Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network

Queer Constellations: Reflections on Curatorial and Creative Practice at the Museum of English Rural Life

2022-07-20T10:17:00+01:00

Drawing from our independent disciplines of queer theory and photographic practice, this paper examines the creative and curatorial practices, and the theoretical frameworks that structure them, in relation to Queer Constellations: Artistic Trespass and Rural Gay Histories, an art exhibition that took place at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) between July and September 2021.

As the exhibition took place within a museum whose focus is grounded in the practices and culture of agricultural life, our paper explores themes of ‘dis-orientation’ as a form that queerness takes within such spaces, asking the question: is there queerness in rural life? This is then reflected upon through a participating artists’ practice and how photographs can function as a form of blending of worlds.

Our Ancient Woods: The Animal Voice Within The Compositional Process

2022-09-07T12:02:41+01:00

Our Ancient Woods is an electroacoustic work created using recordings of past and present British wildlife. This article documents the use of animal vocalisations and behaviours within this work in order to create new sonic means for conservation awareness, public engagement, and nature connection.

Land, Spirit, and Queerness

2022-09-07T11:49:54+01:00

Utilising post-natural concepts of nature, together with Indigenous knowledge, this article aims to show the intrinsic connection between land, spirit, and queerness. After showing Western and non-Western positions, I will describe my attempts to embed and explore these concepts through photography, mark-making, sculptural forms, and creative writing, demonstrating how queering nature can be a spiritual activity.

Dystopian Images of Beirut in The Lebanese Oscar-nominated Film Capernaum (2018)

2022-04-27T13:28:33+01:00

In this paper I will explore how Nadine Labaki’s Oscar-nominated film Capernaum (2018), evokes a dystopian image of Beirut, often focusing on the struggles of the poorest inhabitants of the city, trapped in its slums. Prior to the film, this part of the city was an invisible place to many Lebanese (including me, someone who grew up in Beirut) as well as to a wider international community. I will analyse how Labaki’s voice and directorial style succeed in bringing visibility to the people who reside in that place but legally barely exist. I argue that Labaki’s grim representation of Beirut in Capernaum (2018) foreshadows the cruel life conditions that most of the people are facing now (2022) in Lebanon.

Harvey Nichols’ Fashion Shows, Vintage Fairs and the Holy Eucharist: Manchester Cathedral as Post-Secular Place.

2023-01-16T14:19:48+00:00

In my studies of the public theology of Manchester Cathedral, one area of my research has been to understand how the space of a Cathedral has (and is) being reconfigured in a post-secular age. Jürgen Habermas coined the term ‘post-secularity’ in 2001 to describe the phenomenon of the breakdown between conceptual categories of the secular and the sacred. For Habermas, the secular thesis of modernity had in some ways failed, and the resurgence of religion in the public sphere presented and still presents challenges of how our common life can be built together in an age of pluralism and globalisation. I want to demonstrate in this paper the ways in which Manchester Cathedral, and other Cathedrals that use their spaces in similar ways, embody this post-secular reality and attempt to provide a sense of place in the context of increasing plurality in their cities. The Cathedral seeks to act as a “common place” where various groups and individuals in the region of Greater Manchester can in some way claim ownership of the Cathedral.

Redesigning Online Places for Consumer Well-being Using Unconventional Interaction Design Elements

2023-01-16T14:20:41+00:00

My research focuses on developing and providing design solutions that promote digital wellbeing for consumers and mitigate noisy experiences within digital interfaces. In this project, noise is defined as the high volume of sense-stimulating activity (such as pop-up notifications). I explore the design challenges associated with noisy digital experiences such as attention recruitment, distractive and ‘cold’ generic interfaces, screen time overuse, touch-poor and mindless interactions. I provide solutions to how these challenges could be addressed by exploring three interactions elements of visual attention, mindfulness, and touch, and testing them by developing prototypes. This project also aims to raise awareness between IT and software developers, UI and UX designers of designing more ethical and mindful online places for consumers.

This practice-based project adapts a Research through Design approach and uses Design Fiction methods. In response to design challenges, I created three fictional prototypes and near-future scenarios. The prototypes that I will present during the session include a mindfulness intervention tool that tracks screen time called Birds; a fictional Yoshi Phone with a monochrome hand-drawn interface; and Shapie, a shape changing communication device. I will also present the user manuals and the narratives for each prototype.

The fictional narratives will then be distributed together with the diegetic prototypes and an online questionnaire to industry professionals such as UI and UX designers, software developers and engineers to gain feedback. The insights collected from the industry professionals will be analysed and presented as part of the results of this study. I predict and recommend that noisy digital experiences can be mitigated by implementing mindful elements, purposefully using colour and shapes, hand-drawn interfaces, and touch-rich interactions, when designing noise-free digital interfaces.

Dreaming of a better office

2022-02-09T10:06:51+00:00

Taking up the MeCCSA 2021 conference theme ‘Dreaming of another place’, this article investigates the dream of, and path toward, a better, more humane, and more dignified office. Driven by Harry Braverman’s assertions regarding the centrality of control over the labor process to the continued success of capitalism (Labor and Monopoly Capital, 1974), this article situates the office as a place and space defined by the necessities of global capital. Looking forward to a better place, this article suggests a regime of vertically integrated unionization of those involved in the creation and use of office spaces (designers, architects, builders and office occupants) as a way to insert the needs and wants of all workers in a process previously held by capital. By uniting the voices, creativity and interests of all working people involved in the creation of office spaces, perpetual issues such as lack of personal privacy, minimal daylight, limited natural air and cramped, noisy conditions can be addressed at their source, and the dream of a better office brought to fruition.

Researching Place during a Pandemic

2022-07-20T10:17:35+01:00

Research practices have been adapted and adjusted to continue researching place during the global pandemic. This paper will explore this pandemic impact on research through reflecting on the experiences of carrying out doctoral place-based research during 2020. Whilst developing a socio-sonic-mobile methodology, one of the main adaptations has been new configurations of technology that enable remote research. These conditions force the researcher into an unintended ‘ex situ’ position. Within these methods and emerging practices, technology and the ‘ex situ’ researcher positionality are entangled in complex ways. In order to explore this entanglement, a sound collage has been created from the behind-the-scenes audio material recorded whilst carrying out research remotely. The reader is invited to listen to this Ex Situ Listening sound piece before critical reflections are shared about participatory, remotely-supported research practices. Applying the idea of audio recordings as ‘self-reflexive narratives’ (Anderson and Tullis 2016), three journeys are identified in the making of and listening-back to this sound piece: the research, methods and research practice journeys. The sound collage is offered as a way of sonically exploring ‘ex situ’ listening research practices and to open-up questions about the impact of the pandemic on future research practices.

Editor's Introduction: Dreaming of Another Place

2023-02-17T16:53:56+00:00

This special issue brings together contributions from presenters at the MeCCSA PGN’s 2021 Conference, Dreaming of Another Place, which took place at University of Brighton in September of that year. The articles here are reflective of an academic world in transition; in the second year of changes researchers faced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the authors here reflect on how their practices had changed. However, the articles in this special issue step beyond the pandemic, as well. While some authors changed their creative and research practices, others reflect on changes to places beyond the scope of the pandemic. As such, the theme of ‘Another Place’ takes on a variety of significant meanings.