ReMAP began life in 2012 as the DARE Collaborative, a research partnership with the BFI focused on the digital arts in society, including education broadly conceived. It is a university research centre at UCL, based at the UCL Knowledge Lab, and, along with the Knowledge Lab, one of six centres of the Department of Culture, Communication and Media in the Institute of Education. We are currently revising its mission and roles, focusing more broadly on the media arts, critical media theory, creative practice and play and games, including both children’s games and the design and analysis of digital games.
Our membership is drawn from the UCL Institute of Education and cultural organisations with an interest in arts, culture and new literacies in the context of education and digital media. Staff from the IOE are mostly from from Media, Music, Art, Museology, and English and Drama sections of the Department of Culture, Communication and Media.
The general remit of DARE has been, for the last 10 years, to promote conversations between researchers, educators, cultural institutions and the creative industries; to develop cross-arts research projects; to build partnerships with museums, galleries, concert and film venues, schools and the creative industries; and to advise on Arts and Education policy.
As the media team at the IOE expands, with the development of new teaching programmes – three MA awards in our Digital Media MA, and the new BA Media – our range of research interests has expanded. It includes practice-based research in computer arts, game design, animation and cinematography, media creativity with refugee children, research in representation, gender and queer theory, alongside our longstanding engagement with film theory and practice, game studies, disability studies and media literacy. Our wider membership in UCL includes researchers in the interface between drama and media, voice loss and identity in opera, and practice-as-research in art and museology.
Over the academic year of 2021/2, we will be exploring how best to promote and develop this new identity, and how best to serve this range of interests. We will also seek how best to establish our internal partnerships – with the UCL Knowledge Lab, our home for many years; and the new School for the Creative and Cultural Industries at UCL – and our external partnerships with cultural organisations, community groups, media organisations and more.
We are eager to retain our friends, colleagues and partners built up over the last decade through DARE, and to build new alliances. We’re happy to hear any ideas and suggestions.