Abstract
This document details original contributions to the emerging field most often called “Digital Media Arts” or “New Media”, pulling together elements from Visual Arts, Media, and Computer Science. The works in this submission draw on practices including site-specific performance, media archaeology, theories of place, and human geography. They follow a tradition of creating places through cultural practices. More specifically, the publications and practice-based research outputs in this submission demonstrate a coherent contribution to interactive media and digital performance. They also serve as an argument for the role of the creative practitioner within the larger context of the creative industries, and how practitioners can act as equal partners in the development and application of digital technologies. The title of this submission: reCreate, reMove, and rePlace has grown out of the AHRC-funded Motion in Place Platform (MiPP) project. reCreate explores methodologies of creating and presenting work as practice-led research, arts-based research, arts-informed research, etc. reMove refers to the core research question linking these publications and research outputs: How are we moved by our environments? ReMove also refers to the unique aspect of interactive media: that interactive works are essentially performed live. rePlace extends reMoving to explore how places are created and reCreated through engagement. It examines Place as lived Space, where certain kinds of behaviours and values are learned and certain memories are transmitted. Connecting all three of these strands is the notion of Empathy, defined as the ability to see the world from multiple perspectives, read and understand other’s experiences, feelings, and needs. The research question at the core of all these works is: “Can non-textual forms of creative practice offer more direct and visceral methods to understand and share the ways in which we are moved by our environments?”