After the success of the last four MIX conferences, MIX 2019 returns to the beautiful surroundings of Bath Spa University’s Corsham Court Campus in Wiltshire on the 1^st and 2^nd July 2019. This year’s conference will be a more intimate, single strand version, curated for a smaller audience to give time and space to instigate conversations around digital writing with a focus on experiential storytelling, including immersive technologies and new forms of publishing, from transmedia and poetry film to virtual reality to AI in storytelling. Confirmed speakers include publisher, Maja Thomas, Chief Innovation Officer, Hachette Innovation Program; Thomas Zandegiocomo, Artistic Director Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin; Guy Gadney, Charisma.ai and writer Nikesh Shukla.

Bath Spa University is the UK’s foremost provider of creative writing programmes at undergraduate, masters and PhD level and MIX is well-established as an innovative forum for the discussion and exploration of writing and technology. MIX has previously attracted an international cohort of contributors from the UK, Australia, and Europe as well as North and South America. MIX is situated within the international research centres, the Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries, in collaboration with the Centre for Media Research, Creative Writing Research Centre, and The Writing Platform.

This year, our conference focuses on experiential storytelling, which encompasses works that foreground the experience of the audience or reader. Within the single-strand programme there will be four themed panels. We would like to encourage the submission of research papers and artist/practitioner presentations on the following topics;

• Emerging forms of digitally-mediated narrative, including projects that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithmic writing practices and locative-aware narratives.
• Poetry film, including the future of poetry film, current developments in social media sharing, current developments in poetry film content and practice.
• Immersive technologies and narrative, including Extended and Mixed Reality, VR, Augmented Reality, and Ambient Literature
• Ethics of Storytelling, including accessibility and appropriation, but also issues around technology and ethics, i.e embodiment in VR, algorithmic bias in cultural works that use AI, etc.

A conference where creative writing and media creation intersect with and/or are dependent upon technology should be as interdisciplinary as possible, and that’s what we are aiming for with MIX 2019. The conference will host a vibrant mix of academic papers, practitioner presentations and keynotes.

We are looking for proposals for 15 minute papers/ presentations or 60 minute panels (composed of three 15 minute papers with time for q&a). Please submit 300 word abstracts for each paper/presentation you are proposing via http://mixconference.org/submit/ by Monday 4th February 2019. We will let you know whether your submission has been successful by the end of February 2019.

Speakers who are selected to present at the conference will be encouraged to develop their papers into innovative, practice-focused outputs published in Bath Spa University’s recently launched International Journal of Creative Media Research. The journal is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed and open access journal devoted to pushing forward the approaches to and possibilities for publishing creative media-based research.

For queries on your conference submission, email mix@bathspa.ac.uk

You can find the full call for papers on our website.

Bath Spa University’s Graduate College and the British Library invite applications for a fully funded AHRC PhD studentship on the topic of ‘Digital Publishing and The Reader: Interactions between Readers and Writers of Creative Texts in Digital Environments’.

Closing date: 23:59 (GMT) Monday 2 May, 2016.

Interview date: Tuesday 17 May, 2016.

The studentship will begin on 1 October 2016.

About the Collaborative Doctoral Award

This studentship is for three years full-time study at doctoral level, with the option of an additional six months training or placements.

The student will have all fees paid, will receive a bursary for living expenses, and will also be supported in necessary travel and conference costs. The student will be jointly supervised by Stella Wisdom, Digital Curator and Ian Cooke, Head of Contemporary British Published Collections, of the British Library, and Kate Pullinger, Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media, and Dr Laura Little at Bath Spa. At the British Library, the studentship will be located in the Digital Scholarship and Contemporary British Publications teams. The student’s investigation will operate within Bath Spa University’s regulatory framework for research degrees.

The purpose of this collaborative research project is to investigate the changing nature of publishing in digital environments, with particular emphasis on examples which encourage interaction between readers, texts and authors. The research focus of the project is located in library and information science and publishing. Through focused case studies, it will provide policy-relevant research for the British Library on issues related to collection-building and representation of cultural activity in Britain. This project fits within the AHRC ‘Digital Transformations’ research theme, in particular examining emerging media and ‘communication and creativity in a digital age’. Its focus is on examining the interaction between readers and authors, and the role of new technologies in shaping these interactions. The changing nature of UK publishing is central to this research, and it fits firmly within the RCUK’s ‘Digital Economy’ theme, including topics such as: the reproduction and dissemination of knowledge; new forms of expression; changes in publishing; and notions of authorship. The project would address three specific questions:

• Technology change in digital publishing, including new technologies and reuse of existing technologies to support interaction between readers, texts and authors.
• The impact of technology change on behaviours of readers and authors and their interaction with texts;
• The significance of these changes for memory institutions, in particular questions on collection building and other activities to represent these changes in reading and authorship behaviours and technologies.

Digital technologies are transforming reading, writing and publishing, creating multiple opportunities for writers and readers interested in experimentation and innovation. Within a few years, all emerging writers will be expected to be engaged with new forms and/or platforms as well as new ways of connecting with audiences. But what does it mean to write text for a screen? What happens to literature once it moves off the page and into a web-browser, onto tablets, mobiles and other devices? As the digital and physical merge, what territories will literature explore? As interaction between readers, writers, and texts becomes more fluid and pervasive, existing across multiple platforms and modes, how will the life of a text be captured and represented by memory institutions like the British Library? Currently, reader-writer interaction is seldom captured and archived alongside the text, though engagement with writers and their texts online is a hugely popular activity with large and vibrant communities and networks already existing.

Any research project that addresses questions around technological change in reading and publishing must also address the impact of these changes on authors and texts. Situating this collaborative doctorate within Bath Spa’s creative writing department – a department that is unusual in its in-depth engagement with digital technologies – will give this researcher unprecedented access to researchers and practitioners in this field. For instance, within the time period of the doctorate the student will be able to run in-depth on-going case studies looking at the writing process, pre-publication, publication, and post-publication reader engagement of books by award-winning literary writers like Prof Tessa Hadley, Prof Philip Hensher, Prof David Almond, Prof Maggie Gee, and Prof Fay Weldon. Case studies could examine the role of technology plays in all these key stages, from writing to reader engagement across book festivals, social media, social reading and whole ecosphere of publishing currently. As well as literary texts, case studies could be built around the work that Prof Kate Pullinger and Prof Naomi Alderman do in the field of digital fiction, games, participatory writing projects, and collaborative texts.

Benefits and training opportunities for the student

Locating this research at the British Library provides a means of framing it within a national cultural and collecting context. From the point of view of research-informing-policy, it will enable the researcher to tackle questions that could not be practically addressed elsewhere. The British Library is both a major publisher of digital works, through large-scale digitisation projects and the creation of online learning platforms (such as Discovering Literature), and has been involved in collection management of digital objects at large scale. In addition, recent work on data, digital scholarship and the creation of BL labs has created an environment of innovation in new digital publishing, well-suited to the themes of this project. The student would be located in the Contemporary British Publications team and work with colleagues in Digital Scholarship and Web Archiving. The student would draw on staff expertise and experience in developing and delivering an online learning course, crowd-sourced projects, and managing born-digital collections.

The UK Web Archive, which the British Library manages, could be used as a source of longitudinal information on recent change in online publishing. There would be scope to develop a themed collection within the Web Archive to reflect digital publishing technologies in a context relevant to the PhD research project. The project would also be a close compliment to the ‘Academic Book of the Future’ programme, in which the British Library is a partner. There are strong thematic links between this project and the CDP on issues such as: author engagement with new technology platforms; how changing social and technological environments impact on research and publishing; and the opportunities and challenges raised by new collaborative practices in research. The duration of the studentship provides a time period within which to identify change in digital publishing, and to see specific publishing projects develop. More generally, the student would be encouraged to contribute to the cultural engagement activities of the Library through development of an interactive and collaborative text project. At Bath Spa, the student will have access to research training via the Researcher Development programme, which consists of a suite of courses, workshops, activities and online materials informed by the work of Vitae and their Researcher Development Framework.They can attend staff development sessions organised by the Academic Staff Development Centre. The School also sponsors a range of events and activities, including visits from publishing industry professionals and writers.

Supervision, management and procedure

Supervision will be carried out by Pullinger and Wisdom, with monthly joint supervisory meetings at either the British Library or Corsham Court, where Bath Spa’s Graduate College is located. Additional involvement from Cooke and Little will take place at regular intervals throughout the academic year. The PhD will be hosted by Bath Spa University and will conform to Bath Spa’s doctoral regulations, including the award of the final degree.

The research timetable of the PhD student will be confirmed at the approval of the student’s Research Plan, which must be submitted within three months of the start date.

Funding details

The duration of the PhD studentship is three years, full time, subject to satisfactory progress, with an additional funded six months for industry placements or research training. The stipend will be paid at the standard research councils’ rate. For 2016/17 the annual stipend is £14,296, plus an extra £550 that is added to the stipend for AHRC CDP students to help towards additional costs incurred by the need to work across two institutions. The British Library will provide financial support for research-related costs of up to £1,000 a year. If the PhD is not submitted for viva within 3.5 years, the student will become liable from that date onwards for Bath Spa’s pro-rata fees and/or continuation fees.

Person specification


Essential

• Undergraduate degree in related discipline
• Masters level qualification in related discipline or professional equivalent.
• Proven ability to work independently

Desirable

• Experience of working with digital publishing or archiving
• Demonstrable knowledge of the current landscape of digital reading
• Experience of working collaboratively with individuals and organisations

How to apply

Full details of how to apply can be found here.

Prospective candidates wishing to informally discuss an application should contact Kate Pullinger at Bath Spa or Stella Wisdom at the British Library.

Enquiries about the application process may be directed to PGR Admissions.

About the role: The Post-Doctoral Research Assistant will undertake research under the guidance of Co-Investigators, Bath Spa Profs Kate Pullinger and Ian Gadd, in collaboration with the UWE-based Ambient Literature core delivery team, Dr Tom Abba, Research Fellow Amy Spencer and Principal Investigator Jon Dovey, and Birmingham University Co-I, Dr Matt Hayler. The PDRA will work in collaboration with all investigators across all three universities, though Bath Spa’s Graduate School at Corsham Court will be the home institution.  The Ambient Literature research project involves a combination of historical and theoretical research; tangible practice-led inquiry; and building a generative network of writers, publishers and creative technologists. It employs and builds on Knowledge Exchange methods and perspectives from previous AHRC research including the Knowledge Transfer Fellowship into Pervasive Media and the REACT Hub Books and Print projects.

About you: Candidates are expected to have a PhD and research experience in a relevant area, which includes digital writing, creative technologies, pervasive media, participatory media, and/or locative narratives. The PDRA will be based at Bath Spa’s Corsham Court campus and will need to attend fortnightly meetings in Bristol.

For an informal discussion regarding this post, please contact Prof Kate Pullinger at k.pullinger@bathspa.ac.uk

Deadline: 12 midnight GMT, Thursday 3rd March, 2016

Interview date: Friday 18 March, 2016

Post start date: 1st May, 2016

Find out more here.

About Bath Spa University: Bath Spa University’s vision is to be a leading university in creativity, culture and enterprise. Through inspirational teaching and research, we transform students’ lives. Based in a World Heritage city and connected to a network of international partners, Bath Spa University will ensure that its graduates are socially engaged global citizens.

We offer you the best of everything.  We’re a modern, forward-thinking university based in a city steeped in heritage.  We offer a tranquil working environment that’s full of people with energy.  And we combine a focus on transforming the lives of our students with a commitment to developing the careers of our staff.

More than just a job – working for Bath Spa University is a chance to explore, discover, learn and grow.

Bath Spa University is a popular university and both students and staff value our attractive campuses, which include a beautiful parkland estate and historic buildings set in inspirational scenery

Bath Spa University has one of the largest and most innovative creative writing departments in the world. Situated within the field of Writing and Performance in the newly formed College of Liberal Arts, there are more than forty permanent members of staff and thirty doctoral students working across fiction, non-fiction, digital writing, poetry, scriptwriting and digital publishing. Our biennial conference, MIX Digital, showcases international creative practice at the intersection of creative writing and digital technology.

‘Ambient Literature’ is a two-year research project funded by the AHRC, a collaboration between Bath Spa, UWE and Birmingham University. The overarching research question is ‘What new forms of literary experience are afforded by locative and pervasive media technologies?’ The main outputs will be three new creative works, a series of ten public seminars and three major public events, as well as a scholarly book.