arch BCMCR Transgressive Identities and Subjectivities – Performing Transgression 9th April 2025 Eastside Jazz Club, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

BCMCR Transgressive Identities and Subjectivities – Performing Transgression 9^th April 2025 Eastside Jazz Club, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

On the 9^th April 2025 the BCMCR Transgressive Identities and Subjectivities theme took to its third seminar in its series. Where many research seminars tend to follow a tried and tested method of delivery in conventional lecture spaces and conventional research presentations, as we had in the second of our seminars (the first being an industry panel), for this one we wanted to have interpretations of the research theme presented in a more transgressive and performative way. It was decided that we would address the theme by having 3 artists/performers present their relationship with transgression through their performances. We hosted 3 dynamic and, in many respects, very different artists to perform at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Jazz Club, a venue that in itself was transgressive from the spaces our seminars usually inhabit. Each performance was unique, powerful and addressed different aspects of transgressive identities and subjectivities from sexuality, to race and identity.

The first performance was a unique audience interactive ‘experimental performance’ delivered by BCU researcher and professor Michael Wolters. Michael has already carved out a worthy reputation for producing unique auditory performances. What made this performance particularly special and unique was that Michael was not present to perform it. The ‘script’ and soundtrack had been carefully crafted by Michael, and then handed over to the audience to perform. Envelopes continuing instructions, timings, lines to perform and sound effects to create were handed out to the audience and the performance commenced. Like a bizarre kind of version of “Cluedo/murder mystery” the audience/actor boundaries were transgressed where they became one as each member acted out their part unaware of how it fitted together to create the final climax of the performance. Truly bizarre, truly mesmerising, truly fun!

Video Clip of Michael’s Experimental Performance

The second performance was a multi-media extravaganza that combined theatre with video and music. Marlene McKenzie is a social issues performing artist and the Creative Director of Mooville Theatre Company, a well-established and well-respected theatre company based in Birmingham. Marlene is also a renowned actor and for our seminar she performed an excerpt of her self-penned and solo performed drama LITE. LITE is a powerful multimedia stage production exploring identity, self-image, and colourism through a Black woman’s eyes. Blending drama, humour, and vulnerability, it delivers a gripping take on skin lightening and conformity. Although we only had time to witness and an excerpt of this powerful production, Marlene had captured and shown the overarching themes of LITE in her vignette. It was truly moving and when she finished her performance there was a stunned silence from the audience before she was deservedly applauded.

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Video Clip of Marlene’s performance

The final performance of the afternoon came from Bristol transgender woman and artist RED, who has made a name for herself as a vocal powerhouse with a penchant for bass-driven pop fusion. Taking inspiration from Britney Spears and Dannii Minogue, RED performed a number of self-penned and self-produced songs that fused together pop that transgresses genre boundaries. RED’s songs not only had the audience up and dancing but were also lyrically intimate windows into RED’s journey as a transgender woman and performing artist. Her songs documented the highs and lows, the challenges, frustrations and barriers that she faced but overcame in her mission to bring her artistry to audiences around the world. It was a truly inspirational performance from RED.

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Video Clip of RED’s performance

A short break was taken after the performances which was followed by a really insightful Q&A session with Marlene and RED, that was as emotionally moving and charged as their performances. Questions form the audience revealed some of the more personal aspects of our performers’ identities, challenges they have faced as artists but also in terms of their gender identity and race and how they have transgressed some of the conformities and expectations of society to remain authentic selves. One of the most enjoyable and dynamic research seminars I have ever attended at BCMCR!

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Video of Q&A session

Videos: Joseph Perks

Photographs: Divine-Favour Owoola

arch Four Fascinating Presentations from our Undergraduate Showcase

Our BCMCR event on 14 May welcomed four talented BCU undergraduates. Each gave presentations of their degree research, covering the timely and relevant themes of mental health in the music industry, the implications of corporate Pride campaigns, Afrobeats’ impact on the UK’s music genres and music authorship in the age of AI.

First up was Lily Harris, studying BA (Hons) Music Industries, with an overview of her research on how the music industry impacts the mental health of its artists. Over recent years there has been a much-needed focus on better mental health support for music artists, and Lily’s presentation succinctly described the stresses and stressors that working in the industry can bring about. Through her interviews with music industry insiders, Lily was able to clearly outline the often-interrelated issues that impact on mental health, such as precarious income, lack of routine, busy touring schedules and lack of free time.

This is a very important topic, which companies in the music industry are starting to address. Lily wrapped up her presentation with recommendations to enable better mental health in the sector. With a guidebook for the sector planned as a further output from her research, Lily is certainly well placed to make further positive progress on the issue.

Following on from Lily, Cara Pover – a BA (Hons) Media and Communications student – presented her project examining the impacts and implications of corporate Pride campaigns. It is a subject that resonates strongly with her own lesbian identity. She sought to dig deeper into the question of whether corporatised campaigns attaching themselves to Pride month and its events are beneficial to the LGBTQ+ community. She collected existing research on rainbow capitalism and pink-washing and carryied out two focus groups. With the prevalence of trans issues in the news currently, it was of interest that her focus groups also focused on this, noting the rise in right wing viewpoints the media.

In summation, Cara was able to clearly draw parallels between media-fed moral panics and how the corporate Pride campaigns don’t include the full and true representations of the LGBTQ+ community. In these worrying times for the trans community, research like this is vital to better understand the breeding grounds and instigators of discrimination, and how authentic corporate Pride allies can help bring about positive change.

Next up was Malaika Mwande from the BA (Hons) Media Production course. Using her knowledge of and passion for the Afrobeats genre, and the music and artists within it, she presented her research showing how the genre has influenced and shaped UK popular music. As has been the case with music innovated by Black artists for many, many years, Afrobeats has moved from the west of the African continent to become interpolated into UK mainstream pop. With her research presented in the form of a zine, Maliaka skilfully brought together evidence of Afrobeats’ impact on social media as well as the UK charts through interviews with current advocates of the genre. Of note was Malaika’s discovery of a lack of existing research covering Afrobeats, therefore this project is not just timely but crucial in understanding the genre’s important impact on popular culture.

Finally, we heard from Tommy Lee, a student on the BA (Hons) Music Industries course. He had put together an enjoyable and thoughtful video exploring AI and music authorship. Through interviews and practice-led research, Tommy pieced together a compelling and balanced presentation which articulated the current arguments and discourse surrounding AI and music creation. New tech will always come along and disrupt business models, replacing old tech. Furthermore, new tech – in this instance AI – offers the music creator incredible tools for sound mastering and improving audio quality. However, Tommy’s practice-led research demonstrated clearly the more contentious nature of the technology: AI music creation, and the implications for fair use of copyrighted material. This entertaining presentation raised serious questions around authorship which will have very real implications for musicians and music creators seeking to build careers in the music industry.

arch Award-winning edited collection from BCMCR

arch Four new PGRs share their research plans

March’s BCMCR event saw four of our brilliant new PGRs share their plans for their doctoral research. Having just completed their PG Certificate in Research Practice course, they’re now starting their research. With subjects ranging across Queer studies, dating apps, gaming culture, Goan arts festivals and the work of Jeff Lynne, the presentations demonstrated the breadth and depth of PhD research at BCMCR.

Kicking off was Andrew Bell, introducing his project examining the queering of the monster in video games. While referencing a number of existing texts around queer emergent play and provocations to game makers to move beyond one dimensional representation of queer people, and using the lens of queer and cultural studies, Andrew’s fascinating research will use experimental game making to explore how monsters function as cultural artefacts. Their work will interrogate what game design might look like if it were oriented towards queering, and testing if current models of best practice would still function in this context. As an example, Andrew explained how his practice-based research will unpick the conventional binary of an active player versus a fixed monster which is constrained in its movements and capabilities. Rather than advancement through vanquishing the monster, what if the player had to be defeated by it? Andrew’s research, as well as challenging conventions, will be stretching player experience through reimagining monsters. Watch out!

Next up we heard from Uttaran Das Gupta. Having already done field research at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Panaji, India, Uttaran is now extending this study by examining how the festival generates art, culture and placemaking in Panaji, and also (new for this year) at its Birmingham sister festival. After describing the range of arts and culture platformed at the festival, including visual art, music, food, photography and theatre, Uttaran’s research will seek to articulate how the festival’s corporate funding influences curatorial choices, whether the festival acts as an elite space which marginalises and excludes some people from its audience or stages (particularly in relation to caste and politics). This project is not only interesting in building knowledge in the field of cultural studies, but also timely as the Birmingham edition of the festival will be taking place for the first time from 23 May to 1 June at our very own Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Although he was unable to be with us in person, Peter Newton created a video presentation that eloquently set out his project researching the musical contributions of songwriter, musician, producer and stellar contributor to the world-class heritage of the Birmingham music scene, Jeff Lynne. Even if you think you don’t know Jeff Lynne’s music, you probably do! Whether it’s Mr Blue Sky and ELO, the Traveling Wilburys or his musical imaging of War of the Worlds, his work has influence countless others and pushed the boundaries of contemporary pop. For Peter, he’s seeking to uncover how Birmingham’s music scene, with a focus on the 1960s period, contributed to and informed his sound and career. Furthermore, Peter will examine how musicological and technological choices shape the distinctiveness of a creative person’s output. Let’s hope is able to get an interview the man himself!

Finally, Lerelle Willden-Lewis talked us through her project researching the experience of marginalised, queer people’s use of dating apps. With a focus on evidencing ways marginalised queer people are discriminated against when engaging with dating platforms, Lerelle’s research will seek to articulate how this manifests structurally, culturally and interactionally. Key to her approach is the theoretical framework provided by intersectionality which enables the understanding of how structures of oppression interrelate. Using a mix of methods including a survey, interviews and an app walk-through, Lerelle’s research will offer a germane addition to academic studies across identity, discrimination, online dating culture and technology, with important outcomes which could help create new resources to improve safety and user experience, increase understanding of the queer community, develop more inclusive online spaces and influence social media technology development. In the current climate of (real and perceived) heightened discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, this project is timely and very relevant.

We look forward to seeing how all these projects develop of the next few years.

arch Publication shortlisted for BAFTSS award

Working Women on Screen: Paid Labour and Fourth Wave Feminism, co-edited by BCMCR researchers Dr Ellie Tomsett and Dr Poppy Wilde, along with Dr Nathalie Weidhase from the University of Surrey, has been shortlisted by the British Association for Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) for their annual best edited collection award.

The book, including individual chapters from BCU’s Tomsett and Wilde, brings together 13 contributions from international scholars on Aesthetic Labour; Power, Politics, and Neoliberal Industries; and Sex, Sexuality, and Relationships.

The award winners will be announced at the annual BAFTSS conference in March 2025.

See the shortlist of publications here, including further categories such as best monograph, and best article or chapter.

Praise for Working Women on Screen: Paid Labour and Fourth Wave Feminism:

“This is a wide-ranging and timely collection with a sharp critical and analytical lens on the current realm of popular representations of women and work in the frame of neoliberal culture. It will be immensely useful for teachers and researchers in feminist media studies.”

Angela McRobbie, Professor Emeritus Goldsmiths University of London, UK.

“This book sheds new light on the ways in which women’s paid labour is depicted in the contemporary moment. It is both necessary and vital and unpicks the complexities of how limited and often damaging screen representations are suffused in the contemporary media landscape.”

Kirsty Fairclough, Professor of Screen Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

arch International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM): Australia-Aotearoa/New Zealand 2024 Branch Conference

The Australia-Aotearoa/New Zealand branch of IASPM held their annual conference, hosted at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University and Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, from the 4th – 6th of Dec ‘24. This year’s theme of ‘Musical Translations & Transformations’ explored a range of popular music scholarship and practice, focusing on their intersections with diverse social, political, and industry contexts. Papers and panels covered topics such as activism in academia, transformative technologies, the politics of platforms, and critiques of hegemonic structures in the music industry.

The conference began with a Roundtable Discussion with Jadey O’Regan, Nazz Oldham, and Sarah Attfield – which considered the topic “How do we advocate for our industr(ies)? AKA – what are academics good for?” and profiled each presenter’s public facing work. Other panels across the conference included Gender, Sexuality, and Liberation in Music, Transforming Technology, Data and Discographies,  Stardom and Identity, amongst many others.

My presentation took place on the second day of the conference, as part of the Formatting Histories panel, alongside papers from Gay Breyley and Liz Giuffre. The paper, Pod v Doc: A Comparative Analysis of Music-Based Podcasts and Radio Music Documentaries, was an opportunity to explore the evolution and impact of music documentaries and podcasts, using my own production practice for Radio New Zealand as initial case studies. These documentaries included explorations of Bowie’s 1983 Western Springs concert, his visit to Takapuwaihia Marae in Porirua, and a celebration of Let’s Dance’s 40^th anniversary, which reflected over a decade-long process of reworking and enhancing content.

The paper went on to investigate the transformation from traditional radio documentaries to digital music podcasts, contrasting their production approaches, distribution models, and audience dynamics. I suggested that music podcasts have democratised music criticism, empowering fans to share expertise without the constraints of traditional media gatekeepers. However, this shift has also raised concerns about the de-professionalisation of music journalism, with many podcasts created by untrained and often unpaid amateur enthusiasts. The paper also addressed the commercialisation of music documentaries and podcasts, which are often driven by record labels. I concluded with a brief overview of how podcasts and documentaries can serve as impactful academic outputs, fostering public engagement with musicology.

Podcasting examples featured in the presentation included Switched on Pop, Song Exploder, Sound Expertise: Conversations with Scholars about Music, Sodajerker, and The Strangeness of Dub series from Morley College, while radio documentaries included the BBC’s Bowie in Berlin, and The Rise and Fall of Oasis, as well as Radio New Zealand’s Under the Influence series.

Although podcasting has come to dominate audio-based music investigations, I argued that radio documentaries still hold value, offering emotional, narrative-rich experiences. As the audio documentary-maker and journalism academic Siobhán McHugh theorised, podcasting has in many ways revitalised the traditional music documentary for radio – rather than replacing it.

My thanks to the local Organising Committee of Catherine Hoad, Geoff Stahl, Kimberly Cannady and Oli Wilson for their hard work arranging the conference (the 2025 event will be held in Dunedin, NZ, at the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka).

arch British DiGRA 2025 – conference announcement and call for papers

I’m excited to announce that our Game Cultures research cluster will host the annual British Digital Games Research Association (BDiGRA) conference, from 20-21 May 2025. Under the title ‘What is British Games Research?’, we’re inviting scholars from across the country to contribute to a discussion about what kinds of games research we do in the UK and, by sharing their work, to help build up a picture of our research field. Hopefully, this will inform the future direction of BDiGRA as an organisation, given its role in representing everyone who works on games research in, and around, the UK.

Our local chairs are Poppy Wilde and Nick Webber, and this event builds on our two successful games conferences in 2024 – History of Games, and Video Game Cultures. The call for papers follows below – why not take a look?

Submission link: https://bcmcr.org/bdigra25. Please write everything in the form, with no attachments.

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What is “British Games Research”?

British DiGRA annual conference, 2025

Host: Game Cultures research cluster, Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research

Venue: Parkside Building, Birmingham City University (and online)

Date: 20-21 May 2025

Conference duration: 2 days, 09:30-17:30

Closing date for abstracts: 24 January 2025, 23:59 (anywhere in the world)

What follows will be familiar to you. British scholars have been consistent participants in the field of games research since its inception. There is an established tradition of game making across the nation; indeed, game development is the most widely dispersed of the UK’s creative industries beyond London. Our universities were early adopters of games into the curriculum, and we host a long-running national chapter of DiGRA – British DiGRA – that holds a remit to promote, support and develop British (digital) games research.

But hang on <record scratch> what is that? What, exactly, is British games research?

As researchers, we often gesture towards distinct national or regional games research cultures, to some extent characterised by publication in specific journals (with, for example, Game Studies having strong associations with Scandinavian game research traditions, Games and Culture a North American flavour, and GAME an alignment with Italian game studies). Researchers in Britain lack a similar venue, so how can we and do we imagine what “British games research” is? What are we about, intellectually?

Researchers have pointed to the importance of understanding games as both global (Kerr 2017) and local (Swalwell 2021), and recent years have seen increasing scholarly interest in both national and regional traditions in connection with games (e.g. Navarro-Remesal and Pérez-Latorre 2021; Švelch 2022). This has been parallelled by growing attention to the idea of regional/local games studies as well (e.g. Liboriussen and Martin 2016) but this has not yet extended to work on British game studies specifically.

If literature has addressed the idea of what a British game could be (e.g. Wade 2016; Webber 2020), we still don’t know – perhaps have not even thought about – what British games research is. This year, the British DiGRA conference seeks to answer that question. We will use this conference as an opportunity to map and take stock of current games research taking place in Britain, and/or in relation to Britishness.

The conference takes place in Birmingham, the heartland of British cultural studies, hosted by a research centre indebted to that distinctive intellectual tradition, characterised by attention to representation, ideology, identities, and the tension between the global and the local. Inspired by this critical approach, we ask: what is distinguishable, and even distinctive, about British games research? How can we talk about British games research in a way that embraces the diversity of culture in Britain? How do constructions of Britishness relate to ideas of Europeanness and to the constituent countries of the UK? As we negotiate these questions, we want to hear what your work is about, and what it does to shape this emerging space of scholarship.

Submissions:

Submissions might engage with the following themes, from the perspective of research happening in Britain, or in British contexts:

• Inclusive and decolonial approaches to defining British game studies
• Cities and the (hyper)local in British game studies
• Government policy in/and British games research
• Game cultures and communities: a view from Britain
• The theoretical underpinning of British game studies
• Game design traditions and futures in Britain
• Global influences on British games and games research
• Game development and creative industries discourse
• Historicising games research: key contributions and approaches from Britain
• Future directions for British games research
• British game technologies and their impact
• Games and AI in/and the UK
• Applied games in British contexts
• British art and British games
• The rural and British games (including landscape and folk horror)
• British narrative and hypertext
• Digital cultural heritage in British contexts
• Serious games and immersive experiences in British contexts

Submissions should be made to one of two tracks:

Track 1: Defining the field: abstracts of 200 words for 5-minute lightning talks about your research, helping us to build a picture of games research taking place in, or otherwise connected with, Britain.

Track 2: Traditional conference papers: abstracts of 500 words for 20-minute paper presentations, connecting with the idea of British games research.

To ensure equity and access to the conference, no author may present more than two contributions to the conference. This includes single and joint-authored submissions.

Submission link: https://bcmcr.org/bdigra25

Please write everything in the form, with no attachments.

Important dates

Call closes: 24 January 2025, 23:59 (anywhere in the world)

Notifications of acceptance: sent to authors by 21 March 2025

Event schedule

The event will run from 09:30-17:30 on both days.

Expected registration costs

Registration will be no more than £50 for in-person attendance for employed delegates. There will be a limited number of discounted tickets for PGR/unwaged delegates. The in-person fee covers refreshments and lunches on both conference days.

Online attendance will attract a fee of £10. We encourage in-person attendance as far as possible for delegates presenting at the conference.

If you have any queries, please contact the conference chairs, Poppy Wilde (poppy.wilde@bcu.ac.uk) and Nick Webber (nick.webber@bcu.ac.uk).

arch Gender Equality: 40 Years On!

Gender Equality: 40 Years On! introduces the work and activism of Birmingham based women. The project investigates women’s contribution to addressing gender equality in Birmingham. The Barbara Webster Collection is the starting point for a research project which included an exhibition, Roundtable discussion and a series of oral history podcasts produced by Dr. Siobhán Stevenson.

The research aims to make historical links between current concerns with diversity and equality in the arts, and activities linked to the Women’s Liberation Movement from the mid 1980s, Birmingham, UK. The project explores a newly acquired collection of archival materials, donated by Barbara Webster, head of the Women’s Unit (1984-87) at Birmingham City Council. The project highlights the significance of the work done by women in the 1980s, ensuring that their voices and legacy continues to be heard. The podcasts and exhibition reflect on gender equality then and now, by considering how past voices, campaigns and activism helps us challenge contemporary inequalities.

Listen to the oral history podcasts from the project

Produced by oral historian Dr. Siobhán Stevenson, the podcasts capture the voices and stories of women involved in addressing inequalities in Birmingham, in the 1980s. Each podcast includes two women in conversation, discussing their experience and reflecting on the challenges of working towards gender equality. They explore collective power, intersectional identities, race, sexuality and the representation of diverse women’s stories. The women participating in the podcasts have been generous with their time, thoughtful in their approach and the outcome is a significant contribution to women’s local history.

Sincere thanks to all the women involved in the podcasts: Ming de Nasty, Mo White, Sue Gorbing, Emma Woolf, Surinder Punn and Dr. Karen Patel. Particular thanks to Dr Siobhán Stevenson for her expertise, guidance and kindness.

You can also explore the booklet which reproduces and celebrates the Gender Equality: 40 Years On! exhibition that took place in March 2024.

The research project is funded by the British Academy Leverhulme Small Grant Scheme based on the Barbara Webster Collection. For more information about ADM Archive and how to access the Barbara Webster Collection, contact the Arts Design and Media Archive ADM-Archives-Requests@bcu.ac.uk.

To find out more about the Gender Equality: 40 Years On! research project, contact annette.naudin@bcu.ac.uk.

arch International Communication Association Conference, Gold Coast

In June I attended the International Communication Association (ICA) conference at the Gold Coast, Australia. I was part of a panel focusing on Etsy, with Susan Luckman (University of South Australia), Kylie Jarrett (University College Dublin) and Samantha Close (DePaul University, USA). The panel description is as follows:

Etsy was launched in 2005 and at the end of 2022 had an estimated 5.4 million sellers and 89.4 million buyers. It has long since shifted from being a fringe community offering quirky goods to a publicly listed corporation with billion dollar merchandise sales and monopoly power. But despite its significant economic and cultural footprint – not to mention iconic status – Etsy remains an under-discussed platform in critical studies of the media industries and employment impacts of platform economies. In no small part, this relative lack of scholarly attention beyond some key feminist craft scholarship (Close 2014, 2016; Gajjala 2015; Luckman 2013; 2015; Patel 2020a; 2020b; White 2015), is a direct result of Etsy’s place within the feminised sphere of craft-making.

In light of the 2022 Etsy strike and more recent calls to boycott the platform, this panel will offer critical insights into how Etsy operates within the exploitative models of platform capitalism. Drawing upon critical feminist, Marxist and activist approaches, the papers highlight the unjust aspects of this form of platformised cultural production and critiques the politics at play in the nexus between artisanal production and global media platforms that Etsy exemplifies. Throughout, the papers are sensitive to questions of diversity, equality, and justice, exploring how the platform and the activities of sellers resist, but sometimes perpetuate, the kinds of inequalities recognised in other media industries. It considers, though, how these are amplified in the context of the transnational platform economy.

The first paper is inspired by the 2022 strike and asks theoretical questions about how, or if, we can understand Etsy traders as workers, interrogating the resemblance of their experience to that of other platform-mediated workers. The second paper draws on research conducted with the Etsy “union” – the Indie Sellers Guild – describing how traders understand their needs and what an alternative platform might look like. The third paper uses a semiotic analysis of the Etsy site to critique the white, middle-class aesthetic of the platform. It highlights how its normative mainstreaming of a particular visual style operates as gatekeeping, excluding a wider, more globally and financially inclusive community of makers, products, and purchasers. The final paper returns to the struggles of sellers, focusing on the recent calls for a boycott, but questioning the effectiveness of this strategy in the context of Etsy’s monopoly and its implications for diversity in the notoriously exclusive craft industry in the global North.

My talk focused on the Etsy strikes which took place in 2023 and 2024, and I discussed the strategies for resistance employed by makers to counter the dominance of Etsy in the craft marketplace, and the potential implications of the boycott in relation to access and diversity in craft micro-enterprise.

We are hoping to reprise the panel for ICA 2025, presenting our work in progress and any new developments and insights on Etsy, and its role in the craft ecology.