Jane Grant

Ms Jane Grant - ()

Job title: Associate Professor (Reader) in Visual Arts, School of Art and Media (Faculty of Arts)
Address: MO8, Scott Building, Drake Circus,
Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA
Telephone: +441752585207
Email: J.Grant-1@plymouth.ac.uk

Role

I am an artist and academic. I work with moving image, sound, installation, drawing and writing. I work across disciplines in the arts and sciences often collaborating with scientists, designers and composers.This collaborative work has resulted in award winning projects including The Fragmented Orchestra, with John Matthias and Nick Ryan which was winner of the PRSF New Music Award, 2008 and received an Honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica, 2009. The Fragmented Orchestra was exhibited at FACT Liverpool and 23 sites across the UK.

My recent work Ghost was premiered at ISEA and the Istabul Biennial, 2011 - details of the work can be seen at http://blog.bowers-wilkins.com/news/events-and-shows/bowers-wilkins-at-istanbul-biennial-2011/

The new collaborative work Plasticity, with John Matthias, Nick Ryan and Kin will be premiered at the BFI, London as part of the onedotzero Adventures in Motion Festival, November, 2011.

Other recent work includes Soft Moon and Leaving Earth, both films drawn from astrophysical science and literature with specific reference to the work of Italo Calvino and Stanislaw Lem. Stills of this work can be seen on my website http://janegrant.org.uk/

In 2011 I co-directed the NeuroArts conference at Plymouth University with John Matthias and Eduardo Miranda and at ISEA in Istanbul with John Matthias.

I have received grants and awards for projects including the PRSF New Music Award, Prix Ars Electronica, Wellcome Trust and the Arts Council for the collaborative work The Fragmented Orchestra with John Matthias and Nick Ryan.

I have received a grant from the AHRC for the project Threshold - Merging the Human Voice with Neurological Time Patterns and has received funding from the Arts Council and the British Council.

I co-direct the research group art + sound. and contribute to many other research groups including Land Water and the Visual Arts and i-DAT. Also I am a member of the the Peninsula Arts Gallery programming committee.

Alongside my collaborator and colleague John Matthias I was nominated for the Times Higher Education Award 2008 for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts (Highly Commended), sponsored by the Arts Council. This nomination was for The Fragmented Orchestra also with Nick Ryan.

I teach on the Media Arts BA in the Faculty of Arts and the Planetary Collegium, the international platform for research in art, technology and consciousness.

Teaching interests

I am module leader of the Collaborative Practice Module for the Media Arts BA.This module places creativity at the core of collaboration alongside the facilitation of new ideas and practices. I invite local and national creative, commercial institutions to ‘pitch’ proposals to our students and we have developed many strong and on-going relationships with local and national companies and organizations. I have written many modules with particular emphasis on the integration of theory and practice, developing strategies in order to convey the excitement that historical, contemporary context and critical rigor lends practice. I also headed the Sonic Arts BA course development and I have used many of the new teaching and assessment strategies developed for this course on the Media Arts BA Programme. As Team Leader for the development of the new Sonic Arts BA, I developed educational strategies for delivery and assessment, which included an integrated approach to knowledge dissemination, focused and fluid assessment criteria across each stage andacross module delivery and professional development strategies. I also teach on the Dissertation Module in Media Arts, and many of the practice based modules.

I am Principal Supervisor, CiiA Node in the Planetary Collegium, the international platform forresearch in art, technology and consciousness, with its hub based in the University of Plymouth. Its president is Roy Ascott.

Research interests

Ghost (2011)

Ghost is an 8 channel sound installation premiered at ISEA (International Symposium for Electronic Arts and the Istanbul Biennial in 2011. At the heart of Ghost is a network of neurons embedded with 'sonic memory'. 'Consciousness as attention to memory' is a term that neuroscientist Eugene Izhikevich uses to describe a phenomena in which the cortex re-lives or re-visits a particular pattern of neural activity in the absence of sensory information. The model brain or cortex, deprived of stimulation journeys around its own temporal architectures conjuring past 'experiences' or 'memories', pulling them into the present. Evidence that these pathways continue to be be re-visited once sensory stimulation occurs again is compelling. The neural code reconfigures the internal embedded sounds with externally stimulated sound causing a temporal and sonic overlapping of the neural past with the neural present, a rupture in the flow of sensory and endogenous information. When the external sound fail to reach a volume threshold the systems journeys around its own neuronal pathways re-visiting older established routes using its 'memory' as buoyancy when the external sounds die away. I imagined these events as 'sonic ghosts' a term I have used to describe the buffering up of the neural with the neural present.

People involved with Ghost: Tim Hodgson, John Matthias. Ghost was supported by Plymouth University, Bowers and Wilkins, Cycling '74.

Soft Moon (2010)

Computer Generated film, double wide screen projection, sound, 7 minutes.

This film was made with Kin in London. It explores the reciprocal attraction of two planetary sphere, the forming earth and moon according to an older and no longer accurate theory formulated by GH Darwin. Soft Moon was made with the intention of exploring through sound and images, the formation of the Earth-Moon system. This included researching both contemporary and historical theories of the formation of the Universe and the Solar System. These theories included scientific work but also literary with particular emphasis on the work of Italo Calvino and Stanislaw Lem. These science fiction novels are concerned with how humans view their place within the cosmos, how we conceptually negotiate immensity.

The Fragmented Orchestra (2008) with John Matthias and Nick Ryan.

Distributed, neuronal-networked, sound installation.

The Fragmented Orchestra combines conceptually simple but technically precise elements (microphone, speaker, communicator, and “neuron”) into an elegant, geographically-distributed network structure. The result is a vast musical brain, which promises to generate pieces that touch upon extraordinarily disparate aspects of music and culture, including audience participation, sampling as instrument, endogenous composition, aesthetics of technology, and more. Among the most intriguing of these many resonances is the way in which The Fragmented Orchestra establishes an audible analogy between the brain and the Internet, such that the music produced becomes an artifact of their parallel structures. This composition renders in sound the sense in which the internet is already a singular mind, the collective compositional creativity of the crowd singing in one voice.’

Aden Evens author of Sound Ideas Music, Machines and Experience.

The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical structure modelled on the firing of the human brain's neurons.Twenty-four sites around the UK were connected to each other to form a “neural”network. The sonic information captured at these sites is transmitted over the internet, causing other sites to “fire”.
The Fragmented Orchestra was winner of the 2008 PRS Foundation’s New Music Award, the most prestigious award for new music in the UK and likened as the Turner Prize for music. It is also the recipient of an Honoury Mention at Prix Ars Electronica 2009.
This distributed neuronal instrument was exhibited at FACT in Liverpool, National Portrait Gallery, Goodison Park Everton Football Club, Bronte Museum, Institute ofPsychiatry,the Roundhouseand many other sites across the UK.
http://www.thefragmentedorchestra.com/
People involved with The Fragmented Orchestra: Tim Hodgson, Kin, Daniel Jones,University of Plymouth, Nick Outram.

Leaving Earth (2010)

Digital video, sound, 18 minutes.
In Leaving Earth, a static shot of a planet or moon is shown, sometimes obscured by cloud and often accompanied by a deep blue satellite object. There is a slight zoom, as if we are approaching the planetary object. However, this zoom is almost imperceptible and prolongs our longing or trepidation regarding the destination.
The work is influenced by our mediated vision of the world and our place in the universe, in that we can ‘see’ much, much further than we will ever physically travel. The sound is both metallicand breath-like, a hypnotic drone which echoes the sound scores of the interior of spaceships in science-fiction films.
Sound mastering by Neil Grant.

UoP Research group membership

art + sound
Centre for Media, Art & Design Research (MADr)
i-DAT (Institute of Digital Art & Technology)
Land/Water and the Visual Arts
Planetary Collegium

Other research

Grants & contracts

Sponsorship for Ghost : Bowers and Wilkins and Cycling '74, 2011.

I have received grants and awards for the collaborative work The Fragmented Orchestra with John Matthias and Nick Ryan from the following:

PRS Foundation for Music, New Music Award, 2008, the most financially significant award for music in the UK and likened to the Turner Prize for Music.

Prix Ars Electronica 2009, Honorary Mention, Hybrid Arts Category.

WellcomeTrust, Engaging People Award, 2009.

Arts Council of England, 2008.

University of Plymouth, 2008, and 2009.

Also sponsorship for The Fragmented Orchestra from:

Kin

Bowers and Wilkins

FACT

Samson

Be Broadband

Fibox

MGB

Feonic

Individual awards have included:

AHRC, Principle Investigator, Threshold - Merging the Human Voice with Neurological Time Patterns. Awarded Nov. 2006.

British Council Travel Award for Aufsteigen.

Arts Council Award for film Dogs in Cars, Waiting.

Sponsorship, Sony, for Still, solo exhibition.

University of Plymouth for Soft Moon, 2010.

For the collaborative project developing the Neurogranular Sampler with John Matthias, Kin, Tim Hodgson, Eduardo Miranda, Proof of Concept Award, University of Plymouth.

Creative practice & artistic projects

Ghost, premiered at ISEA (International Symposium for Electronic Arts) Istanbul, Parallel Programme, Istanbul Biennial, 2011.

Solo exhibitions: Leaving Earth at Peninsula Arts Gallery, Universityof Plymouth, Memento Mori , at Spacex Gallery, Still at Chapter, Cardiff, Aufstiegen site specific work in Germany.

Selected group exhibitions: Multichannel at Artsway, Just World Order at Artsway, SANExpo, Sonic Arts Network. Cardiff Art in Time, international exhibition focused on Electronic Art, Cardiff. Screen, Dogs in Cars, Waiting selected exhibition of national and international artists and filmmakers, Forest of Dean. Newyln Gallery, Walsall Museum and Arts Gallery and ISEA, Liverpool.

The Fragmented Orchestra was exhibited at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology), Liverpool and 23 sites across the UK including:

Everton Football Club, Goodison Park, Liverpool

Watershed, Bristol

Landscove C of E Primary School

National Portrait Gallery, London

Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall

Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham

Bronte Parsonage Museum, Yorkshire

Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast

Roundhouse, London

Roland Levinsky Building, University of Plymouth

Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester

Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

St Andrews Church, Fulham Fields, London

Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London

Centre for Alternative Technology, Macyhnlleth, Wales

Verbal Arts Centre, Belfast

The Hidden Gardens, Glasgow

Kielder Observatory, Black Fell, Northumberland

Blueprint Studios, Manchester

Rochelle School, London

Stephen Lawrence Centre, London

Kiosk,West Pier, Brighton

Thainstone Centre, Inverurie, Scotland

Publications

Selected Publications/Reviews:

ShiftingTopographies, Sound and The Fragmented Orchestra, Grant, Matthias in Spatialities, forthcoming, edited by Judith Rugg, Intellect Books, 2011.

Matter and Mutability: presence and affect in other worlds, Jane Grant, Transcultural Tendencies, Transmedial Transactions, SIVA, Shanghai, 2011.

Neural Ghosts and the Focus of Attention, Jane Grant, at NeuroArts, Plymouth University, Feb, 2011 and ISEA Istanbul, Sept. 2011.

Noise: networks, sensation, experience, Jane Grant, in Making Reality Really Real, November, 2010, TEKS, Norway.

Review for Leonardo online, The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music, March 2010.

http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/mar2010/grant_dean.php

Leaving Earth, Jane Grant, catalogue accompanying exhibition, with essays from Professor Liz Wells, Professor Arthur I. Miller, Dr. Ian Crawford, Dr. Katherine Joy, May 2010, published by University of Plymouth Press, 2010.

We are the real-time experiment – TWENTY YEARS OF FACT – 1989 - 2009, entry, The Fragmented Orchestra, Liverpool University Press, 2009.

The Fragmented Orchestra, Jones, Grant, Matthias, Hodgson, Ryan, Outram, NIME, New Interfaces for Musical Expression 2009, Pittsburgh, USA, June 2009.

The Sound of Music, interview and feature on AHRC grant, PODIUM, AHRC, Winter, 2008.

The Fragmented Orchestra, Grant, Matthias, Ryan, in HUMAN FUTURES, Art in the Age of Uncertainty, edited Andy Miah, Liverpool University Press, 2008, http://humanfutures.wordpress.com/

Translating Consciousness into Music,Grant, Matthias, Ryan, in New Notes, Dec. 2008.

Shock of the New, The Fragmented Orchestra, Euan Ferguson, Observer, Feb. 2009.

Selected reviews of The Fragmented Orchestra in:

Guardian, Dec. 2008.

Dazed and Confused, Nov. 2008.

The Wire, Jan. 2009.

Selected Online Reviews of The Fragmented Orchestra in:

BBC News, April, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7359289.stm

The Fragmented Orchestra, Rhizome review, Sept. 2009, http://rhizome.org/editorial/2923

Arts Council Online review, http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/takeitaway/news/147/read/

HEARING THINKING, Grant, Matthias, Hodgson, Miranda, in EvoMusArt, conference proceedings, Springer Verlag, 2009.

Just World Order, catalogue accompanying exhibition, essay by Peter Bonnell, July 2008.

Still, catalogue accompanying solo exhibition, essay by Dr. Emma Posey, 1998.

Entry in The Nose Book, Representations of the Nose in Literature and the Arts, ed. De Riijke, Ostermark-Johansen, Thomas, published Middlesex University Press, 2001.

Kissing the Dust, catalogue accompanying exhibition, essay by Simon Grennan, 1997.

Memento Mori,catalogue with essay by Geoff Cox, accompanying solo exhibition, 1995.

Review of Kissing the Dust, Robert Clark, Guardian.

Review of solo exhibition, Memento Mori, in Museum Journal.

Reports & invited lectures

Selected Lectures:

Leaving Earth, Land/Water Symposium 2010, Land and the Metaphysical, University of Plymouth, July, 2010.

The Fragmented Orchestra, with John Matthias, Aesthetics in a Time of Emergency: Beyond the Relational Aesthetic Paradigm, University of Plymouth, June, 2010.

Leaving Earth, artists talk, Peninsula Arts Gallery, University of Plymouth, May 2010.

The Fragmented Orchestra, Royal Observatory Greenwich, Festival of Time, with John Matthias, Nov. 2009.

The Fragmented Orchestra,for The Whitehead Lectures, with John Matthias, Goldsmiths College, London, Oct. 2009.

The Fragmented Orchestra, at NIME 2009, New Interfaces for Musical Expression, with Daniel Jones, Pittsburgh, USA, June 2009.

Critical Spatial Practices, seminar, with John Matthias, RIBA, London, June, 2009.

Hearing Thinking, EvoMusArt, Naples, March 2008.

Wellcome Trust, with John Matthias and Nick Ryan, March 2009.

Artists Breakfast with Daniel Glaser, David Toop and Robert Worby, FACT and FACT TV, Dec. 2008.

The Fragmented Orchestra, at the Voices Festival, with John Matthias, March 2009.

Big Screen,presentation The Fragmented Orchestra, with John Matthias, Bristol, March 2009.

Radio 3 interview, Music Matters – Music and the Brain, special edition, 2008.

Exploring Consciousness Symposium, lecture, University of Plymouth, Oct. 2008.

Time Space Compression,conference organised by b10c and Chapter, 1999.

Conferences organised
Forthcoming NeuroArts conference 10th and 11th February 2011.

See the following links for details:

http://www.kin-design.com/xfers/neuroarts/NeuroArts_eFlyer.html

for registration details contact: artsresearch@plymouth.ac.uk

Additional information

Links

http://www.janegrant.org.uk/

http://www.thefragmentedorchestra.com/

http://www.prsfoundation.co.uk/newmusicaward/newmusicaward2008winner.htm