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

Posted on by Wendy

DSC03562CARIAD’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.

CARIAD has its official launch at the Senedd supported by Leanne Wood AM and Eluned Parrott AM

Posted on by Wendy

 

 

 

CARIAD had our biggest event to date on Thursday, our official launch at the iconic Senedd building in Cardiff bay. We were honoured to have the support of three assembly members. Leanne Wood AM officially launched the centre and offered wonderful words of support and encouragement for the team. Eluned Parrott AM was our official sponsor and made the day possible. She presented some insightful thoughts and offered her congratulations to the successes of CARIAD thus far. We are looking forward to welcoming Eluned Parrott AM at some of our workshops in the near future! Jenny Rathbone AM also attended the day in full support of all of our research projects. We were also thrilled to have the wonderful Glynis from the Hollies School and Anthony from Trinity Fields on the podium to represent our stakeholders and say a few words about their experiences working with CARIAD. John Killick from Dementia Positive closed the session with a touching poem and invited everybody to come and have fun at his workshop later.

In true CARIAD style the day was much much more than a launch, we also hosted two separate workshops and demonstrated some of our capturing and video coding technologies working with AnalysisPro LTD http://www.analysispro.net/ and the Centre for Performance Analysis http://www3.cardiffmet.ac.uk/english/sport/about/staff/academic/pa/pages/home.aspx

CARIAD paper prototypingWendy’s Paper Prototyping workshop used paper to rapid prototype interactive and non-verbal communicative devices. The morning invited our PLC (professional learning community) group in Gesture-Based Technologies http://kinectsen.wikispaces.com/ and many new stakeholders to come up with a technology, using only paper, which might facilitate communication. These were presented back to the group and a vote was taken on which technology to develop further. The ‘rhythm detector’ won in the end and our invited coding and technology experts from our partner’s at CARIAD Interactive http://cariadinteractive.com/ created a code and working prototype which we were all playing on by the end of the session, not bad for a day’s work!

john killickOur second workshop was last of Cathy’s OPAN funded sessions, we invited John Killick from Dementia Positive to come and run one of his infamous ‘invitation to have fun’ events, and fun it was. We made human statues, described objects through touch and even had a puppet show! While the sound of laughter was echoing from the building throughout the day the message was poignant: Dementia is not something to be frightened of or to shy away from. We need to find ways to engage with it and adopt a more positive and responsive attitude towards investigating and understanding some of the underlying features of the condition and ‘we must not be afraid to laugh’! You can read more about the day’s events and see more pictures here on Cardiff Met’s main page: http://www3.cardiffmet.ac.uk/English/News/Pages/CardiffMetlaunchesinteractiveandinclusiveartsresearchfacility.aspx
Our latest edition to the team Steve Coleman PhD student (read about him here http://cariadblog.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/cariad-awarded-ria-research-innovation-award-to-support-new-phd-student-steve-coleman-investigating-the-benefits-of-creative-play-for-people-with-dementia/ ) also made this fantastic video documenting the day’s events, take a look https://vimeo.com/75386114 thanks Steve!

CARIAD really has so many people to thank for the successes of the day and rather than thank a few here publicly we would rather thank EVERYBODY privately. Here’s looking forward to making this an annual event, thanks to all involved

 

CARIAD awarded RIA (Research Innovation Award) to support new PhD Student Steve Coleman investigating the benefits of creative play for people with dementia

Posted on by Wendy

DSC02110CARIAD are delighted to announce the latest edition to the team, our first fully funded PhD student Steve Coleman. Steve was awarded the prestigious RIA (Research Innovation Award) scholarship from Cardiff Met to research the therapeutic benefits of creative ludic play for people with dementia. This is a part of one of CARIAD’s bigger projects led by Cathy into well-being within the aging population.

Steve completed an outstanding Masters here at Cardiff Met which looked at the healing potentials of being playful. We are thrilled that he has been given the opportunity to develop the project here at CARIAD and to have such a dynamic and committed new academic associate to contribute to the centre. I’m sure everybody will be keen to extend their congratulations in due course. On behalf of CARIAD, well done Steve excited to have you on board and looking forward to working with you!

‘Promoting Playfulness Amongst Older People’ OPAN RDG workshop 2 Swansea, Tapestri Building, 31th July 2013

Posted on by Wendy

DSC02210CARIAD enjoyed the second of its scoping workshops in Swansea today. Dr. Cathy Treadaway ran the second OPAN funded research development workshop for the ‘Making a Difference’ research project which is exploring the development of playful artefacts for people with dementia. The workshop was held in Swansea at the very welcoming Tapestri building. We brought together care providers, managers, occupational therapists and academics and included a presentation by Dr. David Prytherch, from User Lab at Birmingham City University, on haptic perception and dementia. http://www.bcu.ac.uk/biad/research.

Topics arising after the talk included: the difficulties faced in working in care homes; the stretches and pressures on care home workers; community engagement; perception of dementia in society; fiddling and making for makings sake; the relationship between sensory experience and instinct; and the ways the brain processes and understands reactions to sensory stimulus, all very interesting indeed, take a look at a clip here (https://vimeo.com/71807694). We closed the session discussing some of the technological possibilities. Thanks to everybody for making it such an insightful and interesting discussion full of potential! Looking forward to seeing you all at our next session.

Digital Stories at the Hollies School with the wonderful Glynis!

Posted on by Wendy

DSC02208CARIAD had a wonderful morning at the Hollies School in Cardiff today http://www.theholliesschool.co.uk/welcome.html . Wendy and Leah filmed Glynis Thomas who discussed the ways some of the kids are interacting with Somantics and Reactickles as part of the impact studies for the Shape project in Birmingham http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/education/shape/index.aspx
Glynis was part of CARIAD’s founding project and was the very first school to participate in Wendy’s work so she will always have a special place within CARIAD. It’s so lovely to be able to go back nearly ten years later and to see how things have moved on and to listen to Glynis expertise and understandings of the children’s personalities.
The sessions were carried out in the same way as Anthony’s last week,  and it seems the format is working. We are editing the videos together as we speak so watch this space for some amazing digital stories are coming your way!

A massive congradulations to Beverley she recieved a full PhD award to research Autism

Posted on by Wendy

psychology
‘A top Cardiff Met graduate and grandmother of two has secured full funding for further study’

CARIAD are very much looking forward to the opportunity to work with Beverley. Her research is set to contribute to some of CARIAD’s most established research projects into Autism. Beverley has already worked with Wendy and CARIAD is looking forward to continuing the relationship. Beverley is researching ASC couple relationship satisfaction, health and wellbeing, a very interesting and under researched area. Congratulations again Beverley!

Gesture-Based Interpretations: Video Analysis at trinity Fields School and Resource Centre Caerphilly

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CARIAD had a very informative meeting with Anthony and Janet at Trinity fields School today. We met to watch videos of the children interacting with Somantics http://somantics.org/. Anthony is already undertaking pioneering work founding the PLC in Gesture-Based Technology group which is already having a huge impact in Schools in Wales. Take a look! http://kinectsen.wikispaces.com/ http://opensen.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/kinectsen-plc-exploring-gesture-based-technologies/
http://www.trinityfieldsschoolandresourcecentre.co.uk/news/firstgesturebasedtechnologymeeting.htm

We showed some edited clips (the videos were also shot by the teachers) of the children exploring Somantics and asked the teachers to comment on what they saw. Key to the sessions was the teachers comfort to interpret the videos in their own time on their own terms without intervention or judgements. In this way the interpretations were able to flow without any pressure to provide ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ responses. The teacher’s perspectives, knowing each child’s personality and engagement profile provided essential contextual information of the ways the interactive apps are improving communication and well-being.

The sessions were also recorded on video (video link when ready) and this proved essential to capture the thick data sets which emerged and appear to be growing. This ranged from the entirely nuanced facial expressions of the teachers, happy to see the children engaging at such a high level, to explaining that a child saying ‘Orange’ in expectation of the next colour on the painting app, was the child’s first ever independent comment on the world. Other key factors were the children’s general behaviour and contentment at the times of filming which impacted upon understandings of their levels of engagement with the apps.

The sessions highlighted the levels and details of information contained in each small clip (which was no more than two minutes each) and the time necessary to spend deconstructing the data from filming the child, to editing and modes of analysis. This indicates that the videoing processes might facilitate some of the methods related to understanding young people with autism by slowing down and taking the time to understand with the children are telling us. CARIAD is looking forward to our next meeting on the 19th September 2013.

Material Matters Research Symposium 05th June 2013

Posted on by Wendy

DSC02160 A very informative end of term Symposium took place at Cardiff School of Management yesterday looking at the various ways material feature in research practice http://www.wirad.ac.uk/research-themes/digit/. Co-organiser and presented Cathy (CARIAD member) presented the latest findings of her Walk and Draw project, which is exploring the ways places effect the creative process and can enable sensations of subjective well-being, or as we like to say, happiness.

The findings are being applied to facilitate understandings of immigrant communicates in inner city areas and the ways they do/not feel connected to their local environment. Other presentations ranged from the ways the camel is depicted on tapestries in Israel to CARIAD member Leah discussing ways of capturing making in ceramic contemporary practice. Needless to say CARIAD was delighted to participate and is looking forward to seeing the students inspired by the event for the next term.

‘Promoting Playfulness Amongst Older People’ OPAN RDG workshop 1

Posted on by Wendy

DSC02112 ‘Promoting Playfulness Amongst Older People’ was the first of the OPAN RDG workshops for the ‘Making a Difference’ project held at Swansea University 31th May 2013 as part of the ‘Coming of Age’ arts trail and exhibition supported by ABMUHB and OPAN.

CARIAD members Leah and Cathy enjoyed the best Swansea University had to offer today (including the sun) at our first workshop for ‘Making a Difference’ supported by OPAN (Older People & Ageing Research and Development Network). We had a long overdue reunion with Graham Dean one of our friends from Lancaster University (http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/people/graham-dean(4ee2e191-9ee4-41b1-868c-92c43452aab6).html) and a core member of the project.

We also welcomed over 16 experts from the fields, of mental health, well-being, technology, interactive design, music, arts, creative business, academics and many more to brainstorm possibilities. After an introduction and summary of the projects themes and aims, we invited our audience to create Lego avatars of themselves to encourage sensations of play and memory.

Our Lego avatars then introduced themselves and their interests in the project. Graham presented some wonderful food for thought showing videos ranging from whimsical musings to state of the art technologies in memory boxes. Check them out here: Spotify box – http://vimeo.com/21387481More4 Rebrand -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ5U3t1zZ_s Music Memory Box – http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/music-memory-box

Finally our paper posit ideas board drew out some of our experts poignant and novel contributions leaving CARIAD with endless possible explorations from bread making to Ukulele orchestra’s. Our next step is to think about ways to encourage our stakeholders to play!

An evening with researchers from Cardiff University School of Medicine

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DSC01656CARIAD researchers participated in welcoming researchers from Cardiff University School of Medicine to attend an evening event on the 21st March 2013 at Howard Gardens Gallery. Medical school staff shared research interests, identified synergies and potential future collaborations with researchers from CSAD and CARIAD. The evening was an informal and intimate occasion where fruitful discussions commenced over a glass of wine and crudités. CARIAD were excited by the opportunity to engage with our medical partners and predict this to be the first of many interactive events, projects and products.

The event had equal numbers of staff from each University (9 and 9) presenting two slides over two minutes to summarise their research interests. The reminder of the event showcased some of the outputs from researchers at CSAD and CARIAD. Dr. Wendy Keay-Bright and Dr. Cathy Treadaway showcased their research in the form of a mini exhibition showing artworks and posters. CARIAD research student Ben-Ewart Dean also participated giving demonstrations of the apps ReacTickles and Somantics. This visual display offered unique insights into our projects giving the School of Medicine lots to talk about and reflect on, long after the work came down. Exciting times so watch this space!