i-DAT

Andy Sargeant

patconley i-DAT

Andy is an Associate Lecturer on the i-DAT Game Art and Design Programme.

Andy’s creative practice experiments with games, live performance and the process of making within digital media to promote social mobility and inclusive practice. Andy is a member of Kaos Kollective – an interdisciplinary group of disabled and non-disabled theatre practitioners and digital makers based in Plymouth, which delivers interactive exhibitions, workshops and live performances internationally.

Andy also runs his own “generalist developer for-hire” freelance business andysargeant.com and works as an Instructional Designer for Unit 2 Games.

When he’s not doing these things, Andy reads Sci-Fi, eats food and sleeps occasionally.

Paola Menzardi

adelmootranto i-DAT, Visiting Researcher

Paola Menzardi is a visiting Ph.D. researcher from Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, where she obtained the master’s degree in Systemic Design e the bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design.   

She is carrying out a research at the Department of Architecture and Design in the field of Design for Territories aimed at investigating how participated geography – community mapping – can be tools for initiating long-term processes of local enhancement, resulting in plans for the development of territories. Such participated project are a particular branch of cartography and territorial studies that are intertwined with the design of participatory processes for the enhancement and dissemination of the territorial heritage. According to different and informal methodologies, they combine the geographical and topological representation of the territory with further levels of information related to intangible, elusive, even temporary aspects of places (points of view of interest, vegetation, stories of popular culture, aspects of local identities, situations to attend to…).

The purpose of her research is intended to, starting from community maps, advancing a on-field project that leads, starting from an existing participatory map project, to the creation of a product-service/system of products-services with functions of dissemination and tourist promotion of the area involved.

In i-DAT she is collecting data and case studies related to past and ongoing projects that have interpreted the cartography and other forms of representation of the territory as tools for the involvement of people in order to bring out the awareness on own territory, promoting and developing it.     

Silvia Anese

adelmootranto i-DAT, Visiting Researcher

Silvia is a visiting postgraduate student from the University of Bologna. She is researching into the planned obsolescence in the new media and, more specifically, the methods through which New Media Art is preserved.

The problem is current and related to the practices of many artists, especially with the increase in the use of new technologies in art. The research concentrates on the techniques of conservation of New Media Art, both investigating the solutions adopted in the past and exploring possible current and future ones. This research represents the beginning of a long-run research path exploring deeply, the possible collaborations between New Media Art and Machine Learning for conservation.

Bethany Thomas

henriettaknight i-DAT, Researcher

Bethany Thomas is a young artist currently completing a Research Masters in i-DAT. Her practice focuses on portraiture and abstract expressionism. She often studies how life is perceived by individuals who cannot control their mind – aiming to portray mental illnesses. Everything in her work links back to control.

While her background is in painting and drawing, she has begun to produce digital and print works. Thomas has an interest in the history and philosophy of art – particularly influenced by the notion of original thought.

Thomas studies creativity through the lens of mythos, literary criticism, repetition and origin of thought. Her current research will examine the notion that human creativity emanates from a collective, structured and innate resource evidenced by storytelling. She is aiming to establish whether humans are, to some degree, pre-programmed and consequently whether human creativity is largely determined and predictable.

Website: https://bt3335.wixsite.com/artsite

Instagram: beththomasart

Email: Bethany.thomas@plymouth.ac.uk

Joel Hodges

patconley i-DAT

Joel is a Lecturer in 3D Visualisation, Immersion and Simulation on the i-DAT Game Art & Design Programme and researcher in i-DAT.
Joel works with game engine technologies (Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 3D) to deliver networked VR/AR/XR experiences through social and technological interactions with audiences. His research focuses on bridging the gap between VR and AR video games using photogrammetry to create unique ‘spherical’ capture devices for integrating real-world objects into game engines. Joel contributes to the delivery of the BA (Hons) Game Art & Design Programme and the immersive activities of the Immersive Vision Theatre and the Impact Lab.

 

Adam Russell

henriettaknight Core Team, i-DAT

Adam is a Lecturer in Computational Media Arts in i-DAT. He studied philosophy at Oxford and Artificial Intelligence at Sussex, then spent some years working in the videogames industry on the design and coding of simulated characters, where he became an authority on the tension between authored narrative and individual autonomy (of both player avatar and non-player characters). He began to move away from conventional videogames into more experimental practice with his award-winning interactive cinema feature Renga. This led to a breadth of work with VR headsets, skeletal and facial expression tracking, and visual programming environments such as VVVV, PD and Node-RED. Some recent work has dispensed with screens entirely, building an interactive control system for a 7-foot tall robotic figure, and constructing a new data model for nonlinear temporal markup. This range of work reflects a nomadic attitude, underpinned by philosophical concerns.

Dr Andrew Prior

patconley Core Team, i-DAT, Supervisor

Andrew Prior is the Associate Professor in Digital Media Design. He is a designer, artist, musician and educator. He received his PhD from Aarhus University in 2015. He has exhibited and performed internationally, including New York, Tokyo, Aarhus, Roskilde, Brno and Žilina. Recent publications include a ‘The Crackle of Contemporaneity’ in Futures of the Contemporary (2019) edited by Paolo de Assis and Michael Schwab, and ‘Temporal Poetics in Thomson and Craighead’s The Time Machine in Alphabetical Order‘ in Passepartout, Journal of Art Theory and History (2019).  As a graphic designer and animator, he has worked with Liminal, Fourway Lab, PlayHard, GoingPublic and Centrica.

http://aprior.info

Vicktor Brelsford

michaelkissick i-DAT, Research Associate

Vicktor is Research Assistant on the Impact Lab IVT for Data Harvesting, Networking & Visualisation. He brings a wealth of knowledge and skills in VR/AR, networked data visualisation and IoT.

He is also Managing Director of One Polygon, a company fuelled by passion in bringing the very best in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Design and 3D Modelling to Marine, Aerospace, Construction, E-Learning, Research and Commerce. One Polygon has an international reach and has developed innovative techniques in networked VR asset management for digital workflows across content/hardware platforms.

Iain Lobb

adelmootranto Core Team, i-DAT

Iain Lobb is a Senior Lecturer in the Games Academy at Falmouth University. He was previously the the Award Lead for the BA (Hons) Game Arts and Design and is a BAFTA-winning freelance game developer, specialising in Unity.

I have been running my own freelance business since 2009 – previously I spent 4 years leading an award-winning London studio development team.

I have extensive experience developing mobile and PC games with Unity, and have shipped multiple games for high-profile clients including BBC, EA and Sony. I have a particular expertise in using Unity for 2D and 2.5D games, and draw on a decade of experience creating 2D games in Flash.

I also have a passion for game design and “finding the fun” in a game idea. I am well-read in game design theory, but more importantly, I know how to put these theories in to practice to create engaging experiences.

I created the extremely popular multiplayer game Zwok, the BAFTA-winning mobile hit The Dumping Ground: You’re The Boss, Webby-award winning puzzle game Stackopolis, and many other much-loved games.

Jessica Yan

adelmootranto i-DAT, Researcher

Jie Yan (Jessica) is a PhD researcher in i-DAT on the CODEX International Postgraduate Research Network. Her research explores the relationship and interaction of vision, social media and health. It will start with the food images on Instagram to find out the impacts on food perception as well as the potential influences and implications of health situation.

Food images can influence health indirectly by impacts on eating behaviours, and an individuals’ health situation could be predicted by the food perception from vision, so it seems to be a link between vision and health. This research aims to investigate what parts of vision tend to play the key role in a food image linking to health, and the changes in this cycle because of the engagement of social media.

A series of design-based approaches will be used to investigate personal’s perception, attitudes and opinions of food images on Instagram in this qualitative research, in order to assist the comprehension of the link between vision and health as well as exploring new sorts of food representation.