Playing with Archives: The Past, Present and Future
Mar 6, 2024
Location Cardiff University Description HAP is an annual gathering of historians and archivists to explore new projects, practices and collections. The conference is run jointly by the Royal Historical Society, Institute of Historical Research and The National Archives
Panel 2: Playing with Archives: The Past, Present and Future
Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, academics from the Applied Informatics group at Edinburgh Napier University consider the creative past, present and future of archives. With experience across information science, creative informatics, creative technology and game design they will discuss how their research considers creative interpretation and aesthetic experiences in public engagement with archives. Specifically, they will consider how design approaches can embed creative and playable components within archival-based practice to encourage future generations to connect with materials in new and engaging ways.
The panel will discuss how creative mediums utilise archival materials for world building and reflect on the growth of digitised materials to allow new ‘audiences’ to play with history. The panel will consider how physical heritage sites can be an aesthetic, multisensorial experiences that can provoke visceral responses (Claisse et al 2020) and how in designing for interaction with digital collections, our challenge is to engender equivalent reactions with new ‘audiences’. We will present a range of technological and gaming interventions to consider how archival materials are played with through technology (Darzentas 2020; Wagner 2023), in games like Valiant Hearts (Ubisoft 2014), how they can portray complex histories such as in The Darkest Files (Paintbucket Games 2024 forthcoming), and how digital biographical or documentary storytelling are then themselves becoming archival materials that create new challenges for archivists (Donald and Houghton 2018; Tarvet 2022). The aim of this panel is not to consider how we preserve this new digital content, but to discuss how we can make existing archive material more accessible for people to 'play' with material and in the process create new artefacts. We seek to address the question of "how can information scientists, creative technologists and game designers aid discovery, reading and interpretation of archive material?"
People Ingi Helgason
Rachel Salzano
Iain DonaldOrg Units School of Computing Engineering and the Built Environment URL https://royalhistsoc.org/conference-programme-now-available-for-history-and-archives-in-practice-2024-in-cardiff/
Events (7)
Gender and Sexuality Research at Edinburgh Napier University
Mar 6, 2024
Location Merchiston Campus, room: MER_H11 Description Let’s get together and listen to colleagues working on gender and sexuality! And then let’s talk about their fascinating ideas, and how they relate to our own work and topics! This event is envisaged as informal and friendly gathering, following the success of similar gathering in 2023. We want to continue on this good tradition, and build new connections, learn about inspiring research we are doing across the university, feel inspired and nurtured.
Please send any queries to: Dr Roberto Kulpa (r.kulpa@napier.ac.uk)
SCHEDULE
14:00-14:10
Welcome (Roberto Kulpa)
14:10-15:00 TRANS LIVES
GUEST: Gina Gwenffrewi (University of Edinburgh) will start with an input about trans* people's cultural production online (i.e. YouTube, Twitter/X), framing the moral panic, and its impact on the trans* communities.
Rob Clucas (Law) will speak to the latest ‘gender critical’ challenge to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the appeal to the Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case. He suggests that a solution to the current poisonous polemic around trans* rights can usefully be sought in the dialogic theory of Martin Buber (Buber 1958).
Toni Kania (Social Sciences) will introduce their PhD project about conceptualising bodily autonomy and sovereignty of trans* people – and from trans* peoples’ perspective – in Poland.
15:00-15:10 Coffee and pastries break
15:10-16:00 GENDERED VIOLENCE
Amy Beddows (Counselling) will speak about the potential of horror texts as tools for survivors processing the experiences of gendered violence.
Anne Schwan (English) will reflect on femicide, perpetrator narratives and the challenge of restorative justice, drawing from her analysis of Em Strang's novel “Quinn” (2023).
Fiona McQueen (Social Sciences) will conclude this section pondering on her project on Scottish young men’s attitudes towards prevention messages on violence against women, incl. queer & trans men’s accounts and insights.
16:00-16:10 Coffee and pastries break
16:10-17:00 REPRESENTATIONS
Yen Nee Wong (Social Sciences) will introduce us to queer cultures of ballroom dancing and the role of Strictly Come Dancing’s representations and mainstreaming.
David Bishop (Creative Writing) will speak about his creative writing PhD, instigation into the scarcity of queer sleuths in historical mystery fiction set before the Victorian era, and the politics of outing and authorship.
Phiona Stanley (Tourism) will talk about labels – ‘spinsters’, ‘crazy cat ladies’, ‘witches’. It is also, in theoretical terms, about queering queerness by negotiating the queer and deeply gendered queerness of spinsterhood.
17:00-17:10 Coffee and pastries break
17:10-17:45 POP!
Ashley Stein (Music) will introduce their PhD project on how hyperpop and other electronic music practices can be used to destabilise gender binaries.
Frederik Byrn Køhlert (English, Visual Cultures) will close this input section with a reflection on the representation of gender and sexuality in comics & graphic novels, incl. examples from work as editor of a Routledge series on Gender, Sexuality, and Comics.
17:45-onwards: Post-Event Drinks & Food at nearby The Golf Tavern
30-31 Wright's Houses, Bruntsfield, EH10 4HR
Event Organisation:
Dr Roberto Kulpa
School of Applied Sciences: Deputy Research Degrees Lead
Co-Director: MSc Applied Social Research
Co-Investigator: (2022-2026) ‘RESIST. Fostering Queer Feminist Intersectional Resistances against Transnational Anti-Gender Politics’ (EU Horizon Europe grant no. 101060749).People Amy Beddows
Anne Schwan
Ashley Stein
David Bishop
Fiona McQueen
Frederik Byrn Kohlert
Phiona Stanley
Rob Clucas
Roberto Kulpa
Toni Kania
Yen WongOrg Units Business School
School of Applied Sciences
School of Arts and Creative Industries
Lions' Gate Open Day
Sep 24, 2022
Location Lions' Gate Garden, Merchiston Campus Description Lions' Gate Garden free event as part of the Climate Fringe and the Great Big Green Week, supported by the Permaculture Association.
At 3.30pm influential, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Aberdeen University Tim Ingold, presented his latest work ‘Generation Now‘ from our Storytelling Chair.
Tim has made a huge impact on design philosophy, and was a favourite of Edinburgh Napier’s late, great Prof. David Benyon, whose own design work on Blended Spaces has fundamentally informed The Lions’ Gate.
Other wholesome and life-affirming activities of the day included:
Holistic Therapies by Emma J @ Blue Butterfly Therapies
Student exhibits from the School of Arts and Creative Industries
Campus-grown food
Cocktails and drinks
Music, including DJ Someone’s Dad and Blue Heron
Garden tours
All 100 Eventbrite tickets were used.
A blog post on the event is available here:
https://blogs.napier.ac.uk/thelionsgate/thinking-back-on-the-lions-gate-open-day/People Callum Egan Org Units School of Computing Engineering and the Built Environment URL https://blogs.napier.ac.uk/thelionsgate/thinking-back-on-the-lions-gate-open-day/
David Bishop & Steve MacManus: How a Comic Book Icon Rose to the Top
Aug 15, 2017
Location Bosco Theatre (George Street), Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh. Description For anyone with even the merest interest in comic books, the story of 2000AD is an essential part of their education. David Bishop and Steve MacManus have been editors of the publication in very different eras and are in a privileged position to discuss the inside story People David Bishop Org Units School of Arts and Creative Industries URL https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/david-bishop-steve-macmanus-10039
Assessing the legacy and impact of feminist photographer Franki Raffles
Apr 25, 2017
Location CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts), Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow Description A public symposium in connection with the exhibition 'Observing Women at Work - Franki Raffles', The Reid Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, 4 March - 27 April 2017, produced in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University People Alistair Scott Org Units School of Arts and Creative Industries URL http://www.gsa.ac.uk/life/gsa-events/events/f/franki-raffles-symposium/?source=archive
Re-discovering feminist photographer Franki Raffles (1955-94)
Oct 19, 2016
Location University of Stirling Description Paper presented to a postgraduate research seminar at the Centre for Media and Culture, University of Stirling People Alistair Scott Org Units School of Arts and Creative Industries
Re-discovering feminist photographer - Franki Raffles
Sep 15, 2016
Location Stills Gallery, Edinburgh Description Public Talk at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, about the Franki Raffles Archive Research project www.frankirafflesarchive.org People Alistair Scott Org Units School of Arts and Creative Industries