- University of Westminster
Harrow Campus
Watford Road
Northwick Park
Middlesex HA1 3TP - +44(0)2 7911 8457
Gregory C Sporton
University of Westminster, Dcdi, Faculty Member
- Languages and Linguistics, Art, Performing Arts, Digital Humanities, Culture in the Soviet Union, Digital Arts, and 12 moreDance Studies, Serious Games, Anthropology Of Dance, Dance and Politics, Dance Science, Classical Ballet, Russian and Soviet ballet, Tchaikovsky, Jean Cocteau, Digital creativity, Swan Lake, and Sportonedit
Digital Creativity examines the impact of technology on the creative practitioner, how it influences, and sometimes determines, the way they work and what they produce. It questions the claims to creativity of the technology industry, and... more
Digital Creativity examines the impact of technology on the creative practitioner, how it influences, and sometimes determines, the way they work and what they produce. It questions the claims to creativity of the technology industry, and at the same time argues for seeing computing as a craft practice. Artists and craftspeople have always been drawn to new technologies for inspiration, and the book seeks to contextualize the frenzy of claims about the impact of digital technology against the reality of what it is to be creative. The different motivations for creativity are tested, making much-needed distinctions between the practices of the arts and the models of innovation in engineering and elsewhere in the technology industries. Finally, the book warns of the problems ahead if technology comes to dominate creative practice, either by defining it or imitating it. Ultimately, artists must engage with it if it is to retain a human form and scale.
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‘The Active Audience: the Network as a Performance Environment.’, in Oddey, A. & White, C., 2009, Modes of Spectating, Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 61-72.
Short chapter on gaming project with Selly Oak Hospital
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‘Power as Nostalgia: the Bolshoi Ballet in the New Russia’, in Barnett, D. & Skelton, A. 2008, Theatre and Performance in Eastern Europe, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, pp.3-12. First published in New Theatre Quarterly, 2006, Vol. 22,... more
‘Power as Nostalgia: the Bolshoi Ballet in the New Russia’, in Barnett, D. & Skelton, A. 2008, Theatre and Performance in Eastern Europe, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, pp.3-12.
First published in New Theatre Quarterly, 2006, Vol. 22, Part 4, No. 88, pp.379-386.
First published in New Theatre Quarterly, 2006, Vol. 22, Part 4, No. 88, pp.379-386.
Art practice has an unusual history inside the university sector. Often originating from specialized academies, as disciplines they usually began life through a focus on practical work. This gave rise to small institutions that have been... more
Art practice has an unusual history inside the university sector. Often originating from specialized academies, as disciplines they usually began life through a focus on practical work. This gave rise to small institutions that have been subsumed into larger ones, becoming colleges or schools within universities rather than continuing their independent lives. The advantages of this are clear: structural, financial and cultural opportunities that come with the status of university subjects. What this article argues is that there has been a considerable price to pay in being so accommodated. Creative practice subjects in a qualifications framework, and to some extent in exercises like the Research Excellence Framework, have been required to adopt intellectual enquiry processes in order to burnish their claims to knowledge. Mostly, these come from the humanities. This article examines the impact of this on creative practice, on acceptance of the research elements of it and on distinguishing the difference between arts-based enquiry and humanities models of interpretation and analysis. That these are increasingly incompatible requires rethinking of the relationship between arts and humanities that is so taken for granted.
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Discussion encouraging a reinterpretation of Soviet ballet to identify the physical as technical progress and consistent with Soviet values.
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Editorial for Scene 6, Vol. 2.
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This study is about the problems that arise for film education models once they are drawn back into the processes, systems and norms of higher education and asked to respond to issues around fairness, diversity and power. In our post-1992... more
This study is about the problems that arise for film education models once they are drawn back into the processes, systems and norms of higher education and asked to respond to issues around fairness, diversity and power. In our post-1992 UK university, the degree offering included a BA (Hons) Film. Founded by distinguished film scholars and supported by a thriving film and television industry, it operated successfully for many years, attracting large numbers of applicants and students moving successfully into the screen industries. Given its reputation and location graduates continued to be placed in the industry at good rates, and films produced won awards. This was often achieved by moving outside the parameters of acceptable higher education practices, making dubious claims about the industry relevance of organizational arrangements and requiring a disproportionate share of university resources. The admissions arrangements and curriculum design actively discouraged diversity, and the intensity of the programme, conducted without evidence of its efficacy, privileged students from wealthy backgrounds in a way that was not seen as problematic by the course team. This paper examines the reasons for this and how it reflects the perception by staff and students of the film industry. It discusses some of our interventions and flags up considerations for reconciling the culture of film with the conventions of higher education. Our experience is offered as typical rather than exceptional in incorporating this difficult and complex creative practice into a university setting.
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When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 they inspired a generation of young Russian artists. These artists were looking for practical ways to contribute to the new polity that would eventually become the Soviet Union, and to express the... more
When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 they inspired a generation of young Russian artists. These artists were looking for practical ways to contribute to the new polity that would eventually become the Soviet Union, and to express the radical ideas of the revolution ...
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... Dennis Barnett, co-editor of this volume, is from the United States. His subject is Dusan Kovacevic (whom he refers to as "the most famous unknown play-wright in the... more
... Dennis Barnett, co-editor of this volume, is from the United States. His subject is Dusan Kovacevic (whom he refers to as "the most famous unknown play-wright in the world") and two of his plays that provided directly palliative strate-gies to very specific social wounds. ...
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What does it mean to put an "e" ahead of a concept? This essay discusses the purpose of doing such a thing, arguing there is a distinct method in the apparent randomness of labelling something "e" this or that. Far... more
What does it mean to put an "e" ahead of a concept? This essay discusses the purpose of doing such a thing, arguing there is a distinct method in the apparent randomness of labelling something "e" this or that. Far from simply denoting that it might be done with computers (and, indeed, what isn't today), Sporton argues that beyond the effect of explaining this is something to do with technology, there is an emergent "e-culture" that reunites the arts and sciences after two hundred years of separate development within the academy. An "e-Culture" emerges that reflects the values, opportunities and restrictions of Internet as a research environment. The potential of that environment requires a mindset focussed on collaboration to achieve anything of creative significance.
The documentation of dance regularly asserts a false concept. This is that dances can be fixed, like a text, script, painting or even a musical score. Dance academics and organizations like ballet companies and the trusts that claim to... more
The documentation of dance regularly asserts a false concept. This is that dances can be fixed, like a text, script, painting or even a musical score. Dance academics and organizations like ballet companies and the trusts that claim to protect and preserve the heritage of specific choreographers protect this idea. Focused far more on outputs than production, they decontextualize dance by ignoring its context: the working process. Notwithstanding the problematics of this assumption about the archival form of such material, that the tokens of the types that Wollheim (1968) posits as necessary are simply too flexible to be captured as definitive, this in itself presents a creative opportunity. This paper posits this working process as played out in performance as well as the confines of rehearsal, and gives as a practical example the performance of a work by the same dancers across a thirty-year timeframe, presented alongside the original video material.
For dancers and choreographers there is a more subtle process of evolution that occurs with the regular performance of a dance: the dance changes itself to suit its purposes, and this often renders the meaningfulness of documentation an academic (or more lately legal) exercise. Evidence for this can be found not only in the experience of dancers, but in the actions of choreographers dealing with their own works, even when they are considered classics. Dances, it seems, simply wear out unless they are subject to regular revision and a definitive version cannot be said to exist. This is not to say an account of a dance is impossible, but to suggest there are conditional features that need taking account of, and to question the artistic validity of ossified reproduction.
For dancers and choreographers there is a more subtle process of evolution that occurs with the regular performance of a dance: the dance changes itself to suit its purposes, and this often renders the meaningfulness of documentation an academic (or more lately legal) exercise. Evidence for this can be found not only in the experience of dancers, but in the actions of choreographers dealing with their own works, even when they are considered classics. Dances, it seems, simply wear out unless they are subject to regular revision and a definitive version cannot be said to exist. This is not to say an account of a dance is impossible, but to suggest there are conditional features that need taking account of, and to question the artistic validity of ossified reproduction.
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Swan Lake has a central place in the ballet repertoire. Generally seen as the ballerina's ballet, one of the greatest difficulties in presenting Swan Lake as a credible drama has been the historically marginal role played by Siegfried,... more
Swan Lake has a central place in the ballet repertoire. Generally seen as the ballerina's ballet, one of the greatest difficulties in presenting Swan Lake as a credible drama has been the historically marginal role played by Siegfried, the Prince. As choreographer-producers have struggled in the challenge to make the ballet work dramatically, his character has been transformed from onlooker to major influence in a series of reinterpretations of this classic work. In this article Gregory Sporton raises questions about what motivates Siegfried and why that is important for our understanding of the ballet, offering an alternative view of Siegfried's character. Gregory Sporton is Director of the Visualisation Research Unit in the Department of Art at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. His interest in Swan Lake emerges from his background as a dancer and long periods of research in the former Soviet Union during 2004–2006, when he was able to see at first hand most of the Russian productions referenced in this article. His other published work includes ethnographic accounts of dance and its place in the flow of culture.
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What does it mean to put an "e" ahead of a concept? This essay discusses the purpose of doing such a thing, arguing there is a distinct method in the apparent randomness of labelling something "e" this or that. Far from simply denoting... more
What does it mean to put an "e" ahead of a concept? This essay discusses the purpose of doing such a thing, arguing there is a distinct method in the apparent randomness of labelling something "e" this or that. Far from simply denoting that it might be done with computers (and, indeed, what isn't today), Sporton argues that beyond the effect of explaining this is something to do with technology, there is an emergent "e-culture" that reunites the arts and sciences after two hundred years of separate development within the academy. An "e-Culture" emerges that reflects the values, opportunities and restrictions of Internet as a research environment. The potential of that environment requires a mindset focussed on collaboration to achieve anything of creative significance.
Includes page on MotivePro, device developed by Sporton & Green for real-time haptic feedback for performers.
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To mark his elevation to the Professorship, Professor Sporton invites you to attend an evening lecture and performance in the Recital Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire. The evening includes his Professorial Inaugural Lecture, ’From... more
To mark his elevation to the Professorship, Professor Sporton invites you to attend an evening lecture and performance in the Recital Hall at the Birmingham Conservatoire. The evening includes his Professorial Inaugural Lecture, ’From Things to Bits’, introduced by Fred Inglis, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick. Also in the programme will be a short performance of a new work ‘Never Talk to Strangers’, developed with VRU researchers and dancers from dna3d, that includes live electronics and the incorporation of body-based sound and visuals generating systems.
The Lecture
The lecture, ‘From Things to Bits’, will focus on the darker side of technology and what impact this has on the creative process and on artists themselves. How did digital technology become ubiquitous without us noticing? How does this change what we mean by creativity, intelligence or humanity? What are the obligations and contributions that artists can make in this environment?
The Lecture
The lecture, ‘From Things to Bits’, will focus on the darker side of technology and what impact this has on the creative process and on artists themselves. How did digital technology become ubiquitous without us noticing? How does this change what we mean by creativity, intelligence or humanity? What are the obligations and contributions that artists can make in this environment?
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Reviews of performances in London, 2023
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Review of: Luisa Miller, English National OperaLondon Coliseum, 21 February 2020
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Review of: Pure Dance, Natalia OsipovaSadlers Wells Theatre, 25 October 2019
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Reviews of three theatre performances