Professor Simon Popple

Profile

I am the academic lead for the Digital Creativity and Cultures Hub (DCCH) at the University of Leeds and Professor of Digital Media Cultures. I have a background in archival research focussed on media histories and particular specialisms in Digital Archives, Immersive Cultural Heritage, Generative AI, Early Cinema and Photographic History. I worked in the Museum and Archives sector before becoming an academic and have a strong interest in practice based research. Over time my focus has developed to explore how digital historical and archival sources can be used to allow communities and organisations to develop collaborative practices to facilitate storytelling, campaigning, and support social advocacy. I am primarily concerned with the relationships between individuals, communities, institutions and the potential for cultural collections and archival sources to inform history making.

I have worked with a range of organisations including BBC Archives, the Science Museum, British Film Institute, commercial partners, cultural heritage institutions, and community groups. I am focussed on the potential of digital methods and resources to open institutional and archival resources to foster co-production and creative experimentation.

Responsibilities

• Academic Lead Digital Creativity and Cultures Hub

Research interests

I have broad interests in media history, archival practices, digital humanities, and co-production. I am interested in the cultures of practice associated with work in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums). My current research is concerned the use and translation of digital methods and data within the cultural heritage sector and in the role of digital storytelling and virtual environments in the charity sector.

I am have recently been engaged in two funded pieces of research:

AHRC/UKRI: 2021-2024 Towards a National Collection (TaNC): The Congruence Engine: Digital Tools for New Collections-Based Industrial Histories as Co-Investigator

This project in part of the wider UKRI Towards a National Collection theme and examines the potential of machine learning as a means of unifying and making visible national collections of science and technology. See: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/project/the-congruence-engine/

The second project was in conjunction with Martin House Children’s Hospice and examined the potential of digital storytelling, archives, and virtual environments in support of capital fundraising for the charity. HEIF:2023 Martin House Children’s Hospice Discovery Project as Principal Investigator.

These two projects have led to my current research looking at the potential role of these approaches to understanding how digital archives and immersive heritage can support economic development and community engagement across locations associated with the textiles industry in Leeds, Saltaire and Keighley.

I am also researching for a forthcoming book that will be entitled Restaging Afghanistan: Photography, Imperialism and Post Photographies. This project combines historical readings of the imperial and post imperial archive of western engagement in Afghanistan with notions of post photographies, generative AI practices and ontological futures.

• Digital Community Workspaces: delivering impact through public library and archive networks
• Using digital tools in heritage

Qualifications

• MA by research in British Documentary Film and state sponsored commercial film at Leeds University
• BA (Hons) English and History

Student education

I teach and supervise across a range of subjects including photographic history, critical theory, archives and community partnerships, film and digital cultures.

Research groups and institutes

• Digital Cultures
• Participatory research
• Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute

Current postgraduate researchers

• Andrea Vasquez