MA Immersive Media

Professor Stephanie Owens is an interdisciplinary artist, creative researcher, and curator interested in the influence of digital networks on contemporary aesthetics and the production of subjectivity. Professor Stephanie Owens is Dean of Arts, Design and Media; Chair, Centre for Circular Materials and Convener of the Material Futures Research Group.From 2011-2017 Stephanie was Director of the Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) where she organised Cornell’s first art biennial focused on intersections between art, design and nano science, which was the subject of “Collaboration on Campus: Nanotechnology and Contemporary Art“, a documentary by Art21. Her curatorial and collaborative projects focus on the relationship between materiality and cultural objects in the context of representational and post-representational aesthetics.She is a founder of Mobile Geographies, a locative-media initiative at The New School's Parsons School of Design (NYC) and co-founder of the storefront new media art space MediaNoche (NY), the first artist-run gallery for digital art in Upper Manhattan. Some of Stephanie's curatorial projects include Technologies of Place, funded by New York Foundation for the Arts, SELF[n]: Art & Distributed Subjectivity, Intimate Cosmologies: The Aesthetics of Scale in an Age of Nanotechnology (Cornell University), and Abject/Object Empathies (Cornell University).Stephanie exhibits her work internationally, including recent exhibitions at the First Beijing International Media Arts Exhibition (Beijing, China), Dashanzi Art Festival (Beijing, China), 5th Ewha Media Art Exhibition, (Seoul, Korea) and the Machinista International Arts and Technology Festival. Frequently a speaker on art and technology, she recently presented papers at College Art Association (CAA), SIGGRAPH (Los Angeles) and Consciousness Reframed: Art, Identity and the Technology of Transformation (Lisbon) and was the artist-in-residence in 2018 at COPE in Brooklyn, NY. She has taught digital media, art, aesthetics, interaction design and contemporary art theory at Cornell University, Universita IUAV di Venezia, Parsons MFA Design & Technology Program and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is founding director of Empathy Academy, a project-based research platform for collaborations in art, design and materials science with partner universities and organisations in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Stephanie is Dean of Arts, Design and Media at Arts University Plymouth, Chair of the Centre for Circular Materials and the Convener of the Making Futures Research Group. The Making Futures Research Group (MFRG) is a coalition of educators, artists, designers, scientists and social entrepreneurs at Arts University Plymouth who are interested in how traditional methods, materials and cultures of making might exist in future contexts through the use of emerging practices and technologies. Stephanie was appointed as the inaugural Chair of the Centre for Circular Materials in 2026, underlining the significance of her work in shaping a distinctive institutional agenda around responsible material practice, circularity and the future of making. As a group of active practitioners, the MFRG explores the interface between organic and digital materiality as a means to better understand the construction of identity and cultural representation. As an exploration of materiality in the context of making more broadly, it seeks to investigate, through materials research and the development of an interdisciplinary pedagogy, the link between matter, networks and place. Working as an interface between the studio curriculum and the Making Futures biennial conference at AUP, the MFRG operates on the horizon of matter and new technologies as a way of reimagining creative authorship across science, engineering, design and art.

Lindsey’s track record in the public and private sectors as a social entrepreneur, thinker and leader has seen her set up and develop products and services across the creative, learning and education sectors. From building award-winning programmes in the UK to driving ground-breaking initiatives internationally, Lindsey has the experience and skills at management, board and executive level to steer social business ideas towards success; making money and making a difference at the same time. Rooted in the creative industries, she has repeatedly worked at the intersection of creative technologies and social issues. From the early days, experimenting with interactive video to support people with diabetes, to developing a young people led, online content platform Chew TV – it was overtaken by the advent of Facebook – Lindsey has continually championed democratising emerging technologies. More recently, this has included strategic leadership of the highly successful Illuminate Light Festival; setting up a world leading 360 immersive dome at the Market Hall; and being a founder member of the Far SW Immersive Cluster. Lindsey Hall was awarded an MBE in 2023 for services to social enterprise and to the community in Cornwall and Plymouth.

Martial Bugliolo is a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for BA (Hons) Game Arts & Animation at Arts University Plymouth. Alongside his teaching and course leadership, he is actively engaged in research within creative education and immersive media. His teaching and course leadership focus on game art and animation at undergraduate level, alongside his role as Unit Leader on the postgraduate MA Immersive Media and MA Museum Studies. His responsibilities also include curriculum development within higher education.His research focuses on immersive media production, creative education, and the role of emerging technologies in shaping creative practice. He examines how technological, institutional, and pedagogical conditions influence participation, learning, and creative outcomes, with a particular focus on access, equity, and student confidence.He has published and presented work on mobile learning, technology-enhanced learning, and digital pedagogy. These research interests focus on the relationship between digital tools and learning, and continue to inform his work on emerging technologies within creative education.

Neil Rose is a sound designer and academic who specialises in electroacoustic/acousmatic music, live performance, film, animation and design. He studied sonic arts at Middlesex University, and lectures in Film & Screen Arts here at the university. Neil undertakes frequent collaborations with film and performance/live artists as well as being a successful recording artist, publishing on One C, Café Concrete and Prima Rosa records, and has had work internationally distributed and reviewed by The Wire magazine. Specialising in sound, Neil also has a wealth of experience in post production, visual effects and film editing. His deep technical knowledge of the industry, from conception right the way through to the output of films, makes him a fantastic addition to the Film & Screen Arts courses. Click here to visit Neil's Soundcloud & Mixcloud.