The Digital Research Group
The Digital Research Group takes a curiosity-driven and interdisciplinary approach to investigating the uses and implications of digital technology for performance and the creative industries. We are interested in how performance and cultural might be digitally created, mediated, and researched.
We involve researchers at all career stages (including postgraduate research students) who make use of digital methods, study digital technologies or platforms, or explore “digital” as a theoretical concept. Topics include robotics, computer science, virtuality, augmented and mixed reality, generative artificial intelligence, platforms and social media, and any other emerging digital technologies that intersect with performance and the creative industries.
Our members offer peer support and informal mentoring and review of works in progress. We actively examine theory and cases originating from a variety of cultural and international contexts. We are mindful of the barriers and inequalities presented by digital technologies as mediators of our own activities and are therefore committed to ensuring that everyone who wants to participate in our research group is able to do so, whilst having their own voice and experiences heard and acknowledged.
The Digital Research Group explores, critiques and discusses a wide range of cross-disciplinary, digitally focused literature in digital performance and creative industries. We convene public-facing research events with guest contributors to bring our own research into dialogue with partners and practitioners, and create new connections for our members. We welcome diverse opinions on current, emerging, and historical perspectives of digital practice, tools, and policies. Furthermore, we are supported by digital expertise of our own technical team within PCI and that of HELIX, the university’s digital learning innovation hub.
We also help members to publicise their research through the university’s official marketing channels, and maintain links with key organisations for facilitating interdisciplinary digital research and bid-writing at Leeds and beyond, such as The Digital Creativity and Cultures Hub and Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
The aims of the Digital Research Group are as follows:
- To share ideas, skills and knowledge of the digital in research with a core focus on performance and the creative industries
- To test, play with and critique news forms of research opportunities with the focus on critically responding to the impact and value of such research.
- To liaise with, advise and consult with external industry partners with the view to co-create new research opportunities that interrogate current knowledge.
- To promote interdisciplinarity, collaboration and critical reflection about the ubiquity of digital practices and digital cultures
Group convenors