And then your data did what? Association of Internet Researchers Berlin, Germany – 6 October 2016
This session uses hands-on ‘writer’s room’ techniques to introduce participants to practices of Data Storytelling. Through collaborative activities, we will explore how the basic components of storytelling—character and plot—can be used to enhance how researchers gather, analyse, visualise and communicate web-based data. The workshop is divided into four mini-sessions, two that provide Master class style presentations (I&IV) and two that include hands-on, interactive projects (II&III). Throughout the session participants will work with a ‘live’ dataset of web-based research from an active research project in order to see how storytelling techniques can enhance and transform research gathering, analysis and dissemination.
Media Environments – Keele University – 26 May 2016
Minute Works graphic design and Dr. Anna Feigenbaum of the RiotID Team will be presenting and leading a workshop on Research in Action at MEDIA ENVIRONMENTS, a one-day event taking place at Keele University. The workshop will focus on the role of media as a means of addressing contemporary and historical issues of environmentalism and ecology. Drawing on the practices of artists, academics and activists, via panel discussions, workshops and a World Café, the event will focus on the aesthetics and ethics of media representation, with regard to the environment, the sustainability of media and its place within a ‘green economy’, and media’s use as a tool in environmental politics and activism. To register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/media-environments-tickets-23975797255
Game Design Workshop – Data Digging and Corporate Watching – Kings Collge London – 4 May 2016
‘Researching up’ or investigating government and corporate practices is often riddled with obstacles. In place of interview answers, come streams of PR sound bytes and ‘no comment’ replies. With lawyers at ready disposal and PR teams performing 24/7 image-makeovers, the practices of corporate and government elites often take place behind layers of concealer. So how do we strip off these PR masks, hear behind the sound bytes, and insist that information affecting the public, gets made public?
This interactive game design workshop brings together designers, artists, programmers, digital culture researchers, corporate watchers, campaigners and investigative journalists to to co-create an online education game that will help train people how to do investigative research into corporations and governments. Using Corporate Watch’s Investigating Companies A Do-It-Yourself Handbook as a foundation, together we will construct game modules that share skills for tracking corporate ownership, following finances, accessing government data, making Freedom of Information Requests, and talking to companies and workers.
As a workshop participant, you will attend a short Masterclass in Educational and Serious Game Design led by Bournemouth University-based Phil Wilkinson from the Centre for Digital Entertainment. You will then play a variety of games, providing feedback and insight on your user-experience. Following a second, short Masterclass on Investigating Corporate Ownership with Corporate Watch, you will work in groups to collaboratively design paper-based, mock-ups for our Investigator’s Toolkit game.
This event was sponsored by the Political Studies Association and the MeCCSA Social Movement Network
Art, Expression and Democracy – Bank Street Arts, Sheffield – 29 April 2016
The United Kingdom has recently seen a spate of provocative art-interventions intended to challenge and reconfigure our thoughts and actions around a range of salient political issues. In June 2015, the Liberate Tate movement achieved national press coverage with its durational performance –and gallery occupation, ‘Timepiece’. One month later, the art collective, Space, Not Spikes, made headlines with their efforts to create makeshift beds and libraries as recuperation of public space and reaction to the growth of ‘defensive architecture’ in British cities. More recently came Dismaland, Weston Super Mare’s very own bemusement park, complete with dead princesses, tattooed Wedgewood, police violence and pickled unicorns. The resurgence of socially and politically engaged art practice has not escaped the attention of galleries, museums and mainstream media institutions, leading to the revival of timeworn debates about the appropriate role for the arts. These debates reflect a strong concern that creative productions with an agenda rarely make for good art. Our seminar is rather less concerned with institutionalist definitions of ‘good art’ and asks instead, whether and how art-activism can make for ‘better politics’. This one day creative venture, organised by The Crick Centre and TheBareProject as part of the ESRC funded seminar series “Exploring Civil Society Strategies for Democratic Renewal”, aims at bringing together representatives of arts organisations, art-activists and academics to discuss the ways that art can foster political awareness, and/or active citizenship. It also closely considers the implications of art-activism for democratic political practice.
Engaging Audiences with Data Visualisation – National Centre for Co-Ordinating Public Engagement – Bristol Engage 2015 Conference – 3 December 2015
In this workshop, we will explore the growing area of data visualisation for public engagement. Visualising data can bring more attention to the importance of academic research, increase online interactivity, enhance journalistic coverage, and broaden social media communication. Visualisation also taps into our emotions and values, enabling us to tell more affective stories with research. We will begin this workshop with a Masterclass, sharing the latest practices and techniques in data visualisation. We will then introduce you to some tools for data visualisation and discuss how to best select what you need to visualise data stories for different public audiences.
Data Storytelling for the Social Sciences – Bournemouth University, 11 November 2015
The move in recent years toward open data brings with it opportunities for information re-use, increases transparency, and encourages civic participation in data analysis and communication. From human rights issues to climate change, this increased emphasis on visualising data has brought with it more attention to the importance of social science research through online interactivity and visual communication.
How do we discern what data stories need telling? How do we combine different methods for visualising and communicating with data to diverse audiences? We draw from the latest social science research in data storytelling, alongside our experiences founding the Bournemouth University-based Civic Media Hub’s Datalabs project in 2014.
Cruel Design/Disobedient Design – Hydra Books, Bristol, 26 September 2015
A showcase and discussion on the art and politics of designing for justice in association with Cruel Designs at Dismaland.
From anti-homeless spikes and border fences to DIY tear gas masks and union banners, design practices are used for social control and social change. In this public event with designers, curators and social justice campaigners we explore what it means to design for disobedience.
Protest, Politics and Emotions Workshop – Bournemouth University, 9-10 July 2015 (EBC, Lansdowne)
A MeCCSA Social Movement Network event, co-hosted by Bournemouth University’s Media & Politics Research Group and Civic Media hub, the Department of Media & Communication at University of Leicester, the Politics and Media Group of the Political Studies Association, and the Protest Camps Research Network
From Hong Kong to Kiev, from Missouri to Madrid, we are living in a time of global protests. Images of smoke filled streets and cities up in flames dart around the world, populating news reports and twitter feeds. Fear, hope, camaraderie, terror, relief, trauma. These protest movements teem with emotion. Their effects are contagious, their indignation infectious. They bring with them new cooperative political formations, as well as new manifestations of fascism and repression. In this two day workshop we will look at how affect and emotion function within social movements. The workshop will combine speaker presentations and participatory activities. Throughout the day we will also facilitate a series of interactive knowledge exchange and collaboration-building activities. Register for this event: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/politics-emotion-and-protest-workshop-tickets-14749786007
Policing the Anthropocene – Bournemouth University, 3 July 2015 (Lansdowne, EBC)
Sea levels rise, droughts, floods and superstorms destroy livelihoods and force migration. Entrenched in militarised security cultures, nature is rendered unstable, a risk, a threat to be mitigated and controlled. And those people, displaced and disenfranchised, are deemed by security discourses as byproducts. They too must be managed, subdued, contained. It is no longer only the boundless threat of terrorism that fuels xenophobic pursuits of absolute security, now too, the climate is coming. As hybrid, state-private security partnerships enter ever more profitable deals to secure borders, investment firms are busy weatherproofing the rich, and protest against the corporate purveyors of climate change continues to be violently cracked down. This workshop considers the contours of Policing the Anthropocene, interrogating the cross-sections of climate, capitalism and security.
Mapping for Justice – Richmond the American University in London, 2 June 2015
From drone strikes to racist attacks, from precarious labour to gentrification, how do maps help us understand injustice and illuminate struggle?
In this public showcase and discussion we explore how mapmakers engage our geographical imaginations and use the power of maps for social change. From oral history to twitter data-mining, our featured mapmakers use a variety of techniques to make injustice visible. Whether made with paper and pen or on open source platforms, maps can give way to new tactics and strategies for intervention.
Data Labs – Bournemouth University, March – June 2015 (Talbot Campus)
Participatory workshops on data scraping, mapping and visualisation
Our team here at Bournemouth University is working with NGOs, journalists and digital designers to run hands-on data aggregation, visualisation and digital storytelling workshops designed specifically for addressing civic and humanitarian issues. Without such tools and training, a ‘big data divide’ is beginning to emerge, where only those with enough money and resources are able to harness the new possibilities open data provides. Participants are welcome to attend any or all of the workshops.
Low carbon cities: why and how 17th March 12.00-13.00 TAG02 (Talbot Campus)
A discussion with with Luca D’Acci
Why do we need low-carbon cities and how may we obtain them? Replying to these questions requires a multidisciplinary approach which enables an interconnected dialogue within and across disciplines such as technology, sociology, architecture, urbanism, history, geography, futurism and economics. Urban size, density, form and structure, together with technology and socio-economic systems, play their part in the achievement of a low carbon future, which also mean a higher quality of life.
The Hero’s Journey of Alfred Russel Wallace in Southeast Asia, 10 March 2015
Co-sponsored by the Royal Geography Society and Bournemouth University
Alfred Russel Wallace was a self-taught (he left school at 13) British naturalist, a self-described “beetle collector” who traveled for four years in the Amazon and eight years in Southeast Asia. During his Asian sojourn in the mid-19th century he covered some 22,500 kilometers through territories which are now Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Wallace made his voyages without formal government support, without a floating base camp (like Charles Darwin had with HMS Beagle), without infrastructure, without much cash. During his epic journey Wallace caught, skinned and pickled 125,660 specimens of “natural productions” including 212 new species of birds, 900 new species of beetles and 200 new species of ants. Consider just the logistics — how could one man, on a tight budget and without organizational support, living rough in rainforests, collect, identify, mount, preserve and transport 8,000 bird skins and 100,000 insects? Registration (free to BU staff and students) is needed for this one please at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-heros-journey-of-alfred-russel-wallace-in-southeast-asia-tickets-13409922439
Communicating the Immediacy of Climate Change, 10 September 2014
Nathan Farrell and Shelley Thompson convened a one-day workshop on the theme of Communicating the Immediacy of Climate Change. The event was attended by approximately twenty activists, academics, journalists, representatives of local government, members of political parties, representatives of NGOs and charities, and environmental campaigners. It sought to identify key opportunities for collaborative learning and to formulate an agenda for future projects that focus on issues of climate change, sustainability and the environment. Among the key outcomes of the event was the establishment of vibrant, cross-disciplinary research network and the development of the ‘Mapping the Environment’ research project. This project, brings together a range of different stakeholders to understand how young people think and talk about their relationships with their local environment, and to encourage a greater environmental awareness among this demographic.
Tear Gas Research Connection UK Meeting, Birmingham City University, 4 November 2014
Anna Feigenbaum co-convened a UK and Ireland meeting of researchers, campaigners and NGOs working on issues related to tear gas. The meeting was run with John Horne from the University of Birmingham and hosted by Dima Saber at Birmingham City University. Read a summary of the event on BU’s Research Blog