted as a mentor for many more. I see knowledge transfer as an important element leading to continued collaborations and new concepts.
Present Role:
I am FACT Lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University. I work closely with FACT, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, an internationally acclaimed digital media arts organisation in Liverpool. I teach in Fine Art and help engage students with the digital at FACT.
Professional Activities and Bodies:
I am a co-founder of Eurohaptics the European level haptic research body and am on the steering committee.
I am on the steering group of the World Haptics which is the international body for haptics research. I was Co-Chair of Eurohaptics, the leading European Conference on Haptic (touch) technologies. I am a member of ACM Siggraph
I have recently talked at ACE Arts Council England on the interdisciplinary between LJMU and FACT
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