Creative ecologies

Creative marketing

“We live in times of enormous potential and enormous challenge, which requires us to dream up something better,” says Professor Jon Dovey, Director of Research and Enterprise for Arts and Creative Technologies (REACT) and Director of the SWCTN.

The SWCTN has helped launch several initiatives that are inspired by and made for the people and communities, who tend to be deprioritised by standard socio-political systems and structures of governance.

One such project is using intersectional data and machine learning to explore bias and racism in advertising content and imagery. Led by experts in inclusive marketing, the aim is to test whether machine learning can shift the balance by focusing more on people from under-represented backgrounds.

Consumer empowerment

Driven by a desire to help people realise the costs and consequences of everyday choices, a team of creative technologists and user experience experts are developing a data visualisation tool that will reveal the materials, manufacture, usage and waste issues associated with different products.

Mental health

Addressing the mental health needs of 35- to 55-year old men – the most at-risk from suicide – an artist has teamed up with a games designer to create an app that allows people to track the weather patterns of their mind and intervene when their mood alters.

Food security

Given the increasing need for food security, another experimental artist has developed an agro-ecological information software system that automates that process of designing agriculture systems that will allow farmers, homeowners and local authorities to grow more crops, helping them to make a positive difference to how humans coexist with the environment.

These are just a handful of examples of how the SWCTN creates an environment in which creativity and innovation can thrive. The resulting real-world impacts stretch way beyond job creation and quality of life improvements – while those are nonetheless key.

As Jon says: “By creating habitats for lots of creatives to debate and experiment with their ideas, we’re moving away from the capitalistic model where tech giants and shareholders have the power, towards a future where transformative innovation is in the hands of citizens.”

Contribution to the UN 2030 sustainable development goals

UWE Bristol is proud to align our research to the UN sustainable development goals. The above research aligns with the following goals: