School of Arts & Creative Industries

Journal of Art & Design ResearchEdinburgh Napier UniversityVolume 4, 2016

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The Art & Design Research CentreThe Art & Design Research Centre runs out of the School of Arts & Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University. It comprises of academics and practitioners with expertise in 3D design, making and digital crafts; lighting design, exhibition design, and design for heritage and urbanism; advertising, graphic design and graphic advocacy; and film and photography. We work in research and creative practice, consultancy and knowledge exchange and offer research degrees and CPD.

Our aim is to extend and share new knowledge and ideas to benefit a wide audience of participants and community of practice, and would like to hear from businesses, the public sector and local communities seeking help in providing a range of commercially and socially driven projects.

Cover Image: Botanic Lights 2014, Mike Bolam

Our goal is to help practitioners, businesses and communities prosper and flourish through accessing the knowledge and expertise of our staff, associates and partners

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A Quick UpdateIan Lambert

Director: The Art & Design Research Centre

Since issue 3 of our last publication in 2014 a lot has happened, not least changing our name from the Centre for Design Practice & Research to the Art & Design Research Centre, to reflect the broadening scope of our activities now including photography and film. Indeed the scale of our activity has grown exponentially and our members have been busy with writing and publishing papers and books, undertaking large scale KE projects and exhibiting work internationally.

Some of our colleagues have moved on, new ones have joined bringing added vitality to our output. We have colleagues working on graphic advocacy in Mozambique (see pages 24-25) in promoting the effectiveness of preventative medicine; others have been working with Historic Scotland in revitalising the Old Town’s historic closes (see pages 96-99) with innovative lighting. The Elgin Cathedral project reported in issue 2 is now complete, and we have won funding from the AHRC (see pages 38-39) and the Scottish Textiles Forum to explore new approaches to 3D printing (see pages 30-31). We will be installing our expanded digital fabrication studio in a new space later this year.

Our filmmakers and photographers have exhibited work in India (see pages 70-71), Singapore (see pages 66-67) and closer to home at the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh (see pages 34-35). We have been presenting papers in conferences across the UK, and also in Milan, Dublin, Amsterdam, Aarhus, Rome, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, and Zagreb, to name a few, and are partners in organising the Research Through Design Conference 2017, being held at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh (see inside back cover).

We have undertaken many more SFC Innovation Voucher and Follow-on Voucher projects and our external partnerships have greatly expanded. Our work is internationally recognised and valued by our partners. As always, we are keen to hear from new partners in academia, industry and the public sector.

If you have a potential project for us, call +44(0)131 455 2384 / 2476 or e-mail us at ADRC@napier.ac.uk

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Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton

‘Botanic Lights’ was conceived as a research and design led response to a need to increase visitors and generate income streams for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). The principal output was ‘A Night in the Garden’ a temporary light art installation running over 23 nights in 2014. ‘Botanic Lights’ was an exploration into a number of research themes led by Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton in 2014. The Gardens were turned over to Malcolm and Euan to create a temporary visitor experience. The installed project explored themes of temporary tourism and place making using lighting, narrated journeys and communications, tools for creating site-specific artistic interpretation. This was funded by the Scottish Funding Council through an innovation voucher and continued into a follow on voucher. The project was also supported through investment by Homecoming Scotland.

The project was realised in the form of a 1km route through the landscape of the RBGE at night. This was a unique venture where the general public was had the opportunity to experience the gardens in the dark. During October and November 2014 visitors explored lighting installations that articulated 19 artistic concepts. The project addressed the task of increasing footfall and generating new income for the RBGE at a traditionally quiet time of the year. The project had significant impact upon the RBGE in increased daytime and nighttime visitor numbers, income generation and social media increase. National television and radio broadcasts and print media further supported the widespread communication of this hugely successful event. A noticeable success and impact of the project was demonstrated in the extra tickets released to the public growing the audience from the original target of 16,500 to finally achieve 23,500 paying attendees. The project further supported local companies such as Unique Events, Black Light and Saltire Catering through direct involvement and indirectly through local cafes, bars and eateries along with increasing the use of public transport systems. The event has now run for a second year proving the popularity, value and esteem with which the first edition was

Botanic Lights

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held. The 2nd year was set up with an expanded run in reaction to the popularity of the first year. Designed as public engagement the project allowed for studies of visitor behaviours by a postgraduate researcher and for the creative team to test ideas and principles in relation to designed interventions. The project used student collaboration and supported a number of learning activities that informed, influenced or responded to the project. The students of the MA/MDes Design Suite over two cohorts had the opportunity to engage with the project, in 2013 students, working with Malcolm and Euan, were invited to make preliminary propositions and to present them to RBGE as part of an initial, small scale scoping excercise funded by an SFC Innovation Voucher. In 2014 a number of students became part of the design and build team supporting the installation and codesigning particular elements of installations. Further to this, one our students, Stevie Bailes, gained paid employment as a site researcher working alongside Dr Kirstie Jamieson reviewing the phenomenological experience of visitors at the night event. Outwith the design subject, students from Journalism at Edinburgh Napier University used the project to develop course work and their practice based portfolio. In addition to the student opportunities a graduate position was generated for the role of Design Assistant within the area of Design allowing MA Design (Lighting) graduate Stephanie Denholm to gain valuable experience through paid employment.

One significant professional academic collaboration from the project resulted in an experimental music score developed by Dr Haftor Medboe in response to a brief generated by the P.I.s. The music gave a structure for one of the lighting performances, designed for the pond area of the gardens. The experimental approach worked from a visual and literary brief that provided a framework for a 7 minute loop, the music developed that framework as soundwork that involved live recordings from the environment into the score, the output of which generated something for the design team to respond to. This represented the first collaboration of

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its kind between researchers in the two areas of Design and Music at the university. The collaboration generated a paid placement for an MA Sound Production student to work with Dr Medboe.

The project has produced a number of valuable outcomes:

• a 23,500 visitor event at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

• a peer reviewed paper delivered by Euan Winton at the International Spaces and Flows Conference in Chicago titled, Light and the Manifestation of Performance Place

• a paper delivered by Stephanie Denholm at the Professional Lighting Design Convention 2015 in Rome (finalist in multi-stage international, competition for young lighting talent) titled, Hide the Brightness, See the Light — Urban Park Lighting Design: A New Paradigm

• a peer reviewed paper delivered by Dr Kirstie Jamieson at the 12th International Society for Ethnology and Folklore 2015 in Zagreb titled, Playfully Public: Edinburgh Botanical Gardens as Utopian Spectacle and Neoliberal Project

• invited case study presented to Beltane Network – group, representing Public Engagement active staff from all Edinburgh’s universities presented as exemplar of good practice.

Visual and textualbrief from design team

Lighting and installations constructed

around brief andresponding to score

Musical and soundresponse to brief witha significant degree of

creative freedom

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And has achieved significant recognition:

• Winner of a Museum and Heritage Award for ‘Botanic Nights’ with Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, 2015.

• Commended Scottish Design Awards Lighting Design for ‘Botanic Nights’ for Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, 2015.

• Shortlisted for Event Marketing category of the Marketing Society Star Awards for ‘Botanic Nights’ with Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, 2015.

Through the testing of ideas and approaches the project has richly informed ongoing work in the built environment that Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton are undertaking with a number of local, national and international bodies. It has directly led to other practice based research projects for Dunbar Science Festival and the closing event for the Scottish area International Year of Light 2015 funded by EPSRC and hosted by Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh. As such the knowledge generated by the university in this project is forming a rich resource to draw down upon as our research and practice emanate in to new opportunities.

To get access to the papers or abstracts generated so far from this project please visit:

Light and the Manifestation of Performance Place by Euan Winton http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/10143/

Hide the Brightness, See the Light — Urban Park Lighting Design: A New Paradigm by Stephanie Denholmhttp://www.mastersofdesign.net/?page_id=8

Playfully Public: Edinburgh Botanical Gardens as Utopian Spectacle and Neoliberal Project By Dr Kirstie Jamiesonhttp://www.nomadit.co.uk/sief/sief2015/panels.php5?PanelID=3498

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Dr Kirstie Jamieson

Edinburgh exists as the pre-eminent city of ambient festival space boasting as it does a calendar of conspicuous cosmopolitan public life that announces the arrival of a self-consciously international urban mood. The city’s longstanding ‘reflexive accumulation’ (Lash and Urry 1995) of ambient environments as a distinct signifier of cultural identity continues to mine the performativity of public space as evidence of a cultural and participative destination.

Over the past two decades and beyond the self-proclaimed Festival City the curation of affective urban space has been sustained by the viral discourse of Creative Cities and European Cultural Capitals. Today, in Edinburgh it seems that the lexicon of festivalized public space may be shifting its performative emphasis towards technologies of attunement that privilege both more sensory and bounded public spaces. The city’s most recent addition to its calendar is Night in the Garden, a light installation that for the first time in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden’s history allows visitors at night.

This paper explores the Night in the Garden’s curated shadows in relation to the city’s history of festivalized public space. In doing so, it identifies two interwoven teloi that have instituted festivalized public space as a recognisable affective idiom used in the name of neoliberal urban growth; the festival gaze and auratic experience.

Playfully Public: Night in the Gardens as Utopian Spectacle and Neoliberal Project

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Colin Andrews

The Return, is one of a series of three video works inspired by, and referencing, Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice. The Return, combines film, model-making, projection-mapping, 3D animation, compositing and re-projection to revisit the finale of, The Sacrifice, in which, a wooden house is destroyed by fire. The house was modelled on Tarkovsky’s own. During Tarkovsky’s shooting of this continuous six and a half minute shot, on the final day of production, the camera jammed and the vital shot was not recorded. It is this moment of technological failure and the subsequent rebuilding of the house in-order to reshoot the scene that forms the nucleus of a filmic exploration of repetition, return, memory, materiality and loss.

The Return

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The Material Culture of Beachcombing in the Scottish Islands

Ian Lambert and Dr Diane MacLean

There is a heritage of beachcombing in remote parts of the highlands and islands of Scotland from which lessons may be learned in the modern age of mass consumption and disposal. This ongoing project explores the material culture of found materials and objects and their adapted uses as a template for reflection on the mass consumption of more populous areas of the industrialised world.

There is a rich historical narrative of resourcefulness and self-sufficiency, which has changed as the use of our ocean trade routes have changed within a globalised economy. In treeless areas there has been a longstanding reliance on drift wood for house repairs, furniture making and even the building of coffins. Plastic is a more recent addition to the washed up materials, but today also the most abundant, and most problematic to wildlife. In one account we are told that the variety of objects washed ashore on the west coast has diminished in the last 20 years, since New York had stopped dumping their rubbish in the sea in the early 1990s, although the problem is growing worldwide.

Ocean plastic is widely reported as one of the key environmental threats today, blighting coastlines or breaking into small fragments and entering the food chain. That which we can detect either floats around in great gyres or washes ashore, the rest sinks. The Scottish coastline, particularly on the west, is littered with an array of plastic objects which could be re-used for new products. The cost of retrieval will be far greater than the cost of sorting our household recycling, but on the other hand, included in the return is clean beaches and safer natural habitats for coastal wildlife.

As the project has developed two parallel enquiries have been established: one which documents a heritage of re-use to sustain remote communities, and one which seeks to harness the vast material resource washing up on our beaches (see opposite)

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Hybrid Practices in Moving Image Design: Methods of Heritage and Digital Production in Motion Graphics

Dr Iain Macdonald

Published by Palgrave Macmillan September 2016

Moving image design, whether viewed as television and movie title sequences, movie visual effects, animating infographics, branding and advertising, or as an artform, is being increasingly recognised as an important dynamic part of contemporary culture. ‘Hybrid Practices in Moving Image Design’ uses recorded interviews with some of the world’s leading designers and artists in motion graphics, art and visual effects in the moving image to provide a visual and contextual journey through a range of motion graphics and hybrid practices of production. Using examples of their international work from Hollywood blockbusters, Emmy and BAFTA winning television title sequences and European channel idents they argue the value of heritage and digital approaches.

The book also provides an important new context of design pedagogy and creative industries studies that challenge the digital orthodoxies in creative media and practice. For the generation that has grown up in digitally dominated media there is a growing inquisitiveness to explore older media and processes that have either a more tactile quality or a slower process of production that allows for creative thought and reflection.

Conditions of production are examined from a political economy perspective to highlight the conflict of cultural change within the BBC during the 1990s. There are few critical commentaries from the makers and creators in the creative industries, in fact there is ‘a surprising neglect of these cultural workers in studies on the cultural industries’ (Hesmondhalgh, 2007: 308). I aim to make some progress in redressing that neglect with an auto-ethnographic study of this change from the perspective of a television graphic designer, and identify possible attributes needed to survive further challenges.

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Space Station: Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) and Abu Dhabi Technology Development Committee (TDC) Edinburgh International Science Festival.

Richard Firth

To celebrate British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake’s mission launch to the International Space Station I was invited to design a themed, educational interactive exhibition experience, in collaboration with the Edinburgh International Science Festival. The exhibition was installed at the fifth annual Abu Dhabi Science Festival; over an 11 day run the event attracted over 100,000 visitors.

This project is also an example of how external professional praxis can be used to shape and influence a student learning experience. The design process used to produce this exhibition was later used in a teaching context to show product design students how their skills sets are relevant to a broader range of employment pathways within the creative industries.

In addition, the working methodology used while collaborating with the client has informed further academic research on ‘work on the move’ (also featured in this publication).

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MOZ 2.0: Using new forms graphic advocacy and co-design in community based Malaria education and prevention in Mozambique.

Myrna MacLeod and Dr Iain Macdonald

Malaria is one of the world’s deadliest killers, and while research continues into finding a vaccine, and improvements have been made in awareness, prevention and treatment, there is still a need for new methods of health communication in the worst affected areas of the globe.

The objective of this research project is use graphic advocacy to design a method of communication that will improve malaria education in East Africa in collaboration with UNICEF and an African-based NGO. Beginning in June 2016, in Nampula Province, Northern Mozambique, graphic advocacy workshops will be held in three urban and rural locations, Local young people and the research team, including four student researchers, will co-design a series of symbols, which will be rolled out as stickers and badges, and distributed by young people in their communities. As co-designers local people bring new streams of knowledge to the research base and will become stakeholders in the success of the project.

The proposed output will be a campaign to change behaviour at crucial times in response to Malaria prevention and symptoms, and to encourage young people to become agents of change, by introducing the new communication tools to their families and community. The symbolic messages applied to stickers and badges, will be co-designed by UK and Mozambican students, and will form a new local impactful symbolic language, with the potential to be rolled out for wider distribution to other parts of Africa, and the world. The symbols will have the potential to be customized and applied to packaging, bags and hand painted environmental posters, as well as locally produced fabrics, creating high visibility for the campaign and aimed at attracting new funding streams and partners.

As a body of academic research in graphic design practice, co-design and advocacy this project will lead to knowledge exchange within the field of design and world health communication and education, and will be disseminated as a film, newspaper and website.

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An/Aesth/Ethics: the ethical potential of design

Dr Peter Buwert

Design is often thought of as an activity seeking to change existing situations into preferred ones. But how are designers to discern what the nature of this “preferred” change should be? What would it mean to truly design ethically? In the admirable but naïve quest to improve situations through design, it is possible to end up bypassing the ethical altogether. Design can aesthetically provide the appearance and sensation of ethicality without the inconvenience of actually having to be ethical. Ethical discomfort is anaesthetised through the process of aestheticizing ethics: an/aestheticization. Beginning with visual communication design, but maintaining a view to the applicability and importance of the argument for broader fields of design, this paper presents the case that there is hope for genuinely ethical design in an increasingly aestheticized world by drawing on German philosopher of aesthetics Wolfgang Welsch’s suggestion that the root of ethics can be found to emerge from within the aesthetic itself. Design, which for so long has been a principal contributor to an/aestheticization, contains within itself - precisely due its aesthetic nature – the potential to return feeling to a society which finds itself constantly numbed to true ethical being.

Buwert, P., 2015. An/Aesth/Ethics: the ethical potential of design. Artifact,3(3), pp.4.1-4.11.

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Elgin Cathedral: Carved Stone Interpretation

Richard Firth, Malcolm Innes

In 2012, in collaboration with Historic Scotland we started developing plans for a new immersive exhibition, telling the story of the cathedral and the people who built and used it, through the redisplay and interpretation of the Elgin Stone collection. Over 126 Elgin stones were documented and studied by conservators and researchers who uncovered wonderful carvings that lay buried amidst the ruins of the cathedral until the 1800s.

In 2016 the completed exhibition opened, enabling visitors to view the stones and explore their messages conveyed through elaborate carvings including flora, fauna, strange faces, mystical beasts and heraldic motifs.Spread across eight rooms in the cathedral’s north and south towers, the exhibition scheme had many design challenges, not least gaining access to the exhibition spaces, which required the removal of floors and ceilings to lower in some of the larger stone artifacts. LED lighting integrated into interpretive display structures theatrically illuminate the stones including fragments of a 13thcentury rose window discovered during repair works in 1936. Lorna Ewan, Head of Visitor Experience, Content and Learning at Historic Environment Scotland, said,

“Bringing the story of Elgin Cathedral to life for visitors we’ve worked with academic experts to decode the messages within the carvings, and in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University on a wonderful lighting display to create a truly innovative exhibition for Scotland’s year of Innovation, Architecture and Design”.

This exhibition provides visitors with a fantastic opportunity to discover more about the cathedral, its architecture and history and offers a rare glimpse into what Elgin Cathedral could have looked like some 700 years ago.

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Dr Sam Vettese Forster

This project will utilise high quality Scottish ‘unused’ textiles, including pieces of yarn and fabric that are too small to be used in apparel or upholstery production, in a ‘powdered’ form. This will be combined with a recyclable polymer towards an aesthetically desirable, sustainable 3D printer filament with attribution to the prestigious Scottish textile brand from where the textiles were sourced, including Bute, Calzeat, Begg and Co and the Scottish Leather Group. It is anticipated that Scottish knitted and woven wool, cashmere, mixed fibres and recycled leather will be used.

This proposal builds on successful work undertaken at Edinburgh Napier University with Lenzing which created a 3D printer filament utilising the powdered cellulose used in Tencel thread with Bioflex PLA.

At this time, there are filaments that utilise hemp, bamboo, paper, recycled polyester bottles and metal, but not animal fibres from textiles, recycled or otherwise. These filaments will developed not only for their sustainable impact, but to create an innovative, solid, 3D printable material that has the aesthetic provenance and desirable storyline of the craft of Scottish textiles.

This project is run jointly between Design and Advanced Materials at Edinburgh Napier University and is funded by the Textiles Future Forum.

A new process for transforming unexploited textiles into high value products which embody the provenance of the Scottish textile industry

Making new material from old, rag sorting for the ‘mungo and shoddy’ textile trade, Victoria Mills, 1917

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Work on the MoveRichard Firth, Trent Jennings, Ruth Cochrane: Edinburgh Napier University UK, Michael Taks, Peter van de Graaf: Windesheim, Zwolle Netherlands

‘Work on the Move’, is a collective of design academics working internationally. We run design thinking and making workshops twice a year at different international locations. Our most recent research output has been presented at Cumulus ‘in this place’ Nottingham 2016 and won best paper in the innovation category.

‘Work on the move’ is a design, process-driven methodology, which uses multiple locations within an outdoors setting and movement between locations, all of which function as learning places, confined to a specified time period.

Between 2012 and 2015, a team of international Higher Education product design educators (all members of Carousel, a co-operation of Erasmus members in Zwolle, Edinburgh, Nantes, Rome, Kortrijk and Oslo), industry professionals and product design students developed and tested four case studies. Each case study was conducted in a different international location and was constructed with a different focus, to help define and refine a definitive working methodology.

‘Work on the move’ explores the influence of ‘place’ upon design, in terms of the impact it has on productivity and creative problem-solving, when working away from the traditional studio/office-based environment. It also explores the significance of shared place, when working directly with a client in situ, and experiencing the place-based influences upon their businesses. While identifying location as part of the design process, the study also seeks to understand the effects of time restriction and working in transit upon creativity and productivity, within the context of specific projects.

‘work on the move’ offersan environment in which toescape, think, discuss andcreate, without the traditionalprotocols of an office setting.

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Sophie Gerrard

Drawn To The Land takes an intimate look at the contemporary Scottish landscape through the eyes of women who are working, forming and shaping it. Working and living in a male dominated world, women have a significant yet under represented role to play in farming in Scotland. The number of women farming in the UK has grown by almost 25% in the last 10 years.

Farming some of the most inhospitable and isolated rural areas of Scotland, these female farmers have an intense relationship with their landscape. This ongoing contemporary portrait of farming in Scotland from a female perspective began as a way of exploring my own relationship with the Scottish landscape.

I set out to scratch the surface, go beyond the romantic picturesque postcard view and learn about the land through the eyes of those who call themselves custodians. Drawn To The Land explores the farmers’ domestic landscapes as well as the physical, following the emotional story of the land as much as the historical and geographical.

At this significant time in Scotland’s history, these women have a huge role to play in shaping the landscape, both physically and politically. The womens’ personal and physical stories reflect a wider story of our national identity, and emotional relationship with the landscape. Each of the women included in this project share a remarkable strength, a passion, a desire, and many of them talk of “having something in their blood”, of being “drawn to the land”.

Drawn To The Land

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Critical Making with Aluminium Sandcasting: Design Practice into Practice-led Research

Ian Lambert

The UK Research Excellence Framework’s (REF) 2014 definition of research is: ‘A process of investigation, leading to new insights, effectively shared.’ (HEFCE 2011, p.21 – 22, p.48). Arguably, all creative practice is a process of investigation, and there is a growing academic view of knowledge in doing, and making as thinking. John Dunnigan’s essay on Thinking (2013) refers to critical making as the ‘symbiotic relationship’ between thinking and making, referring to embodied knowledge through working with your hands, ‘the very process itself opens up new possibilities for deep expansive thinking and the serious enquiry that stimulates discovery.’ (2013, p.98). Tim Ingold (2013) goes further to unpick the process of making from the viewpoint of forming new knowledge and insight, Ingold refers to two approaches to making – hylomorphic and morphogenetic (Ingold, 2013, pp.20-22). In terms of hylomorphic making,

“ We are accustomed to think of making as a project. This is to start with an idea in mind of what we want to achieve, and with a supply of the raw material needed to achieve it. And it is to finish at the moment the material has taken on its intended form.” (Ingold, 2013, p.20)

However, Ingold’s preferred position is to think of making as, ‘a process of growth. This is to place the maker from the outset as a participant in amongst a world of active materials… in anticipation of what might emerge.’ (Ingold, 2013, p.21).

This clarity of understanding and insight maps onto an exploratory, sometimes impulsive or deliberately risky approach to creative practice and has helped to further endorse and validate making as an important research method within itself. Here, I have created aluminium artefacts by playing with discarded packing as waste moulds, including polystyrene packaging pellets arranged in a bowl and bubble wrap (see opposite), and the narrative of their making has been evaluated in two published papers and an exhibition, which can be found on the Edinburgh Napier University Research Repository. The project is ongoing.

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Dr Sam Vettese Forster

Souvenirs can be an important element of a tourist experience with most visitors bringing back mementos and souvenirs as evidence. Souvenirs are often thought of as cheap, inauthentic, mass produced ‘commodities’. It can be that this commoditisation exploits local crafts people and alters the meaning of cultural products, eventually making them meaningless. On occasion, souvenir products are produced to look like authentic crafts and are sold to tourists as genuine cultural products. Souvenirs can, however, be ‘messengers of meaning’ that are symbolic reminders of an event or experience. They can serve as tangible markers of an otherwise intangible and ephemeral experience. ‘Souvenirs of essence are intangible recollections, abstract notions of place attachment, enjoyable holiday experiences, and social connectedness. Souvenirs in substance are physical, tangible, material objects that identify place and delineate a singular experience.’

(Swanson & Dallen, 2012 : 290)

This experience can be ‘suspended in time’ through souvenirs. Bringing a souvenir home validates and prolongs a travel experience, not only as a remembrance but a proof that the owner was there. This research explores the concept of the souvenir, not only as a meaningful and expressive object, but also, through in-situ 3D printing technology, as an interactive experience that further adds to the potential authenticity of the tourist experience. In this study, funded by AHRC, a 3D printer was set up in Stirling Castle, Scotland, and visitors were allowed to interact and ‘create’ (in this case through choice of material) their own souvenir, which reflected the Historic Scotland’s branding. The real time production of the 3D printed objects and the nature of 3d printing, which involves ‘risk and certainty’ (Pye, 1968) added innovative technology and making to a more traditional, immersive tourist experience. ‘People seem increasingly keen to develop their creative potential, by enhancing their productive or consumption skills, by following courses or experiencing creativity on holiday’. (Richards, 2011) The precedents and outcomes from this are explored throughout this cross disciplinary project between Design and Tourism at Edinburgh Napier University.

Making Tourist Experiences Through Personalisable 3D Printed Souvenirs

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Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton

In late autumn 2015, Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton delivered two events promoting the use of light in the exploration of public space and representing public places in new ways.

The European Researchers Night 2015 organised by the Beltane Society selected our proposal to light Edinburgh’s Old Town with novice lighting explorers. 20 members of the public signed up and were proactively engaged in an orchestrated guerilla ‘light painting’ walking tour of Closes off the Royal Mile Edinburgh. The walking tour staged 5 designed interventions utilising portable lamps and torches along with stage lighting gels to create dramatic new scenes within the city. Every participant had a role and as such every participant had a light. The images of the event were captured through long exposure photography generating beautiful outcomes of a more lasting kind. The extremely transient installations created a thoroughly engaging entry-level lighting design platform for the public to explore. The orchestrated scenes followed a predesigned route and plan, after which personal and collective experimentation was encouraged. Here, supported by students from the MA/MDes Design suite and design assistant Stephanie Denholm (ENU), the group created their own scenes to be photographed. All of the images from the event were then replayed as a backdrop to the after event Ceilidh at Edinburgh University’s Teviot House sharing the experience and practices with a wider audience. The images became part of a collection for further use by the Beltane Network.

Lighting Workshops and Public Engagement Events

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The ‘Night of Heritage Light’ or NoHL was an award winning one night event celebrating the UNESCO Year of Light. Organised by the Society of Light and Lighting and working in 9 UK World Heritage Sites from the Tower of London to the Giants Causeway. Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton decided to rework largely hidden environments of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Linking research into cutting-edge Photonics research at Heriot-Watt University and the research of re-enchantment of spaces, that underpins much of Malcolm and Euan’s work, Makar’s Court was reimagined as a landscape of light where the power of the written word radiated into the local environment and created a mystical place. The work took influence from the Writers’ Museum located in the environment and brought into being a misty space where light and image came together in a new city-scape composition. It was important that this alternative view of the Old Town was generated in order to suggest the depth and complexity of the environment and to offer up a non-traditional representative view of it. A guerilla event, the light scene was set up captured as still images and removed all in one night. The event was an open platform for incidental public participation in the form of a stumble-upon intervention. The project formed part of network that spanned the UK in a collection of events and image generation. It was awarded Heritage Project of the Year at the international Lighting Design Awards 2016.

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Defamiliarisation, Brecht and Criticality in Graphic Design

Dr Peter Buwert

Defamiliarisation is the deeply unsettling moment of psychological disorientation experienced when something which has always appeared familiar suddenly becomes unfamiliar: the moment when something is comprehended in a new way, with amazement and astonishment, not because of any bizarre quality of the object itself but precisely

because the item in question had previously been considered so ordinary and acceptable, and is now, upon re-examination, found to be truly extraordinary. Recognition of the two components of this dynamic—the significant twin powers of habitualisation and defamiliarisation—is vital to the pursuit of criticality within design. The fundamental prerequisite for criticality, is not in fact the ability to criticise, but to recognise and point out problematic features in an existing situation which could be other than they are. The source of criticality’s power flows from this ability to imagine ways in which things could be different. It is only in this speculation on alternative possibilities for existence, that criticality is capable of becoming a productive social force. Where habitualisation runs uncontested, these alternatives will inevitably go unnoticed and unexplored.

The essay Defamiliarisation, Brecht and Criticality in Graphic Design offers an introductory overview of theories of defamiliarisation effects, focussing on Bertolt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt and discussing examples of similar methods in action in the work of graphic designer Jan van Toorn and filmmaker Adam Curtis. The piece appears in Modes of Criticism 2: Critique of Method (May 2016).

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Mick Dean

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Colin Andrews

offreterffo takes Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice, (titled, Offret, in the original Swedish) and creates a composite image formed by playing the film forwards and backwards simultaneously. The work is presented as an continuous loop.

Conceptually the form of offreterffo is analogous to the form of a mobius strip - a single-surfaced, non-orientable loop. The form serves to collapse the narrative framework and chronology of the film. The images are seductive but the narrative cannot be followed and one is never quite sure where in the film one is or what one has seen previously. It plays with memory, our perception of time, repetition, and the relationship of images to each other, rather than as a series of episodes structured to create a sense of narrative coherence. The film’s audio follows the form of the visual - overlaying the forwards and backwards audio. The dialogue is in Swedish and the subtitles have been removed, so the Swedish is mixed with the backwards audio, creating an abstracted and fragmentary soundscape which complements the uncertainty and disjointedness of the stream of images.

Offreterffo

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Paul Kerlaff

Finnish Architect Juhani Pallasmaa describes our dwelling in a building as a series of performative acts, most famously in his affirmation of the door handle as ‘the handshake of the building’ (Pallasmaa 1996:40,45). The door handle is not a nominal entity; it ‘bids us welcome’ (Ingold 2013:85). In the same way, Heidegger describes things as distinct from objects; whereas objects are complete in themselves, distinct from us regardless of physical proximity, we may join together with things in close and affectionate correspondence. Tim Ingold illustrates this phenomenon by describing an earth mound:

‘in lying down with the mound, in adding a stone we have picked up along the way to a cairn…. We experience mound and cairn… as things’

(Ingold 2013:85)

We can understand both tables and surfboards not as objects but as things, in that by using them our movements come into ‘close and affectionate correspondence’ with them (Ingold 2013:85). In a similar way, our collective practice of design and manufacture is also itself a ‘thinging’ in that it contributes to an ever-developing process of renewal and change of surfboard as thing. When tables or surfboards are designed to encourage users to remake them, we not only reduce the quantity of raw material needed, but also enrich our relationship with objects by transforming them into things.

From Objects to Things:Design for User Remanufacture

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Widening ParticipationRichard Firth and Trent Jennings

To mark the Queens 90TH birthday, Edinburgh Napier’s product design department and pupils from Bo’ness Academy art department collaborated on an innovative sand casting workshop on Blackness Castle Beach. Student from both institutes created commemorative art works which comprised the design and production of 40 plus bass relief sculptures that we cast in pewter into moulds created directly in to the beach at Blackness Castle. The workshop used traditional craft making processes to introduce sustainable manufacturing processes, using a ‘making through doing’ approach to teaching. The workshop was run by Richard Firth and Trent Jennings (programme leader and lecturer for product design) who have been running similar outdoor learning and teaching experiences in both Scotland and Norway.

Manna Dobo art teacher at Bo’ness Accadamy This has been wonderful example of learning by doing. It has shown that projects that are experimental are incredibly worthwhile doing. It encourages a growth mind set in the pupils by allowing them to let go of pre-conceived ideas and showing that you are able to do much more than you thought you could. This workshop has empowered our pupils with a new skillset, work attitude and enthusiasm that they will be able to utilise in many other contexts. They will also be able to pass these skills on to pupils’ coming after them and this will create a long lasting legacy

Richard Firth Increasingly we are aiming to integrate our teaching and learning experiences into community’s outwith the university. Observing our second year product design students organising, delivering and mentoring 4th year and 6th forms school pupils through this innovative learning workshop, has been a terrific validation of learning by teaching and the impact of widening participation process.

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Colin Cavers

My work has developed through photography to teaching, curating, community arts development work and education, as well working with people in a wide variety of cultural settings in particular the North East of India.

The invitation from the guest editor of OjodePez, to revisit my work from almost a quarter of a century ago, offered me an opportunity to reflect and revisit within the postcolonial context. The original work was my personal statement as a younger photographer, who tried to come to terms with my lost childhood as the youngest son of a European tea estate manager in Assam. It was through the project and the lens I engaged with aspects of postcolonial identity. In delving memories in order make sense of my experience and the consequences of my inheritance, I found resolution in the making of Assam: The Language of Tea.

In revisiting the work, I see beyond that younger photographer. It reminds me the complexities of creating work to interpret both cruelties and achievements of workers of the tea plantations, and their intense survival processes that they generously shared. They speak to me now in ways that remain fresh and important.

In representing my work ‘plucked’ from its original environment, and now sitting within my childhood memory yet in a wider context of the postcolonial identity, I recognise aspects of what I was trying to question haltingly, as Murdo MacDonald comments in the exhibition catalogue “Perhaps there is something to be said for halting communication. At least then no one assumes that the understanding of another’s language or culture is easy. ”

In this representation, I was provided an opportunity to reconsider my practice and experiences to reflect on how the image might create a new dialogue between myself, the work and the viewer. It presents an opprotunity to research the archive of family snapshots, both in Scotland and Assam with particular to the tea industry.

OjodePez magazine (issue no. 43) – ‘On PostColonial Photography’

Lost in translation

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Myrna MacLeod

Brora is a village on the East Coast of Sutherland, in the Highlands of Scotland.

It was very industrial, having at one time - a coal mine, brickworks, salt pans, fishing and curing, a lemonade factory, the Clynelish Distillery, a wool mill, a stone quarry and the railway. When in operation, the coal mine was the most northerly coalmine in the UK. Brora was the first place in the north of Scotland to have electricity thanks to its wool industry. This distinction gave rise to the local nickname of “Electric City” at the time.

‘It takes a village’ is a project aimed at turning Brora into a living poster gallery in Summer 2017, capturing its industrial heritage in a series of graphic posters designed by a group of graphic designers and co-designed with the local community, for the local community. Using ethnographic research the posters will be unique graphic artefacts, created from photographs, memory and experiences of local people and will form an exhibition. The project will be captured for dissemination on film, in a book and website.

The posters will be printed in limited editions for sale.

It takes a village . . . Celebrating lost industrial heritage using the graphic poster.

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Colin Cavers

My practice and research have developed through using Photography in Gallery Curating, Higher Education and in the complex contexts of Community Arts Development, where Photography is the pedagogical method of engagement to achieve a wide variety of strategic outcomes. The principle of applying Photography to develop dialogues and make contributions to these discourses, informs my work in a number of initiatives; so leading me to be involved with a public engagement project around the development of a gallery, That is commited to presenting Photography outwith the metropolitan spaces in Scotland, an idea discussed by a group of practitioners since the Millennium. In 2010, Arts & Theatre Trust Fife (Now know as Fife Cultural Trust) , offered a venue in Glenrothes, Fife. With this, the group formed a constituted, not-for-profit organisation, the Fife Foto Group.

For me, such a project is driven by the imperative to ensure the principles and ethics of Applied Practice inform the project. It is crucial that if a project is sited within a specific community, it has to be a project that resonates with and enhances the existing cultural practices and aspirations of that community. The strategy of the Group and FOTOSPACE Gallery, is to create opportunities for practitioners from as wide a range of photographers, to initiate and develop learning, research, create and exhibit their work. This is achieved in solo and group exhibitions, and open call submissions. My role within the organisation is that of Secretary and Exhibitions Co-ordinator.

Since its launch in Autumn 2011, 38 exhibitions were profiling over 200 photographers from Scotland, Europe, North America and Asia. Exhibitors’ include school pupils, amateurs, emerging practitioners and professional photographers. We have relationships with organisations in Canada, China and Malawi, resulting in exchanges and collaborations. The project offers opportunities for involvement to students and graduates; graduates of Edinburgh Napier University and Edinburgh College of Art are members of the Group. As FOTOSPACE Gallery develops, there are significant opportunities for study, development and action research projects, informing the strategy of Fife Cultural Trust, as well as the future Exhibition and Education inititiaves and projects of the gallery in Community, National and International work.

FOTOSPACE Gallery

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Colin Cavers, Mary Ann Kennedy and Lindsay Morgan

Resilience and the Growth Mindset in Education: Since 2014, students on the BA (Hons) Photography Programme have participated in innovative work placement initiatives in local secondary schools to facilitate practical workshops and creatively direct pupils in the production of tangible resources on these key themes. This process of engagement and volunteering for our students, creates the perfect opportunity to apply their growing photographic knowledge in a truly transferable context.

The Growth Mindset is the view that the most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work — brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. The Growth Mindset is high on the educational agenda today and these collaborations tap in to that focus.

In 2014/15 our students collaborated with teachers and S3 pupils at St David’s RC High to produce photographic stills representing the 8 pillars of Resilience. These stills were printed on to a multi-fold leaflets and distributed to every pupil at the school and their feeder primary schools in addition to being permanently displayed in a communal area. The project was awarded the Creative Edinburgh Collaboration Award.

In 2015/16, students worked on projects at St David’s RC High and Beeslack Community High School to design and produce 6 banners on the theme of the Growth Mindset and create a children’s book to share with primary schools in Edinburgh and the Lothians. Both projects produced outstanding results and were celebrated in an exhibition in April 2016. The partnerships are ongoing by negotiation with the intention to continue for a five-year programme of annual activities.

These community engagement projects widen participation, establish strategic partnerships with key stakeholders and create an opportunity to research and reflect upon approaches to active learning in a creative context. The goal is to create a lasting legacy for our educational partners and a viable model for active learning in Creative Arts Higher Education.

Approaches to Active Learning in a Creative Context

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Ron O’Donnell

Over the course of 35 days in the summer of 2013, the King’s Theatre was closed to the public for a very special make-over. The 42 metre height of the King’s auditorium was filled with a free-standing scaffold to allow access to the walls and the ceiling without damaging the delicate, listed interior for a major restoration of the decorative plasterwork. The main feature was the installation of a new centrepiece for the theatre, the King’s Dome Commission – an original mural designed by acclaimed painter and playwright, John Byrne.

Ron O’Donnell documented the entire project from the drawing board to the final unveiling of the artwork titled ‘All the World’s a Stage’. Edinburgh Festival Theatre acquired the complete photographic archive and a selection is on permanent display at the King’s Theatre Edinburgh. In January 2014 Ron O’Donnell received an award from The Art and Humanities Research Council to display the work on the AHRC website image gallery, AHRC also produced Publicity Posters and a set of desktop calendar cards.

“Dear Ron O’Donnell, Many thanks for your application to display images on the AHRC Image Gallery. The peer review panel has now met and we are delighted to inform you that your application was successful. The call attracted nearly 150 applications and the standard of applications was extremely high, so this represents a considerable achievement on your part. Many congratulations.” - AHRC review panel Finestripe productions produced a documentary WHAT DO ARTISTS DO ALL DAY - JOHN BYRNE featuring Ron O’Donnell. The Festival Theatre produced a Poster and Postcards.

King’s Theatre Project

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Dr Louise S. Milne

The nightmare has been conceived of since antiquity as a supernatural agent: a demon, a minor god, or a wandering human spirit. The ancient Mesopotamians wrote of the god of nightmares as attacking lone travellers in desert places; the Egyptians invoked the protection of Bes, a monstrous multiple deity, against bad dreams; the Greeks called this demon ephialtes (the leaper); the Romans altered this to incubus (one who lies on, or crushes, the dreamer). Throughout the Middle Ages, charms and invocations conserve and develop this mythos. Thus, an Old English Journey Charm asks for

“God’s protection / Against the stab of the pains, against the blow of the pains / Against the terror of the grim ones /Against the great horror that is hateful to everyone / And against all loath [things] that fare in upon the land. / I sing a victory chant, I bear a victory-stave… /May the mare [night-mare] not mar me” (Ic me on þisse gyrde beluce..; mid-11C,Corpus Christi College MS 41)

Charms against the Germanic Trud and the Scandinavian mara also survive from medieval and early modern sources. This paper explores the common imagery in a wide range of this material, including some non-European sources, examining particularly the ways in which the magical language evokes the thing it is attempting to repel. This doubling effect can be linked to traditions of nightmare-representation, wherein the nightmare is seen as simultaneously inside and outside the dreamer. The language of charms against the terrors of the night is often read as garbled or corrupt, but such inchoate or “illegible” passages are also interesting; “nonsense” in such cases may also be mimetic and apotropaic, mimicking the effects of terror, confusing the demon, and enhancing the effectiveness of the charm.

Charms, Charmers and CharmingInternational Conference (2015) & Proceedings (2016) Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pécs, Hungary. Friday 15th – Sunday 17th May, 2015

The terrors of the night: charms against the nightmare and the mythology of dreams

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Ron O’Donnell

Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF) is a biennial gathering of minds from around the world with the common pursuit of SIPF advancing the art and appreciation of contemporary photography. Incepted in 2008, relying greatly on corporate sponsorship, and strong support from the government, various institutions and museums for its overwhelming success.

For SIPF’s fourth edition, the festival will open on 3 October 2014 till 30 November 2014. The festival’s independent curatorial panel are renowned professionals Dr. Adele Tan, Dr Alexander Supartono, Dr. Charles Merewether, and Tay Kay Chin.

On behalf of the Organising Committee, we are pleased to announce your series of works “WILD FLOWERS” has been selected to feature at the 4th SIPF Showcase opening on 3rd October 2014 in Singapore. At the National Museum of Singapore. Awarded a Professional Development Grant from Creative Scotland

It’s layers of earth the objects are found around where I pick the flowers, stones, bottles, bits of clothing, anything that is laying on the ground. I also incorporate bits and pieces lying around in my studio, and yes it is political and sociological about life, and death, and history. It’s a mix of all things some people will see recognizable things, such as small toys, some objects have a wider range, some are very personnel to me.

WILD FLOWERS

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Dr Kirstie Jamieson

According to its own rhetoric the self-proclaimed Festival City has triumphed in the curation of an affective temporalised urban space and affirmed the viral discourse of Creative Cities and European Cultural Capitals. As the urban and economic potentiality of the Creative Industries wanes this paper explores the ways in which the planning and administration of the seeming ‘spontaneous vitality’ (Lefebvre 1992) of the festival continues to peddle the city as a temporalised place of (syn) aesthetic pleasures.

Boasting a calendar of time strategies that annually reprogramme the city as expanded synchronous timescapes, Edinburgh The Festival City is the pre-eminent city of temporalised space. Here, it is Time and its idealized affective relations that constitute the city as object and contribute a language of ‘affective mechanics’ (Jenkins 1992) to urban planning discourse.

The paper explores Edinburgh’s historical relationship with temporalised space and seasonal spatial economies revealing a longstanding ‘reflexive accumulation’ (Lash and Urry 1995) of ambient environments. With specific attention to the shift from Creative City to Sensory City (Landry 2012) the paper identifies a broader cultural shift that seeks to categorize the immaterial qualia of cities in an increasingly deterritorialized process of codified ‘tabular’ space (Foucault 1973) apt at expanding the city’s ‘aesthetic field’ (Berleant 1991).

Festival Timescapes: The Entanglement of Transformative Urban Topographies

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Paul Holmes

In this artwork, the faces of the four members of jazz guitarist and composer Haftor Medbøe’s quartet were filmed in extreme close-up as they rehearsed for a performance at the 2014 Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival.This study of the musicians’ facial tics and tells as they navigate the half-rehearsed landscape of a jazz set is partly a portrait of Medbøe’s band, and partly an investigation of the creative process.

In the course of a four song set, the unflinching gaze of the cameras give a tantalising glimpse of the agonies and triumphs of creative inspiration, edited into a mute video installation that unfolds in real time. The absence of sound, and of the instruments themselves in the image, creates an isolated and abstract depiction of creativity in the raw.

The footage shot also forms the basis of an investigation into the psychology of creativity. In this research project, based at Edinburgh Napier University, the facial expressions in the captured video will be analysed and related to the creative work being done by the musician at the time.

The work has showed as part of “Outside the Box’, Paul Holmes’s solo show, at Studio 21, Kolkata, June 2015; at “Jazzfest”, November 2015, Dalhousie Institute, Kolkata; at the “Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition”, Edinburgh November 2015 – February 2016 and at the “Azimuth Sound/Image” group exhibition, Maraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Tokyo April 2016.

Outside the box

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Paul Holmes

This sound installation is a response to resonances between the work of Robert Burns and 19th and 20th Century Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. As Burns is in Scotland, in Bengal Tagore is revered as a cultural hero. And, like Burns, he studied his country’s traditional musical forms.

Tagore was inspired by Auld Lang Syne to write the celebrated song Purano Sei Diner Kotha (‘Memories of Good Times’), whose melody is reminiscent of traditional Scots songs. In the installation, the two tunes are broken down into individual sung notes, each lasting a few seconds. These notes are recorded and edited in the order of the original songs, and replayed in sync.

Walking from one set of speakers to the other, the spectator goes on a journey between the two pieces, echoing the transfer of ideas, commodities and people between Scotland and Bengal since the 18th Century. The two tunes engage in a dialogue with one another that is at times harmonic and at times discordant, mirroring the relations between peoples that result from trade, travel and diplomacy. This creates a commemoration of the rich and sometimes tumultuous effect of bringing people of different nationalities together.

Developed in association with the University of the West of Scotland, Ayr, and the support of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (SCoTS) and Centre for Media and Culture at Edinburgh Napier University. Vocal consultant: Taylor Wilson. Vocalists: Taylor Wilson, Payal Debroy, Andy Fraser, Soumya Dutta Roy. Grateful thanks to Keith Bird and May Mayberry, respectively, for their technical and graphics input.

The work was commissioned by and showed at the Burns Festival, Belleisle Park, Ayr in May 2014. Research Paul Holmes did to create the work led to an Indian Council for Cultural Relations Senior Research Fellowship to enable him further to investigate the links between the two poets.

Memory’s Journey

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Fabian Galama

“Far from my body being for me no more then a fragment of space, there would be no space at all for me if I had no body” Maurice Merleau-Ponty, 1997

Body Points is a movement technique developed for Dance Company Galama & Kho from 2001 onward. It was taught to professional dancers and applied and performed in various dance performances and workshops around Europe.

As a (former) Dancer and Choreographer and now Interior and Spatial designer Fabian Galama is testing and researching the dialogue between body and space. Body Points lets the body move through a space by initiation of the 13 main Joints: 2x ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists and 1x the neck.

Moving from these separate points into the space, rather than from feet (as in steps) or hands (as in gestures) one creates a new way of physical communication. The vocabularies of movements developing from this technique all serve the non-verbal communication of the performer, be it actors, dancers or circus artists, creating an interaction with the content as well as the contextual environment of the performance.

Body Points

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Ron O’Donnell

The McManus Art Gallery and Museum in Dundee acquired two work for their permanent collection, Liberty Leading the People and No Articles Beyond this Point. They have arguably the finest collection of contemporary Scottish photography, and are producing a poster and postcards of the images. The National Fund for Acquisitions will include an image of Liberty Leading the People in the forthcoming NFA annual report

2014 Frames Projecting International Photography:

“2014 Frames is pleased to present a diverse selection of critical documentary, fine art, and experimental international photography in a series of public slide shows to take place concurrently to the 2014 Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art.

“Thank you for contributing to Political Portraits. 2014. Frames starts at the CCA Glasgow during the opening weekend of GI Festival International photography projections. The projection will be shown again at Merchant City Square.The selection features Kennardphillipps, Tom Hunter, Ciara Leeming, JA Mortram and Ron O’Donnell.”

“Each of you make bold political statements. I’m so proud to include your important work in this exhibition. Thanks so so much again for contributing.”

“From the fantastical nature of Ron O’Donnell’s “The Great Divide” and Peter Kennard & Cat Phillips technology savvy satire - to the harsh realities of J.A. Mortram’s “Small Town Inertia” all five photographers offer a stark look at the socio-political climate in the UK today.”

McManus and Frames

78

Fabian Galama

After critically discussing the powerful role of the energy grids and the Infrastructural paradigm of society, this research goes on to identify other perspectives. Body Place explores how the relations between body and place could be conceptualised in a broad path of recent writings and discourses on the Influence of `cyberspace’ and developing technologies in the context of a growing world population. For instance,`Biomimicry” focuses on how nature has solved design challenges in a sustainable manner. From the perspective of the body, this research studies technological novelties to meet people’s physical needs. From a spatial perspective, it explores the advantages, drawing from ‘off-grid’ technological innovations, of detaching habitats from the conventional grids without losing its power supply or services and by making an enhanced use of virtual grids. This research considers changing the paradigm of possessions and territories for broader debates about nature, body and place.

Body Place

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Kathy Vones

This practice-led research explores how smart materials, and in particular chromic silicone, can be integrated into a wearable object in combination with microelectronics to create aesthetically harmonious stimulus-reactive jewellery. Bringing together digital methods of fabrication with craft methodologies to create objects that respond intimately to changes in the body of the wearer and the environment is presented as an outcome of this body of research. The works created as part of this practice-led project explore different aspects of this goal, introducing the concept of generating digital enchantment through playful interaction, as well as exploring the possibilities offered by layering thermo- and photochromic pigments to achieve striking visual transitions (Vones, 2015). Through examining the notion that human biology is a part of material culture, where the body can be shaped, customised or altered through surgical interven¬tion and scientific innovation, this research project explores how recent developments in material science and wearable technologies can be viewed as moving towards a future embracing the posthuman body, bridging the gap between craft practitioner and scientific discovery (Hayles, 1999).

Through engaging in a holistic process of material immersion and experimentation I have developed a body of work that is emotionally resonant while leaving space for serendipitous discovery. The rise of creative technologists represents a new breed of studio artist (Miodownik, 2009), equipped to contribute to the debate surrounding the role of the practitioner in an age defined by digital revolution and material discovery. Against a background of growing fascination with and reliance upon technologies and devices that contain some form of interactivity, my research provides an essential part of developing a discourse on the place symbiotic jewellery and the contemporary craft practitioner occupy within this setting.

Symbiotic Microjewels: Crafting Digital Interaction

Kathy Vones, HyperTilt Pendant (2015) from

the HyperHive Series in its inactive (top) and

active (bottom) state.

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Dr Alexander Supartono

Colonial archives have historically been centralised and exclusive in spatial as well as ideological terms. Digitalisation paved the way for the decentralisation and democratisation of institutional archives as digital proxies have become accessible to wider and geographically disperse audiences through different online platforms. This online presence as well as the possibilities for user interactivity and repurposing of content that Web 2.0 offered has opened new channels and networks for the critical examination of the colonial archive, its ontology, politics and power.

This research seeks to investigate novel readings of the colonial photographic archive in the digital era and how the concept, content and taxonomy of colonial and postcolonial archives in South and Southeast Asia have been used, challenged, appropriated and repurposed by contemporary artists, curators and academics, within western and non-western explorations of ethnicity, identity, history, and memory. These new interpretations, located on or disseminated through the Web, constitute an expanded postcolonial archives open to diverse interpretations.

The Postcolonial Archive: Art, Identity and Globalization in the era of Web 2.0

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Dr Alexander Supartono

This research-based exhibition series started from a postcolonial photography workshop I conducted in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2012. Photographers and photography collectives participated in this exhibition to contest and reconfigure mannerisms, patterns and commonplaces of photo studio tradition in their respective countries. They merge the colonial past with the postcolonial present by appropriating and interpreting the (colonial) archive.

This exhibition uniquely brings together historical material and contemporary works by seventeenth photographic artists and collectives with twenty-five bodies of works from Nigeria, Uganda, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, England, the Netherlands, Scotland, Bangladesh, and India. They revisit stereotypical colonial portraiture to question its validity and place in national history and culture.

The Postcolonial Photo Studio

Postcolonial Photo Studio Exhibition,

Noorderlicht Gallery, the Netherlands, Summer 2015

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Ron O’Donnell

PROTEUS’ will show its highly acclaimed science engagement exhibition, created by renown Scottish artist Ron O’ Donnell at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. Following a brilliantly successful launch at the Edinburgh GATHER Festival this year Ron’s arresting piece of art work entitled “Let The World Keep Turning’ “ has caught the attention of Chinese academics at Tongji University, Shanghai. Tongji is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China. Ron O’Donnell, a highly talented and respected contemporary art photographer, agreed to collaborate with PROTEUS in spring 2015 to explore how PROTEUS scientists use different ‘scientific languages’ within the team to better understand each other and to achieve the ambitious scientific aims of the project.

PROTEUS’ Science Engagement Exhibition Travels to Shanghai, China

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Pankhuri Jain

‘I AM A TOY! Contemplating the Pleasures of Play through collaborative experience’ was an explorative workshop, which was a part of a series of talks, presentations and keynotes at the Counterplay Festival 2016, taking place in Aarhus, Denmark from 14th-16th April 2016 . This workshop investigated how play is facilitated through cooperation in scenarios that use games and music as instigators of collaborative play. Play is a dynamic and complex activity, which according to Vygotsky (1933/1976), represents an interactive social form of embodied imagination. Accordingly, play simultaneously requires and leads to collaborative protocols that make use of symbolic constructions, behavioural mastery, emotional arousal and control and the production of group cultural love. This framework provides the starting point from which the proposed workshop explores the qualitative experiential textures of collaborative play.

Based on Vygotsky’s understanding of Play and Creativity, a set of activities were designed, where roles were reversed between players and toys. Through the workshop, adults and children collectively produced a space: assuming the personality of a toy [they became the toy / part of a toy], and through collaboration with other designed ‘toys’, participants played a game to achieve a common goal. This workshop led to the creation of an imaginative space, wherein strangers collaborated to share a common inter-present experience of playfulness.

The activity: Using Makey - Makey kits, I created scenarios for four or five participants to come together as accessories or ‘switches’ to a game, which was then ‘played’ by an individual in collaboration with the other participants/’switches’. Makey - Makey kits were utilised as they have the ability to convert any conductive object to a potential switch, including humans; this leads to endless possibilities of exploring collaborative and imaginative play. These co-operative game spa game spaces provide new opportunities to discuss and feel the pleasures of collaborative play.

I AM A TOY! Contemplating the Pleasures of Play through collaborative experience

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Sarah Taylor

There is currently no precedent for smart textile products within a traditional textile manufacture infrastructure in Scotland. Sarah Taylor is working with world leading lace manufacturers, MYB Textiles to initiate specialist production capability for woven, light-emitting lace within Scotland.

The 2016 proof of concept, Light-emitting Innovative Textiles project is a joint initiative with Dr Sara Robertson from the University of Dundee in collaboration with MYB Textiles. The project is match funded by a Textiles Future Forum Challenge award (c. £75k total project value) which supports transformational innovation between industry and academia within the Scottish textile sector.

This research project was initiated by Taylor and Robertson following their award winning (Design Exhibition Jury Award for Fibre Arts, International Symposium on Wearable Computers 2014) work, Digital Lace: A re-interpretation of heritage lace as a digitally controlled light (polymer optical fibre) and colour-change (liquid crystal thermochromic dyes) responsive textile. The work was inspired by rare, 17th century lace samplers held at the National Museums’ Collection, Scotland. Commissioned footage (2016) of this will feature in the new Fashion and Style Gallery at the National Museum of Scotland.

As part of the V&A Dundee’s vision to foster the relationships between design, business and enterprise, they endorse the Light-emitting Innovative Textiles project, ‘As a great example of this practice. It has potential to feature as a case study for our own programme by utilising the Light-emitting Smart Textiles story to showcase and promote the value of Design-led Business Innovation and design thinking to other Scottish Business’.

Smart Textile Design Innovation with Industry

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Sophie Gerrard For the first time in a UK political vote, individuals who turned 16 on or before 18th September 2014 were eligible to vote in the Scottish independence referendum.

Shot in homes, bedrooms, public places and parks, Scottish Sweet Sixteen introduces us to a number of young people of voting age in Scotland and the spaces they spend time in.

These adolescents share their views on being 16 in Scotland today and what, if anything, having this vote means to them. It’s a transitional time, between youth and adulthood. Some describe the referendum as motivating them to become interested in politics for the first time in their lives. Others are unsure of what they think and nervous of how to vote, uncertain of whether they will vote at all.

Each individual I photographed for this body of work spoke to me in detail about their views on the referendum, voting, politics, and about being 16 in general. Extracts of interviews with each participant are included in the work and I’m grateful to each and every one of them for taing the time to talk to me, for sharing their views and for giving such considered and thoughtful contributions to this project.

Scottish Sweet Sixteen is an ongoing project.

Scottish Sweet Sixteen

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Will Titley

Will Titley together with Liz Anderson (School of Nursing) and Ian Hunt (School of Engineering) has formed this cross collaborative body for medical product research. It operates within Edinburgh Napier University, and it has received financial backing from the Napier Opportunities Fund. The group was formed to identify opportunities within health and wellbeing to co-create medical products and services for patients and healthcare providers. At the core of the group’s activities is a commitment to undertake research, to enable an adaptive approach to treatment that captures patients and healthcare provider’s ongoing history and experience, and that embody this knowledge withi designed solutions. Supporting graduate development, the group selects recent students from healthcare, engineering and design backgrounds to work as interns on R&D projects. Their role includes designing and developing technologies that support and enhance patient care and assisted independent living, which is aligned with key government priorities. This provides an opportunity for graduate interns to work on new product concepts and developments, supported and mentored by specialist from within the university, affording opportunities to work across disciplines on authentic technology and health applications.

Find out more at http://www.napier.ac.uk/about-us/our-schools/school-of-nursing-midwifery-and-social-care/solutions-project/our-team”

Medical Devices Groups

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Malcolm Innes and Euan Winton

The Twelve Closes Project will see a series of bespoke improvements to the selected closes to encourage greater use by the public. Improvements will include new artwork, lighting, projection and interpretation. Through a process of Community Co-design, Euan Winton and Malcolm Innes of Edinburgh Napier University will work directly with local communities researching the history of each of the closes to provide ideas and design inspiration for their re-vitalisation.

The project, commissioned by Edinburgh World Heritage Trust (EWH), aims to change perceptions and transform closes that currently feel under-used, unloved or unsafe. The process will reveal the unique atmosphere and charm of each close, present their rich history and reclaim them as useful pedestrian links around the city.

As a precursor to the start of the main project, a demonstration lighting event was held in Bakehouse Close on 26 and 27 November 2015. Staff and students from Edinburgh Napier University took over the space at night to demonstrate how artistic and architectural lighting can transform Old Town closes. The event involved guided demonstrations for invited VIPs and an open access public engagement night where the opinions and views of residents, visitors, local business owners, politicians, heritage groups and other stakeholders were gathered to help steer the future direction of the project. This event also gathered widespread press and TV news coverage including a live broadcast on Scottish Television’s Evening News bulletin.

The Old Town’s network of closes and wynds are a key element of the city’s World Heritage status and date back to the medieval beginnings of the city. Today there are still 74 closes, forming an integral part of the fabric of the Old Town and are home to many local residents, businesses and a plethora of city institutions.

Speaking about the project, Adam Wilkinson, Director of Edinburgh World Heritage said, “Historically the closes were the secondary routes through the medieval city, however they have long been underused and in some cases neglected spaces. We hope that, with the help of residents, students, artists, local businesses and the City of Edinburgh’s street lighting and neighbourhood teams, we will be able to create something of beauty and

Twelve Closes Project

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enchantment in the closes. We hope to encourage people to explore these neglected historical spaces, improving the quality of the spaces for the residents, and supporting businesses by encouraging footfall”.

Councillor Ian Perry, Planning Convener for the City of Edinburgh Council, said: “The improvements to the closes are a key part of the Royal Mile Action Plan. However, many visitors may be unaware that these unique aspects of the city’s history are there to be explored. This project is a great way to showcase the closes using new lighting techniques. Council planners and lighting staff have been working with Edinburgh World Heritage and we are pleased to continue our support for this impressive project.”

The final selection of closes is still under discussion, but the current shortlist includes Riddle’s Close, Crichton’s Close, Stevenlaw’s Close, Fleshmarket Close, Carruber’s Close, and Bakehouse Close.

The main funding for the project comes from Edinburgh World Heritage. Grants, sponsorship from local businesses and public donations, as well as contributions from the City of Edinburgh Council and other partners will complete the funding package. EWH will be working in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University, City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Old Town Development Trust in delivering the project.

The main output of the project will be the physical transformation of the Closes. However, the project is expected to have a much broader impact that has a tangible effect on the pattern of tourism within the Old Town; it is expected to fully engage the local residents in the co-design and ongoing curation of these spaces; it will embed a range of research skills within the local community; it will form the basis of practice based academic research in the areas of urbanism, community co-design and human centered lighting design for heritage environments.

Through the researchers’ desire to establish new ways of working with historic environments in order to meet the needs of modern citizens an aim of this work is to share practices locally, nationally and internationally through reflective guides, guest lectures, conferences, consultancy and research networks.

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SFC Innovation Voucher SchemeFunded collaborations with small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Innovation voucher scheme provides funding of up to £5000 for Scottish SMEs to work with academic experts to help solve problems that may help expand their company and offer solutions which cannot be obtained commercially.

Projects should lead to the development of new products, services and processes that will benefit the business, the university and the Scottish economy.

Previous innovation voucher funded projects have worked on, among other things, packaging for pet food, lighting for public events, product development, heritage design, exhibition design, and transmedia storytelling.

Where further innovation can be demonstrated, a follow-on voucher of up to £20,000, match-funded by the SME, can be sought to continue the partnership between the SME and the University.

If you would like to find out more, contact the Research and Innovation Office: email j.gillam@napier.ac.uk or RIO@napier.ac.uk

Post-graduate & Research Degrees

School of Arts & Creative Industries

Research degreesPhD by thesis or creative practice (3 years f-t / 5-6 years p-t)MRes by thesis or creative practice (1 year f-t / 2 years p-t)

Taught post-graduate degrees (1 year f-t / 2 years p-t)MSc Creative Advertising*MA / MDes Environmental GraphicsMA / MDes Exhibition DesignMA / MDes Interaction DesignMA / MDes Interior ArchitectureMA / MDes Lighting DesignMA / MDes Motion GraphicsMA / MDes Product Design Prototyping*Full-time only

e: saci@napier.ac.ukt: +44 (0) 8452 60 60 40www.napier.ac.ukWe will offer 2 year MFA degrees from 2017 (subject to validation)

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Colin Andrews

Dr Peter Buwert

Colin Cavers

Ruth Cochrane

Mick Dean

Richard Firth

Dr Sam Forster

Fabian Galama

Sophie Gerrard

Paul Holmes

Malcolm Innes

Pankhuri Jain

Dr Kirstie Jamieson

Trent Jennings

Mary-Ann Kennedy

Paul Kerlaff

Dr Jasso Lamberg

Ian Lambert

Dr Iain Macdonald

Myrna MacLeod

Colin Malcolm

Dr Louise Milne

Ron O’Donnell

Andrew O’Dowd

Dr Alex Supertano

Sarah Taylor

Will Titley

Kathy Vones

Euan Winton

Who are we…

Contact us at ADRC@napier.ac.uk

All published works are available at researchrepository.napier.ac.uk

Arranged and edited by Ian Lambert and Dr Peter BuwertLayout design by Marielle Ost, BDes (Hons) Graphic Design Year 3All images are the researchers’ own or published with permissionPublished by Edinburgh Napier University 2016isbn: 978-1-908225-03-0

Research Through Design (RTD) Conference 2017National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, 22 - 24 March

The third biennial Research Through Design (RTD) conference focuses on New Disciplines of Making – Shared Knowledge in Doing. RTD supports the dissemination of practice-based research through a novel and experimental conference format, comprising a curated exhibition of design research, accompanied by round-table discussions in ‘Rooms of Interest’. The exhibition will be used as a platform for presenting and demonstrating research processes and outputs, and for generating debate on the role of the design practitioner and their work in a research context.

http://researchthroughdesign.org/2017/

ISBN 978-1-908225-03-0

www.napier.ac.uk