Centre for Intermedia

The Centre for Intermedia promotes interdisciplinary research in performance and the arts through collaborations between artists, scientists, academics and the business community.

Project partners

Disciplines engaged in past and current Centre projects and collaborations have been:

• Archaeology (with Stanford University, USA
• Architecture (with Edinburgh University)
• Media (with Bournemouth University)
• Computer Science (with University College London and the Mixed Reality Laboratory, Nottingham University)
• Theatre Studies (with Bristol University)
• Visual Art (with Arnolfini Bristol, Exeter Phoenix and artcircolo, Germany)
• New Media (Ludwig Boltzman Institute, Linz, Austria)
• Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research (MOHC)
• Psychology/Neuroscience (Goldsmiths College and UPF in Spain)
• and, from the commercial sector, Vodafone R&D Germany.

In 2008, the Centre will be joined by leading international photographer Hugo Glendinning as Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts, enabled by an Arts and Humanities Research Council award of £237,000.

Current projects 

Developing work includes projects on archiving, mixed reality performance and the communication of climate change in art. Among the Centre's current projects is:

Performing Presence: from the Live to the Simulated

This interdisciplinary research collaboration is investigating the construction of presence in live, mediated and simulated environments, including performances, video artworks, multimedia theatre, telepresence works, Second Life, CAVE, pervasive games and telerobotics.

The project is led by Professor Nick Kaye and Professor Gabriella Giannachi (Exeter University), Professor Mel Slater (University College London) and Professor Michael Shanks (Stanford University), and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council with a grant of £275,000.

Professor Kaye said: "Performance studies, archaeology and computer science each has a particular concern with presence. In drama we might be interested in how an actor generates charisma and aura. Archaeologists are interested in how people engage with something which is essentially lost in time. In computer science, the interest lies in constructing virtual environments and interactions with avatars which feel present to users."

The project runs through 2009 and consists of exploratory workshops with international performance practitioners, documentation and archiving of new work, modelling presence in virtual environments, and culminates in an international conference.