Oliver Mag Gingrich

Dr Oliver Mag Gingrich MA Fine Arts, EngD

Programme Lead BA (Hons) Animation

Dr. Oliver Gingrich is the programme lead for the BA (Hons) Animation at the School of Design, University of Greenwich, a media arts practitioner and researcher.

With an Engineering Doctorate in Digital Media, and 15 years of professional practice in the Creative Industries as Creative Director and Art Director, Olive's practice centres around holographic projection, real-time animation and participatory art: As holder of an AHRC-research grant for participatory media arts and its effect on social connectedness and public health, Dr. Oliver Gingrich is exploring intersection between co-creation practices, art and wellbeing. As Director at Art in Flux, Olive supports underrepresented artist groups within the media arts.

At the University of Greenwich, Olive's role is within teaching as senior lecturer across all three cohorts, research and creative practice. Olive Gingrich is academic conduct officer and forms part of the ECR research network.

Responsibilities within the university

  • Programme Lead BA (Hons) Animation
  • Senior Lecturer Animation
  • Academic Conduct Officer

Awards

  • 2022 AHRC ECR Research Grant
  • Arts Council Project Grants (Art in Flux 2020 - 2023)
  • Arts Council Project Grants (Analalema Group, 2014, 2016, 2019)
  • Nominated for the Lumen Art Prize 2020

Recognition

  • HEA accreditation
  • ACM Siggraph Arts Papers Committee
  • EVA London Conference Committee

Research / Scholarly interests

  • Participatory Art
  • Media Art & Public Health
  • Real-time visualisations
  • NeuroArt
  • Presence

AHRC funded ECR research p_ART_icipate research (ongoing) 2022 - 2024:

p_ART_icipate, an AHRC - Early Careers research project, investigates the potential for participatory art to promote and foster social inclusion, social connectedness and wellbeing for the public remotely. Based on existing practice-based research on the impact of immersive, collaborative art engagements, this research project is anchored in a wider discourse around the cultural and societal impact of participatory arts within the Arts and Humanities. In the context of Covid-19, we are facing an urgent need to mitigate health and societal implications such as social isolation, loneliness and sensory deprivation. This research examines how innovative art and technology can encourage social connectedness online, through collaborative, multi-sensory art strategies. In collaboration with experts in Arts & Health and Arts Therapy (CNWL NHS Foundation Trust, Brunel University), p_ART_icipate offers immediate use cases for participatory arts in a public health context, resulting in guidelines for artistic practitioners and healthcare professionals. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of collaborative online digital art interventions to help individuals affected by social isolation, whether in a private or professional context

AHRC-funded research project ArtOp - led by Doctor Paula Callus 2021 - 2022

Still and moving images have historically played a key part in the articulation (visually and textually) of political ideas and have constructed positionings and discourses on the politics of elections. ArtoP sets out to capture these articulations through the images produced by Nigerian artists (and respective creative industries) at a critical time around the Nigerian presidential elections in February 2019.

As a multi-sited research project, ArtoP will identify the creators of artistic content that engage with political discourse across regions in Nigeria. It will focus upon the types of images that are being created with a view to collect and curate and analyse evidence of this for an archive. In particular it focuses upon how artists operate within and outside of official networks in Nigeria and within contested spaces on social media around the elections in 2019.

AHRC-funded project ReSpace 2020 - 2021 - Dr. Paula Callus et al.

ReSpace investigates how concepts of space/place, through arts-based participatory methods, can engage the ‘post-memory’ generation (Hirsch, 2008) in Rwanda and Kosovo to reimagine specific sites of memory and significance.

With partners from University of Rwanda, African Digital Media Academy, University of Prishtina, and AniBar, Bournemouth University worked on devising a project that saw collaboration with young people to explore a range of artistic methods in young people’s surroundings – these methods draw from anthropology, architecture and the arts, including animation and immersive technologies.

The project consisted of visiting places that were identified sites of interest in order to consider how a place bears witness to often-silenced, everyday histories of, for example, civic resistance and societal cohesion, before or after war and violence. By adopting the architectural concept of the ‘site survey’, young people used different methods to explore these spaces and reimagine them. The methods were connected to the project themes: Virtual Spaces, Past/Present Spaces, Designed Spaces, Reclaiming Future Spaces.

Recent publications

  • Gingrich O, Emets E, Renaud A, Negao D. (2022) KIMA Voice: The Human Voice as Embodied Presence. Virtual Creativity. Volume 12 Number 1
  • Gingrich, O & Callus, P 2022, 'Remediated Sites: The Lumen Prize Virtual Gallery as Site of Memory and Digital Assemblage', Leonardo, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 475-481.
  • Hossaini, A. Grierson, M, Rahman,S, Gingrich O. (2022) Groupthink: Telepresence and agency during live performance. ACM Siggraph Proceedings
  • Gingrich, O &  Rahman, S (2022) Neuro Art: liminal reflection, introspection, and participatory art. 2022. DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2022.27
  • Gingrich O & Choudhary S (2021) AYAH - Sign: Collaborative Digital Art with the Grenfell Communities. International Journal of Film and Media Arts (2021) Vol. 6, No. 3 pp. 55-66
  • Gingrich O, Emets E, Renaud A, Villanueva-Ablanedo D, Soraghan S. (2020) KIMA: The Wheel - Voice turned into Vision. A participatory, immersive soundscape installation. Leonardo. P 479 - 484. Cambridge, Massachusetts 2020
  • Gingrich O, D'Albore P, Emets E, Renaud A, Negrao D: 'Connections: Participatory art as factor for social cohesion' EVA London Conference 2020 Proceedings Publication
  • Gingrich O, Shemza A, Almena M: 'Transformations: New media art between communities and professional practice. EVA London Conference 2020 Proceedings Publication
  • Gingrich O, Rahman S, Lambert N: Zeitgeist - Window to your Mind - an EEG interface for Flow. EVA London Conference 2020 Proceedings Publication
  • Gingrich O, Moore-Fasola C, Anderson E F ‘Once Upon a Time in Animation’ – Curatorial strategies for an exhibition on the National Centre for Computer Animation. EVA London Conference 2020 Proceedings Publication
  • Gingrich O, Almena M, Shemza A: Transformations. New Media Art between communities and professional practice. EVA London Conference Proceedings 2020
  • Gingrich O, Tymoszuk U, Emets E, Renaud A, Negrao D: KIMA: Voice - Participatory Arts as means for Social Connection. EVA Proceedings 2019
  • Gingrich O, Emets E, Renaud A, Negrao D: KIMA: Noise. Monograph
  • Gingrich O, Stansfeld S, Renaud A, Emets E: “KIMA: Noise: An immersive installation to represent the impact of noise in urban areas. EVA London Proceedings 2018
  • Gingrich O, Emets E, Renaud R: Aura - Interactive Brainwave Art between Telepathy and Telepresence. EVA London 2018 Proceedings (Long Paper)
  • Gingrich O, Shemza A, Almena M: FLUX FLUX Events: Current Trends in the Contemporary Media Arts. EVA London 2018 Proceedings (Short Paper)
  • Gingrich O, Renaud A, Emets E, Negrao D: Transmission: A Telepresence Interface for Neural and Kinetic interaction. Leonardo Leonardo 47. 2014 MIT Press
  • Gingrich O, Renaud A, Emets E: KIMA: A holographic telepresence environment based on cymatic principles. Leonardo 46 (4) 2013 MIT Press
  • Gingrich O, Renaud A, Emets E: Enhancing Presence: Immersive sound environments as presence generating factor. EVA Proceedings 2013

Presentations

  • ACM Siggraph Vancouver 2022
  • Extended Senses University of Greenwich 2022
  • EVA London 2022
  • EVA London 2021
  • EVA London 2020
  • EVA London 2019