interactivecultures

Our Wednesday research seminar this week was a presentation by Xavier Mendik of Brunel University. Xavier introduced a screening of the documentary Fear at 400 Degrees: The Cine-Excess of Dario Argento’s Suspiria.

Xavier was invited to our regular research seminar to talk about the strategies he has developed for knowledge transfer work around the Cult Film Archive and Cine-Excess, the company he has formed to restore and reissue significant cult films. The release includes DVD extras that are designed as educational and knowledge transfer devices. The formula is working well with interest in the film and its academic based extras leading to significant interest from relevant media and sales reaching audiences beyond the academy.

Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) classic cult Italian horror – a masterpiece of the modern macabre that uses excessive visual styles and even more excessive on-screen murders to create new pathways between art-house and atrocity. The documentary featured enough footage from the original to cause one member of the audience to “step outside for a breath of fresh air”.

Research group member, and chair of this week’s session, Oliver Carter commented: “I have followed Xavier’s work closely since the late 1990s and it was a pleasure to welcome him to this week’s session.  Xavier’s work with Nouveaux Pictures and the Cine Excess label  demonstrates the variety of possibilities knowledge transfer presents.  We are thankful for him taking time to come to the Birmingham School of Media and look forward to sharing our approaches to knowledge with him in the future.”

Hello,

I’m a new member of the Interactive cultures unit and I have just been given the necessary password information to start posting blog entries.

My research interest is popular music history. Through involvement my with a music history project called Home of Metal I became interested in the way intellectual property issues impact on the development and use of popular music histories. As contemporary music culture heritage becomes a more prevalent activity, with several archiving projects and high profile public exhibitions taking place in major cities, the issue of mediation in the creation of these texts becomes worthy of analysis. Fortunately for me this idea for a research project emerged at a time when the School of Media at BCU were advertising a studentship.

I completed an MA at CMCR at The University of Leicester and worked as a record label manager before returning to BCU as a research student. My work at the record label led to an interest in the placement of music in marketing as well as providing valuable experience of the music industry. I maintain involvement with  elements of the music industry through managing the band Einstellung.

I’m delighted to join the Interactive cultures team and look forward to contributing to a vibrant research community and posting a few more blog entries as my research  develops.

William Ellis is a photographer who first worked with the Interactive Cultures team at the Scarborough Jazz festival during September 2009. William was exhibiting some of his photographs at the event and began to collaborate with our team of academics who were conducting a research project, experimenting with narrative by putting the festival online as it happened. William captured the essence of what it was like to be at the festival and contributed a steady flow of images to the ‘Just Like Jazz‘ website, often within moments of shooting them. The project was a considerable success, not least because of William’s contribution.

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Rob Horrocks will be starting his full time studies with us on 4th May, developing a proposed thesis on ‘The use of sound recordings in public exhibits and digital archives documenting popular music histories’.

Rob will be joining a group of strong popular music and new media academics, and playing a full part in the intellectual life of Interactive Cultures and our wider research centre.

We interviewed four particularly strong candidates from an impressive set of applications, and Rob’s combination of strong postgraduate background, his involvement in the application of digital media to music history, and his enthusiasm was impressive.

We have also offered the other suitably qualified candidates unfunded PhD places and we hope they will take them up.

Digital Innovation Lab (job opportunity)

We don’t know what the future of digital marketing looks like, nobody does, really. You might say it’s all about touch or augmented reality but that’s already happening. What happens next? One of our latest projects will aim to find out by shaping the next big thing.

Over the next two years we will be working with leading marketing agency Clusta, to develop a digital innovation lab within their business. Breaking media firsts is a key part of what Clusta do; this project gives us and the agency a chance to build on these foundations and explore how we can make innovation processes the heart of a creative business.

Can you help shape the future of digital marketing?

The project is being realised through the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships scheme. We are currently recruiting an associate to work with Interactive Cultures and Clusta in developing the lab. The associate will be a recent graduate (or will be about to graduate) who will work day to day within Clusta establishing the lab, and eventually leading a small team of digital innovators, matching new uses of technology to client briefs. The associate will be supported by staff in the Interactive Cultures unit and User Lab at Birmingham Institute of Art & Design.

We are developing a number of KTP projects. If you would like to talk to us about how we could work with your business, through KTP or other approaches, please contact Annette Copper on 0121 331 7280 or email annette.copper@bcu.ac.uk.

Image CC: Solyoung

Today we delivered the first event to be delivered under the Digital Champions project. Our project partner, Digital Birmingham, invited SME businesses to attend a breakfast seminar on the topic of Web 2.0 for business. The event attracted a range of businesses form across the city, with different levels of experience with digital technology and social media. Attendees were encouraged to share experiences and formulate ideas as to how they could each use social media in their business.

Before the workshop element of the event, I gave a short presentation outlining the project, and giving ten ideas for using social media within small and medium sized businesses. The presentation is below, but you may wish to view it on slideshare where you can also view my presenter notes.

We’ve just announced a Research Studentship worth £16,680 per year. Working closely with Prof. Tim Wall & Andrew Dubber (newly conferred as a Reader), the research student will be part of the Interactive Cultures team and work on projects that continue our work in popular music, radio and how they are changing in a digital age.

Here’s the ad:

The Birmingham Centre for Media & Cultural Research is a rapidly developing centre of research excellence based at Birmingham City University with a community of over thirty academics and research degree students. Centre staff conduct research into all aspects of the media and popular culture, but have a particularly strong reputation in work about the changing form of popular music and radio media.

The research would form part of the work of the Interactive Cultures group, and you would be supervised by Prof Tim Wall Dr Paul Long and Andrew Dubber. Their work in popular music, radio and cultural politics is internationally recognised with both academic and media communities, and you would have the opportunity to be involved in a number of major research and knowledge transfer initiatives including the Music and Radio Innovation and the Music Consumption in the Digital Age projects.

We are offering a three-year, full-time research studentship, linked to our doctoral programme.

The studentship is open to both home and overseas students, although you would be responsible for any fee or living expenses beyond the value of the studentship.

Applications can be made to undertake research degree work in a study relevant to one of the following themes:

• The music industry in the digital age
• Music culture in the digital age
• Radio in the digital age

Applications from any academic background are welcome, but the successful candidate must be able to demonstrate familiarity with the music or radio industries, and the implications of new technologies. We will select the successful candidate primarily upon the quality of their research proposal.

Normally we would look for applicants with a masters degree which included research training, but we welcome non-traditional applications from those with strong industrial backgrounds and experience in research and written communication.

A willingness and ability to contribute to our research community is particularly desirable.

The studentship period will start in March 2010 or as soon as possible thereafter. The studentships will attract a bursary of £13,290 per annum in addition to a waiver of the tuition fees up to the home student rate of £3,390. Successful candidates will usually be expected to participate in the wider activities of the research centre, and there may be opportunities for an additional paid research assistant or teaching role for up to 180 hours per year.

How to apply

Complete and submit the ‘Application for Research Degree Course’ form which should include a research degree proposal of no more than 600 words. We may ask you to supply more information if you are selected for interview. Please indicate that you are applying for the research studentship in popular music and radio in the digital age, or we may inadvertently treat your application as one simply for our research degree programme.

The final closing date is Monday 1st March 2010 but we will select appropriate candidates for interview as applications arrive.

You should return the completed application form to:

Dr John Mercer
Research Degree Coordinator, Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research, Birmingham City University, Perry Barr, Birmingham B42 2SU

Or via email to: john.mercer@bcu.ac.uk

Please do forward this link on.

I will be spending much of the coming year or so working with companies across Birmingham on social media and web-based projects. The project, which I am delivering on behalf of Digital Birmingham, is a small part of a much larger programme utilising Working Neighbourhood funds managed by Birmingham City Council. The project will work with sixteen organisations between now and March 2011, and will also lead to a number of events; I will of course also be looking for opportunities to develop some academic outputs from the project.

What I will be doing

The project builds on our experiences in our recent project, the AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship in New Strategies for Radio and Music Organisations. I will be demonstrating simple uses of technologies that could make a difference to companies. We will prototype new ideas for our partners, using simple and accessible technologies that could help to make life easier, open up new opportunities, or speak to different audiences. The prototypes will be informed by our research and teaching activities within Birmingham School of Media.

Why I’m doing it

My project’s aims are to demonstrate the usefulness of Internet technologies, especially social media technologies, to a wide range of business sectors; the wider project aims include innovation and business growth. My job-title, and the name used at Digital Birmingham, for this project is “Digital Champion”. I won’t be using that title an awful lot, firstly because modesty won’t allow and secondly because the real champions will be the companies I partner with. My project aims to stimulate and create something new in a wide cross-section of companies, and then to communicate this process to a wider business community; my partners in the project will be the true Digital Champions, inspiring their friends, their staff, and their business rivals to try something new.

Creating Demand

When I worked in industry, people would often come to me with a good idea that was a little vague and needed to be shaped. I had no way of helping them to form that idea without charging for my time, and their budget would mean that they only had one chance to get it right. Often good ideas would never get started because I couldn’t afford to invest time and companies couldn’t afford to risk money. I hope that the time I spend with my partners will provide a space for some innovation or change to happen that would not otherwise occur. My project will take the early risk, and leave the partner with something more formed and considered which they can then use as the basis of a new, commercial, partnership with a local firm. Successful projects will stimulate demand whether that be finding an agency to write code that’s above and beyond my skills and remit; hiring a social media consultant to take a role in developing more content; or working with audio and video producers on podcast content.

What I’m looking for

I’m looking for partnerships across the city, in all sectors of our business community, who might benefit from this project. They might wish to be a prototype partner, or might just wish to attend one of our forthcoming events for some inspiration. Do please leave a comment below, or email me (jon.hickman [at] bcu.ac.uk).

I have a number of companies I am specifically looking for, these include:

• a T-shirt screen printing company
• a professional services company with a well developed CSR programme
• a company with a branch office overseas

Our digest of links for February 2nd:

• British politicians engage in modern warfare – Interesting artcile re the old media effects debates as it relates to computer game violence. Tom Watson's position as presented here is an increasingly common one. I've heard a number of commentators come up with the same points in news articles (though I have never heard an MP come out against the moral backlash before). What is particularly interesting is that it is now possible to take a moral position that supports the development of any computer game, including violent ones, but which is always located with in a discussion about the creative industries and the value of the computer games market: the text itself is seen as subordinate to the industry.
• Hashtags and the desire to own and organise – jon bounds – When two tribes (both self professed "social media experts") went to war over a hashtag, we saw a breakdown in folksonomy, a drive to own in the intangible, and a final denouement of ridicule heaped on all parties.