YorkTalks 2020 - Session One
Event Information
Description
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Welcome and introductions
A short welcome and induction for the day.
Singing in a virtual world: understanding the real world benefits of singing together - Helena Daffern, Department of Electronic Engineering
With more than two million people singing regularly in choirs and a record 40,000 singing groups operating across the UK, former opera singer and chorister Dr Helena Daffern is using cutting edge digital technologies to provide a deeper understanding of why singing together creates such powerful therapeutic effects. Dr Daffern’s talk takes us from the summit of Great Gable in the Lake District, where a choral group sing at the top of their voices to experience the benefits of the natural environment and group singing, down to the inner recesses of York’s high-tech AudioLab.
Her research explores how experiments with immersive technologies such as virtual reality are unlocking the secrets of why singing together has such a profound impact on participants and how it might be used to widen access to those with restricted mobility through her Sing from your Seat project.
From computer says no to robot says yes: engineering a positive future for robotics - Ana Cavalcanti, Department of Computer Science
With the prospect of sophisticated robots working ever more closely with humans, it is vital that software engineers have the tools and techniques to ensure safety and reliability. Professor Ana Cavalcanti, a computer scientist whose research is changing the very language of robotic software development, is on a mission to ensure that, unlike the computer, the robot never says no: that it does the right thing at the right time, every time.
To achieve this, Professor Cavalcanti and her team are developing a framework for the modelling and simulation of mobile and autonomous robots, bringing outdated software engineering practices, based on trial and error, into the state-of-the-art. Her vision is a 21st-century toolbox for robot-controller developers that will enable the safe application of socially beneficial robotics, allowing the UK to tap into a multibillion dollar global robotics market.
Interactive competitive esports are revolutionising digital creativity and providing deep insights into human cognition - Florian Block, Department of Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media
With audiences of 380 million growing at a rate of 20 per cent a year, the esports market in 2018 consumed 2.6 billion hours of content globally. This rich data stream is being explored by Dr Florian Block and his team at York’s Digital Creativity Labs as they help develop a cross-reality, highly personalised viewing experience for esports audiences. Funded through the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund immersive technologies for audiences of the future programme, the industry-led Weavr consortium is harnessing York’s research expertise in Artificial Intelligence, UX design and human computer interaction.
Dr Block will show how York is bringing the UK’s creative businesses, researchers and technologists together to create the next generation of highly immersive experiences. This should help secure a hugely lucrative market for UK creatives, while at the same time providing a rich data source for academic researchers interested in human cognition.
Laughter and theatre as a response to genocide - Dr Lisa Peschel - Department of Theatre, Film and Interacrtive Media
Drawing on the direct testimony of prisoners in the Jewish ghetto at Terezín (in German, Theresienstadt), Dr Lisa Peschel reveals how comedy and cabaret were key to their survival.
Coupling her interviews with the recovery of songs and other dramatic texts created in the ghetto, her research provides deep insights into the ways in which these cabaret narratives helped those trapped in the ghetto to endure their imprisonment. Dr Peschel shows how this vibrant theatrical scene also helped the prisoners reclaim their right to interpret their own experiences. By trivialising even the most shocking events in comic performances, they resisted potentially debilitating fear and were able to carry on with the fight for life.
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