This blog started several years ago as a repository of the writing I had done for commercial galleries, as part of collaborations with national collections, during time spent at the Pervasive Media Studio, and for my own pleasure. It was a place to put my work and reflect whatever I happen to be working on.
Since then, I’ve written for a range of publications and institutions, including National Museums Wales, Arts Professional, Wired and Bust. My work is included in The Interpretation Matters Handbook, a publication on museum and heritage interpretation. You can read the original version of that chapter here.
Between 2016 and 2017 I stopped updating this blog as work took over more of my time. My role at Nesta within Y Lab, the social innovation lab for Wales, saw me run the Digital Innovation Fund for Wales. In 2015, I led the delivery of an AHRC & Design Council project exploring the role of design in creating economic benefit and social value in the Bristol and Bath region. Before that, as part of the team at the Pervasive Media Studio, I worked closely with the Playable City team to deliver the International Playable City Award, which promotes citizen engagement through playful urban technology interventions.
With a couple of degrees in art history, I might best be described as an errant art historian who wanders around museums and across disciplines. I’ve worked at the intersection of public arts and technology since 2012 and have collaborated with leading public institutions across the UK, including Tate, National Museums Wales, Watershed, Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales, National Theatre Wales, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Guardian, and the British Council.
It has never been about shiny technology or gadgets, my interest in understanding people and their response to different places and cultural experiences. This has led me to my doctoral research, which looks at whether data captured using wearable technologies can help us better interpret our emotions. This means asking questions about wearable technologies and how they might be useful in interpreting emotion across a range of different spaces. Increasingly, my approach to this is underpinned by feminist theory and its potential to question the role and use of such technologies in our society.
The project is a collaboration between Cardiff University and National Museum Wales and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. You can read an overview here.
