i-DAT

Michael Straeubig

patconley i-DAT, Researcher
Michael Straeubig

Michael is a member a Research Fellow on the EU Marie Curie CogNovo Project he Investigated the nature of play in a practice-based manner by designing and developing playful systems in mixed reality.

Background

Michael Straeubig is a game designer / creative coder exploring games and playful experiences in various media.
Selected Projects
neurotic
Mobile Location based Multiplayer experience (in development as part of my PhD)
KlingKlangKlong
Mobile Location based Multiplayer experience (in development as part of my PhD)
Secret City Season I: Missing Max
Mobile Location Based / Augmented-Reality Game, Game Design, Content Production
Gardening Guerilla / (Speed)
Outdoor Games, Game Design
Glockenspiel
Theatrical Interactions, Theater Erlangen, Play Design / Development
20000 Nanometers Under the Sea
Mixed-Reality Game, Game Design / Development
Eine Gegen Eine
Experimental Card Game, Initiator / Co-Game Design
Tidy City
Location Based Game, Game Design
apo-Fest
Large scale Event Game, Game Design
ACP-Krimi
Event Game, Game Design
Grand Tour 1765
Board Game, Game Design
Grand Tour
Large Scale Outdoor Event Game, Game Design
Teaching
Guest Lecturer MOOC “The Future of Storytelling“ Episode 6: Location Based / Augmented Reality Games, Fachhochschule Potsdam
Lecturer „Gödel, Escher, Bach“ , Leuphana University of Lüneburg
Lecturer „Introduction to Creative Coding“, Leuphana University of Lüneburg
Lecturer „Game Design Basics“, Leuphana University of Lüneburg
Seminar „Location Based Games“, Media Design Hochschule München
Seminar „Minimizing Games“, University of Augsburg
Workshops / Conferences / Talks / Festivals / Gamejams / Hackathons
MediaCity 5 Conference, playin’ Siegen, Malta Festival Poznan, Fascinate Cornwall, Making The City Playable Conference, Bristol, Playpublik Krakow, Prototype Dublin, Gamecity und Mixed Reality Game Design Workshop at the University of Nottingham, The Exposition of Practice as Research Workshop Plymouth, Researching Games, Wiesbaden, Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts, London, Come out and Play, New York, International Symposium on Augmented and Mixed Reality, Munich, AR World, Leuphana Hyperkult, Droidcon Berlin, Droidcon Tunis, Quo Vadis Deutsche Gamestage, Researching Games, Gamescamp Munich, Mobile Camp Dresden, Fraunhofer FIT TOTEM Summerschool, Wherecamp, Photonic Camp, Sigint, Easterhegg, Gulaschprogrammiernacht, 29C3, 30C3, Weilburger Spielautorentagung, Medienkongress Köln, Ludum Dare, Global Game Jam, Music Hackday Berlin, Amsterdam, Google IO ADK Showcase Finalist, Devfest Berlin / vHack Android, You Are Go! , Arena / Klangtapete, Playpublic / Klangtapete, Placcc Festival Budapest, Battlehack Berlin, w00t Kopenhagen
Initiator and Co-Organisator of the First German Location of the Global Game Jam 2009
Publications
Wetzel, R., Blum, L., Feng, F., Oppermann, L. & Straeubig, M., (2011). Tidy City: A location-based game for city exploration based on user-created content. In: Eibl, M. (Hrsg.), Mensch & Computer 2011: überMEDIEN|ÜBERmorgen.München: Oldenbourg Verlag. (S. 487-496).
„Die dunkle Seite der Medaille: Bestrafung als Gestaltungselement in Spielen“ (in publication)
„Spiele als Belohnungssysteme“
in: Merkle, Conrad, Friese, et al. (Hrsg.) „Spiele Entwickeln 2011“, Pro Business Verlag, Berlin, 2011
„Tractatus logico-ludoricus“
in: Merkle, Conrad, Friese, et al. (Hrsg.) „Spiele Entwickeln 2010“, Pro Business Verlag, Berlin, 2010
„Spiel ohne Spielanleitung“
in: Merkle, Conrad, Friese, et al. (Hrsg.) „Spiele Entwickeln 2009“, Pro Business Verlag, Berlin, 2009
„Minimal spielbare Spiele als Denkanstoß und als Methode“
in: Merkle, Conrad, Friese, et al. (Hrsg.) „Spiele Entwickeln 2008“, Pro Business Verlag, Berlin, 2008
Education
FAU – Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg — Informatik (Computer Science), Academic degree: Diplom-Informatiker, Exchange Student at University of Kansas / Lawrence
Universität Regensburg — Law
Goethe Gymnasium Regensburg (High School), Degree: Abitur

Dr Mathew Emmett

patconley i-DAT, Supervisor
Dr Mathew Emmett

Dr Mathew Emmett is an artist and theorist in mixed reality performance and hybrid space, specializing in installation, data-specific sound and situated cognition. Among other collaborations and international commissions Emmett is currently collaborating with the renowned electronic musician/artist Eberhard Kranemann (ex Kraftwerk, NEU! Piss Off, aka Fritz Müller Rock) with a series of projects including Space Interface and Signal Transduction. Emmett composes soundscapes for the dance choreographer Adam Benjamin with performances at the Tokyo Art Centre, Japan and the Place, London. Emmett is the cofounder of Estranged Space working on a wide range of sites that include Second World War subterranean bunkers, the Roman Baths. Further collaborations include Perception Lab, Charles Jencks, Kaos Theatre, and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Sites. Emmett studied at Central Saint Martins, The Bartlett School of Architecture and The Architectural Association and in 2007 attended the Karlheinz Stockhausen composition course in Germany. Emmett is represented by the Weithorn Galerie, Düsseldorf.

Coral Manton

patconley i-DAT, Researcher
Coral Manton

Coral is a researcher and developer at i-DAT. Her current PhD is funded through the 3D3 consortium. She is a qualified curator and her professional background is in museums and galleries specialising in collections and exhibitions. She is an interdisciplinary artist and technologist with a specialism in data visualisation, interactive design, VR/Mixed-Reality and immersive experiences. Coral is a maker – she was commissioned to design and build a series of interactive exhibits for Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum’s exhibition Come Create exploring art, engineering and celebrating the Maker Movement.
Coral leads the IVT/VR research group at Plymouth and last year went on a research residency to SAT in Montreal. Her VR research including prototyping speculative experiences – she developed a EEG Brain controlled VR experience for Birmingham Arts Science Festival 2018. Coral led a lecture series in making immersive films for full-dome cinema with the University of the West of England and the Royal Academy of Music and been in-house digital artist for Birmingham Planetarium.

Coral is an audio visual performer and coder she performs regularly at Algoraves and was featured in the Guardian in an article on the future of underground dance music. She is an advocate for women in technology and coding speaking at Digital Catapult and doing a BOM fellowship exploring methods for collaborative working for women in technology and exposing the effects of negative representations of women online through a series of workshops and interventions. In collaboration with Birgitte Aga she is developing an feminist conversational AI, programmed by women through a series of workshops around the UK.

Coral is a game developer/designer. She previously worked for RARE on Kinect Sports. Coral now lectures on the Game Art & Design degree course, along with Digital Media Design. She is developing a game exploring digital relationships online through sexology cultural collections. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Jen Grove researcher at Rethinking Sexology, a Wellcome Trust funded research project at Exeter University and writer Dr. Abigail Parry.

Coral has a passion for science engagement. She has been working on a collaborative project with Gravitational Wave/Ligo Researchers at The University of Birmingham and a synth developer. She created a visualisation from Gravity Wave Data, live modulated using a desktop laser interferometer built be the astrophysicists for a performance at Future Everything 2018.

Coral is a Research Affiliate of the British Library. She has an interest in the aesthetics of stored knowledge and exploring this in VR. She led a research project with the EThOS team exploring multimedia research in UK PhD theses and future multimodal theses. This project was cited in the AHRC Academic Book of the Future Report and has now been cited is multiple publications.

Coral’s PhD research brings together her background in museums and immersive digital art practice. Her research investigates whether an immersive museum collection database can be an effective way for visitors and curators to explore collection objects and historical data. Her study also explores ways visitors can interact with the collection database and whether visualising the collection in an immersive way can be useful for curators understanding of the collection and extracting multi-layered narratives for exhibition. The visualisation pulls together constellation of objects, promoting new understanding through links and changing contexts. She is developing prototypes with Birmingham Museums as part of the master planning process for a proposed redevelopment of the museum.
Website: coralmanton.com
Email: coral.manton@plymouth.ac.uk

Luke Christison

patconley Core Team, i-DAT, Research Associate
Luke Christison

Luke is a Research Assistant and Technician for i-DAT and for the Environmental Futures and Big Data Impact Lab. He also operates as a commissioned artist / developer and as an Associate Lecturer for the Digital Media Design course and teaches at the Nanjing University of Arts in China.

With the Impact Lab Luke specialises in 3D interactive data visualisation and science communication, working with SME’s and project partners to develop new tools and products. He is based within i-DAT’s Immersive Vision Theatre, where his research deals predominantly with interactive game technology and fulldome techniques but his interdisciplinary approach has also allowed him to deliver lectures and workshops on cosmology, physical and interactive computing, visual communication, data visualisation, graphic design techniques, animation, film, 3D modelling, projection mapping, VJing, 360 media, virtual and augmented realities.

Jane Grant

patconley i-DAT, Supervisor
Jane Grant

Jane Grant is an artist and academic. Her collaborative has resulted in award winning projects including, The Fragmented Orchestra with John Matthias and Nick Ryan which was winner of the PRSF New Music Award, 2008 and received an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2009. The Fragmented Orchestra was exhibited at FACT and 23 sites across the UK. Jane was the PI on an AHRC grant, ‘Threshold, Merging the human voice with neurological time patterns,’. Her recent work includes Soft Moon and Leaving Earth; both films draw upon astrophysics and science fiction.

Her sonic artwork Ghost was premiered at ISEA Istanbul 2011. In this work the temporal, topological networks and pathways of the cortex are explored in conjunction brain hallucination or ‘sonic ghosts’. Plasticity, a collaborative work with John Matthias, Kin and Nick Ryan was recently exhibited at the BFI as part of the onedotzero festival, Google Campus London and HWK, Institute for Advanced Study in Germany. Jane is currently working on Heliosphere, a large-scale project about the ionosphere as the interface between the Earth and the Sun, a multi-screen film, Orbital about the interaction of the atmosphere of the Earth and its influence in looking into space.

Jane runs the NeuroArts conferences with co-director John Matthias, these symposia have taken place at ISEA Istanbul, ISEA Sydney, and Plymouth University. She is leader of two projects including ‘Participatory artistic interaction in a mobile neural field’
in the Marie Curie ITN project ‘CogNovo’, PI Sue Denham, at Plymouth University.
Jane writes about noise, science and art and the mutability of matter.

Jane is Associate Professor (Reader) in Digital Arts at Plymouth University, co-director of the research group art and sound and Principle Supervisor in the Planetary Collegium, CAiiA-Node.

Aurora (Xu) Zhang

patconley i-DAT, Researcher
Aurora (Xu) Zhang

Aurora moved from China to study in Plymouth.  She is currently a PhD research student at i-DAT and as a Mandarin speaker she is a key link to the Chinese student community. Aurora’s research, currently titled: ‘Guanxi 2.0: social capital within the cultural context been gathered from digital platforms’, continues her personal research and practice in the field of Guanxi, Social Capital and Social Media with the exist i-DAT social operation system (S-OS) to fulfill the techno-ethnography process. The intention is to explore the practices through interventions in the city of Plymouth, using it as a testing market to evaluate social participation influenced by digital platforms.

Xu Zhang <xu.zhang@plymouth.ac.uk>

Dan Efergan

janeconway i-DAT
Dan Efergan

Daniel Efergan is currently the Executive Creative Director of Interactive at Aardman Animations. Which means he’s mainly spending time doing fun things like making games, forming playful communities, and messing around in the murky bits between storytelling and interactivity.

He has been instrumental in the conception and delivery of BAFTA winning interactive projects such as the Tate Movie Project and World of Invention, and led or supported many others, including the (twice) BAFTA nominated debut console game, 11-11 Memories Retold.

Before Aardman kept himself entertained as MD of Subsub Skills and Production, technical lead on Light Up Bristol, a part time lecturer (teaching programmer in i-DAT) and when still studying with i-DAT, founding and running the Submerge New Media Festival with fellow students.  This last one gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling by bringing together creative people and seeing what happened.

He’s particularly interested in creative programming and the future of human/computer interaction and its effect on society. He likes philosophy (mainly because of Mike Phillips) and if he wasn’t so busy would love to work out the meaning of life.

 

 

 

Dr Sana Murrani

patconley i-DAT, Supervisor
Dr Sana Murrani

Sana Murrani is an experimental architect, and currently holds the position of Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Plymouth, UK. She studied Architecture in Baghdad University School of Architecture, graduating in 2000, and obtained her masters degree from the same school in 2003. Her thesis dealt with the emergence of architectural form and formulation by drawing an analogy between architecture and genetics. Murrani started working as a professional architect in 2000 in Iraq. She is presently exploring aspects of the emergence of biological/artificial systems and perception, and the behaviour of architectural situations of in-between representation and experience. Sana Murrani is a member of the Planetary Collegium’s CAiiA-Hub in Plymouth, UK where she undertook her PhD.
http://sanamurrani.me.uk/
sana.murrani@gmail.com
sana.murrani@plymouth.ac.uk
[Lecturer in Architecture, Room 401 RLB
School of Architecture, Design & Environment.
Faculty of Arts.
Roland Levinsky Building
University of Plymouth.

Drake Circus
Plymouth, PL4 8AA]
+44 (0)1752 5 85162 (office)

Dr Stavros Didakis

patconley Core Team, i-DAT, Supervisor
Dr Stavros Didakis

Stavros Didakis is an Associate Professor / Senior Lecturer (FT) and Programme Leader – Digital Media Design. After the successful completion of his PhD in Media Arts Technology in i-DAT he took the role of  senior lecturer in the course BA Technoetic Arts in Roy Ascott’s Detao Master Studio in SIVA, Shanghai.
He was born in Crete-Greece and he has followed studies in sound engineering, media, music technology & audio systems, sonic arts, and interface & interaction design in Athens, London, Belfast and Linz.

Stavros has a long-standing relationship with media, art and technology. For this reason he has created a media laboratory in Greece, called SoniconLab (www.soniconlab.com), which is mainly involved in the development and installation of interactive media systems and media performance technologies – ranging from experimental to commercial – and providing innovative solutions that are not met with current standards. The main reason that Stavros created this laboratory was to establish a new media consciousness in local or dis-local communities, and change the way people perceive and experience media works. Moreover, Stavros is a lecturer in MBS College/Nottingham Trent University, giving lectures in Multimedia and a series of workshops and seminars in sound technology, audiovisual performance, programming, interaction, and interface design.
His PhD research is primarily focused to the development and installation of interactive media technologies inside the architectural space, enabling a formation of sensate spaces that are created based on physiological and psychological studies. This approach defines alternatively the spaces we occupy and enables a new way of architectural and media experience.

Other research interests include ambiguous computing/ambient intelligence, hybrid instruments for media performance and expression, 3D design and immersive environments, real-time video processing, and audio visualisation.
PhD Provisional Title: A Study of Translucent Media Technologies in the Architectural Space.
http://stav-didakis.blogspot.com/

Peter Jones

patconley i-DAT, Researcher
Peter Jones

The prime focus of Peter’s research is the investigation of radical alternatives to how target audiences may be defined and how the latter may impact on Communication Design processes and outputs.

“The audience is the message?”The latter question forms the basis for his research. Defining target audiences (market segmentation) is an established practice and core methodology within Communication Design. Target audiences are commonly based on developments of advertising market groupings (a, b, c, d and e’s) that in turn within the UK stem from historical social and class structures. Consequently how target audiences are classified and markets are segmented, tend to follow well-established patterns such as: age, gender, income, wealth, education, employment, ethnicity, nationality, family status, sexual orientation etc.

Although the latter forms a key part of Peter’s research and is a fertile area for analysis and social comment, the principle focus of his research is to develop radical alternatives to established target audience groupings and investigate how these alternatives may impact on the message or indeed may lead to new Communication Design opportunities and outputs.

The latter forms the basis for Peter’s PhD research on which he enrolled at the University of Plymouth in Sep 2009.