About RIMAD
Research Institute for Media, Art and Design
With a mature research base in media, and highly active exhibition culture in art and design, the institute welcomes applications for Master's by Research and PhDs.
Centres
The institute hosts the Centre for International Media Analysis, Research and Consultancy 'CIMARC' and the Centre for Applied Research in Dance 'CARD' It has research specialisms in new media publishing; cross-media integration; political communication; journalism; sport and the media; community radio; performance, and creative writing.
Research groups
The Research Institute for Media, Art and Design has research groups in:
- Journalism - leader Dr Alec Charles
- Interactive Media Group - leader Dr Gavin Stewart
- Practice and Personal Research Group - leader Joanna Callaghan
- Screen and Script: cross-media practices - leader Dr Carlota Larrea
- The institute hosts the JOG: Journalism and the Olympic Games Research Group which is co-ordinated by Professor Garry Whannel. The JOG Group was established to develop an international network of research into journalism, politics and the Olympic Games.
Convergence journal
The editorial office of the international refereed journal, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies is based within the institute housing editorial staff Alexis Weedon (co-editor), and Gavin Stewart (editorial assistant). Julia Knight (co-editor) is based at the University of Sunderland.
Convergence has an international editorial board, with members drawn from Europe, Australia, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan,and has an international subscriber base.
The journal acts as an invaluable bridge between the research work of the staff and postgraduate students of the institute and the wider community of scholars.
Seminars
The institute runs research seminars on a variety of research topics open to all staff, visitors and postgraduate research students.
Recent visiting speakers to RIMAD include:
- Professor Andrew Crisell, University of Sunderland;
- Dr Vince Miller, University of Kent
- Martin Rosenbaum, Head of Freedom of Information at the BBC
- Dr Joram ten Brink, University of Westminster
- Professor Carole Gray, The Robert Gordon University
- Dr Ann Steiner, Lund University, Sweden
Dance
Providing a valuable link with professional practice in the arts members of the institute artistically direct and perform in the professional dance company Erzatz Dance, based at the Bedford Campus and curate the hat Factory gallery
Practice-led research projects
The institute currently supports a range of practice-led research projects as follows:
- Ontological narratives - a film investigation of philosophical concepts by Joanna Callaghan
- Heraclitus - Artists versus Hollywood, touring short film screening of films that subvert and rupture conventional filmic narrative including the work of Joanna Callaghan
- 'Drawing in Motion' with work by Catherine Baker 30 September at Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery
- Public Art Commission for Mid Beds District Council, supported by Happen and East of England by Catherine Baker
- “Meanwhile”: the use of wit and irony to investigate aspects of contemporary culture and mores through two dimensional digital animation
- “Coming and Going”: an investigation exploring the possibilities of digitally manipulated photographs in response to ‘non-places’, spatial aspects of the post-modern city
- “Fabulous Confabulations”: an investigation into human information processing focusing on flashbulb memory and the psychology of looking and seeing manifest as drawing. This is a science/art collaboration testing the potential for developing drawing using scientific data (AHRB funded)
- "Views from Nowhere" exhibition at the hat Factory Gallery, Luton UK which ran alongside a conference on Media and the Expanded Europe at the University.
