News & Events February 2010

Dr Jane Simon Research Seminar

H8a 4pm-6pm, Wednesday 24 February 2010

On the minute, the meticulous and the mundane

Dr Jane Simon, eCPR Visiting Leverhulme Fellow, will be talking about the overlooked. Discussing ‘fussy' modes of attention she will consider domestic photographs and how her research and material practice is concerned with detail, scale and patience.

Dr Jane Simon has a PhD in Gender and Cultural Studies from the University of Sydney. Her research examines contemporary visual cultures across the disciplinary boundaries of film and media studies, art history and cultural studies. Jane's writing and art practice derives from a fascination with domestic objects and architectural minutiae; she works with photography and the artist's book. Jane's writings have been published in Continuum, Cultural Studies Review and Media/Culture.

Recognition for Researchers

Two CSAD staff have been recognised by UWIC for their research achievements. Dr Jeffery Jones (Centre for Ceramics Research) has become a Reader in Ceramics and Robert Pepperell a Professor of Fine Art (CFAR).

Dr Jones is currently a visiting Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, researching the relationships between ceramics and sculpture. The project will culminate in the curation of an exhibition at the Institute in September 2010. A Vice Chancellor's Doctoral Award is enabling Dr Jones' to continue this research through the appointment of Laura Gray as a PhD student.

For many years Dr Jones has worked closely with Moira Vincentelli, Curator of the Ceramic Collection and Archive at Aberystwyth, and those links are now being strengthened with the establishment of the National Centre for Ceramics in Wales. UWIC and Aberystwyth, along with UWE Bristol and Bath Spa Universities, continue to collaborate in publishing the electronic journal Interpreting Ceramics, which is now established as a key site for the dissemination of research outcomes to the ceramics community worldwide. As founder editor of the journal, Dr Jones has led this project for the last twelve years and he is currently working with Dr Mary Drach McInnes of Alfred University, New York State, in the preparation of the next issue.

Professor Robert Pepperell's primary areas of interest are in consciousness studies and metaphysical questions about the nature of mind and its relationship to the body and world. These are investigated through both art practice and theoretical inquiry, trying (not always successfully) to integrate both. His long-standing interest in the human relationship to technology has led to a proposed model of the posthuman as a way of describing what it is to exist in an intensely technological culture. This model, however, is also informed by ancient eastern beliefs concerning the nature of self, mind and reality. Professor Pepperell's current topics of research include:

• visual indeterminacy and visual perception

• non-classical logics, such as dialethics,

• paradoxes and contradictions,

• conscious art and creative technology,

• experimental aesthetics

David Ferry in MOMA Collection

A copy of CFAR member David Ferry's Artists Book, A Picture History of England mainly in Black and White (2007) has been purchased by the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The book, part of a series of original photomontage, will sit in the 'Prints and Illustrated Books Collection'. The work is a satire on a classic Country Life volume of the same title published the year of David's birth. A copy of the limited edition catalogue, written by Brandon Taylor was also purchased to go alongside the art work.

PDR Product at the South Africa World Cup

World Cup games this summer will be played on pitches using marking technology developed by Bowcom, a company in South Wales, and PDR.

Bowcom, part of the Fiddes Group, specialises in pitch marking products for sports fields. The company will be supplying equipment and paint for stadiums in South Africa to mark their pitches with, as well as on the 32 training pitches used by countries taking part in the tournament.

Bowcom worked with the National Centre For Product Development and Development Research to develop and manufacture its electric pitch paint applicator, the Bowcom GM, which is manufactured and assembled in Cardiff. The equipment took three years to develop and the company said it "has proved critical" in allowing it the opportunity to move into new markets - including the lucrative 2010 World Cup. See the PDR website for more information.

Research Assistant joins EBERE

Dr Caroline Fox joins the Ecological Built Environment Research and Enterprise group (EBERE) to work on the joint EPSRC and industry funded Sustainable Urban Regeneration (SURegen) project, under the direction of Dr John Littlewood. During her two-year appointment, Dr Fox will be exploring the decisions that influence energy performance analysis, occupant comfort, carbon dioxide minisisation and the triple bottom line more generally, from single and multiple buildings to the urban scale.

Dr Fox studied her PhD, ‘The potential for renewables in housing in the UK, at the University of Nottingham, which is one of the top Universities in the UK for built environment research. The thesis grew out of work on a research project, entitled TARBASE (Technology Assessment for Radically Improving the Built Asset Base). Funded by the EPSRC and industry, TARBASE aimed to identify carbon-saving technologies that, if incorporated into existing buildings, could deliver a 50 per cent cut in their carbon emissions by 2030.

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