Presentation by Ricardo Climent on VR/AR in Compositon and Performance. Other presentations: The Application of VR to Reduce Pre-operative Anxiety for Children by Scott Midson, Religions & Theology, FHUM | Use of Gaming Technology to Bring Bridge Inspection to the Office by Muhammad Omer, MACE, FSE | Evaluation of VR in Higher Education by Tony Payton, Informatics, Imaging & Data Sciences, FBHM | Does the Earth Move for you? Evaluation of Perceptual Stability in VR by Paul Warren, Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology, FBMH | VR for Teaching and Research in the Geosciences by Dave Hodgetts, SEES, FSE
Event organised by Dr Emma Finch | Fiona Treacy Research Community Engagement Officer - Place: Alan Turing Building, Room G.107.

PhD student Falk Morawitz will defend his body of work and thesis cosupervised between NOVARS (Prof Ricardo Climent) and Chemical Engineering (Prof Gareth Morris). The portfolio explores the use of spectroscopic data in electroacoustic composition by presenting seven works of arranged sound, including electroacoustic compositions, virtual reality environments, sound installations and audio-visual work. Sounds were created using data from nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared, ultraviolet and visible light spectroscopy arranged in isolation or combined with instrumental, environmental and industrial soundscapes.

AMBS Students at University of Manchester to pitch for their app prototypes to 15 finance companies including Vodafone, Lloyds, Ford, BoAML, EY, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Fujitsu, IBM, KPMG, IBM, Barclays and many more. Thanks to the invitation from Dr Ali Owrak, Senior Lecturer in Service Systems & Digital Business and ITMB Programme Director.

This was a ‘show and tell’ meeting for people actively making VR/AR content for arts, culture and heritage audiences in the North West. Presenters included Chris Sizemore, Limina Immersive, on what they look for when identifying content for their VR theatre space and Ben Ward about how the Manchester growth company can support global sales of immersive experiences.

a BLOCK71 is US launchpad and gateway for start-ups striving to establish themselves in the US and Singapore tech ecosystems and facilitate that exchange. The event was fully organised by students from NUS Overseas Colleges, in collaboration with UC Berkeley Sigma Eta Pi - Beta Chapter and NUS Entrepreneurs' Association -National University of Singapore Overseas Colleges Program (NOC) and DONUTcon (which provided lunch in exchange for the tilte of the event “The Do’s and Donuts of Startups!).

NOVARS director vist to UC Santa Cruz to talk to Prof. Noah Wardrip-Fruin, co-director of the Expressive Intelligence Studio, which focuses on advanced AI for videogames, art and design. We got great advice for Maia a MixedReality platform by RecursiveArts built for EASTNManc. Amazing Campus! Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Recursive Arts y UC Santa Cruz

We are delighted to announce a new PhD project start by Harry Ovrington on Environmental Datasets and Indigenous Instrumentation as a Basis for Sculpting Electroacoustic Compositions. Harry's PhD is cosupervised betweeen NOVARS's staff and the Centre for Visual Anthropology (Dr Rupert Cox)

NOVARS director and Business Engagment manager UoM visit to Eon Realty UK to meet HSIF grant collaborators. Manchester is becoming one of the most desirable digitalHubs in UK and we can't afford not being part of it!

We are delighted to announce this new PhD project cosupervised by NOVARS staff and AMBS (Dr Richard Allmendinger)

Interactive Tools and Engines focuses on a creative project involving the conception, development and creative use of an interactive musical work or system involving new media technologies and gestural interfaces. Projects may involve the use of interactive audio-visual tools or game-physics-audio engine tools. The course provides the knowledge to document and create interactive systems at a professional level, e.g. for computer music conference submission, and to probe the creative aspects deriving from the system.

Great meeting at the Benzie building to discuss synergies and collaborative research between Manchester Metropolitan, NOVARS, Drama at UoM and the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, anticipating their new £40 million Screen School to be built in the next four years. Thanks to Toby Heys and Andrew Irvine for inviting Novars_Research Centre

Colloquium consists of invited guest debates on technology-related 'trendy topics' to stimulate postgraduates thinking on emerging research. Dr Brooks discussed why it affects us all.

NOVARS staff was selected at the matchmaking "Co-production for Value Creation", event. This is a Collaborative Funding Workshop initiative started by the Business Engagement Office at the University of Manchester and fantastically facilitated by FutureEverything. The event took place at the Atrium, Manchester Science Parks (MSP), a co-working like wonderful space for innovation and UK’s leading provider of specialist environments and growth support to science and technology companies. Our Elevator Pitch “Virtuoso” received the HSIF funding award! A 2017 Humanities Strategic Investment Fund.

Colloquium consists of invited guest debates on technology-related 'trendy topics' to stimulate postgraduates thinking on emerging research. Dr Brooks discussed why it affects us all.

The visit included four matchmaking meetings with companies and people from the creative industries.
Driven by the growth of digital delivery, the global video games market is forecast to be worth $113 billion by 2018. The UK boasts some of the world’s most creative and cutting-edge games creators and the opportunity for international success is within grasp. As part of IFB 2016, Ukie and UKTI will deliver a day of talks and sessions to help UK games companies understand and maximise the opportunities of international trade.

The innovative one and a half day event, #fusiongames, is designed to explore and inspire the links and potential fusions between broadcast media and video gameplay. It will bring together leading members of the video game industry, the foremost thinkers on gaming, and departments and funders from across the BBC. Participants included Dom Minns (Plug-In Media), Jo Twist (UKIE), Tom Reding (BBC Worldwide), Patrick Healy (BBC Children's), Chris Sizemore (BBC Knowledge & Learning), Colin Macdonald (C4), Prof. Garry Crawford (University of Salford), Prof. Ben Light (University of Salford), Jonathan Smith (TT Games), Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart (University of Chichester, DiGRA), Kate Russell (BBC CLICK) Panel: Mark Sorrell (Hide and Seek), Carlton Reeve (Play With Learning), Tom Kenyon (NESTA), Phil Stuart (Preloaded), John Milner (Bitesize, BBC Knowledge & Learning), Si Lumb (BBC Games Grid) Panel: Kevin Slavin (area/code), Josh Atkins (Microsoft), Si Donbavand (BBC), Jan Huizinga, Dr. Mathias Fuchs (University of Salford), Dr Ricardo Climent (Manchester University, NOVARS Research Centre), Paolo Ruffino (Goldsmiths London), Barry Atkins (University of Wales, Newport) and Richard Davy (Photon Storm).