Other Events
ECS Seminar Series: Visualising Complexity
by Graeme Earl
Dr Nick Holliman, Durham University will be speaking on Wednesday 4th April 2012 from 15.00-16.00 in 59.1257 (seminar room 1).
Nick Holliman is a Reader in The School of Engineering and Computing Sciences at Durham University, UK and is best known for his work over the last sixteen years investigating the fundamental challenges of stereoscopic 3D visualisation. This work has included working with psychologists to understand how the human visual system processes binocular information, geometrically modeling binocular vision to capture empirical comfort limits, developing new computational algorithms for the control of binocular image disparity, and demonstrating how these algorithms work in practice in software tools and 3D visualizations. Prior to joining Durham University in 2001, he was principal researcher at Sharp Laboratories of Europe, in Oxford, England where he led the software team in the 3D imaging technology group. He filed patents on stereoscopic image generation, 3D displays, 3D cameras, and high performance head tracking systems. At Durham he has worked closely with leading astronomers and cosmologists, resulting in two award winning stereoscopic 3D films produced for exhibits at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibitions of 2005, 2009, and 2010.
He will describe current inter-disciplinary research projects at the Durham Visualization Laboratory in binocular imaging, including; collaborations with psychologists to investigate the response of the eye to artificial binocular stimulus, projects with display manufacturers to empirically evaluate display performance, the development of new algorithms for stereoscopic rendering in computer science and conclude by describing collaborative visualization projects with cosmologists, earth scientists, medics and artists.
Faculty of Business and Law Research Seminar Series
March 18, 2012
by Lisa Harris
Temporality and value at the intersection of arts and technology: advancing theoretical and methodological development
Organisers: Dr Lorraine Warren, Dr Lisa Harris, Centre for Strategic Innovation; Professor Sean Cubitt, The Winchester Centre For Global Futures In Art Design & Media
This seminar series draws together a distinctive research programme from two leading universities on the South Coast – the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Business and Law (School of Management and Winchester School of Art) and the University of Sussex’s Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (SUSHI for short). The collaboration is based on the excitement, dynamism, challenge and uncertainty presented by an unprecedented nexus of new possibilities for innovation in society, in education, and in the provision of public services. It should now easier than it has ever been to not only access and use new technologies, but to extend them, customise them, develop new combinations, to improve, radically innovate and disrupt how we live our lives and create new value, new futures. However the roadmap for inductive thinking that will create value in novel and unforeseen ways in new contexts and settings is not clear.
This collaboration examines the roles of arts, design and media in this shifting locus for innovation, exploring how creative artists, media, materials and technologies interact to contribute to the improvement of human societies. The two days are focused around temporality and the creation of value and throws a spotlight on the arts and creative industries in areas such as new modes of communication, playfulness in the stimulation of design, aesthetics, curation and archiving. The emphasis is on what is currently a weak area in need of development in the literature: theory development and the clarification of ontological and epistemological assumptions in this interdisciplinary arena.
DRAFT Programme
APRIL 13 SOUTHAMPTON SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT (EXEC SUITE, 58a)
SUSHI – Sussex-Southampton Initiative
Please email Lorraine Warren on lw4@soton.ac.uk if you wish to attend
9.30 Coffee
10.00 Welcome and opening remarks (Lorraine Warren, Sean Cubitt, Lisa Harris)
10.30 Peter Ainsworth, University of Sheffield (Emeritus) The Online Froissart
11.30 Luciano Floridi, Universities of Hertfordshire/Oxford (topic to be confirmed)
12.30 LUNCH
1.30 Kirk Woolford, University of Sussex, Motion in Place Platform
2.30 Ted Fuller, University of Lincoln, Value Creation and Value Capture
3.30 Panel discussion
4.00 Closing remarks
MAY 17 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX – Attenborough Centre Creativity Zone, Pevensey
SUSHI – Sussex-Southampton Initiative
Organisers: Professor Sally Jane Norman, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts; Doctor Caroline Bassett, School of Media, Film and Music, University Theme Leader for Digital Media and Society
Fellow moderator: Professor Ed Steinmueller, SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research Business and Management; School of Business, Management and Economics
9:30 – 4pm (exact schedule tbc)
Speakers:
– Josephine Bosma, Dutch media theorist
– Andy Cameron, UK media artist, developer and theorist
– Pierre Guillet de Monthoux, Head of Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School
– Simon Worthington, Mute Publishing
The co-production of knowledge: social media, STS and…
March 17, 2012
by Lisa Harris
ICS symposium at the University of York, 18-20 July 2012
Jane Vincent from the University of Surrey’s Digital World Research Centre and I will be presenting our paper “Social shaping, social customers and the social web: the blurring of online and offline worlds” at this event.
The ubiquitous social and cultural adoption of social media, such as Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook can be seen to present a significant example of scientific and technological innovation in many contemporary societies. While some studies of social media and, more specifically, Web 2.0 platforms built around user-generated content, have made reference to the importance of the field of science and technology studies (STS) for understanding their development and diffusion, scholars working within this academic framework have yet to fully turn their focus on this area. This three-day symposium is intended to explore the intersection between STS and social media inquiry, with a specific focus on how Web 2.0 is both generative and challenging of different forms of knowledge (co-)production and the authority it commands.
Speakers Include:
• Geof Bowker, University of California, Irvine
• Leah Lievrouw, UCLA
• Adrian MacKenzie, Cesagen, University of Lancaster
• Rob Procter, e-Research Centre, University of Manchester
• Robin Williams, ISSTI, Edinburgh
• Sally Wyatt, e-Humanities Programme, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
This three-day symposium is intended to explore the intersection between these two areas of inquiry, with a specific focus on how Web 2.0 is both generative and challenging of different forms of knowledge production and the authority it commands. Questions related to co-production, citizen science, the power of data algorithms and metrics to shape or bypass human agency, and the possibility of participatory forms of surveillance are just some of the issues that are raised.
This conference is intended to bring together leading scholars in the fields of STS, communication and social media analysis, and the history and philosophy of science to critically explore these issues.
Further details here or email sarah.shrive-morrison@york.ac.uk
Managing in the Neural Age: Beyond the Neurobabble
March 17, 2012
by Lisa Harris
School of Management Seminar by Stephen Rhys Thomas and Gemma Calvert
20th March 6pm in Building 58a, Highfield Campus
The neuroscientific explosion of the past decade has resulted in many fields acquiring a putative ‘neuro’ prefix, notably neuroeconomics (Glimcher, 2003) and neuromarketing (Smidts, 2002). Driven in large part by the increasing capacity to open the ‘black box’ of the brain with digital scanning technologies, this revolution in our ability to correlate neural events promises – or threatens – to offer new levels of explanation for previously closed behavioural mechanisms, ushering in a ‘Neural Age’. In particular, the involvement of brain mechanisms in attention, decision making, emotional evaluation and recognition, and the growing realization that these processes appear to involve significant preconscious, unconscious and even irrational elements (e.g. Ariely and Berns, 2010; Kahneman, 2011).
These realizations and the growing evidence from social cognitive neuroscience of the extent to which our brains are ‘socially wired’ (e.g. Lieberman, 2007) pose challenging questions for potentially presumptive claims of ‘customer insight’ gained by extrinsic rather then intrinsic measures (Calvert, 2012). Some would argue that the rising tide of neuroscience revelations has been matched and exceeded by hype in the application arena, leaving many companies uncertain of the reality and validity of the new methods: many businesses see transformational potential in understanding the brain but are perplexed by the hype and the associated ‘neurobabble’. Neuroscientists themselves are certainly not advocating a panacea (e.g. Poldrack, 2008). In this session, we offer hard science and business perspectives on valid applications of neuroscience at what may be the dawn of the ‘Neural Age’ (Thomas, 2011).
Business-academics Stephen Rhys Thomas and Gemma Calvert will offer a balanced account of some of the potential and actual achievements of applied neuroscience in marketing and related domains, and some of the pitfalls and limitations, including why, for example, any search for a Holy Grail of Marketing in the form of a ‘buy button’ appears to be a doomed quest.
The seminar aims to raise the level of awareness of the major implications of recent developments in social and cognitive neuroscience for mainstream marketing, management and innovation, frame fundamental questions and generate a new research agenda as we pioneer this new field.
Glimcher, P.W. (2003) Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain. Academic Press.
Smidts, A. (2002) referenced in Sutherland, M. (2007), Neuromarketing: What’s it all about? 1st Australian Neuromarketing Symposium, 2007.
Ariely, D. and Berns, G.S. (2010) Neuromarketing: the hope and the hype of neuroimaging in business. Nature Neuroscience Reviews, 11, 284-292.
Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow. Allen Lane.
Lieberman, M. D. (2007). Social cognitive neuroscience: A review of core processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 259-89.
Calvert, G. (2012) Practical Applications of Neuromarketing Tools. Neuromarketing World Forum 2012, Amsterdam.
Poldrack, R.A. (2008) The role of fMRI in cognitive neuroscience: where do we stand? Curr. Opin.Neurobiol. 18, 223-227.
Thomas, S.R. (2011) The Great NeuroDiaspora: The Interdisciplinary Explosion in Neuroscience – A management perspective. Southampton Neuroscience Group (SoNG) Lecture, February 2011. Ibid. From Brand to Brain: Marketing in the Neural Age. Working Paper, School of Management, University of Southampton.
How will we be working in years to come?
by Karen Woods
If you want to know …. the University of Southampton is the place to be later this month when experts from several disciplines discuss the future of work in the digital economy. Who will gain and who will lose? What can we expect from our careers in 50 years time?
Professor Susan Halford from Social Sciences spoke to lunchers at the Digital Economy Strategic Research Group this week to explain more.
“Up to 70 academics across the university work in this area, across both the social and technical side of the subject. Our research group on Work Futures also includes people from trade unions and employers. It will be good to get together and talk about everything later this month.”
The conference will take place at the Chilworth Manor Hotel, 22-23 March.
Copyright, politics and the creative economy
by Graeme Earl
The Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media at Winchester School of Art proudly presents:
A public lecture by Professor Ian Hargreaves entitled Copyright, politics and the creative economy – Monday 12 March, 5pm, Lecture Theatre A. Please circulate widely among colleagues, members of staff and/or postgraduate students. Everyone is welcome.
Ian Hargreaves
Professor of Digital Economy at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies
Founding board member of OfCom
Chair of Review Commission of the Intellectual property Framework
Member of the Leveson Inquiry
Ian Hargreaves will talk about the Review Commission of the Intellectual Property Framework on which he worked in 2010 and 2011. The resulting report ‘Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth’ was published in May 2011. He will consider the responses to the review, the state of play now, eight months after the publication, and how the report bears upon the outlook for the creative industries and the creative economy.
—
Dr Stefanie Van de Peer
WSA Senior Research Fellow
Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media
Winchester School of Art
University of Southampton
Park Avenue
Winchester
Hampshire
SO23 8DL
Centre for Global Futures: http://www.soton.ac.uk/wrc
Twitter: @WSAGlobalFutures
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wsaglobalfutures
Work Futures in the Digital Economy 22.03.2012 - 23.03.2012
Southampton University’s Work Futures USRG is hosting a two day symposium, March 22-23 2012, in collaboration with the Digital Economy USRG. The event will draw together some of the leading researchers in this field, from across a range of disciplines including Management, Sociology, Computer Science and Education.
- How is the digital economy changing working lives and work organizations?
- What kinds of education and skills are valuable in the digital economy?
- How is the local, national and global organization of work changing with or in response to digital technologies?
- What do careers look like in the digital economy?
- How are digital business models and modes of service delivery shaping new kinds of work and organization?
- Who is gaining and losing from the digitization of work?
- How/can governments and policy makers support a fair and vibrant digital economy for all?
These questions cut across disciplines, theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. This symposium draws together expertise across these boundaries.
International Computer Applications in Archaeology Conference
by Graeme Earl
Registration is still open for the International Computer Applications in Archaeology conference. This takes place at the Avenue Campus 26-29 March 2012.
There are 8 parallel themes with sessions of interest to DE researchers in:
- HCI
- GIS
- Linked Data
- Simulation
- Network analysis
- Graphics
- Imaging and scanning
- Geophysics
- Mobile computing
And other topics. The conference has more than 300 workshops, papers and posters by computer science researchers as well as those working in cultural heritage.
Details and programme at: www.caa2012.org
Digitalisation not Dematerialisation: The Musical Artefact in the Digital Age
by Graeme Earl
Nicola Dibben (University of Sheffield) will be talking on Tuesday, 6 March 2012, 3.15 pm in Building 2 / Room 1083 about “Digitalisation not Dematerialisation: The Musical Artefact in the Digital Age”
“Digitalisation has brought profound changes to the way people make, use, and acquire music. Inthis paper I examine the future of the musical artefact through a case study of Björk’s 2011 album and app suite “Biophilia”—the first music album by a major pop icon to be released as a set of interactive iPad/iPhone apps, and a project I contributed to. Björk exploits audiovisual material and the high production values of material artefacts, yet she is also one of the first to adopt the new technologies here the app suite as alternative to the album. Biophilia represents a good case study to examine the consequences and opportunities of digitalisation for music: the creation of new formats and their implications for modes of listening, stratification of the market for physical artefacts, the role of extramusical materials, implications for the expression of a unified artistic vision, unification of digital and material copy, and new opportunities for musical learning.”
Head South by South Coast this May
by Karen Woods
Dr Lorraine Warren from the Southampton Management School is passionate about innovation in the digital economy. In particular, she is an enthusiast for developing the ideas that bubble up from tech-savvy people in every walk of life.
“Good ideas are no longer merely the province of computer scientists. With the advent of sophisticated technology for all such as smart phones and superfast broadband, anyone with creativity can come up with amazing things.”
Lorraine is urging people who work in the creative industries to seize the opportunities now available to collaborate and achieve their full potential.
She is organising South by South Coast (#SxSC) an all-day informal event on 18 May 2012 at the University of Southampton Students Union building for anyone involved in the region’s creative industries. “Come and meet some great people with interests in the creative industries and digital media. Geek out, talk, hear some inspiring speakers, and enjoy our music and beer, all for free. If the weather is nice you can even sit outside in the patio area,” she says.
South by South Coast is sponsored by: the University of Southampton’s Digital Economy Strategic Research Group and supported by the Centre for Strategic Innovation.
To book your FREE ticket: http://creativedigifest.eventbrite.co.uk