Nascent - Art & Technology Research supports full and part-time practice based PhD research in digital art and technology.

Nascent draws on the technical facilities of A∑Tec, i-DAT and the newly formed Centre for Creative Design & Technology. These include the sophisticated and richly resourced digital media studios used to deliver the Undergraduate and Masters programmes, but also drawn from across the Faculty of Technology, including intelligent robotics, electronics, composite materials and nano-engineering.

The Arch-OS system was developed as a key nascent project and represents an evolution in intelligent architecture, interactive art and ubiquitous computing. An 'Operating System' for contemporary architecture (Arch-OS, 'software for buildings') has been developed to manifest the life of a building and provide artists, engineers and scientists with a unique environment for developing transdisciplinary work and new public art. It offers sophisticated data translation, vision systems and a unique 3D sound system embedded in the 3 atria, 5 storey building.

The LiquidPress consolidates a series of new media publishing activities which explore the construction and dissemination of emergent media in the form of 'trans-media digital content'; 'liquid' media that can flow through a range of media forms, including: e-books, software, net.art, locative/mobile media and broadcast media. Streaming media services, web2 technologies and experimental publishing/broadcasting services.

Nascent, through its interactions with the Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in Experiential Learning, is also involved in the development of the Immersive Vision Theatre in the William Day planetarium on the Plymouth campus. The theatre has a key role in extending students’ experiential learning and as a high powered visualisation tool for researchers from many fields.

Nascent is also working closely with another CETL project, the Centre for Sustainable Futures, in the development of ecological experiential and visualisation systems.

Digital Knitting:
As part of its development of it’s critical practice, nascent is running a series of ‘Digital Knitting’ Workshops. These are designed to complement the research seminar series for i-DAT convened by Trans-technology Research. The Digital Knitting workshops will operate as a reflexive forum where practice based research issues are explored through a haptic engagement with key technologies. Digital Knitting draws on a range of experience of critical practical technology workshops, such as the Interstices workshop (held in Port Eliot in 1999 following the Consciousness Reframed Conference), Arch-OS workshops and physical computing workshops run through i-DAT. Digital Knitting follows the model of the contemporary knitting clubs where the practice of knitting takes second place to the casual but intense discourse between participants.

Members of nascent and the broader community of i-DAT can access the Digital Knitting blog here …

Image: Arch-OS Core.