Situating Community through Creative Technologies and Practice
This website provides information about the AHRC-funded Connected Communities project “Situating Community through Creative Technologies and Practice”, conducted by the Creative Media Group at Culture Lab Newcastle, in conjonction with the SiDE project and in collaboration with the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University, UK.
This project aims to problematise the notion of “community” in the context of an increasingly technology-driven society. We aim to provide a multifaceted analysis and critical discussion of connected communities, in order to inform and promote future research in this area. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we investigate the complex relationship between digital technologies, their creative uses by communities, and the socio-cultural impacts of this use.
Our objectives are:
1. To understand how connective technologies modify the definitions of communities in relation to space, place and social structures.
2. To determine how (whether constructively or disruptively) digital technologies, their design, and their creative uses, enable communities to sustain, empower, and re-invent themselves.
3. To explore how digital technologies can open channels of expression to societal groups traditionally understood as being marginal or on the fringe.
4. To analyse the socio-political impact of community connectivity on society, in particular during this period of economic change.
5. To highlight issues, successes and failures of research involving communities and digital technologies.
The project involves a scoping study and a symposium event.
The scoping study consists of an in-depth literature and projects review, and is divided into four components, approached through several disciplines:
- Contextualisation and perspectives from history and popular culture;
- Connectivity, cultural expression and empowerment of communities with ICT in human-computer interaction, design and digital arts;
- Emergence of new communities, identities and territories, from a geographic and socio-cultural standpoint;
- Political projects, counter-cultures and new social models with philosophy, politics and cultural theory.
The symposium event is an outreach event aiming to open a dialogue on the topic of connected communities among international experts from various disciplines, grass-roots community workers, communities themselves and the general public. It consists of 1) a conference open to the general public, with talks and debates, 2) an exhibition, and 3) a focused hands-on workshop. It took place on the 12th-14th of September 2011 at Culture Lab Newcastle (see our “Symposium” page for more information).
Research Team
RAs: Joëlle Bitton, Andreia Cavaco, Lalya Gaye and Graeme Mearns
PhD student: Ben Jones
PIs: Atau Tanaka and Ranald Richardson