Goldlink 51

Issue 51 / 2021

TECH NOLOGY

It is fitting that the theme for this issue of Goldlink is technology — during the Covid-19 pandemic it has touched all aspects of our lives in more ways than ever before.

We have relied on it to keep us safe, connect with loved ones, continue our work and engage with culture. In higher education, digital technology has been a game-changer when it comes to collaboration and learning.

As a creative powerhouse, Goldsmiths is naturally a place where new ideas are generated and interrogated — and of course our own community has been no stranger to harnessing technology as an impetus for change in response to social challenges.

In this issue we feature some of these inspiring stories. This includes the exciting research developments in virtual reality and artificial intelligence being undertaken in the Department of Computing. This pioneering work has significant real-world impact — from training GPs to act on safeguarding concerns to helping visualise the Covid-19 virus.

And across our many other subject areas, Goldsmiths alumni and students are demonstrating their innovation and commitment to making a positive difference in society. We hear from graduate entrepreneurs and tech founders who have created digital platforms and hardware to connect and empower people, and from those using tech to experiment with new, highly immersive art forms.

Goldsmiths has a key part to play in tackling the challenges of our time, from social injustice to the catastrophe of climate change. Crafting responses to these questions is at the core of who we are and what we do. As you’ll see in the magazine, technology and the digital sphere can offer up a world of creative solutions for our futures.

Professor Frances Corner OBE, Warden Goldsmiths, University of London

Cover: A view inside the Mutator VR experience [see page 21] | Artist: William Latham | Software: Stephen Todd, Peter Todd and Lance Putnam | Image © William Latham 2017 Right: Professor Frances Corner © Ben Queenborough

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News 02 Virtual Shakespeare 02 Immersive campus experiences 04 Santander partnership renewal 05 Green New Deal 06 Recovery plan 07 Editors’ picks

Contents

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The human side of tech Feature

Spotlight Alumni achievements

Degree shows 2021 Showcase

Realms of possibility Feature

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Tech talk Feature

30 Play an active role in our global community Opportunities

32 Student support appeal Announcement

Habiba Youssef A day in the life

Contact Development & Alumni Office Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross, London SE14 6NW alumni@gold.ac.uk +44 (0)20 7896 2619 Update your details explore.gold/update2021 Give to Goldsmiths gold.ac.uk/giving-to-goldsmiths

Facebook @GoldsmithsAlumni Twitter & Instagram @GoldAlumni Blog sites.gold.ac.uk/goldlink Editors Minh Lam Jennifer New ( jennifernew.co.uk) Design Spy Studio (spystudio.co.uk)

Contributions for consideration may be submitted by email. We reserve the right to edit articles in the interests of brevity and clarity. The opinions expressed in the magazine are those of the writers and not necessarily of Goldsmiths.

Goldlink is printed on paper accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council.

News

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VIRTUAL SHAKESPEARE Research undertaken by Goldsmiths-based strategy consultancy i2 into the impact of Covid-19 on audiences has helped shape an innovative new performance piece that could become a model for post-pandemic theatre.

‘Dream’, created by the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with Manchester International Festival, Marshmallow Laser Feast [see page 12] and the Philharmonia Orchestra, brings together the latest gaming and theatre technology with an interactive symphonic score that responds to actors’ movement during the show.

Inspired by ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, the production is set in a virtual forest, which audiences can experience online via their mobile, desktop or tablet device through the www.dream.online website. They are also able to interact with and directly influence the live performance from wherever they are in the world. i2 media research is an interdisciplinary group using psychological principles and research methods to understand technology, media and consumers. As a member of the Audience of the Future Performance Demonstrator consortium, funded by Innovate UK, they have worked closely with NESTA — an innovation agency that designs, tests and scales new solutions to societal problems — to find out what existing

audiences want and how new audiences can be engaged with live performance. Originally starting in January 2019, i2’s programme of research for the project changed drastically with the closure of UK theatres in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the cancellation of the originally planned, location-based Royal Shakespeare Company event. i2 developed new in-depth research to guide the project to pivot to a digital-only production addressing the needs of audiences at home. i2 media research founder, Professor of Psychology and Academic Lead for Knowledge Exchange at Goldsmiths, Jonny Freeman, said: “We’ve loved collaborating so closely with our creative and tech partners, and seeing the audience insights we’ve been gathering so directly influencing the production they have created.”

Sarah Ellis, Director of Digital Development at the Royal Shakespeare Company (and Goldsmiths alumna: BMus, 1998 and MMus, 1999), said: “I led the creative innovation and research and development that produced ‘Dream’.

Our collaboration with i2 media research was essential to the production’s understanding of audience needs and capabilities. This understanding set essential constraints and goals for our creative-technical team, enabling us to reach new audiences, at scale, with a genuinely new form.”

IMMERSIVE CAMPUS EXPERIENCES Goldsmiths has launched two virtual experiences to enable prospective students and the wider community to interact with the campus from the comfort of their homes.

The first of these is a virtual tour (explore.gold/virtual-tour) featuring 360-degree photography and immersive video content.

Users can either select the locations they’d like to explore, or take a sample ‘Day in the Life’ experience to get to know more about specific subject areas and departmental facilities.

The locations presented in the tour include various places and spaces where students can study, socialise, create and perform, along with campus highlights like the College Green and Great Hall.

Aimed primarily at prospective students who cannot easily visit the campus in person, the tour may also be of interest to anyone who’s keen to see the newest developments at Goldsmiths, or take a nostalgic trip around the College.

Goldsmiths’ Student Marketing team worked closely with London-based immersive experience agency Circus to produce

the tour. Photography and video were shot last summer, after the first UK national lockdown ended.

Marketing Manager, Clare Watkins, said: “The tour gives people the opportunity to explore some of the places around campus that not everyone has the chance to see up close — like the scenography workshop near the George Wood Theatre, the Wired Radio station in the Students’ Union, or the amazing interior of the Laurie Grove Baths.”

“Our original intention was to show the campus in all its bustling glory, full of students — but the Covid-19 pandemic meant we had to do things differently. We hope to add more content to the tour in the future, to demonstrate the breadth of what’s available at Goldsmiths, and to show the facilities in use.”

The footage from the tour has also been used to create an interactive virtual reality experience that can be used by anyone with a VR headset or via an internet browser. You can access this on the Goldsmiths YouTube channel: explore.gold/campus360

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‘Dream’ rehearsal featuring Jamie Morgan | Photo by Stuart Martin © RSC

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News

SANTANDER PARTNERSHIP RENEWAL

The partnership has assisted 775 students since 2012

Students at Goldsmiths will continue to benefit from a range of international study, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities after the College renewed its partnership with Santander UK (through Santander Universities). The threeyear agreement extends the partnership that has assisted 775 Goldsmiths students via £750,000 of funding since 2012.

This fourth round of the partnership agreement will see Santander Universities support Goldsmiths in the fields of education, employability and entrepreneurship to the value of £47,500 annually until the 2023-24 academic year.

Highlights from the last three years include: supporting 70 students (including 46 from widening participation groups) to study or work internationally as part of the Go Abroad scheme; assisting students in starting their own businesses or enterprises; and connecting students with internship opportunities that have led to employment.

One student who has benefited from the partnership is Malikah Ullah (BSc Psychology). Malikah secured funding to cover the programme fees for an internship at a non-profit centre for at-risk children at Ikamva Labantwana in Cape Town, South Africa. The internship was undertaken remotely as a result of Covid-19.

Malikah said: “Not only has working at Ikamva been rewarding, but I’ve learnt a ton. As a psychology student, the internship has given me real-life experience conducting research on sensitive subjects, including sexual violence, in order to create a final informative piece that could be communicated to young girls. This internship was the highlight of the year and allowed me to make a true, tangible difference.”

Separately from the partnership agreement, Santander Universities has awarded Goldsmiths £12,000 in the current academic year to support student employability. Santander also made additional awards in 2020 to provide support during the pandemic, with £25,000 for students or alumni who are freelancers to develop enterprise skills, and a one-off award of £25,000 for micro-internships.

Professor Frances Corner said: “We have seen the difference this support has made to hundreds of our students’ studies, lives and careers, and are delighted to continue and develop our partnership with Santander Universities. Given the considerable ongoing challenges presented by the pandemic, it’s important that we are able to call on this level of assistance to help our students work towards achieving their ambitions.”

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GREEN NEW DEAL

Goldsmiths is implementing its first Biodiversity Management Strategy

Over the past year, Goldsmiths has reached several milestones on the way to achieving its ambition of becoming a certified carbon neutral organisation by 2025. This work forms the basis of the College's commitments to a Green New Deal, following a student and staff-led campaign for immediate action on tackling the climate emergency.

In July 2020, PLAN25 was launched. This action plan defines how Goldsmiths will reduce its carbon emissions and become carbon neutral. Key targets include: • 50% reduction in carbon-intensive travel by 2025 (30% by 2023) • 50% reduction in single-use plastics by 2025 • 90% campus recycling rate by 2025 • 100% energy-efficient LED lighting by 2025 Goldsmiths has divested from fossil fuel companies, recommissioned a biomass boiler on campus, conducted a full ecological review of the estate, developed the College’s first Biodiversity Management Strategy, and launched an Environmental Enhancement action plan to better support wildlife and human health on campus.

Goldsmiths has secured external funding to upgrade more than 14,000 campus lights to LED, and we are also working on plans to upgrade building management systems.

This is in addition to previous measures that were covered in the last issue of Goldlink: removing all beef products from sale in campus food outlets, switching to a green energy supplier, and introducing an additional 10 pence levy on bottled water to discourage the purchase of single-use plastic.

Initial analysis of the College’s carbon footprint for 2019-20 suggests a significant emissions reduction in the region of 15% against the baseline established in 2018-19 — even after allowing for the change in campus use as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the summer term, the final two Green New Deal action plans will be published, outlining how curriculum and research at Goldsmiths will be leveraged to help tackle the climate emergency. A Green New Deal steering group will also be set up, featuring external membership. From the end of 2021 this group will publish an annual report that measures progress against the action plans.

You can read PLAN25 and keep up to date with the latest Green New Deal developments at gold.ac.uk/about/gnd

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News

RECOVERY PLAN

The recovery plan aims to secure a bright future for Goldsmiths

The College has launched a recovery plan to emerge stronger and more vibrant from the Covid-19 crisis, which has compounded existing financial and structural challenges and presented new problems for us to overcome. The plan aims to establish long-term resilience, enabling us to continue positively contributing to society and education on a local, national and global scale.

There are three key problems that we’re seeking to address through our recovery work: unsustainable finances; the revitalisation of teaching, learning and research; and our shape, size and structure. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a financial impact of around £10million on Goldsmiths — £6m in lost income and £4m in additional costs such as provision of safety measures and equipment. The pandemic is not yet over, and we expect our Covid-19 costs to continue to rise as we invest in measures to keep our community safe.

On top of this, the government is proposing to remove a further £2m of funding from our annual teaching grant.

This has compounded an existing financial deficit.

The first stage of the recovery plan was an Independent Business Review undertaken by KPMG. This independent perspective helped inform the focus of several internal reviews

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS HAD A FINANCIAL IMPACT OF AROUND £10MILLION ON GOLDSMITHS and workstreams that have been initiated as part of the recovery framework: an Academic Portfolio Review (to identify the activity needed to optimise, reorganise or reduce the cost of the academic programmes on offer); a Professional Services Blueprint workstream (to identify how services are currently delivered, and how this could be done more efficiently and effectively in future); and a Non-Pay and Estates workstream (a series of initiatives that will realise cost savings from non-pay activities). A Programme Management Office is overseeing the coordination and implementation of the plan.

The recovery programme is currently scheduled to last two years, ensuring that there is adequate time to review existing processes before any recommendations are made, while being mindful of time-sensitive internal and external challenges.

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EDITORS’ PICKS 1

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Goldsmiths is the delivery partner for ‘In Living Memory: A People’s History of Post-War Lewisham’, a Lewisham Borough of Culture 2022 heritage project that celebrates the area’s diversity and history. ‘In Living Memory’ will create opportunities for local people and organisations to collaborate with Goldsmiths researchers and creative practitioners to tell a striking new story of Lewisham’s recent past, which will be brought to life through bold artistic and cultural activities that will transform the borough’s public spaces throughout 2022.

Youhong ‘Friendred’ Peng from the Department of Computing won the Postgraduate Researcher Prize at Goldsmiths’ Warden’s Annual Public Engagement Awards in December 2020. Youhong’s ‘Movement and Data Embodiment’ project at a Late at Tate Britain event saw hundreds of people engage with wireless, wearable movement sensors connected to interactive lighting installations to create three exploratory works, generating a conversation on the relationship between body movements and data.

Goldsmiths Connect, the exclusive social network for Goldsmiths alumni, students and staff, has reached over 2,500 members. It is completely free to use, is accessible through any web browser, and lets you find classmates and see what they have been up to. You can also: discover alumni from every sector and expand your professional network; make introductions, or offer to mentor or employ our current and graduating students; and ask alumni for career advice or mentorship. There are currently 600 students looking for a mentor, and half of our members are seeking careers support.

3 ‘Caring for the Mind: Exploring Mental Health Provision for Black Communities in Lewisham’, a project by Design Museum Designer in Residence and alumna Cynthia Voza Lusilu, explores how design can promote positive mental health in Black British communities.

The last 12 months have caused psychological distress and deterioration in mental health for Black communities living in the UK, so Cynthia has been working with Voluntary Services Lewisham, mental health practitioners, and residents of the Borough of Lewisham to design tools for supporting and empowering Black people. Tools include an online public platform to enable Black individuals, groups and organisations to access resources for nurturing confidence, resilience and happiness; and care packages distributed to Voluntary Services Lewisham Afro-Caribbean befriendees.

Join now to offer your expertise and experience: goldsmithsconnect.co.uk

Let us know your latest email address to stay informed about all of the alumni, student and staff news from Goldsmiths: gold.ac.uk/alumni/update-details

THE HUMAN

Goldsmiths alumni have long used technology to make a positive difference to the wider world. From digital platforms that connect and empower people to tech that opens up imaginative new possibilities for human-centred art, here are some of their innovative and inspiring stories.

TECH

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Feature

SELIN YIGITBASI-DUCKER Selin Yigitbasi-Ducker graduated from the MA Design and Innovation degree in 2017. In 2018 she started Goodsted — a digital platform to collaborate for social impact. It’s a place where anyone can volunteer their skills for projects and organisations they’re passionate about, and contribute to sustainable development. The platform is also a software solution that helps organisations effectively engage stakeholders in volunteering programmes and empowers them to take action.

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During my studies at Goldsmiths, I had a chance to practise design thinking methodologies, which enabled me to learn how to research, prototype and test different ideas.

I enjoyed discussing my ideas with tutors and tapping into their knowledge and expertise — and receiving challenging questions and feedback to improve my thinking and try new perspectives. For my main project I applied my research and design skills to create a new digital platform, and this was a great experience that helped me later when starting Goodsted.

Following my Masters graduation, I began searching for skilled volunteering opportunities where I could contribute to the United Nations Global Goals. I didn’t just want to help in soup kitchens or hand out flyers — as positive as these actions are. I wanted to use my marketing, design and business skills to make the greatest impact possible. But there was no easily available source for finding these types of opportunities. This is where the idea for Goodsted was born!

Before I could conquer the challenge of developing my thoughts further, I needed to gain more insight into the struggles of social entrepreneurs and those leading community projects. One of my classmates at Goldsmiths introduced me to someone she knew in Lambeth who was looking to pilot an idea to set up a Civic Makers Craft Space. I helped this community project, gathering 15 supporters and raising £20,000-worth of in-kind support. Students from Goldsmiths also participated as volunteers for the project, and had a chance to develop their skills. Competition for funding is incredibly tough, and in-kind and skilled volunteer support presents a strong alternative resource for early-stage and growth-stage projects. Skilled supporters are hard to find, however, and it can be a challenge to enforce accountability.

These were the initial pain points I was working to address with Goodsted — and as I continued developing my ideas, I started seeing other challenges worth addressing.

By engaging with professionals and companies, I became all too aware of the struggle organisations face around engaging their people in impactful volunteering opportunities. In the UK, only 14.3% of employees take paid time off to volunteer*, even though many more have the opportunity. This represents a huge economic and human loss to the volunteering sector.

Alongside this, tracking the engagement, gathering feedback about the outcomes, and measuring impact were key

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Feature issues, as well as sourcing opportunities that were relevant to skill sets and passions. I also saw that local councils and corporate foundations struggled with the administrative burden of running volunteering and community engagement programmes. I decided to create Goodsted in such a way that it can be both a place for the public to engage with, and a software solution for organisations to run their volunteering schemes. This way we can all see our collective impact, remove silos, and form collaborations to progress shared social and environmental goals.

In 2019, I started working with a development team to build Goodsted, and carried out pilots with companies and individuals to improve our offering. In 2020, we had four organisations join us as clients, and we also raised £225,000 of seed funding to build the business further. This is when the pandemic hit. We decided to launch our beta platform to the public, free for all, with our #TackleCovid19 campaign to bring together partners and help engage skilled volunteers to support the non-profit organisations that needed assistance during this difficult time. One of our clients, Given Agency, helped create the #TimeWellSpent campaign, bringing together furloughed creative professionals to help non-profits.

Experts in storytelling, problem solving, behaviour change and marketing all responded to requests on the platform.

Our work directly impacts the mental health and wellbeing of individuals volunteering their time through Goodsted, as well as developing their soft and professional skills. We also positively affect the people responsible for managing volunteering programmes, making their jobs much less admin heavy, and allowing them to focus on the success of their programmes instead.

We’re keen to keep growing our community! So if you’d like to join Goodsted, or you know someone who might be interested, you can find out more at goodsted.com

“I WANTED TO USE MY MARKETING, DESIGN AND BUSINESS SKILLS TO MAKE THE GREATEST IMPACT POSSIBLE”

twitter.com/goodsted linkedin.com/company/goodsted * ‘Unlock Your Impact Potential’ by London Benchmarking Group, published 2017

p8: ‘Blob Opera’ by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture Left: Goodsted’s #TackleCovid19 campaign brought together organisations and skilled volunteers Above: Selin Yigitbasi-Ducker Right: Heesun Kim

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HEESUN KIM Heesun Kim graduated from Goldsmiths in 2018 with a Masters in Brands, Communication and Culture. She is the founder of Project Matata, a unique platform with two key features: a forum to bring creative communities together, and an online marketplace for exchanging second-hand materials and tools. Having lived with artists her entire university life, and with close friends forging their careers in fine art, she saw an opportunity to support the creative community and empower emerging talent.

Being an entrepreneur was never part of my plan — certainly not a tech entrepreneur, given my inexperience with technology! However, having witnessed first-hand the challenges that creative people face, and living through them vicariously, I felt the need to take action and help those close to me and the wider creative community.

In 2018, while I was at Goldsmiths, I investigated further to try and find out more about the obstacles that artists face.

I carried out a survey, the results of which were staggering yet expected. The two biggest concerns among respondents were the (in)ability to support themselves financially, and the lack of a community or network that could provide invaluable guidance to inform their creative and career-related decisions.

Finance and funding are well-documented challenges for creatives. Even though some art schools and colleges provide rent-free equipment and materials, and funds are set up to support student artists, the demand almost always outweighs the supply. Upon graduation as budding artists ready to chase their dreams, alumni are met with the harsh reality that only a very small percentage of them will be able to live off income gained entirely from their artistic endeavours. A 2018 report by Arts Council England** revealed that artists in England earned a median average income of £12,500 per year (the equivalent median average income for non-artists was £27,600). Of this, only 16% derived from their art practice. While there were various solutions in the market for artists to sell their finished work, only 47% of artists received monetary compensation through private sales according to the report.

As a lover of creativity and an appreciator of art, I wanted to solve these challenges. In the final term of my MA, I started putting into practice all the theory that I’d learned throughout my degree to find a viable solution. I produced a business plan, which in 2019 was accepted by Goldsmiths’ Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ICCE) Business Development Scheme. This granted me one of a limited number of international graduate Start-Up Visas to pursue this opportunity. As a result, I benefited greatly from the invaluable guidance and advice of Adrian De La Court, my mentor at Goldsmiths, as well as well as the opportunity to undergo a startup pre-accelerator programme conducted

by Wayra UK, one of the largest open innovation hubs in the world. In addition, I was successful in obtaining one of three spots in the Global Acceleration Program for startups managed by the UK and South Korean governments. I always knew that founding my own company would be a challenge, especially for someone who requires a visa to work in the highly competitive entrepreneurial environment. I am extremely grateful for the support and encouragement that I’ve received from ICCE and beyond.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve poured myself into picking up the fundamentals of programming to develop an online marketplace for artists to buy, sell, trade or rent pre-loved materials, tools and equipment. It will enable lenders to give back to the creative community, and sellers to earn a side income.

However, the pandemic forced a change of priorities.

I made the executive decision to shift the focus of Project Matata and to first launch it as a community-based social forum, given the increased need and desire for creatives to connect during these unprecedented times. On a Reddit-style forum, people can share advice on jobs and careers, skills and services, and even support each other with open calls and funding bids. On a more personal level, it provides users with a place of refuge to have open and honest conversations about any issues and concerns within the safe space of a creative community that understands what they’re going through.

I defined the services that the platform could offer while placing focus on the changes in the lives of creatives during the pandemic. I reached out to 32 artists, art mentors and students to create content for the forum and to lead some online skills workshops.

Beta testing for the community forum was completed in 2020, and it is now ready for launch. As the platform matures, more sessions and events will be held to support and bring together the community.

I can still clearly remember the moment I made my business pitch in front of my potential mentors from ICCE in 2019. The passion and nervousness from back then continues to be a major driving force for me on this tremendously challenging but rewarding journey. I find myself constantly inspired by the amazing entrepreneurial spirit in ICCE, and supported and encouraged by my mentor Adrian, who has always provided genuine advice and insightful guidance throughout.

Project Matata has a sole purpose — to bring inspiration and innovation to catalyse freedom of creativity. It is my biggest hope that this is achieved. I am excited for people to use the platform, and for them to feel empowered to pursue their careers in the creative industries. Project Matata — for creatives, by creatives. projectmatata.com instagram.com/projectmatata_ ** ‘Livelihoods of Visual Artists: 2016 Data Report’, published December 2018

Feature

MARK H. GEARY Mark H. Geary finished his MA Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship in 2015. Since then he has worked in VR with the immersive art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast [see page 2] and is currently employed at Google Arts & Culture Lab as a creative project manager experimenting with new art forms.

In his personal time he is also a practising sound artist who creates immersive research concerts.

Much of my work focuses on exploring ways to innovate with art, drawing on its vast potential to inspire change, help us learn, or even overcome anxieties. Art has been proven to evoke positive psychological and physiological benefits, but more needs to be done to foster this invaluable resource, especially at a time when our connection to it is being constrained due to Covid-19. I believe that the answer lies in rethinking traditional ways of creating and experiencing art, to make it more accessible and meaningful.

I began realising art’s power to change people’s mood when I worked as a chef. I noticed a primal experience where certain foods and environments made people react in different ways.

When I shifted my studies to sound arts I found the same was true: in the presence of certain listening situations, people could change their mindsets and even experience altered states.

My time at Goldsmiths on the MA was spent considering: what is it about these experiences that allows people to shift their perception, and can art be reverse engineered to help people?

My course leaders encouraged me to think about how something I created could manifest as a sustainable company, and whether it fit into an existing industry or innovated as something new.

Most importantly, I was taught to consider the implications it would have on people from different cultures. These important questions constantly resurface in my work even today.

I looked to tech companies for answers and found that some build online experiences from the ground up, conducting research on user interactions and feeding their results into new solutions. Understanding how a user will act on their platforms allows them to shape your behaviour, often to buy more and think less, without considering how this might be to your detriment.

Curious to see if this process could be applied with positive intentions, I researched a confounding listening experiment that has existed since the 1970s, where people came together to sleep while listening to music. It inspired my project ‘Soporose’, a concert to investigate if music can help people with sleep anxieties. This environment employed research into colour psychology, sleep sensory perception, and group behaviour psychology. It was conducted as a social experiment directed by Goldsmiths alumna and data scientist Tabitha Trahan. We used technologies to track users’ sleep before, during and after the event, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of the experience.

After graduating I became interested in the role technology can play in art creation. I started working with the experiential collective Marshmallow Laser Feast as a production manager on ‘Treehugger: Wawona’ — an immersive VR experience that takes you on a journey from the roots to the canopy of a giant Sequoia tree as it absorbs water. You can see psychedelic abstractions made from lidar scans of an actual tree, and interact with

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the water using your hands. The music you hear was created from sonified biosignals, and you feel the tree pulsing with a vibrational pack while puffs of curated scents are distributed as your journey unfolds. While touring this installation for three years I witnessed countless people finish the experience with glossy eyes and a deeper emotional connection to these living giants. It’s hard to imagine this effect would be possible without using advanced immersive technologies and a keen creative vision. Marshmallow Laser Feast’s work can serve as a prime example of how pushing art into innovative realms can help us find meaning and inspire change.

In 2019 I began my role at Google, in a department that makes art and culture more accessible to people around the world. I work in the Lab, where art and tech communities collaborate on experimental art.

One example is ‘Play a Kandinsky’, an online interactive experience that invites you to listen to what Wassily Kandinsky might have heard when painting ‘Yellow-Red-Blue’ in 1925. It brings to life his extensive theories and writings on synaesthesia (a neurological condition whereby someone experiences things through their senses in a non-typical way — for example, by hearing a colour or seeing a sound) and abstract art by using machine learning in collaboration with sound artists Antoine Bertin and NSDOS. Although we will never know exactly how Kandinsky experienced the world, using technology in a creative way can help us expand our imagination to understand his art better.

When Covid-19 hit, we shifted our focus to projects connected to the pandemic. This included a collaboration with Serpentine Galleries that used our online editorial and app to share ‘do its’ — simple instructions created by artists that explained how to make artworks at home. Another project is ‘Blob Opera’, a voice synthesis experiment by David Li that uses machine learning to allow anyone to play opera voices.

Experimenting with this instrument is incredibly fun because it playfully guides people to learn more about the voice and music. In these cases, technology was used as a fast-acting tool to connect people online while providing some respite from the global rolling lockdowns.

While these examples make the case for how essential technology and research are for the future of art, they’re not without their limitations. As technology becomes ubiquitous and is used for monetary gain, it loses the human component and puts stresses on our wellbeing. Research can provide strong foundational understandings to work from, but it moves at a slow pace and can be difficult to communicate.

Art’s potential lies in the ability to incorporate these tools in a novel way, providing a safe space where we can mould conversations into something relevant and propose radical solutions to critical issues we might face.

The questions from my time at Goldsmiths arise here as well. We must investigate the human impact of the things we’re creating and explore how they can be used to innovate.

Covid-19, although devastating on every level, should be considered a unique moment that we now seize. When the tools we have are focused on human growth, knowledge and health, they provide us with powerful opportunities for change ○ linktr.ee/EightFoldWay

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“PUSHING ART INTO INNOVATIVE REALMS CAN HELP US FIND MEANING AND INSPIRE CHANGE”

Above: Mark H. Geary Right: A still from the ‘Treehugger: Wawona’ immersive VR experience

by Marshmallow Laser Feast

SPOT LIGHT Alumni achievements

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15 Goldsmiths alumni make a positive impact on society, inspiring passion and creativity. They include leaders in the creative industries, pioneers in teaching and social work, and renowned artists, musicians and filmmakers.

They are recognised for making their mark on every imaginable field, and throughout the year they win awards, receive nominations and are selected for prestigious positions. Here are some of their recent achievements: Art Sang-jin Kim Shortlist: Korea Artist Prize 2021 Michael Landy Honour: CBE for services to art

Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship David Blake Award: Black British Theatre Awards for Best Teacher of Performing Arts as a Subject 2020 Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Nooreen Lallmamode Award: Professional Achievement Award for Study UK Alumni Awards 2021 Music Robin Haigh Award: Ivor Novello Award in the Chamber Orchestral category 2020

Ingrid Persaud Award: Costa Book Award for First Novel 2020

Theatre and Performance

Computing

Kandace Siobhan Walker Award: White Review Poet’s Prize 2020

Clemence Debaig Honour: BIMA 100 — recognising the UK’s most influential people in digital and tech

Desta Haile Award: Afritondo Short Story Prize 2021

Prentice Whitlow Honour: BIMA 100 — recognising the UK’s most influential people in digital and tech Educational Studies Raymond Antrobus Honour: MBE for services to literature English and Creative Writing Susannah Dickey Longlist: The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2021 Andrea Mason Shortlist: Manchester Writing Competition 2020 Award: Aleph Writing Prize 2020 Sophie Ward Longlist: Booker Prize 2020

Professor Daniel Kelly PhD Sociology, 2002 Honour: OBE Professor Daniel Kelly has received an OBE for services to cancer care research and education both nationally and internationally. He is currently the Royal College of Nursing Chair of Nursing Research at Cardiff University and has worked in cancer care research, education and practice roles throughout his career. His research has focused on the impact and experience of illness, as well as the future potential of nursing and associated NHS workforce issues.

Showcase

DEGREE SHOWS 2021 End-of-year degree shows are a Goldsmiths tradition — a way to celebrate the amazing work of graduating students and a fitting culmination of their studies.

In 2021, final-year students from across Goldsmiths are responding creatively to these challenging times, with work and exhibitions moving online in many cases. The benefit of this is that regardless of where you are in the world, you can enjoy the degree show experience from the comfort of your home.

The shows will feature work from undergraduate and postgraduate students, studying subjects as diverse as art, design and music to art psychotherapy, children’s illustration, and theatre and performance.

We’ll be announcing degree shows on a rolling basis over the coming months. Many will take place in the summer, with some postgraduate events due to happen in September. Where possible, some physical shows may take place on campus (subject to the latest public health guidance).

You can find the latest information at gold.ac.uk/degree-shows

Right: ‘Archive/Vessels/ Modern Relics/Seasonal Observations’ by May Hands @ MFA Fine Art 2020 Degree Show | Image © Ivan Coleman

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S M L A RE OF T I L I B I S S PO Feature

s hat help t y t i l a e rtual r virus to 9 1 From vi d i v o owers the C p e s i m l e a t u a s th vi earning ers and l e n i h c op ma nt devel he e d n e p e n t ind demics i ting are a c a , s t s u arti of Comp of what t n e m t r Depa daries n u o b e h t pushing ologies can do. hn these tec

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Feature Twenty years ago the realms of virtual reality and artificial intelligence were the reserve of science fiction and ‘out there’ academic research. But staff at Goldsmiths have been at the forefront of these exciting fields from the beginning.

As computational power has increased, and with hardware becoming more affordable, our academics have made big technological and creative leaps that have real-world applications. Bringing together staff with backgrounds in computing, mathematics, art and neuroscience, a Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence research group facilitates these developments.

What is virtual reality (VR)?

“Virtual reality is an immersive experience that’s fantastic for storytelling,” explains Dr Marco Gillies, who leads a research project within the group. “It involves someone putting on a headset to get visual and audio inputs that completely surround them in a virtual world.” It’s an active experience: participants can move around and interact with the environment and characters within it. “Everything responds to your movement as if it were the real world, and behaviour within it is realistic,” says Marco. “VR combines technology, human psychology and also creative work — it’s a very interdisciplinary field, and that’s what makes it exciting.”

Up until 2018, experiencing VR would have required an expensive headset like Oculus Rift or HTC VIVE, as well as a high-end computer to run them on. Today, something like the off-the-shelf Oculus Quest is priced comparably to a games console, and it’s all you need to get started. “This is a real game-changer that’s going to make VR a lot bigger,” says Marco.

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

“AI emerged as a discipline in the 1950s, encompassing the study of computational systems to better understand and reproduce (human) intelligent faculties, such as reasoning, learning, language and art,” explains Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie, whose work specialises in creativity and AI systems.

One recent facet of AI that is being actively developed is machine learning, which provides a computational set of approaches to carrying out a task. At a simple level, it’s where a computer learns to do something from examples, rather than having to be explicitly programmed. “These systems aren’t necessarily based on mimicking or understanding human cognition,” says Frederic. “Many are purely computational in spirit, and do not fit the original objective of AI.” Marco agrees: “Machine learning is very different from the AI of science fiction: even the most advanced deep learning algorithm is basically just a big statistical number cruncher.”

Professor William Latham, whose work harnesses VR for artistic practice and scientific exploration, explains the concept further: “The key to machine learning is — first of all — collecting a huge amount of training data, with text labelling on each data item. The data is then combined with algorithmic filters to form a live statistical software model that can make automatic predictions or identifications when shown new unlabelled data without being told what to do.”

Machine learning can be applied to VR, enabling the creation of more immersive experiences — by generating complex worlds, sensing the subtleties of body movements, and allowing us to interact with realistic, human-like characters.

“MACHINE LEARNING IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE AI OF SCIENCE FICTION”

p18: Photo by Sound On from Pexels Above: A view inside the Mutator VR experience | Artist: William Latham | Software: Stephen Todd, Peter Todd and Lance Putnam

21 The results suggest this new VR approach could provide an effective method of training doctors in sensitive areas such as paediatrics and mental health, where they can repeat and learn from interactions without feeling inhibited or worried about their impact on human actors.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Making real life better “VR is a very powerful medium, and when I started working in the field some 16 years ago, it was really about finding ways to use this new technology to make real life better,” explains Dr Sylvia Xueni Pan, who specialises in VR’s application in cognitive neuroscience, social interactions and education.

“My PhD was about using VR for psychotherapy for social anxiety, and more recently I’ve been developing VR scenarios where we can train medical doctors to improve the way they communicate with patients.”

This has led to a recent collaboration with University College London and the University of Birmingham, where VR has been used in a training and research capacity to assess the extent to which GPs can identify and act on safeguarding concerns relating to child patients. “An advantage of this approach is that, unlike with actors, we have absolute control over our virtual characters,” explains Sylvia. “This means we can subtly alter the behaviour and reactions of these virtual patients, and observe GPs’ responses accordingly.”

The study found that trainee GPs were just as likely to take note of warning signs as their experienced counterparts, but that GPs who were stressed or scored higher for ‘neuroticism’ were more likely to miss these signs. “One possible explanation for this is that doctors with better ‘people skills’ found the simulated consultations less mentally challenging, and so were able to focus more of their attention on the virtual child patient,” says Sylvia.

Machine learning that empowers independent developers and artists September this year will see the culmination of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project ‘4i immersive interaction design for indie developers with interactive machine learning’, led by Dr Marco Gillies.

“VR experiences need content — the places, environments, objects and characters that make up the virtual world,” explains Marco. “Most of the time this content is made by human beings, by hand. But increasingly we’re looking at environments where this is generated by computers. And because this is something that can save a huge amount of time for human content creators, it means that small, independent studios can get more involve in creating huge VR environments.” This provides an opportunity to bring more diversity and creativity to the games industry.

One thing that is key to the authenticity of a virtual experience is realistic body language. “Human movement is very complex: we know how to move and interact with the world, but we do a lot of it subconsciously,” says Marco. “That means it’s incredibly difficult to code something to accurately convey these movements. So instead we can use machine learning AI to recognise different examples of movement, and generate them realistically within a virtual experience.”

During the project, developers and artists have been able to design and implement this kind of movement-based interaction within the actual immersive environment, as opposed to on a computer. This can be done by using the motion capture functionality of the VR kit itself. Examples of movement are used as input, and a machine learning algorithm then starts to recognise them. It’s an iterative process, with the learning being refined as more input is amassed.

Marco is passionate about machine learning’s place in the contemporary games industry. “It’s time to start using it. We’re in a moment where it can be rolled out to the production processes of games companies, and become state of the art.”

Interactive visualisations in biomolecular science Over the past five years, Professor William Latham has collaborated with computer researcher Dr Lance Putnam and Visiting Professor Stephen Todd to engineer Mutator VR: art technology that uses complex genetic algorithms to create novel, biologically inspired immersive experiences.

During this period, William has also worked alongside Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie to develop the Mutator VR engine (MVR) so that it can be extended to visualise molecular structures. They have collaborated with the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University (along with Stephen and Goldsmiths alumnus Peter Todd) to create the CSynth software, which has broken new ground in allowing scientists to visualise, interact with, and gain deeper understanding of the 3D structures inside DNA. The software — publicly available via open access — integrates data from genome sequencing and computer modelling, presenting it in an engaging way using game technology.

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Feature More recently, their new MVR CSynth Virus Explorer has made it possible for scientists and the public to better understand the underlying geometry of the Covid-19 virus.

“Users can immerse themselves in the virus, meaning that scientists can navigate around the molecular structures to gain a clearer understanding of the biology and spatial relationship between key components,” explains William. “They can then refresh their data in real time, using constraints and filters to enhance their view of that scene and potentially spot anomalies or elements that may be of interest or concern.”

The team is currently bidding for additional funding to pursue developments in this area.

PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE With VR technology becoming more affordable and easier to use, our academics expect to see continuous growth in applications. “VR will be increasingly adopted by home users to deliver music and meditative experiences that people can share from any part of the world,” predicts William. “We hope that Mutator VR will be one of those experiences.”

Sylvia expects that the biggest room for improvement in the next five years will be in 3D interaction. “I anticipate seeing both new software and hardware being released. I really look forward to playing with those new 3D interaction devices!” For Frederic, the main impact could come from the development of new haptics systems. “The sense of touch remains missing from most VR experiences,” he explains, “and this is key to making them more immersive and useful.”

“That’s one of the exciting things about working at a research university,” says Marco. “You’re involved in projects that really push boundaries. They might not be ready for mass take-up yet, but in a few years they can become the hot new thing.” ○

Dr Marco Gillies Marco’s research centres on how we can create technologies that work with embodied, tacit human knowledge.

Professor William Latham William is a computer games designer and computer artist famous for his pioneering Organic Art software in the late 1980s, and more recently for harnessing VR to artistic and scientific ends.

You can find out more about some of the topics in this feature at: gold.ac.uk/computing/research | mutatorvr.co.uk | csynth.org The Department of Computing runs the MA/MSc Virtual and Augmented Reality (gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-msc-virtual-augmentedreality) as well as a MOOC (massive open online course) in VR via Coursera (coursera.org/specializations/virtual-reality) Professor Frederic Fol Leymarie Frederic is a leading computer scientist working on creativity and AI systems, and collaborative VR systems for the biosciences.

Dr Sylvia Xueni Pan Sylvia has extensive experience working in VR, researching associated tech and social neuroscience.

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A day in the life

HABIBA YOUSSEF

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A day in the life

Are you ever curious about the kind of careers our alumni move into, or the day-to-day practices of people in different industries? ‘A day in the life’ follows alumni during a typical working day, and gives you an insight into the varied careers of the Goldsmiths community.

Habiba Youssef is a creative technologist at Vungle, one of the leading mobile advertising companies in the digital space. She graduated from the MA Computer Games Art and Design with a distinction in 2019, and went on to pursue a career in mobile game advertising.

Creative technologist roles vary across different organisations, but are often undertaken by technology-focused professionals who also understand the creative process, using these combined skills to solve problems and deliver userfocused solutions.

Habiba works on creating interactive playable adverts that allow users to try a game before downloading the application. These ads merge engagement and interactivity, using the core game mechanics to facilitate rapid consumer engagement and influence behaviour. Users prefer these adverts over static ones as they deliver a multisensory experience using sound, motion, touch and sight.

07.00

We have a Slack channel called Vungle Harriers, which is a runners’ group that was set up to motivate the team to keep fit both physically and mentally during the lockdown period. The group has had a significant influence on my daily routine: I’ve been going on 5k morning runs ever since joining. Every few weeks after a run, I share a screenshot of my route, time and distance to keep track of my performance alongside that of the other members.

Post-run, I take a warm shower, get dressed, and make my way to the kitchen to prepare my favourite breakfast meal: mixed fruits with oats, and a cup of tea.

To keep myself entertained while eating my oat bowl, I have a peek at my emails and mentally plan the tasks ahead for the first few hours of the day. Other times, I join early optional breakfast meetings (out of hours) to catch up and sync with colleagues. Prior to the pandemic, I would finish breakfast and start commuting to the office in Farringdon.

However, since we’ve shifted to remote working I now have a spare 30 minutes every morning.

12.00

After completing the aforementioned administrative tasks, I set to work on a new project. Vungle collaborates with over 60,000 mobile app publishers globally, with brands including Rovio, Zynga, Pandora, Microsoft and Scopely.

Tasks are far from mundane and every day brings a new challenge, because the mobile gaming scene has such a high demand for interactive adverts.

Before producing an ad for a client, I gather information from existing competitor ad-units on the network, play the game and get to understand the core mechanics, and read reviews on the app store to derive data regarding player preferences. These findings are then applied to the storyboarding process, using Adobe Photoshop to digitally draft a frame-by-frame visual of how the experience will flow. Once the storyboard is complete, I compile a presentation to highlight details that will assist developers in visualising the end product. Finally, I prepare or design the images, animations and sounds required for the project before sending it off to the developers.

09.30

It’s time to join the standup meeting with the interactive team, where we discuss each individual’s weekly tasks.

This is also the ideal time to highlight any blockers we could be facing on projects we’ve been assigned. On such occasions, we brainstorm potential solutions together to attempt to resolve the issue. After the standup, I follow up on notifications and ticket statuses on the Kanban board [an agile project management tool] where all projects are assigned. Account managers leave comments on these tickets highlighting requirements and requests from clients, while developers usually enquire about specifics relating to the storyboards that I construct.

p23: © Christian Sinibaldi With thanks to Electric Gamebox (Southbank London) for the photography venue electricgamebox.com Above: One of the interactive playable adverts that Habiba works on

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After work, the office holds digital yoga sessions to keep the team feeling connected and motivated. I finally manage to hold myself in Crow Pose for a few seconds, before landing straight onto my face. My skill level has definitely improved since joining these classes, and I’ve become more flexible and less tense.

14.00

As a creative technologist, I’m actively working on multiple projects for different game titles simultaneously.

Publishers are constantly launching new titles or are on the search for innovative ways to refresh their existing ones. This means that deadlines are critical. To ensure that all tasks being assigned to developers are constantly on track, the interactive team hosts a developer sync to review estimated delivery dates and accentuate project details. During these syncs, I record the topics discussed and highlight upcoming tasks.

16.00

Sometimes a project is added into the pipeline with critical priority, with a fast-approaching deadline. In such cases, I use an ad template (an existing ad-unit) to help speed up development time. By exchanging the assets (images, sounds, animations, fonts) and adjusting the existing code found on scripts in the project file, an interactive ad can be produced in roughly an hour.

By contrast, developing a unit from scratch can take approximately two weeks of development time, followed by rounds of feedback for polishing, creative testing and client approval.

17.00

I spend the last hour of the working day analysing competitor approaches to determine alternative methods of boosting engagement. In addition, I navigate specific tools provided by the sales team to pinpoint opportunities when client spend increases, and then communicate my findings to the team via Slack.

21.00

By this time I’m guaranteed to be either on the sofa or in bed, FaceTiming my family back in Egypt. Once the call is over, I try to limit screen time before bed to improve my sleep quality. I pick up a book, read a few pages and drift off to sleep, in preparation for a new day ○

TECH TALK Feature

Students are often at the forefront of technology — whether using, developing or inventing it.

We hear how several of them have harnessed software, social platforms and online experiences to enhance connection and community.

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FROM THE HATCH LABS TO THE TECH WORLD Hadeel Ayoub is a PhD student in the Department of Computing who has designed and developed a smart glove that translates sign language to spoken language. Her original research has spawned a successful start-up, BrightSign Technology Ltd, of which she is the founder and Chief Technology Officer. Her invention has enabled millions of people to communicate independently, fulfilling her dream.

I’m currently finishing my PhD in Arts and Computational Technology at Goldsmiths. Having been here for almost seven years, it’s hard to believe that my journey is coming to an end.

Looking back at how it started and where I am now, I can say that I have changed paths so many times based on the support I’ve received and the people I’ve met, on campus and through the university network.

I originally came to Goldsmiths from a design background, and studied a Masters in Computational Arts. After finding a new passion for technology I stayed on to do a PhD in the Computing Department.

The turning point came in 2016 when I participated in IBM’s global hackathon in Seoul, South Korea, the theme of which was ‘Artificial Intelligence for Social Care’. For my Masters graduation project I had designed, built and programmed a smart glove, which could translate American Sign Language to English text and speech. I developed it further for the hackathon, and presented an enhanced version that was able to translate custom sign language to text and speech, in many languages and in real time.

The Goldsmiths team won the grand prize, and news of a ‘talking glove’ went viral. I received numerous enquiries from families expressing a need for this type of communication technology, so I decided to pursue a research degree to expand on that.

I focused my PhD on gesture recognition and placed the user at the centre of the design cycle. I developed 11 working prototypes at the Hatch Lab facilities in the Computing Department, and collaborated with special educational needs schools to test them. The final glove had an accuracy rate of 99%, a result never achieved before in data glove translations of sign language. The local council expressed an interest in purchasing some of the gloves and so I founded my company, BrightSign, to manufacture them to a commercial standard.

As an academic turned entrepreneur, I searched for support available to help me enter the business world. Goldsmiths provided me with one-to-one coaching sessions through the Dek Growth Programme, which focused on mentorship in targeted areas like marketing strategies and securing investment. The Goldsmiths Careers Service encouraged me to apply for the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards and The Mayor’s Entrepreneur Competition. Through them,

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Feature I received continuous business support and was offered free office space, in addition to funding to hire interns.

I launched the BrightSign Glove soon after: the first ever smart glove that can translate any form of sign language to any spoken language — in multiple voices, too. BrightSign uses a (now patented) machine learning algorithm to learn from each user’s individual gestures, and is paired with an app to give the user control over the output.

I have since partnered with assistive technology providers in education, and together we have introduced BrightSign in classrooms all over the UK. Students have reported enjoying a more independent communication experience, are performing better at school, and feel more connected at home.

It has always been my dream to give a voice to everyone, everywhere. I’m grateful that I’ve had access to the support I needed to build, test and eventually commercialise the technology to enable that.

If there is anyone you know who could benefit from BrightSign technology, you can find out more at brightsignglove.com

GETTING CREATIVE TO STAY CONNECTED Alongside studying for their Masters degrees, Chloé FrançoisNienaber and Linda Cipoloni are Resident Experience Coordinators (RECs) who work for the Accommodation Services team, running social activities to foster a sense of community among Goldsmiths halls residents. This year they’ve embraced technology to help students stay connected to the College and each other.

As RECs we want to make sure that we create a safe, comfortable and enjoyable environment for everyone living in halls. We put on events, and students can also easily approach us to talk about any personal issues or difficulties they might be experiencing. We both did our undergraduate degrees at Goldsmiths and lived in halls, so we can really relate to them.

We are students, helping out other students.

Prior to the pandemic we mostly ran events in person.

Anything involving free food was always popular! There were pizza parties, breakfast get-togethers, and events themed around occasions like Christmas and Diwali. We’d often team up with societies in the Students’ Union like the Knitting Society or the Jazz Improvisation group, and we’ve organised art exhibitions where students have showcased their work.

There were also regular charity events to raise money around something social. The aim was to get people mixing together so they could connect and hopefully make friends, although there were also a lot of activities that involved watching a movie or doing crafts — things that were less about mingling and more about doing something with your time if you were bored.

Covid-19 arriving meant that we really needed to expand our online presence, which barely existed before. We’ve created a website where residents can get to know us and find out about upcoming events, most of which have been virtual because of the various lockdowns and social distancing measures. It’s meant that we’ve had to be more creative, arranging things

like a game night using mobile app Houseparty, a macaron workshop held on Zoom, a competition encouraging students to decorate their rooms, and an outdoor Easter egg hunt.

We’ve also promoted and held events on our Instagram account, and have shared studying techniques and regular self-care content. We have a YouTube channel featuring videos that encourage students to learn about journaling, different languages, or new recipes. We try and do a mix to appeal to lots of people.

Student life isn’t always easy, and we hope that the work we do can help residents navigate their own university journeys in the best way. The whole pandemic has led to lots of people feeling isolated, and so we want to do as much as we can to connect everyone living in halls and remind them that they are part of something bigger that’s there to support them. goldreslife.com instagram.com/goldreslife

“THE WHOLE PANDEMIC HAS LED TO LOTS OF PEOPLE FEELING ISOLATED, AND SO WE WANT TO DO AS MUCH AS WE CAN TO CONNECT EVERYONE” p27: The BrightSign Glove translates sign language to spoken language Above: Linda Cipoloni and Chloé François-Nienaber © Julia Schönstädt Right: Warzone tournament, part of the recent Hacksmiths games tournament

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HACKING THE PANDEMIC Jannat Faisal is the Treasurer of student-run tech society, Hacksmiths. The society’s mission is to enable people to learn about, and play with, technology. During the pandemic the focus has been on reimagining their physical events to work in an online space, and on nurturing their community.

Some people might assume that a tech society is only for people who do computing, but we welcome everyone, and our society is filled with lovely people from many different backgrounds. The pandemic has been hard for everyone, students and staff alike, and so for the past year our aim has been (and continues to be) to keep everyone entertained through various Hacksmiths events.

Since October, our new committee members have arranged numerous online icebreakers and talks covering subjects from connection in the digital age through to disinformation and technology in the UK’s 2019 General Election. There was also a Global Game Jam at the end of January, and more recently an awesome game tournament that I organised at the end of the spring term.

The tournament featured a prize of €1,000 (€500 for each game), provided by Kafu Games, a platform that hosts Esports competitions. The event was free of charge and took place online over the course of a weekend to make sure lectures and uni assignments didn’t stop people from attending, as the aim was for everyone to have fun and enjoy themselves in spite of the challenges they have faced over the past year. We’re looking forward to collaborating with Kafu Games again in the future.

We regularly post on Instagram and make use of hashtags to promote events, and try to get the word out to as many people as possible. We welcome people from outside Goldsmiths too, as we’re keen to grow our tech community. People can connect

via our Hacksmiths Discord server — somewhere they can chat online and ask for advice. They can also help us if they are interested in volunteering. Hacksmiths has always supported communities via social media and the events that we organise, and we are committed to influencing others positively.

We believe technology is vitally important as it allows us to communicate with people and make connections. Due to the pandemic, technology has almost taken on the role of a best friend, allowing us to stay in touch with people and continue our lives without affecting work and study too much.

It’s obviously different communicating this way to being with someone in person, but it has given us a lot of support, from mental health and wellbeing assistance through to online shopping! However we also understand the importance of taking a break from technology from time to time ○ You can find out more about Hacksmiths through our social media accounts and via email: https://linktr.ee/HacksmithsGold hacksmiths@goldsmithssu.org

“WE’RE KEEN TO GROW OUR TECH COMMUNITY”

PLAY AN

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ACTIVE ROLE IN OUR Illustration: James Graham

GLOBAL

31 Being a volunteer is one of the most rewarding ways that you can get involved with Goldsmiths after your studies. From enriching the experience of current students to keeping our networks connected, alumni have enhanced every sphere of university life — on campus, and beyond.

As alumni, you are examples of the potential, influence and reach that our students can achieve when they go out into the world. You are in a position to make a lasting impact, and to ensure our community continues to thrive.

This year has been no exception, with opportunities to inspire the next generation of students, share expertise and stay connected moving online, enabling alumni to ‘return’ to campus regardless of their location.

We have many ongoing and upcoming opportunities for you to get involved, so you have plenty of choice when deciding on the type of volunteering that’s most important to you. Every contribution of your time and expertise is welcome and valued.

Opportunities

CONNECT AND INSPIRE ALUMNI WORLDWIDE ENRICH THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE You could: • Become a speaker or panellist and share your journey since leaving Goldsmiths. From applying for jobs to changing sectors, you have a wealth of experience that can help provide current students with practical advice for their future.

• Mentor students and empower them to expand their skills, experience and professional network through the Goldsmiths Mentoring Scheme.

• Share your story with prospective Goldsmiths students and inspire the next generation.

• Provide work placements and offer students practical and real-world industry experience.

• Advocate for Goldsmiths by providing advisory, governance or policyfocused support.

Whatever time you can spare, from 15 minutes to 10 hours over a six-month period, you can make a difference.

Express your interest and let us know how you’d like to get involved: gold.ac.uk/alumni/volunteer/form

COMMUNITY

Another way you can provide support is by organising an alumni event or activity for our volunteer-led event series, Around the World in 7 Days, helping to connect our global network and fostering a sense of community among former Goldsmiths students.

Around the World did not go ahead as planned in 2020, and the Development and Alumni Office has taken this break to ensure that the series can take place in 2021.

So, in October, Around the World is moving online to become a truly international series, allowing all alumni to attend all gatherings no matter where they are. It will be reimagined as a weeklong festival in which alumni exchange knowledge, showcase their work, and virtually visit each other across the globe. We’ll be asking you to invite fellow alumni to your country to share what makes it unique — including the food, history, politics and culture.

If you are interested in organising an activity for Around the World 2021, find out more at gold.ac.uk/alumni/ aroundtheworld

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Announcement

STUDENT SUPPORT APPEAL The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the finances of individual students. Those struggling most are the students without family support or who rely on earned income to finance their journey through university.

Sectors such as retail and hospitality have traditionally provided part-time work opportunities for students, however they have been heavily affected by the pandemic. Many students cannot earn a regular wage. The level of demand for Hardship Fund grants at Goldsmiths this academic year is up by 60% compared to last year.

Some students are barely managing to cope financially and are in urgent need of additional support. Vulnerable or disabled students need financial support with housing, living costs, specialist equipment, and assistive technology.

These financial strains have a knock-on effect on students’ wellbeing, and many are experiencing emotional difficulties.

This is compounded by university life having been far from normal.

Goldsmiths has seen higher levels of demand for mental health services, to help students manage issues such as feelings of isolation or anxiety.

Funding is required to enable students to remain at university and thrive in their academic studies. This is why Goldsmiths is reaching out to alumni and friends to ask for a donation to the Student Support Appeal.

Any amount you can contribute to support those students going through financial and emotional struggles will be hugely appreciated.

We are extremely grateful for the kindness and generosity of our community of alumni and friends.

Your donation to the Student Support Appeal will be used to help students facing extraordinary financial and emotional challenges: • £20 could provide emergency groceries for a student facing hunger • £50 could help provide a student with mental health support • £100 could provide an Emergency Support Fund grant to a vulnerable student in crisis to cover essential living costs or child-related costs like clothing or nappies • £300 could provide a student with a grant to purchase a laptop • £1,000 could provide a Student Hardship Fund grant to help a student who has lost their part-time work and risks homelessness to pay their rent arrears • £3,000 could provide an award or bursary for a student otherwise unable to continue with their degree without additional financial support

“The student loan wasn’t enough to cover rent and food. I thought I could focus on my acting to get enough work to survive. But when that dried up during the pandemic I didn’t have anything. There was no work and my mum didn’t have any money to help me. I have learning difficulties and my mental health began to spiral. Being able to apply for and get the Hardship Fund grant meant that I was able to look after myself a lot better, and prioritise what was important — and that was my mental health and food. It settled my added stresses and anxieties and helped me feel like I could keep going.”

Pearse Egan Second-year student, BA English with Creative Writing

“In the past year students have faced some major hurdles while learning at home, like isolation or mental health problems. Students with learning challenges like autism, students who are parents, or students who are care leavers are among those who have really struggled. A lot of disabled students have had their finances cut. Students are very proud, so often they wait until they are really desperate before they ask for help. So part of our job as academics over the last year has been looking to identify students who may need additional support. We don’t want a world that is prohibitive to those who don’t have money. We want a world where there is education for all.

We want a world where everyone who comes to Goldsmiths has an equal chance.”

Dr James Ohene-Djan Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader Department of Computing

James and Pearse have made a short film explaining how students have been affected over the past year. You can watch the video, find out more about the appeal, and make a donation at explore.gold/student-support-appeal

51 Find out more about the Student Support Appeal and make a donation at explore.gold/student-support-appeal