People

Leadership

The research cluster will be led by a team of three investigators with expertise and experience of spatiality in diverse disciplines drawn from the Arts, Sciences and Humanities. This diversity is a key feature of the cluster; it is only by bringing together disciplines that are conventionally seen as separate that we can make spatiality function as an inclusive organizing principle for Design as a whole (ClusterLeadership contacts).

Dr John Stell (Principal Investigator) is a senior lecturer in the School of Computing. He has a record of research in qualitative spatial reasoning and in its interdisciplinary links, for example to geographical information systems (GIS). He is the principal investigator for the EPSRC funded project Digital Geometry and Topology: An Axiomatic Approach with Applications to GIS and Spatial Reasoning (Ł149,111; 2001 - 2004). He has also been an investigator on other EPSRC funded projects concerned with spatial and temporal information.

Professor Lynne Cameron (Co-Investigator) is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the School of Education. An applied linguist with specialist research interest in the use of metaphor to develop understanding, she has recently been investigating the creative processes involved in analogy, metaphor and language use, and, conversely, the use of metaphor to talk about creative processes in art and in research. Currently preparing a jointly authored book Complex dynamic systems and applied linguistics. PI on AHRB Innovation Award Using visual display to explore the dynamics of conciliation talk, (Ł49,747) 2003-04. This project has developed software that can display analysed talk as a trace in 2 dimensions, allowing the researcher to identify patterns in space that were not ‘visible’ in text.

Professor Kenneth Hay (Co-Investigator) is head of the Department of Contemporary Art Practice within the School of Design, and deputy Head of the School. An artist and art theorist, his digital artwork/sound installations have been shown at the Centennial Venice Biennale (1995), Presentation House, Vancouver (1996), The Czech Centre for Experimental Theatre, Brno (2003), the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and the Deptford X, London (2004). His publications focus on word and image interactions, intersemiotic translatability, cyberspace, architecture and aesthetics. He is currently developing a series of digital works to be shown in Cracow in July 2004 for the RADAR project-Linking Europe, culminating in further exhibitions in Venice in September 2004 and Cracow (2005).

Bobbie Millar (Coordinator) is a senior academic administrator with experience of working in interdisciplinary teams in the arts, education and healthcare in both teaching and research. She has been a co-investigator in an ESRC funded project (The Learning Society), the Project Director of Yorkshire Quarry Arts which was funded by the Mineral Industry Sustainable Technology programme (MIST), and is currently leading another collaborative bid to MIST.

Participants

We have identified several groups and individuals, within The University of Leeds, and also various external contacts, commercial as well as academic and international as well as UK-based, who will contribute to the cluster’s activities. These contacts already underline the wide-ranging scope of the cluster, but the establishment of a community exploring spatiality within Design is one of our aims which will see this initial list of contacts considerably expanded.

Internal groups, projects, and individuals, with brief indication of interests relevant to the cluster:

Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientific Research in Music, Music and Computing, [Dr K. Ng]:
Centre for Visual Communications (Design): [Prof T. Cassidy, Prof K. Hay]: digital imaging, digital print, spatialisation of cyberspace, spatialisation of architecture.
Affective Design (Design and Engineering)
Qualitative Spatial Reasoning (Computing) [Prof A. Cohn, Dr J. Stell, Dr B. Bennett]: artificial intelligence techniques in spatial knowledge representation; ontology of geographic space.
Cognitive Vision (Computing) [Prof D. Hogg, Prof A. Cohn]: qualitative spatio-temporal relationships from visual data.
Polymers and Complex Fluids (Physics and Astronomy) [Prof T. McLeish]: spatial design across different fields; exploiting design at different lengthscales in same material; higher dimensional representation, and thinking; biomimetic strategies in materials design.
Performance Robots (Performance and Cultural Industries)
Keyworth Institute

External groups and institutions that will participate in the cluster, with indications of areas for interaction:

Kyoto Institute of Technology [Prof T. Sato]: original expertise in textiles recently expanded to design generally and architecture; art/science interface and its implication for 21st century design.
University of Verona, Department of Informatics [Dr. M. Cristani]: formalization of aesthetic judgements and applications to computer-supported design; ontology of design and fashion.
Faraday Packaging Partnership [Dr W. Lewis]: packaging design.
Bedford Interactive [J. Schofield]: qualitative description in Laban’s representation of dance; design of Laban-based polyhedral spaces, using novel materials, for performance and interactive learning.
Shell [Dr M. West]: design of documentation in engineering; 4-dimensionalism as means of representing and reasoning with process and change over lifetime of industrial plant.
Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical Information Science, University of Leipzig [Prof B. Smith]: applications of formal ontology to medical design and use of ontology of the body in design.
Ordnance Survey
University of Maine, Department of Spatial Information Engineering [Prof M. Worboys]