Using a range of practice and theory based methods the group is concerned to make apparent evidence of human desire and cultural imperatives as they are manifested in the way that science and technology is practiced, innovated by entrepreneurs and interpreted by its users. Informed by transdisciplinary approaches, current research engages with burning questions in Film and Cinema Studies, Media Philosophy, Digital Media, History of Science and Technology, Media Anthropology, Design Theory, Interaction Design and Human Cognition.
Many doctoral research projects begin with a conversation, and if you are considering a research degree there are a number of ways of engaging with us in order to find out more about the process and developing your application. Our monthly seminar sessions are open to the public. We also encourage potential applicants to contact us about making a visit to our offices for a meeting and the opportunity to meet other researchers in the group.
For further information prospective Ph.D. candidates are advised to contact Prof. dr. Michael Punt (michael.punt@plymouth.ac.uk) or Dr Hannah Drayson (hannah.drayson@plymouth.ac.uk) in the first instance.
All supervisory teams include members with substantial track records of practice in the arts, design or filmmaking who also have significant publishing profiles in at least one other academic discipline. Previous students have held full doctoral research grants from AHRC, EPSRC, Plymouth University and Brazilian and Portuguese Research Councils. Current researchers are funded as part of the Marie-Curie funded ITN CogNovo, and 3D3 consortium. Transtechnology Research also holds and oversees doctoral and post-doctoral research grants from the EU.
Completed PhD Theses
Alsaad, A,. (2015- ) Art therapy in a non-western context.
Brodskis, B. (2024) Post-digital scribing: valuing the point of intersection.
Cachao, R. (2015) An Ontology of Space: Methodological Recursiveness and the Diagram.
Doove, E. M. (2017) Laughter, inframince and cybernetics – Exploring the Curatorial as Creative Act.
Drayson, H. (2011) Gestalt Biometrics and their Applications; Instrumentation, objectivity and poetics.
Edmonds, G. (2020) Vibrating Existence: Early Cinema and Cognitive Creativity.
Egbe, A. (2017) Notions of a Radical Moving Image Archive as a Problematic.
Finnegan, P. (2023) The Postnatural Animal in Contemporary Art.
Griffin, J. (2014) Experience and Viewpoints in the Social Domain of Space Technology.
Haines, A. (2021) Ideas Exchange: Design and the post bio-tech-body.
Hutchinson, J. (2022) A Media Archaeology of Technologies of Enchantment.
Jackson, A. (2019) Movement, Technological Mediation and Embodied Interactions, in the Education of children with autism.
Knight, J. (2021) A Relational Ecology of Photographic Practices: Towards a Non-anthropocentric Approach to Photography.
Moran, S. J. (2023) Octopus Optics: A Cross-Disciplinary Investigation of Human Visual Bias in Narrative with Corresponding Writing Experiments Using Animal Focalisation.
Op den Kamp, C. W. (2015) The Go-Between. The Film Archive as a Mediator Between Copyright and Film Historiography.
Rocha, M. (2015) New Routes to HCI – A transdisciplinary approach.
Stamboliev, E. (2019) Challenging Robot Morality: An Ethical Debate on Humanoid Companions, Dataveillance, and Algorithms.
Sweeting, J. (2024 Hauntological Form: Where We Might Find the New in Contemporary Videogames.
Thompson, S. (2008) Artefacts, Technicity and Humanisation: Industrial Design and the Problem of Anoetic Technologies
Vines, J. C. (2011) Ageing Futures: Towards Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products.
Woodward, M. S. (2014) The Multidimensional Depth of the Image: Body-Environment-Artefact (A philosophical reflection for graphic design).
Zhang, L. (2024) Knowledge Construction and Multiple Realities: Global Health Collaborations, Development Practices, And Face Masks in The Context of Covid-19.
Current Doctoral Research Projects
Bellali, J., The twinkle in the eye: where earth systems meet human birth: A posthuman black feminist inquiry.
de la Fosse, T., (2024-) Variation in perceptions of objects between real-life and online spaces: leveraging Object Oriented Ontology (OOO) [working title]
Doughty, S., (2023-) Other-than-human Persons, Technology, and Interaction Rituals.
Gerhardt, F., (2023-) Experienceable Neurodiversity: or Film’s potential to render diverse experiences of sensory perception
Guy, L.. (2018-) Artist designed systems in Community Radio.
Richardson, J., (2018-) Forming of economies of well-being through responsive practice in everyday life.
Salvadori, C., (2022-) What role does the 20th century history of art and science interaction have in contemporary art/science practice and what are the implications for future innovation?
Schneider, J., (2018-) How can a culture of spontaneity be sustained from within the imperatives of goal/outcome-oriented human endeavour?
Squire, K., (2020) An a-historical archaeology of Chora: indexing the process of space.
Turton, S., (2018-) More than colour; blue simpoesis in transcendental art and creative practices in Western Europe post 1500
Wang, Z. (2022) The Mission of Knowledge in Curatorial Studies.
Welsman, L. (2019-) Sublime onto-aesthetics: quantum qualities of art across media