Upgrade of Production Arts IT infrastructure to enable a future Performance Industry Centre for the Research and Application of Creative Technologies

Guildhall School of Music & Drama is a world-leading small specialist higher education institution with established research strengths in Music and Drama. But it also has decades-long established training expertise in Production Arts (sometimes called Technical Theatre), providing the highly skilled creative workforce without which high-quality theatrical (and to a certain extent musical) performance cannot be realised. Our research environment has grown rapidly since the School's first participation in the national assessment of HE research in 2008; Production Arts is the one main area where lack of technological capability has so far held us back. In the increasingly important areas of digital performance and technologically enhanced immersive experience in particular, we lack the necessary infrastructure. Therefore we are applying for funding to establish a new Production Arts research facility in-house.

This development will build on our existing extensive range of partnerships with small and medium-sized companies working in the UK creative industries, as well as with selected HE research partners. It will involve using existing spaces within our buildings to deploy largely portable state-of-the-art equipment in order to explore the research potential of visual effects and extended reality (XR, incorporating, variously, hyper-, augmented and virtual reality). We will use this equipment to carry out a series of creative research projects that explore technology's role in the future of production artistry. In the first place, this will be achieved by providing access for performance makers and researchers inside the School to world-class technical facilities, but-just as important-it will also facilitate their access to the skills and knowledge of existing and additional industry partners, drawn in by the opportunity to benefit from our investment. Our medium-term aim is to crystallise this dynamic by establishing a Performance Industry Centre for the Research and Application of Creative Technologies. Not only would this research centre consolidate and grow our research collaborations and exchanges with industry and other HEIs, it would help effect internal collaboration between the Research department, Guildhall Live Events (a semi-spun-out teaching, research and commercial services body), and the new Electronic and Produced Music department (which has recently recruited new staff working at the edges of this area, especially in gaming).

The first step, and the object of the present request, is the procurement of two significant pieces of audio-visual hardware and associated IT for their use. (A third piece of equipment, complementary but more focused on our workforce training mission, is the object of another funding bid.) The period of the grant will be devoted to their installation by technical staff from the Production Arts department, the training of a small core of researchers, and the planning and initial implementation of a series of creative technology workshops aimed at selecting a range of pilot projects to test the potential of a) the equipment, b) its interaction with the School's existing research teams, both entirely internal and involving familiar external partners, and c) new partners from among the most innovative small businesses in the sector. The plan is then to review progress and move ahead with development of the new research centre in whatever is revealed to be the most productive and sustainable way.