ABOUT

MEDIAMORPHOSIS is a REFRAME website run by the Creative Critical Practice Research Group (CCPRG), based at the University of Sussex. The website is produced and edited by Cécile Chevalier, with input from CCPRG group members (staff and doctoral students from the University of Sussex, Royal College of Art, University of Brighton and University of West London, along with unaffiliated working practitioners and members of other professional creative organisations).

The website will act as a reflexive archive and gallery for documenting, publishing and disseminating (DPD) materials and processes generated by creative critical practice-based/led research, and for further research about these. Initially, it draws on material generated by symposia to hosted by the CCPRG group in since 2013:

  1. Mediamorphosis, May 10, a one-day symposium funded by RLI and the Sussex Doctoral School inviting researchers, practitioners, artists, designers, scientists to submit, discuss, exchange and engage with analogue/digital practices and mediamorphosis (Fidler, 1997);
  2. The AHRC-funded NW/THN: Documenting, Publishing and Disseminating Objects and Experiences, June 24, a workshop symposium oriented towards practice-based/led research students, faculty, working practitioners and professional creative organisations interrogating two key questions clearly emerging in our era of digital hybridity, networking and media convergence: what do we lose or gain when we document and publish digitally? And, are modes of DPD determined by their target audience or/and the nature of the output?
  3. Found in Translation, May 1-2, 2014. The symposium is oriented towards both arts practice-led and humanities based research students as well as faculty, working practitioners, artists and professional creative organisations.
    Typically attention is given to the value of interdisciplinary activity across broad fields such as art and science. Funding is regularly allocated for the development of protocols and to assist communication between these traditions. What happens to communication across different disciplines within arts and humanities? How does translation of activity and information from one medium, or specialist arts or humanities area, into another allow knowledge to be explored in different ways? Can the process, including misunderstanding and learning, be considered a creative act in itself?
    The initiative was instigated by Creative Critical Practice Research Group(CCPRG) based at University of Sussex through discussions with Professor of Performance Technologies, Sally-Jane Norman. The symposium also benefits from support and endorsement from the open access academic platform REFRAME, doctoral students from the University of Sussex, Royal College of Art, Universities of Brighton, West London, Glasgow, linkages with the University of Dundee, the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts Southeast England (CHASE) and additional funding kindly provided by the University of Kingston.

The MEDIAMORPHOSIS website features a blog focusing initially on publicising and sharing the symposia and the issues posed by them, as well as multimedia archive pages for its DPD elements and research, and – part of the legacy of the NW/THN workshop as set out in the AHRC funding application – a downloadable resource pack to support postgraduate students in engaging with DPD.

The MEDIAMORPHOSIS website is supported by the international editorial advisory board of its publisher REFRAME.