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InStore: Close encounters with community in retail spaces. Exploring how socially engaged practice using XR Art and Design technologies can provoke meaningful, inclusive encounters between communities and spaces of exchange

Vice Chancellor’s Inaugural Strategic Studentship

Birmingham City University are delighted to announce that it is welcoming applications for the Vice Chancellor’s Inaugural Strategic Studentship. This studentship is part of a university-wide scheme that focuses on addressing key research priorities and unleashing potential from postgraduate researchers to contribute to the research impacts of BCU. This exciting project sits within our faculty of Arts, Design and Media. Applications are open to all eligible UG and PGT graduates and are particularly encouraged from groups that have historically been underrepresented in doctoral study. 

Doctoral Training Grant Funding Information

The funding model for this project includes a 42 month fully funded PhD Studentship, set in-line with the Research Council values. For 2024/5, this will be £19,237 per year. The tax-free stipend will be paid monthly. This PhD Studentship also includes a Full-Time Fee Scholarship for up to 3.5 years. The funding is subject to your continued registration on the research degree, making satisfactory progression within your PhD, as well as attendance on and successful completion of the Postgraduate Certificate in Research Practice. 

All applicants will receive the same stipend irrespective of fee status.

Application Closing Date:
Midday (UK Time) on Monday 30th September 2024 for a start date of the 3rd February 2025.

How to Apply

To apply, please follow the below steps:

  1. Complete the BCU Online Application Form
  2. Complete the Doctoral Studentship Proposal Form in full, ensuring that you quote the project ID. You will be required to upload your proposal in place of a personal statement on the BCU online application form.
  3. Upload two references to your online application form (at least one of which must be an academic reference).
  4. Upload your qualification(s) for entry onto the research degree programme. This will be Bachelor/Master’s certificate(s) and transcript(s).
  5. International applicants must also provide a valid English language qualification. Please see the list of English language qualifications accepted here. Please check the individual research degree course page for the required scores.
FAQs

Where do I include the project ID?

You must include the project ID listed in the advert on your completed Doctoral Studentship Proposal. There is a field for this in Section 2 of the form under ‘Research Project’.

If you do not provide the correct project ID, we would be unable to review your expression of interest for this project.

Do I need to complete a research proposal when the topic has already been set?

Yes, you must complete the Doctoral Studentship Research Proposal in full.

This Research Proposal acts as part of your expression of interest, so without this, we will not be able to consider you when the projects are set up.

Can one of my referees be the project lead listed in the advert?

No, the project lead listed in this advert cannot be a referee for any expressions of interest for this project.
What if I want to apply for more than one funded project being advertised?

You can apply for more than one funding scheme being advertised.

To apply for multiple opportunities, you only need to complete one online application form to study at BCU. However, you mustsubmit a separate Doctoral Studentship Proposal for each project you want to be considered for as part of your application to BCU.

To confirm, please complete one BCU online application form but upload separate Doctoral Studentship Proposals for each opportunity you wish to be considered for.  
I have applied before the deadline, but now want to be considered for a different funded project advertised. Can I switch my application? No, we will only consider your application for the funded projects you applied for by the deadline.
What if I miss the deadline, can I still apply?

No, unfortunately we are unable to accept applications for funded projects that are submitted after the deadline.

You can still apply for a research degree at BCU, but applications for a funded project must be received before the deadline: Midday (UK time) on Monday 30th September 2024.
The advert says the start date is February 2025. Is this flexible? At this time, we are only able to offer February 2025 starts for these funded projects.
 

 

If your question is not answered above and you need any further information, please use the contact details below:

  • For enquiries about the project content, please contact:
  • For enquiries about the application procedure, please contact: research.admissions@bcu.ac.uk

Project Title:

InStore: Close Encounters with Community in Retail Spaces. Exploring how Socially Engaged Practice using XR Art and Design Technologies can Provoke Meaningful, Inclusive Encounters Between Communities and Spaces of Exchange

Project Lead:

Becky Shaw and Lara Furniss

Project ID:

ADM-SVC-40202931

Project Description:

InSTORE explores how XR art and design can examine and re-imagine community in spaces of exchange; for example, local charity shops, corner shops, malls, high streets, community centres and temporary ‘meanwhile use’ spaces. By making new artwork with West Midlands communities, InSTORE will explore aspects of the political, social and aesthetic dimensions of community. Retail space is designed for profit, but it also embodies an expression of exchange as social interaction. Changing uses through regeneration or decline often draws attention to this value. This socially engaged art and design practice-based project seeks new modes of speculative spatial practice, immersive digital media, collaborative practice and haptic digital interfaces to explore interactions in spaces of exchange. 

XR can enable ways to explore intimate, close relationships between individuals and groups, bodies, spaces and materials. InSTORE will involve the development of collaborative ways of working with chosen formal or informal groups in spaces of exchange; from the large corporate chain or market to local shop or community (depending on consent). Works will be developed in labs, workshops or fieldwork encounters, and could involve collaboration with the BA Art and Design with Creative Technologies student population. Relationships will be built with the support of local groups and art organisations. An iterative process of making new works and sharing them will enable us to: 

• Understand and capture the specific intimacy of engagement with community and retail encounters. 

• Re-imagine relationships between retail spaces and the bodies that interact with them. 

• Challenge the tendencies for retail encounters to exclude rather than include. 

• ‘Touch’ the deeply particular experiences of specific communities using haptic interfaces - and to generate new relationships and forms of collective working and learning. 

Anticipated findings and contributions to knowledge:

The focus of this research is on intimate spatial encounters, using haptic interfaces to reflect on the experiences of bodies in space, and contribute to XR research, especially digital and analogue hybrid environments. The proposed project will generate findings through the production and documentation of artworks, and a written thesis, to:

• Examine the ways that creative digital practice with haptic interfaces can explore and communicate relationships between bodies, groups, material and digital space. 

• Generate insight into the ways that communities can engage with creative technology, and the resulting forms of collectivity that can result. 

• Explore the potential for creative technologies to change how communities feel about and occupy retail space. 

• Explore how creative digital practice can find new territory in the current debates about the digital immersive media vs social critique. 

• Contribute to the progression of practice and study of creative technology design and art, building on artists and designers working in retail and exchange contexts. 

• Contribute to the understanding of exclusion in public and private spheres. This may build upon literature from social sciences, decolonising research, critical studies and socially engaged artistic research. 

• Develop insights into experiences of retail space in the UK through inter-disciplinary research methodologies that draw on artistic research, creative technology and computing. 

Person Specification:

The University invites applications for this doctoral studentship from:

  • Undergraduate students with a good (First, 2.1 or 2.2) Honours degree, or equivalent, in a subject area relevant to their chosen project.
  • Postgraduate students with a Masters degree in a subject area relevant to their chosen project.
  • The scheme is open to Home and International fee status applicants.
  • International applicants must also provide a valid English language qualification, such as International English Language Test System (IELTS) or equivalent with an overall score of 7 with no band below 6.5. 

Applications are open to all eligible UG and PGT graduates and are particularly encouraged from groups that have historically been underrepresented in doctoral study.