Yesterday, we (myself and Hannah Nicklin) went to Loughborough University for the East Midlands University Association (Postgrad Group) Conference on interdisciplinary research in the humanities (Beyond Boundaries). It was a random punt for myself where felt I needed to go to something “PhD” related before term starts and something I am actually interested as a research interest (crossing boundaries between Universities to work with others outside topic, department and institution)

I came across the conference when I was looking into things which were arranged for postgraduates of the east midlands (as several people I know are beginning MAs or starting PhDs this semester – and there are LOADS of unis in such a small area of the country) Information about the EMUA was tucked away under several pages on my university’s graduate school page. The link to the event was tucked away in further. I had around 5-6 people tweet me about the event, saying that they’d wish they had heard of it before the day and/or asking me more about the event, the PG group and the EMUA.

Upon scanning the list of delegates, I counted only 3 people from Leicester – where most of the attendees came from Loughborough itself (I guess because it is easy to promote an event “in the flesh”). There was no wifi available for the event, but there were little expecting it – as there were only two laptops in the room (guess who..) Upon reflection, it must be strange for postgrads to demand wifi at a training conference (I think about the PhD training I’ve had at Leicester, and yes, it would be strange to sit on my laptop throughout it – if only because I would be the only one doing it on most ocassions)- if you are used to going to tech events (which centre around the interaction between offline and online discussion) you almost expect wifi (and more recently, a hashtag – ask Hannah about that one!) so it felt a little odd to actually sit down and listen without tapping away at something else at the same time.

Nevertheless, there were a couple of interesting sessions (and one or two which were a bit to powerpoint heavy for my eyes to take) – there was some really interesting stuff about computer science and social science collaborative work – where tech is designed for artists and performers in mind – and crossing boundaries by mixing computer interfaces with physical, geolocative games.

Prof. Steve Benford discussed his work at the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham. I’ve looked at Mixed Reality from a theoretical perspective, so to see something in action (Computer Science background) was pretty awesome. I particularly liked his model for the journey (tranjectories) of mixed reality interaction and would be tempted to look at it from the perspective of my research:

• reflect (ideal) continuity of experience (opposite to thinking about just the tools – like the internet has no continuity, as a platform, as it is decentralized and individuals are just nodes to send data – however, if you follow the stories of the people who use the tools, it is a different, individual and connected experience – something that can be picked up through colab with “softer” research skills)
• capture individuals routes through experience (Use of ethnographic study to reflect on the experience of the people who interact with the social technology – you aren’t counting how many in order to generalise stats, you are asking each person who wishes to get involved to tell their story – thick data, could be video, text, audio etc)
• can be steered and shaped by artists (the original path of research is shaped and changed through interaction with others – fed back into the machine)
• can be interwoven with one another (can search for similarities in the narrative)
• how interfaces can defy trajectories (example being – arriving at a conference, expecting to have wifi in order to liveblog or tweet- there is none -so the story changes and the access to the interface is altered)

A model which I would have never have been exposed to if I didn’t decide to go down the interdisplinary route – although similar to the plans I have for my methods, it is in a slightly different, computer science related (possibly better), language.

Another session which I REALLY enjoyed and hope to explore more in terms of work happening in Leicester, was the workshop on the Art of Mobility (delivered by Prof. Martin Reiser from DMU) – he introduced the group to subjective mapping – and then got us to draw our own maps of our living room. One from the perspective of ourselves – and one from the perspective of another person (I chose the puppy)

What I took away from this was that data can be displayed in interesting (and creative) ways – which reflect the analysis in a way which could be understood by many more people that just those who are knee deep in the subject. Ok, the above squiggles (the only ones to be in 3D – for my psych profile perhaps!) were just for fun, but I’m already imagining ways in which I could use subjective mapping within some of the smaller projects/teaching that I’m doing in the near future. The best part that Prof Reiser’s new projects are based in Leicester, so there will be some cool things (that people can get involved in) being projected onto the side of the Phoenix Digital Media centre in November.

So despite the techy issues (which could have really helped the day go beyond the boundaries of the walls of the universities) – and the analogue format to the event (which, with all this talk of AR and VR and QR, made me want to get my mobile device and start scanning things) – I couldn’t see it taking very much to actually amplify the EMUA PG group. Planning on sticking at it and see what happens at future events.