The Sporton Inaugural Lecture

Tuesday, November 1st 2011, at 7.15pm
Gregory Sporton is the new Professor of Digital Creativity at the School of Art, BIAD. As Director of the Visualisation Research Unit, he has been involved with the development of new technologies and their application in the Visual and Performing Arts for some years and has long-standing creative links with the Birmingham Conservatoire. His research interests are wide, and his views are often controversial and challenge accepted conventions.

To mark his elevation to the Professorship, Professor Sporton invites you to attend an evening lecture and performance in the Recital Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire. The evening includes his Professorial Inaugural Lecture, ’From Things to Bits’, introduced by Fred Inglis, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick. Also in the programme will be a short performance of a new work ‘Never Talk to Strangers’, developed with VRU researchers and dancers from dna3d, that includes live electronics and the incorporation of body-based sound and visuals generating systems.

*The Lecture*
The lecture, ‘From Things to Bits’, will focus on the darker side of technology and what impact this has on the creative process and on artists themselves. How did digital technology become ubiquitous without us noticing? How does this change what we mean by creativity, intelligence or humanity? What are the obligations and contributions that artists can make in this environment?
Free to attend…but please book in advance if possible to avoid disappointment
Places can be secured by emailing Julia Burdett (julia.burdett@bcu.ac.uk) at the BIAD Research Office, or contacting her on 0121 331 7850.

*The Venue*
A map is located here. The Conservatoire is about 5 mins’ walk from Birmingham New Street railway station, and less from the School of Art (just walk under the Council House bridge, cross in front of the Old Central Library, go to the left of Paradise Forum Shopping Arcade and you can’t miss it).
Doors open at 6.30, when there will be a glass of wine on offer.

The Watertower: Gaming for Heritage

In September 2009 the Visualisation Research Unit at the School of Art, Birmingham City University were approached by the Selly Oak Hospital Trust with a view to developing a project for the decommissioning of the Hospital and the subsequent move to the new Queen Elizabeth II facility. Selly Oak was no ordinary hospital: commissioned during the Second World War, it had continued to treat war veterans up until its closure in June 2010, and had recently been unfairly lambasted in the media for mythical shortcomings in its treatment of veterans from Afghanistan. The decommissioning of the Hospital was certain to be a sensitive moment, a long history of innovative practice, especially in transplantation surgery and military medicine, a much loved building that had outlived its usefulness and a fragile media environment required a project that would be both sensitive and celebratory.
The Project Team set about the task by collecting an oral history from patients and staff across generations, and combining these in a 3D environment driven by a games engine and drawn from the architectural history of the Hospital’s famous Watertower. To realise the project, the Team knew that it would have to get a reluctant management to takes some risks, to engage with the contentious and to use the project as a route to the change management processes identified in the early data collection processes. This chapter will discuss the difficulties, processes and techniques used to create a memorable experience of collective memory.