A new ‘creative engine room’ to generate art that responds to urgent environmental challenges, including climate change, has been launched in Brighton.
The ‘System Change HIVE’, hosted by the University of Brighton’s School of Media, brings together emerging artists from the Sussex area and university arts and media students, with experts in sustainable development, post-growth economics and climate communication.
The pilot project will be “an important landmark for interdisciplinary work exploring how art and research can combine to open up new pathways to zero-carbon economies and the pursuit of well-being”, according to Professor Julie Doyle, Director of the university’s Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics, and co-investigator on the project.
“The HIVE aims to produce visual and sonic art, including immersive digital art, to help imagine how social and environmental systems could change for the better.”
As part of the project, participants will be supported to use Virtual Reality software under the mentorship of technology start-up businesses resident at FuseBox, the home of Digital Catapult Centre Brighton, itself a knowledge transfer legacy between the University of Brighton and Wired Sussex, and there will be a touring exhibition starting in 2019.
The project has been awarded an arts grant from the Arts Council of England (ACE), and will be co-led by interdisciplinary arts organisation Swarm Dynamics, researchers from the Economic and Social Research Council’s STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex and Institute of Development Studies, and the University of Brighton’s School of Media and its Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics and a part of Connected Futures Immersive Media theme.
Read the full press release on the University of Brighton website