Dr Sarah Sparke

Sarah Sparke is a Research Associate at CMIR, using marketing and socio-economic theory to examine and critique production and consumption practices. She focuses on systems of value and the social uses of value-discourses associated with different forms of moving image, and how and why that varies. Within this, her primary interests are a) moving image art and its place in the art market, b) the co-creation of meaning and co-creation of value, c) AV research methodologies d) teenagers' moving image practices and systems of value.
Key activities:
. Producer for CMIR shoots and events, including the Bristol International Festival of Cinematography, w/c 19th Sept 2016, Sept 16-18 2015, and the CML camera and lens tests with Geoff Boyle- these are industry-facing tests of interest to the global cinematography industry and community of practice.
. Producer/lead researcher for the CMIR bursaries: collaboration with partner institutes and bursary winners, plus associated research activities.
. Collaborative research with industry partners, exploring the interface/market space between producer and consumer. . Organisation of guest speakers for the CMIR programme (see Events);
. Founder and Co-ordinater of UWE's ACE researchers' network (see Research Initiatives).
. Price and value--related KE/KT with practitioners.
. PhD support. I welcome PhD proposals to do with the arts market, professional practice, audience engagement and value constructs.
Research awards
SPUR6. Awarded April 2014 for fully-funded project 'Age-related media preferences: teenagers and their moving-image value constructs'. Aug '14-> July '15 (next related event: co-presenting with Sherryl Wilson, Oct 2016)
Recent bids
Grants for the Arts (Arts Council England) bid, submitted June 2016 - for support for three strands within CineFest 2016 addressing aesthetic and technical areas of research and engagement : the Black Poetic Voice, Art Practice and the Mainstream, and High Dynamic Range.
Currently writing an Arts Council Research Grants Programme 2016-19 bid: The co-creation of cultural value: mapping a city's art ecology for strategic and management planning (working title).
AHRC Research Network bid Selling the Immaterial in a material world . Stakeholder conceptions of video art and its interface with the art market (forthcoming)
Worked with Terry Flaxton on 2 further bids: 1) a cross-faculty response to the ESRC Transformative Research call: Investigating Academic and Industrial Partnership in Research and Development: A Case Study of New Moving Image Display Forms , 2) an industry-facing AHRC Follow-on Funding bid.
Involved in the UWE cross-faculty Big Data PhDs Leverhulme bid.
MeCCSA conference-hosting EoI, May 2014
NESTA EoI with InBetweenTime (technology/audience measurement strand), Dec 2013
Guest Co-Editor of Architecture_MPS (UCL Press)
Co-editor of forthcoming book within The Mediated City series (Intellect Books)
Conference papers
Forthcoming:
June 2016: Presenting at Berkeley University (CA, USA) SASE conference, re artists' constructs of value: 'The Domestic Market'
Nov 2016: Presenting at University of St Gallen Congress "Art and Market: Alienation or Emancipation?“. '“But her work is terribly commercial”: positioning discourses of art and the market.'
Other papers:
The DIY art market: economics, art and communities in the Bristol Art Trails: AMPS April 2016
The Practice of Cultural Ecology: network connectivity in the creative economy Dovey, Moreton, Sparke, Sharpe in Cultural Trends (accepted for publication, forthcoming, 2016).
Testing Times: industry-facing research, Bournemouth BFX, Sept 2015, with Geoff Boyle
Looking Back to go Forwards: tensions and missed opportunities. A case study of continuities and breaks in digital art practice and technologies BFX, Sept 2015, with Chuck Elliott
Moving image values, Bournemouth BFX, Sept 2014
Digital Cinematography: The Medium is the Message?, ATINER Mass Communications Conference, Athens. Also Session Chair. May 2014 . This has been accepted for publication in a 2015 volume of the peer-reviewed Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, and in a future ATINER book publication.
see http://www.atiner.gr/journals/media/2015-1-1-4-Sparke.pdf
Radical Values and Money Meanings: an examination of the uses of money-meanings within discourses surrounding 'the radical'. Radical Readings, Radical Texts, Canterbury Christchurch University, Kent, 15th March 2014
Talks (exc UWE Professional Development Week talks)
Pricing your Work - invited speaker, Bruton Arts AGM, Somerset, Jan 2015.
Art marketing and pricing - invited speaker, University of Gloc., Jan 2015
Pricing your Work - invited speaker, Second Floor Studios and Arts (London's largest single-site affordable art studio complex - c400 artists, craft makers and designers), http://www.secondfloor.co.uk/ , April 2014, October 2014
Pricing your Work - invited speaker, Delamore Arts (Devon), http://www.delamore-art.co.uk/ , March 2014
Conference and Event Organisation/Production
Forthcoming:
Bristol International Festival of Cinematography - Sept 19-25 2016
Selection of Previous events Production:
AMPS/CMIR Conference: The Mediated City, April 1-3 2016
CML lens tests - January 2016 (58 of the world's top cinematography lenses)
Bristol International Festival of Cinematography - Sept 16-18 2015
Research workshop: Public Engagement - Feb 2015, UWE (internal event for ACE faculty)
Research symposium: Bidding - Jan 2015, UWE (internal event for ACE faculty)
CML camera tests, January 2015
HDR Lab, Encounters Film Festival, Sept 2014
Aesthetics/Politics/Activism/Art: What is Radical Now? symposium, Encounters, Sept 2014
One Artist's Journey - Chris Meigh-Andrews, guest seminar, in collaboration with Royal West of England Academy of Art (RWA), May 2014
The History of Film Schools and Current Challenges in the Formation of Moving Image Professionals - Duncan Petrie, guest seminar, UWE, Feb 2014
CML camera test with Geoff Boyle- the first worldwide involving a university, Feb 2014
Supervision and Administration
Supervision of 2 UWE third-year film-student placements. Claudia Fishwick and Chris Prowse are assisting on the SPUR and CMIR Bursary AV-data management and editing.
PhD applications: co-ordinator and applicant support/admin. March 2014->
CMIR bursaries: co-ordinator and applicant support/admin. March 2014->
Marie Curie Actions - Research Fellowship Programme: co-ordinator and applicant support/admin. March 2014->
THESIS
The Social Construction of the Meanings of Price
Key activities:
. Producer for CMIR shoots and events, including the Bristol International Festival of Cinematography, w/c 19th Sept 2016, Sept 16-18 2015, and the CML camera and lens tests with Geoff Boyle- these are industry-facing tests of interest to the global cinematography industry and community of practice.
. Producer/lead researcher for the CMIR bursaries: collaboration with partner institutes and bursary winners, plus associated research activities.
. Collaborative research with industry partners, exploring the interface/market space between producer and consumer. . Organisation of guest speakers for the CMIR programme (see Events);
. Founder and Co-ordinater of UWE's ACE researchers' network (see Research Initiatives).
. Price and value--related KE/KT with practitioners.
. PhD support. I welcome PhD proposals to do with the arts market, professional practice, audience engagement and value constructs.
Research awards
SPUR6. Awarded April 2014 for fully-funded project 'Age-related media preferences: teenagers and their moving-image value constructs'. Aug '14-> July '15 (next related event: co-presenting with Sherryl Wilson, Oct 2016)
Recent bids
Grants for the Arts (Arts Council England) bid, submitted June 2016 - for support for three strands within CineFest 2016 addressing aesthetic and technical areas of research and engagement : the Black Poetic Voice, Art Practice and the Mainstream, and High Dynamic Range.
Currently writing an Arts Council Research Grants Programme 2016-19 bid: The co-creation of cultural value: mapping a city's art ecology for strategic and management planning (working title).
AHRC Research Network bid Selling the Immaterial in a material world . Stakeholder conceptions of video art and its interface with the art market (forthcoming)
Worked with Terry Flaxton on 2 further bids: 1) a cross-faculty response to the ESRC Transformative Research call: Investigating Academic and Industrial Partnership in Research and Development: A Case Study of New Moving Image Display Forms , 2) an industry-facing AHRC Follow-on Funding bid.
Involved in the UWE cross-faculty Big Data PhDs Leverhulme bid.
MeCCSA conference-hosting EoI, May 2014
NESTA EoI with InBetweenTime (technology/audience measurement strand), Dec 2013
Guest Co-Editor of Architecture_MPS (UCL Press)
Co-editor of forthcoming book within The Mediated City series (Intellect Books)
Conference papers
Forthcoming:
June 2016: Presenting at Berkeley University (CA, USA) SASE conference, re artists' constructs of value: 'The Domestic Market'
Nov 2016: Presenting at University of St Gallen Congress "Art and Market: Alienation or Emancipation?“. '“But her work is terribly commercial”: positioning discourses of art and the market.'
Other papers:
The DIY art market: economics, art and communities in the Bristol Art Trails: AMPS April 2016
The Practice of Cultural Ecology: network connectivity in the creative economy Dovey, Moreton, Sparke, Sharpe in Cultural Trends (accepted for publication, forthcoming, 2016).
Testing Times: industry-facing research, Bournemouth BFX, Sept 2015, with Geoff Boyle
Looking Back to go Forwards: tensions and missed opportunities. A case study of continuities and breaks in digital art practice and technologies BFX, Sept 2015, with Chuck Elliott
Moving image values, Bournemouth BFX, Sept 2014
Digital Cinematography: The Medium is the Message?, ATINER Mass Communications Conference, Athens. Also Session Chair. May 2014 . This has been accepted for publication in a 2015 volume of the peer-reviewed Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, and in a future ATINER book publication.
see http://www.atiner.gr/journals/media/2015-1-1-4-Sparke.pdf
Radical Values and Money Meanings: an examination of the uses of money-meanings within discourses surrounding 'the radical'. Radical Readings, Radical Texts, Canterbury Christchurch University, Kent, 15th March 2014
Talks (exc UWE Professional Development Week talks)
Pricing your Work - invited speaker, Bruton Arts AGM, Somerset, Jan 2015.
Art marketing and pricing - invited speaker, University of Gloc., Jan 2015
Pricing your Work - invited speaker, Second Floor Studios and Arts (London's largest single-site affordable art studio complex - c400 artists, craft makers and designers), http://www.secondfloor.co.uk/ , April 2014, October 2014
Pricing your Work - invited speaker, Delamore Arts (Devon), http://www.delamore-art.co.uk/ , March 2014
Conference and Event Organisation/Production
Forthcoming:
Bristol International Festival of Cinematography - Sept 19-25 2016
Selection of Previous events Production:
AMPS/CMIR Conference: The Mediated City, April 1-3 2016
CML lens tests - January 2016 (58 of the world's top cinematography lenses)
Bristol International Festival of Cinematography - Sept 16-18 2015
Research workshop: Public Engagement - Feb 2015, UWE (internal event for ACE faculty)
Research symposium: Bidding - Jan 2015, UWE (internal event for ACE faculty)
CML camera tests, January 2015
HDR Lab, Encounters Film Festival, Sept 2014
Aesthetics/Politics/Activism/Art: What is Radical Now? symposium, Encounters, Sept 2014
One Artist's Journey - Chris Meigh-Andrews, guest seminar, in collaboration with Royal West of England Academy of Art (RWA), May 2014
The History of Film Schools and Current Challenges in the Formation of Moving Image Professionals - Duncan Petrie, guest seminar, UWE, Feb 2014
CML camera test with Geoff Boyle- the first worldwide involving a university, Feb 2014
Supervision and Administration
Supervision of 2 UWE third-year film-student placements. Claudia Fishwick and Chris Prowse are assisting on the SPUR and CMIR Bursary AV-data management and editing.
PhD applications: co-ordinator and applicant support/admin. March 2014->
CMIR bursaries: co-ordinator and applicant support/admin. March 2014->
Marie Curie Actions - Research Fellowship Programme: co-ordinator and applicant support/admin. March 2014->
THESIS
The Social Construction of the Meanings of Price