Introductory description

Digital producers are responsible for bringing new products, services and experiences to the public. They are able to broker the diverse talents of technologists, artists, designers, scientists, academics and amateurs to develop projects that contribute to cultural life and address social, cultural, economic and environmental concerns. This module explores the role of the creative producer, the social, aesthetic and interdisciplinary spaces in which they operate and provides an introduction to some of the tools, technologies and processes necessary to produce innovative projects for different audiences.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The module is divided into four parts:
1: Defining the Practice
2: Defining the Space
3: Developing Competency
4: Performance & Evaluation

Part 1: Defining the Practice
1: Becoming a Digital/Creative Producer: exploring the role of the producer and learning from knowledge exchange at a producers’ forum

Part 2: Defining the Space
2: Digital/Creative Production and the Digital/Creative Public Sphere: developing an ideological understanding of the context and conceptual space in which digital production takes place. What is the role of the producing organisation? Digital R&D and capacity building in the cultural sector. Concepts of the digital public sphere.
3: Technologies & New Media Aesthetics
4: Producing Publics: Activity and Agency: exploring the relationships between interactivity, collaboration, participation and engagement

Part 3: Developing Competency – 4 practical workshops
5: Devising: idea generation, technologies, tools and techniques
6: Developing: planning including preparing budgets, developing and responding to briefs and proposals, time management
7: Direction: developing leadership, project management and facilitation skills
8: Delivery: venue management, technical and regulatory considerations and outputs, workflow, collaboration

Part 4: Performance & Evaluation
9 & 10: Creative Production Sandpit: Intensive two-day incubator/hackathon in which teams devise and present project proposal to panel of practitioners and organisations to include art school style constructive critique method.

Digital Micro-festival (at a future date after module end)
Teams to curate and produce 1 day digital micro-festival in which projects are presented/installed.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate understanding of the role of the creative producer in the production and delivery of innovative projects bringing new products, services and experiences to the public
• Manage an innovative project from conception through to evaluation whilst keeping to time and budget
• Identify, understand and have the potential to engage different audiences with creative productions
• Create a cohesive media experience across one or more platforms taking a flexible and inclusive approach to technologies
• Evaluate practice and content and fully understand individual creativity in the context of collaborative working

Indicative reading list

Auslander, Philip (2008) Liveness (New York: Routledge)

Beghetto RA (2014) The exhibit as planned versus the exhibit as experienced. Curator Mus J 57(1):1–4

Bilton, Christopher and Cummings, Stephen (Eds) Handbook of Management and Creativity (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar)

Cover, Rob (2006) Audience Inter/Active; interactive media, narrative control and reconceiving audience history New Media and Society Vol 8. Issue 1.

Damm, Sven. (2012) Event Management: How to Apply Best Practices to Small Scale Events, (Diplomica Verlag)

Matthews, D. (2007) Special Event Production: The Process. (Butterworth-Heinemann)

Smith, A. (2012) Events and urban regeneration: the strategic use of events to revitalise cities. (London: Routledge)

Vermeeren A., Calvi L., Sabiescu A. (eds) (2018) Museum Experience Design. Springer Series on Cultural Computing. (Springer, Cham)

Subject specific skills

Competency in the use of digital tools, platforms and technologies. Experience design. Curation and direction of digital and live cultural experiences. Audience development and management. Technical production and management of performance spaces and venues. Understanding of health and safety, risk assessment and public liability.

Transferable skills

Leadership, project and time management skills. Ideation and concept development. Teamworking skills. Problem-solving. Technical trouble-shooting. Communication, presentation and organisational skills. Financial management and budgeting. Reflective practice.