Anna Dumitriu, visual artist, and artist and technologist Alex May, who lectures at the university and works with a variety of forms including video projection and software programming, will bring together “creative visualisation, 3D technologies and BioArt to engage diverse audiences in cutting edge scientific research”.
They will create an interactive art installation to communicate innovations being researched around the world that uses bacterial genomics to target treatments.
Anna and Alex will work with the CRyPTIC project, an international consortium led by partners at the University of Oxford, to “explore the unique data behind their latest research, which enables them, for the first time, to predict which antibiotic drugs can be used to treat a patient with tuberculosis based on the DNA of their infection: a revolutionary single test combining diagnosis, treatment and epidemiology”.
The artists awards are funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Arts Council England through the Creative Local Growth Fund as part of the university’s £1.3m ‘DRIVA arts DRIVA’ (Digital Research & Innovation Value Accelerator), a programme set up to “combine the skills, assets and resources of creatives, technologists and data scientists to generate new business growth in the Coast to Capital region”.
A second grant has been awarded to visual artist Helen Dewhurst, sound designer Jeph Vanger and Andrew Lea, AI technologist at the University of Brighton. They will use “the live, immersive experience of data generated by Gatwick Airport to develop a vibrational sound chair, creating an experiential prototype for their project Transit”.
Donna Close, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Brighton and PI for Arts DRIVA, said: “Both Anna and Helen’s work illustrate the contribution that artists can make to innovation with data and technology. They bring fresh perspective and insight and a wealth of creative, technical and critical skills which lead to new ideas, applications and artworks that are beautiful, useful, and experiential. We get the chance to see and experience the complex data and infrastructures that underpin our lives.”
Alli Beddoes, Artistic Director and CEO of the Brighton-based arts charity Lighthouse, Super Fused Awards panel member said: “Creatives working with data as 'material' is reflective of our time. In an age of data-driven decision making, our collective data shadows and reveals our personal lives, social groups, corporate interactions and civic society.
“It was a great pleasure being on the selection panel for the DRIVA Superfused Collaboration Awards. Each winning proposal sought to carve out new, innovative ways of looking at ourselves within the world, with a progressive vision of collaborating and working alongside creative businesses and technologists.”
The second round of awards will be launched on 25 March. DRIVA Arts DRIVA is running a two-day People, Places and Personalisation event on 23-24 March.
*DRIVA arts DRIVA aims to support creatives, technologists and entrepreneurs to collaborate and release value from data by creating new products, services and experiences for the open market. It does this through a programme of speakers, training events and exhibitions, access to university enterprise support, academic expertise and facilities and through an innovation platform that helps you identify collaborators, funding and resources. It also provides access to Gatwick’s big data as a focus and locus for place-based innovation using data, ‘Internet of Place’. It is a £1.3m research project led by the University of Brighton and funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Arts Council England through the Creative Local Growth Fund.
The project is receiving up to £445,685 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations.
For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.