leah mc laughlin | CARIAD

CARIAD wins two new SIPS (Strategic Insight Programe) awards

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Wendy

Congratulations to Leah and Cathy for being awarded another two SIP (Strategic Insight Programme) awards. Cathy will work with the company Stillwalks http://stillwalks.wordpress.com/ to create a series of drawings through video. She will also scope some potentials of using some Stillwalk videos to promote wellbeing by ‘bringing the outside in’.

Leah will be working with AnalysisPro http://www.analysispro.net/, Andrew from Exeter House http://www.exeterhouseschool.co.uk/ and Dawn from St Luke’s http://www.stlukes.herts.sch.uk/ special needs school to scope ways of tagging videos of Intensive Interaction sessions. Thank you very much to Cardiff Met and everybody who helped on our bids!

CARIAD works with Connected Studio at the Millennium Centre

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Wendy

CARIAD has a fantastic day at the Millennium Centre today facilitating Connected Studio developing ways of making classical music more accessible to audiences through digital content and platforms. We also learned about new technologies and ideas to further establish links between academia and the media. We were reunited with Peter from PDR, Emily from School of Education and Katherine from CSAD.

We had an eventful day designing our new ‘Classy App’, a prototype to condense and consolidate some of the content on BBC 3 Radio, to renew and reinvigorate an audience with an interest in classical music but perhaps a bit shy about taking those initial first steps into the genre. Thank you Connected Studio, BBC, Hannah, CEWN and everybody else organising such a successful dynamic day, lots of possibilities!

CARIAD visits Exeter House School to discuss potentials for video tagging

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Wendy

Thank you Andrew from Exeter House School http://www.exeterhouseschool.co.uk/ for hosting such an eventful day yesterday: exploring the possibilities of video tagging to capture Intensive Interaction sessions with young people with learning difficulties. Leah from CARIAD and Jon Moore from Analysis Pro http://www.analysispro.net/ had an eventful first meeting at Salisbury yesterday. We looked at some videos of ‘Intensive Interaction’ with the lovely Dawn all the way from St Luke’s Foundation School, Hertfordshire http://www.stlukes.herts.sch.uk/tv_radio/index.html showing us the amazing work they are doing capturing evidence of their intensive Interactions with young people with learning difficulties. Lee from IT and Rachel another teacher from Exeter House completed our group.

We started by discussing some of the problems encountered particularly with evidencing children’s engagement and communication. The focus was on the Intensive Interaction sessions, a widely used model to encourage communication and one that has had incredible results. We also learned about some research into capturing these Intensive Interaction sessions using video, and the strategies and recommendations the teachers have developed. This ranged from the angle of the camera to the size of the frame. We learned that the focus is always on the face in Intensive Interactions and that it has been argued that video can capture nuances and idiosyncratic details within these sessions more effectively than other measurement models.

Then we discussed some of the problems with capturing the sessions. Many many issues were discussed from technical problems (for example not enough room to store HD data on school servers), to aesthetic and communicative features of video (for example a bird’s eye view coupled with a close up, narrative within the clips, and a sense of the environment with less than perfect filming)to much more conceptual and challenging problems (for example subjective interpretations of behaviours, how much detail and history of the child is needed to make a claim for improvement)…and this was just the morning!

Later Jon took the floor and gave a very brief overview of some of the software tools and packages he has been developing in partnerships for his entire career. Originally used for sports analysis we discussed some of the potentials of adapting some of the strategies, tools and software to begin to code and manage some of the video from the Intensive Interactions. To pick out key moments, file information and use it to build up layers of metadata of rich and dynamic visual evidence of the children’s engagement. Looking forward to the next stages!

CARIAD attends second Connected Studio Event

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Wendy

CARIAD’s Leah attended a very informative follow up meeting to the first Connected Studio day held in Wales in November which developed ideas to engage audiences with classical music in the BBC. http://cariadblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/connected-studios-linking-academics-and-media/ While this was a much quieter affair compared to the frantic day of knowledge exchange in November it was certainly an exciting and insightful afternoon.

We got to meet and greet a second round of researchers, academics and creative people from across Wales and discuss some of the potentials going forward to the build day in February. The BBC as always were very excited to hear about our ideas and background as we were equally privileged to be working with such a dynamic group of researchers and the expertise of the BBC. Looking forward to our first build day on this pioneering pilot project with endless potentials for CARIAD!

CARIAD begins video documentary at Singleton Hospital for i-Magine: using technology to enhance subjective wellbeing and reduce stress for children in hospital .

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Wendy

We had a fantastic day of filming at Singleton Hospital, Swansea yesterday for the project i-Magine. CARIAD’s Leah was awarded SIP (Strategic Insight Programme) funding from Cardiff Met to work with OnPAr productions to create a video documentary funding proposal, interviewing specialists, carers and families who have experience of children’s hospital environments. Huge special thanks to Prue (Arts in Health Co-ordinator Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Healthboard in partnership with University of Wales Trinity St David, Swansea) for sorting out the participants and making all the arrangements and to Cathy for managing the project.

The day was a huge success and it was wonderful to give people the opportunity to tell their stories and what would be really useful for them in the hospital. Richard now has all the material and is hard at work editing together our film, watch this space! Thanks to all who have contributed again, CEWN, Cardiff Met SIP and ABMUHB.

CARIAD participate in mini film festival at Gidihw pub and venue in Cardiff City Centre

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Wendy

CARIAD were honoured to receive an invite from filmmaker Clary Saddler to participate in a fund raising event for MACMILLAN Cancer support. She hosted a Mini film festival at Gwdihw pub and venue in Cardiff. http://gwdihw.co.uk/category/events/ The event was a huge success raising hundreds for a worthy cause and also networking and putting creative people in touch with one another over a drink and song.

Please if you have a moment show your support here. http://www.justgiving.com/Clary-Saddler1 CARIAD were able to show some of their videos with artists working through the medium of ceramics filmed as a part of Leah Mc Laughlin’s PhD research project ‘The ways moving-images reveal ceramic artists interactions with their materials’. We also showed new CARIAD promotional materials from recent events for example our launch at the Senedd. See more details of the day and how you can become involved here: https://www.facebook.com/CardiffsMiniFilmFestival?v=wall&filter=2

CARIAD presents at international conference in Lisbon, ‘Creative Processes in Art’

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Wendy

CARIAD’s Leah Mc Laughlin presented some of her research activities at the international conference ‘Creative Processes in Art’ at the Centre for Fine Arts Lisbon.http://creativeprocessesinart.weebly.com/index.html. There was plenty of insightful discussion over the two days. Some interesting papers for CARIAD included: the relationship between corporate businesses and performance art. We were also treated to a guided tour of the infamous University building which houses the faculty of Fine Arts, it even included areas which are no longer open to the public!

It is always very informative participating in such an interesting conference topic and to speak to a largely theoretical and philosophical audience. It seems that whenever ‘creativity’ is discussed, its multiple interpretations and various modes of application and understanding elicit thoughtful and provoking debate. It also became apparent that CARIAD’s commitment to applied methods also has a clear and necessary place within these largely theoretical consortiums.

The ways in which CARIAD directly works with people and our developing research methods to accommodate this was a point of interest and praise for many of the delegates. Some very interesting relationships were established and CARIAD are looking forward to many future collaborations.