Digital Creativity and Health and Wellbeing

DIGITAL CREATIVITY

This course will educate students towards creating work that bridges the gap between traditional creative practices and their modern technologically facilitated counterparts from gaming, to graphic design to music and dance. It responds to the continuing appropriation of emerging digital technologies by artists with the aim of discovering new approaches for creative expression, often referred to under the umbrella term ‘Creative Convergence’. The course responds to the teaching and research interests of staff within the subjects of Music, Performance and Visual Arts, as well as colleagues in the areas related to Computer Science. You will learn how to use a variety of technologies and realise assessed projects; these may include motion capture, haptic feedback, interaction design, data sonification & visualisation, animation & sound design, and coding/scripting in relevant languages strictly for creative output. The practical seminars will act as laboratories to experiment with these technologies and enhance your skillsets, working towards a signature practice that primes them for the digital creative sector. The lectures provide a theoretical basis for you to critically position your work, further developed through student-led discussions in tutorials. The lecture content also informs the seminars, ensuring you are able to perceive the practical application of these ideas. In your first year of study, you will be introduced to the key practitioners and practices who demonstrate the ways digital technologies enrich the creative potential of traditional art forms.

HEALTH & WELLBEING

Recent years have seen widespread recognition of the need to move beyond medicine with a greater emphasis on the promotion of health and wellbeing. New government initiatives and policies are giving this greater priority than ever before. Health and Wellbeing is a vibrant, multidisciplinary degree in which you will explore a range of issues and debates relevant to health and wellbeing in contemporary society.

The degree draws upon a range of disciplines, including sociology social policy and psychology to understand the key challenges to health and wellbeing in the 21st century. Throughout your studies, you will be considering key questions such as what factors influence health and wellbeing? How do social experiences impact upon health and wellbeing? Why do different social groups experience health and wellbeing differently? Alongside this, you develop the practical skills necessary for work in the field, through work on case studies and opportunities and applied research projects within the local community.

The degree provides you with the opportunity to develop practical skills, knowledge and insight into a range of issues relating to health and wellbeing in contemporary society. With its strong emphasis on social justice and welfare, you will be enabled to develop as critical social scientists who, as a graduate, will be able to use your skills and knowledge to the benefit of your local community and society more broadly.