Research and Enterprise

Connected Spheres was created by Aisha Ali (They/Them) as part of a 10 month Watershed funded My World Residency exploring Sound Tech and Community Building and connecting the Studio in Bath with Old Printwork Arts in Radstock run by the wonderful Little Lost Robot.

Since the root of the residency was all about different worlds and how to connect them up, CONNECTION was chosen as the theme for the final project.

The audio for this project was a collaboration between Aisha Ali, Sonny Francis, Jim Turner, Beth Cragg & Corey Andrews, who are all local residents and have a keen interest in music & sound art and also have a strong connection to Radstock. Together, they talked about:

• the themes of connection in its multitudes (CS FINAL-10 mins)
• the creation of a song about the power of music (Music Is Life-2 mins)
• some exploration with ambisonic recording in the field with musings on how we’re connected to Radstock. (CS FINAL 2 – Adventures in Radstock-27 mins)

You can hear all 3 recordings below! In addition, there was visual art from Dave Webb, in the form of light up spheres. Connecting Old Printwork Arts with The Studio in Bath, Dave is a Resident at The Studio, who created the spheres for CERN that demonstrate the quantum theory of Decoherence, which is what happens when quantum systems interact with their environment and how the quantum state of a system is altered by its observation and interaction with other particles. That without observation and interaction, there can be no change – which is pretty profound! Dave developed the spheres alongside the audio for this project!

Originally a teaser of the project was shared as part of the Immersive Audio Lab at Bath Digital Festival, which was supported by MyWorld. The Connected Spheres excerpt was presented on the Immersive Audio Network’s 25 speaker and 3 subwoofer array so that it could be heard in all of its ambisonic beauty, which was greatly received.

The final piece is in stereo but still retains a significant amount of the richness of the ambisonic recording.The public were able to experience the spheres and the installation created in Radstock, which included spheres filled with items that represent each participant.

Thank you to the teams at The Studio, Old Paintwork Arts, MyWorld, Pervasive Media, Watershed and to Ruth Farrar and Rachel Pownall for supporting the project, supporting me in my fellowship and for all the amazing work you do in immersive arts, art tech and community.

The connected Spheres Podcast is based on Aisha’s findings from the Fellowship in conversation with other professionals in the field.

• EPISODE 1 – Building Community (conversation with Juliet Webb from Old Printwork Arts – 22 mins) https://youtu.be/A3XCbRWdEG8
• EPISODE 2 – Women in Music Tech (Conversation with Eleri Hewitt, freelance Sound Tech – 74 mins) https://youtu.be/l4TbArfg0oY
• EPISODE 3 – Creative Technology pros and cons (Conversation with Dr. Naomi Smyth from The Studio in Bath) https://youtu.be/RcgBFzBp3UE 
• EPISODE 4 – What Does Real Inclusion Look Like? (Conversation with Stacey Pottinger from Old Printwork Arts & The Studio in Bath – 58 mins) https://youtu.be/GzRl22WGJv4

Aisha is a Sound Artist, Improviser, Composer, Theatre Maker, Inclusion Producer and Workshop Facilitator. They love to work with the voice and create close harmony layers with interesting beats underneath and like to play with Foley. They have composed soundscapes, underscoring and songs for theatre shows and installations and are passionate about where Art meets Activism. They have done a lot of work in terms of Radical Inclusion in the Arts using Embodied Social Justice Methodology in workshops and policy making. They have also created a space for Artists from the Global Majority to be seen through their company, Kiota, which is Swahili for nest – a nod to the diaspora that were displaced from India during partition and ended up in Kenya. 

“I am thrilled to have been awarded the Dress of the Year fellowship in residence to investigate identity and fashion in digital worlds with the Fashion Museum of Bath. I am particularly interested in working with the communities that The Studio, Watershed, Pervasive Media Studio and MyWorld engage with to research how digital assets can be co-created and then used to provide greater access to the fashion collection.”

Gabby is passionate about co-creation and innovation and aims to shape the future of the fashion industry with sustainable and efficient solutions. As a co-founder of Bureau 555, she has worked with brands and manufacturers to transition to 3D sampling and digital materials, leveraging 20 years of experience in design and manufacturing, and expertise in software simulation and digital literacy.

Gabby previously held the post of Course Leader for the BA (Hons) Fashion Buying and Brand Management course at Ravensbourne University London and is the founder of shinerhilldesign consultancy. Trained in Textile Design at Central St.Martins she continues to teach at the University of Arts London and the V&A leading the Digital Fashion Course.

The Bath Challenge project set out to research how Bath’s creative communities might become more central to the city – and what the city might do to better connect with and nurture these communities. Commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded Bristol+Bath Creative R+D partnership, the Bath Challenge ran between July 2021 and March 2022. It engaged more than a hundred stakeholders from the creative industries, wider partners and local communities. The key findings from the research are set out in this report, which you can access here.

Connecting Bath is a report commissioned by Bristol + Bath Creative R+D. The current/planned roll-out of 5G connectivity and the future development of 6G are potentially significant opportunities for the creative industries in Bath.
Under the leadership of Professor Kate Pullinger, Director of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries at Bath Spa University, Bristol + Bath Creative R+D commissioned Studio Residents City Global Futures to undertake this research, exploring the feasibility of a private, cutting edge digital network for Bath.

View the full report here.

The Connecting Bath team were recently invited to host a panel event about their findings at the Bath Digital Festival. See the live stream of the event below.

Launched in April 2021, MyWorld is a brand new five-year programme, the flagship for the UK’s creative technology sector, and is part of a UK-wide exploration into devolved research and development funding (UKRI video). Led by the University of Bristol, MyWorld will position the South West as an international trailblazer in screen-based media. This £46m programme will bring together 30 partners from Bristol and Bath’s creative technologies sector and world-leading academic institutions, to create a unique cross-sector consortium. MyWorld will forge dynamic collaborations to progress technological innovation, deliver creative excellence, establish and operate state of the art facilities, offer skills training and drive inward investment, raising the region’s profile on the global stage.

The programme involves a large number of collaborative partners, including the four universities in Bristol and Bath alongside multiple creative industries partners and a complex delivery programme across multiple work packages.

Bristol+Bath Creative R+D is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between digital creativity centre Watershed and the region’s four universities – UWE Bristol, Bath Spa University, the University of Bath and the University of Bristol. Its purpose is to break down doors, connecting the worlds of university research and creative business to develop a shared vision for tomorrow’s creative industries.

The Research Centre for Transcultural Creativity and Education (TRACE) looks to innovate ways of thinking and making across the cultures of creativity and education.

Agnieszka Przybyszewska’s digital writing project is focused on literature created with new technologies. She is very interested in haptic, embodied reading (one that involves all reader’s senses, even the whole reader’s body). Her case studies encompass literature read in VR, stories narrated with words, pictures, sounds and interactions, works which can be read only by walking through a specific space, and narrations that track readers and respond to their location, touch or even breathing. One of Agnieszka’s goals is to prepare a monograph on Professor Kate Pullinger’s digital writing and point out her role as a pioneer in many e-literature genres.

Paper Nations is a creative writing incubator, commissioning writers throughout the South West of England to create new work, nurturing local communities of support for writers, and creating multi-channel partnerships to showcase new writing internationally. Funded until August 2021.

The South West Creative Technology Network (SWCTN) is a £6.5 million Research England funded project to expand the use of creative technologies across the south west of England. The project is a joint venture between Bath Spa University, UWE, University of Plymouth, Falmouth University, Watershed in Bristol and Kaleider in Exeter that ran until April 2021.