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This research, led by Amy Hardie and the Scottish Documentary Institute from 2006 onwards, investigates the practice of communicating and engaging with science through creative documentary filmmaking, developing a screening strategy heralded as 'a completely different paradigm of cinema' (5.1). By drawing out human stories in award-winning, critically-acclaimed films, it has mainstreamed complex subject matter about stem cell research, redressing public and media misconceptions along the way. One film has been watched over 112,000 times in 190 countries, while behind the camera, it has forged cross-disciplinary collaborations between artists and biological scientists that have been discussed and admired by policy-makers in Brussels and Tokyo.
Afterall is a research and publishing organisation founded in 1998 by Research Fellow Charles Esche and Professor Mark Lewis at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (UAL). Afterall focuses on contemporary art, and its relationship to wider theoretical, social and political fields. Researchers associated to Afterall undertake and commission research, which is disseminated to an international audience through publications and events. Afterall impacts on the cultural sector and an extended audience by providing a platform for critical and creative responses to art, curatorial and cultural practice and by shaping discourse in this area. The significance and wide reach of this impact is demonstrated through partnerships and high-profile cultural events, publication reach, and support from the cultural community.
Furtherfield has inspired and supported new forms of collaborative practice and expression at the intersection of arts and technology cultures to co-create critical, contemporary public platforms and contexts for arts in networked society.
Furtherfield's innovative programmes have advanced practices and theories of collaboration, remix, and openness; inspiring and informing thinking in the UK Arts sector and international digital arts culture. This work has worldwide cultural and social impact. It reaches and engages new audiences through public gallery programmes, online collections, websites, and other award-winning virtual platforms, acknowledged by artists, curators and critics for their contribution to emerging digital art contexts.
Plenum is an installation conceived by Simeon Nelson in 2010 as a collaborative art-music artwork. It was performed six times between 2010 and 2013 at sound and light festivals in Poland, Estonia and the UK, at the Cambridge Music Festival, and at an Australian contemporary arts venue. Audiences totalling over 240,000 saw the work, with website visitors extending its reach to over 300,000; the Durham Lumiere alone, of which Plenum formed an integral element, created an estimated £4.3 million for the local economy. Festival and arts curators have described Plenum as `thought provoking' and `inspiring'.
The two-year ROTOЯ programme of exhibitions and events has been a cornerstone of the University of Huddersfield's efforts to introduce new audiences to contemporary art and design, as encouraged by successive Arts Council policies for enhancing public engagement. As well as raising awareness, inspiring curiosity and providing cultural enrichment, it has initiated changes to local authority policies on providing cost-effective, high-quality cultural services and has functioned as a vehicle for research into how the impact of such programmes can be captured. As such, it has served as a model partnership for local authority and university sectors in offering cultural leadership, generating and measuring engagement and delivering public services.
Harrison makes public sculptural installations using and referencing the processes of firing clay in live public experiments that draw on, and become metaphors for, socio-political events. A Residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London (October 2012-March 2013) enabled Harrison to bring the process and methods of these innovative time-based works (developed since 2002) to a larger public, including those in education at all levels and professional audiences, transforming attitudes, knowledge and understanding of the ceramics field, and contributing to significant economic impact via visitor numbers and practical workshops. The V&A has c1.6million visitors in any six-month period, 50,000 school trips, and a substantial online audience.
REBOUND is an interactive, media-based drug prevention programme targeted at young people in Europe. Researchers at the University of Greenwich worked with young people to redesign the curriculum and materials for a British audience and produce a series of short educational films which are being used in the programme's resilience training. Preliminary results show a reduction in drug and alcohol harm amongst participants including a drop in binge drinking, reduced cannabis use, increased search for help and greater harm reduction knowledge. After using the films, young people are making their own videos as educational tools to pass on their learning.
`Like Shadows: A Celebration of Shyness' brought together members of the art and lay-public communities in a lively debate about visitor shyness in contemporary interactive museums and galleries, in relation to wider debates about public engagement and social exclusion. The project informed the working practices of the ten local artists and curators with whom the researchers collaborated, who created new exhibits on the theme of shyness and designed the event to appeal to shy visitors. Their reports [see Sections 4 and 5] show that this experience has made them more aware of the propensity of digitally-mediated artworks to evoke feelings of shyness amongst visitors, and of the need to reconsider the design and presentation of such exhibits to be more `shy-friendly'. This community-focused event drew in over 7000 visitors, whose feedback confirmed the tendency of interactive, digital media-based exhibits to assume a level of performative confidence and technical knowledge, excluding visitors who felt shy.
This case study demonstrates the impact of the Cass' research that has promoted and supported the now pivotal role of Installation art and Artists' Writing on the wider field of artistic and curatorial practice over the last decade and more specifically since 2008.
The body of research based on de Oliveira/Oxley's activities as curators and writers has been instrumental in the development of emerging forms of practice and critical discourse. Installation art highlighted significant changes in the understanding of the idea of the `medium', the institution and the relationship between artists, curators and audiences. This research is documented on their website www.writinginstallation.org.