GOLDSMITHS (UK)

Goldsmiths, University of London

Profile of the organisation

Goldsmiths, University of London, is internationally renowned for its creative and innovative approach to teaching and research. It offers undergraduate, postgraduate, teacher training and return-to-study opportunities in subjects covering the arts and humanities, social sciences, cultural studies, computing, and entrepreneurial business and management. Goldsmiths is in the world’s top 100 universities for the arts and humanities (QS World University Rankings 2012), has been recognised as one of the UK’s top creative universities by students (Which? University 2012), and is ranked ninth in the UK for world-leading 4* research (Research Assessment Exercise 2008). Its academic excellence is illustrated in its membership of the 1994 Group, which brings together a select number of student-focused, research-focused universities. Goldsmiths has been part of the University of London for over 100 years. Many of its former students have become leaders and innovators in their chosen fields. They include Antony Gormley, Mary Quant, Damien Hirst, James Blake, Sam Taylor-Wood, Graham Coxon and Malcolm McLaren.

 

Goldsmiths staff have extensive experience of developing and implementing open and hybrid publishing projects (e.g. being part of the RCUK research consortium CREATe, with a theme focused on studying book ownership, collaborative business models and questions of ethics and creativity in digital publishing; developing the Open Book project that offers education to entrants with troubled backgrounds; and working on the UK’s Higher Education Academy-funded Liquid Reader project and on other open access educational resources). Goldsmiths also has a history of successful large-scale funded projects in the wide range of cultural and creative domains, e.g.: ERC Award ‘Forensic Architecture’ (2011-2014); Norwegian Research Council grant ‘Media System, Political Culture and Informed Citizenship’ (2010-2012); AHRC grant ‘Performance Matters’ (2009-2012), Leverhulme Trust grant to establish Goldsmiths Media Research Centre (2007-2012); or  Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship and European Reintegration Grant (FP6) ‘Networked Cultures’ (2005-2008).

 

Role in the project

Goldsmiths will lead a project on Open Publishing under WP4 Europeana Space Scenarios. Designated as project 4.5 EuropeanaPublishing, it will investigate and experiment with open and hybrid forms of publishing cultural material. The projected outcome of the pilot will be called ‘The Open Book of Photomediations’.

 

This project will engage with the themes of the call by:

  1. developing a creative and dynamic multi-platform resource, which we are calling ‘The Open Book of Photomediations’, on photography and media, using the Europeana cultural resources;
  2. implementing a structure for the active use and wide dissemination of this ‘Open Book’ across diverse communities of users.

 

Key Person

Professor Joanna Zylinska

Joanna Zylinska is Professor of New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths. The author and editor of many books on culture, art, media and ethics, she is also a translator of Stanislaw Lem’s philosophical treatise, Summa Technologiae. She co-runs runs the JISC-funded project, Living Books about Life, which publishes open access books at the crossroads of humanities and sciences, and co-edits open access journal Culture Machine. She combines her theoretical writings with photographic art practice and curatorial work.