Visualisation Research Unit (VRU)

VRU Projects and Activities

The following links are from an RSS feed of selected projects and collaborations the VRU are engaged in.

MA Digital Arts in Performance
Based at the VRU, the MA Digital Arts in Performance is a new programme for the Department of Art in 2007/08 and taught in conjunction with the Birmingham Conservatoire.

Invented Instruments Concert
A short concert of electronic music by composer Jonathan Green including "Piece for Large Metal Sheet and Video Projections" and "Space Bar" for motion sensors. Wednesday 27th June, 6.30pm - Entrance Foyer, UCE Department of Art, Margaret Street, Birmingham. Free entry

The Networked Multi-Disciplinary Research Environment
Gregory Sporton and Keir Williams gave their paper 'The Networked Multi-Disciplinary Research Environment' at the '2000 + seven' symposium at SARC, Belfast on April 22nd, 2007. SARC (Sonic Arts Research Centre) set up the conference to run in parallel with the 'sonorities' festival happening in Belfast the same weekend. Pictures can be seen in the VRU Flickr pool. Greg also recently presented papers at the vizNET 2007 Workshop - Intersections in Visualization Practices and Techniques and the 'Modes of Spectatorship' Symposium at Anglia Ruskin that took place in early April.

Real-time Collaborative Art Making Workshop
On July 20th 2007, the VRU will be running a Methods Network workshop on real-time collaborative art making in response to the feedback from the e-Science workshops run in November 2006.

Present Tense
Present Tense is an interactive sound and video installation exploring individualism in the immersive and almost anonymous information age. It is an entry for the 12th International Media Art Biennale WRO 07

Resources from the e-Science workshops
Resources, mp3 recordings of the presentations, photos and videos are now available.

Momus' lecture available for download
The Daniel Hunt lecture by Momus is now available as an m4a file.

Piece for a PowerBook and Cello
This is a short video on youtube created by Keir Williams featuring Jonathan Green and his PowerBook as a musical instrument and Jamie Bullock on Cello.

Body Space Technology Journal, Vol 6
Gregory Sporton examines the problems when dance meets technology in the latest edition of the on-line journal body space technology.

VRU Archives

The Visualisation Research Unit is located at the University of Central England in Birmingham's Institute of Art and Design in the Department of Art. The unit draws its staff from across the university and wider community, encouraging collaborations across a range of disciplines. If you are interested in working with us and want to find out more about our aims and objectives please read on.

e-Science for the Visual Arts

On July 20th 2007, the VRU will be running a Methods Network workshop on real-time collaborative art making in response to the feedback from the e-Science workshops run last year. The VRU specialises in developing and applying technologies in the Visual and Performing Arts as part of its work in the Department of Art and this workshop is focussed on both of these aims, exploring technologies that can be adapted for use in the arts and networking technologies being developed for use in the blurred area between the visual and performing arts.

The VRU has run a series of workshops in November 2006 on the topic of e-Science for the Visual Arts, as part of a national scheme in the Arts & Humanities to improve understanding of e-Science technologies and encourage the application of them in research practice and the wider arts community. The workshops were supported by the AHRC. Resources from the 3 workshops & the Daniel Hunt Lecture (by Momus), images, videos and podcasts are now available..

Motion Capture

Using the exo-skeleton based motion capture system the VRU is working on a number of projects capturing movement as data and using that to power visualisations. In addition to this the suits can be used to generate 3D humanoid models in real-time. To find out more about motion capture and its applications read on.

Visualisation Suite

The VRU has invested heavily in software and hardware relating to animation, broadcast graphics, 3D visualisation plus Cintiq and eBeam pen-based digital drawing systems. These tools are there to support the projects of the VRU and provide outcomes for theoretical research.

Creative Supercomputing

The Creative Supercomputing cluster comprises 10 Apple XServe computers. The purpose of the computer is to encourage the use of large files and complex datasets with the knowledge that the work can be realistically processed at high speed without losses of quality.