Researcher blog by Annie Watson of SOLAR: Walking at the Speed of Light #1 From where we began to where we are now and where we might want to go
About the author
Annie Watson is Subject Group Leader for Film and Photography and a founder member of the Walking Arts Research Group in Media Arts.
In this post, Annie gives us a brief introduction to the Walking Arts Research Group – the people behind the new walking / art app SOLAR: Walking at the Speed of Light.
Myself and Jeremy Lee set up the Walking Arts Research Group in Media Arts in 2014 as an experiment to see if allocating space and time to regularly walk with colleagues within a busy working environment allowed creative minds to flourish.
We were really clear from the outset that there would be no agenda, no minutes taken, no expectation that you had to produce anything and no pressure to attend every walk. You could walk at your own pace, you could make work on the walk or not. We hoped that there would be unforced, naturally developing and evolving outcomes, in practice, research, teaching and overall sense of well-being.
Around ten members of staff, from all degrees within the portfolio came on each walk and although the time spent on the walks has been minimal (on average 4 hours a month), the individual outputs are notable: exhibitions, film festivals, art project commissions and papers for conferences. It has also helped to generate content and focus topics for five staff to begin their PhD’s.
Through ADRC funding, we have been on two residencies (one in Germany) where we developed the Catalyst funded project SOLAR. Working with external partners, Opus Independents (Festival of Debate, Word Life and Now Then) and Epiphany VR we have produced an app which guides people on the walk of the scaled solar system, allowing them to view artworks (made by us) on the way.
ITV’s Calendar broadcast the launch live on the 8 March 2017, following an interview with BBC Radio Sheffield earlier on in the day.
There are nine artworks, made by Media Arts staff, each one inspired by a myth or fact about the planets in the solar system and these are exhibited in the SIA gallery until 23 April 2017.
As a further development to this, we are working with Dr Alice Bell (Faculty of Development & Society) and Opus to develop a larger scale project to which will develop an app that incorporates different forms of art (audio, visual, music etc) within walks and we would like to take the form of SOLAR to European academic institutions and to map the walk in different locations.
Please note: Views expressed are those of the Author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of SHU, C3RI or the C3RI Impact Blog.
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