Bath Spa University, UK

Deadline: April 12, 2019

The Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries at Bath Spa University is now advertising for the below full-time, fully-funded PhD Studentship in embodiment and narrative in immersive technologies. The PhD will be linked to the new AHRC-funded Bristol + Bath Creative Research & Development Partnership.

Informal enquiries should be directed to myself at m.freeman@bathspa.ac.uk .

PhD Studentship: 

Embodiment and Narrative in Immersive Technologies Bath Spa University - Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries

This doctoral project will be supervised at Bath Spa University based primarily in the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries and working as a key member of the new Bristol + Bath Creative Research & Development Partnership (B+B Creative R&D).

B+Bath Creative R&D is designed to improve the performance of the creative industries in the Bristol and Bath region. The partners are University of the West of England, University of Bristol, University of Bath, Bath Spa University, and Watershed, working with a range of industry partners from film and television, theatre, publishing and computing. Our core proposition is partnering with industry in understanding user engagement in new platforms and new markets. We will be working at the sites where 5G connectivity, XR technologies and live arts overlap, laying the foundations for the Bristol + Bath cluster to be internationally successful by 2030.

To support this cluster, we invite applications for a full-time, fully-funded PhD Studentship. Providing academic context, research-led theorisation and creative insight that can inform the work of the larger partnership, the PhD research will focus on understanding the creative and engagement potentials of immersive media technologies in and across today’s creative industries. The PhD should explore how emerging immersive media technologies are reshaping the ways in which the creative industries engage their audiences, and will develop an understanding of the untapped narrative-based potentials of these immersive technologies, namely virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed or extended reality (MR/XR). While ‘immersion’ is often seen as a defining characteristic of these technologies, this PhD will move beyond commercial and technical perspectives and should analyse the relationship between narrative and engagement in the context of embodiment in VR/AR/MR/XR.

The main objective of this PhD is to map the current uses of immersive technologies across the South West’s creative industries, before developing a set of theoretical understandings for the narrative and cross-platform potentials of these embodied technologies across, for example, film and television, theatre, publishing, and computing. The PhD should also aim to better understand the user implications of this embodiment, exploring how audiences make use of, respond to, and perceive immersive experiences in different contexts.

The project will be co-supervised by Dr Matthew Freeman (Reader in Multiplatform Media & Deputy Director of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries at Bath Spa University) and Prof Kate Pullinger (Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media & Director of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries at Bath Spa University), with additional supervisory input from academic colleagues based at the University of Bath.

The successful candidate is expected to enrol in the October 2019 intake.

The closing time and date for applications is 5pm, Friday 12 April 2019.

Interviews are expected to be held in June 2019.

Informal enquiries should be directed to Dr Matthew Freeman at m.freeman@bathspa.ac.uk or Professor Kate Pullinger at k.pullinger@bathspa.ac.uk

For further information is available here, and to apply online please visit https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/how-to-apply/research-degrees/.

Please note that CVs will not be considered and those included with application forms will be removed. Any queries regarding the application process should be emailed to PGRadmissions@bathspa.ac.uk