James Sweeting is the Programme Leader for MA Game Design in i-DAT and a lecturer in Game Studies.
James is also a Researcher with Transtechnology Research focusing on the implications of nostalgia upon the videogames medium and industry. With research interests including videogame industrial form, historical game studies, and temporal cultural transferability.
James also provides books reviews for the Leonardo journal and is a reviews editor and writer for Switch Player Magazine.
Toby Chanter is a PhD candidate at the University of Plymouth working between i-DAT and the School of Humanities and Performing Arts.
Developing a multidisciplinary and experimental approach to immersive and interactive installation, his research interrogates the role of technology in the production of biomedical knowledge, and explores the associated sensory politics of medical education and art.
Physical spaces and digital layers are brought together with novel sensor technologies to create responsive and expressive environments. By using forms of physical and physiological interactivity that foreground embodiment and standpoint, his practice seeks to examine the entanglements of education and technology, art and knowledge.
Blue Grindrod is a speculative designer, multimedia artist and researcher whose work deals primarily with the aesthetics of the future human body and human cultural practices. Rooted in queer theory, mythos and post- and trans-humanist philosophy, their design ethos is one of play, of craft, of DIY biological speculation that aims to provoke and question what it means to inhabit a body.
Part-performance art, part-installation, part-biology experiment gone wrong, their practice makes use of aesthetic prosthetic adornments in order to showcase new ways of being that seek to remove the inside/outside, us/them paradigms that mark the human being, as well as exploring facets of behaviour central to the human experience. Working with biomedical processes, 3D design softwares and prosthetic sculpting tools, Blue builds bodies for an alternate universe in which biotechnologies rather than electromagnetic systems are the dominant form of technological progress. Strange, uncanny, disturbing, yet also playful and beautiful, their work crosses boundaries in order to challenge preconceived notions of what a body can be, or what a body should be.
Dane Watkins 18/10/1965-07/05/2022.
Dane was a Lecturer in Illustration: Interactive Narrative and had over a decade’s experience of a research based, context-responsive practice that examines how conventional drawing and animation practices can be developed and shown in digital environments such as the web, computer driven installation, hand held devices and pervasive media.
Dane was working on a practice-based PhD that explores the survey as artistic practice and how communication technologies and database management systems can be used as a material by artists as well as project evaluators within the field of cultural production at Falmouth University.
Drawing curious creatures from organic and mechanical parts and attempting to capture them inside micro-controllers with binary outputs structure my exploration of the extensions of a data driven society whilst teaching interactive narrative and undertaking research into the value of playfulness in data collection.
Melanie Morrell has 20 years of experience within the creative sector of education, consisting of teaching, coordinated and running programmes with schools and FE/HE institutions. MM passion is Fine Art and she graduated with an MA in 2004.
MM’s creative passion has given her the skills and knowledge to build SWAW Ltd into a successful Training Provider, which facilitates pre- and post- 16 learners. The facility is accessed by a variety of academies’ and external institutions. Over the last six years MM has been the manager of SWAW and became a director in 2016. More recently MM then became a director in the following year for Aspire2live CIC.MM enjoys the drive of liaising with external institutions, creating partnerships and service level agreements and contracts.
MM’s background has enabled her to write Quality Improvement Plans; Senior Annual Reviews; Annual Course Reviews; plan curriculums; manage the company’s academic and staffing structure; coordinate staff appraisals and CPD; quality assure; service agreements; contracts; funding models and managing the company’s budget and accounts. MM tenacity for research has provided knowledge relating to government polices including JCQ, GDPR and preventing and safeguarding.
MM is a highly motivated person who enjoys working with a wide range of people in a variety of roles. MM has voluntarily work with; the BBC, Water Aid, homeless charities within Plymouth and she is currently working with a small elderly association. All of these experiences have given MM an understanding of the social mobility needs within the region.
Dr Annie Blanchette is a cultural researcher who works on identity, subjectivity, representation and embodied experience using ethnographic and participatory research methods. Whilst Annie’s past work dealt with the gendered body in consumer culture and ‘nostalgic’ contexts, she is increasingly interested in the embodied self as experienced within creative digital spaces.
Annie’s research work has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC/CRSH), Fonds de Recherche Québécois Société et Culture (FRQSC), HEC Montréal, University of Exeter, and Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG). It has been presented in multiple international conferences in consumer research and published in Consumption, Markets and Culture (CMC).
As an educator, Annie has taught digital marketing, consumer behaviour, advertising art & copy, as well as marketing research at the graduate and undergraduate levels for the University of Exeter Business School, Neoma Business School and Stockholm University. Annie also has hands-on experience as a strategic and creative consultant, as well as a creative project manager.
Annie is a i-DAT member, a Kaleider collective resident, and a South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN) Data Fellow. As part of this latter role, Annie will be exploring the potential of playful participatory research approaches to challenge the objectifying tendencies of datafication in education.
Angelika Kolodziej is a photographer, movie maker, mixed media practitioner and Plymouth University i-Dat student.
Over the years, she participated as an artist in several exhibitions, gathered the experience as a curator, student representative, ambassador and Plymouth Art Weekender volunteer. Her photography practice concerns people, personalities, places, culture. She works with both individuals and companies on a variety of projects, such as commercial and promotional content, advertising, product shooting, event reportage or interiors. With a heart and a mind strongly devoted to artistic expression, documentary and lifestyle.
In her journey as a Master student, she became interested in 3D modelling, 3D printing techniques, possibilities of New Technology and Social Media dependencies. Her graduate exhibition concerned the juxtaposition of still and moving image with the use of AR technology, and now she is pushing her creativity to make an immersive piece relying on 3D modelling. Her practice allows for a lot of freedom and experimentation, at the same time keeping the work relevant and stimulating.
Xiaorong Jia a MRes Digital Arts and Technology student in i-DAT at the University of Plymouth. Through research into 3D animation and virtual interactive games she explores the complex connections and interactions between the city, digital technologies and the public, and how these influence the evolution of urban spaces.
Nema’s academic background and interests are in arts, science, and technology. She has a BSc (Hons) MediaLab Arts and an MSc in Digital Futures. In 2003 Nema joined Arts Council England (ACE) where she held the strategic lead for local government in the South West and was responsible for managing £1million partnership projects; she became the regional lead for international work and developed strong links with the British Council’s Creative Economy programme. In 2007 she was invited to do a secondment at ACE’s national office in London where she led on the national Creative Economy Programme. Nema returned to the South West (had two children) and now leads on ACESW priorities for Arts Technology and holds the strategic lead for Cornwall.
Alongside Nema’s career in academia and public sector she has actively been supporting and promoting new talent. In 1999 Nema founded Submerge an organisation that provided a platform for graduates, researchers and innovators to celebrate, network and promote their skills to industry. The submerge platform supported graduates to connect with industry to gain employment and encourage entrepreneurial activity. Submerge’s network of new talent has grown over the years to include hundreds of graduates now in industry who are continuing to support the next generations of creative talent.
Recently Nema has taken a part time career break from ACE to lead an all-female creative tech team to deliver the R&D for an exciting automation prototype – Looking for the Cloud. This will test the model for a new creative tech partnership in the SW – The Re+ Collective which supports diversity and talent in the creative technology sector.
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