Spatiality, Digitality, Art, Design, Media, Culture & Performance
A One-Day Symposium

Saturday 5 April 2003, 9am

Cambridge University Department of Architecture
1 Scroope Terrace
Trumpington Street
Cambridge CB2 1PX

This one-day symposium brought together leading researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to formulate and debate the crucial issues at the heart of ‘Research/Practice/Practice/Research’. It was organised by CUMIS (Cambridge University Moving Image Studio) in association with CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities), ResCen (Middlesex University) and Future Physical/RESPOND Cambridge.

There were two main topics of discussion. The first centred around the premise that there is tension between content-led and technology-driven research in the field of creative digital media in a range of disciplines from Architecture, Design and Fine Arts, through Media, Cultural Studies and Science & Technology, to Performance Arts. Questions that arose included: is the objective to develop new knowledge relevant to creative practice, art, design, performance and exhibition? Or is it to develop viable hardware and software tools to enable effective practice?

The second topic focused on practice-based research and practice-as-research and how they exist in a borderland between the academy, commercial research and development (R&D) and the cultural industries. Questions that were addressed included: can practice-based research in a university environment create work of real aesthetic merit and true research value? Can artistic and performance practice, developed within the framework of industrial R&D or the academic world, be truly ground breaking?

This symposium accompanied the exhibition and event that included art, design, performance and digital media in new spatial configurations at RESPOND Cambridge, 2-5 April 2003.