Supervisor meeting # 07 (year 1) 13th June 2019

Andrea McSwan PhD Research Year 1 

Light for the Blind: Exploring 3D Animation and Immersive Digital Film, to Represent the Perceptual-Experiences of the Blind 

Supervisor Meetings: 

Date:  13 June 2019 -  

Meeting no: 7 

Present: Fraser Bruce (2nd) Caroline Erolin (3rd) Andrea McSwan (Student) 

Tasks set and completed since last meeting: (06 May 2019) 

• Upgrade document chapters in progress 
• Context. Literature and practice reviewed - continuing 

• Volunteering – reading at the Reminiscence Group at the Blind Society continuing 
• May 17th – attended the Blind Dog Training centre in Forfar. Lots of rules for Guide Dogs, don’t want the animation to be driven by that. 
• May 28th – Skype call with Dr Simon Hayhoe, Bath University. Citing his papers and he is happy to be in regular contact. 
• May 29th – phone call with David Johnson (Blind Artist). No vision or light awareness. Very willing to be involved as a case-study. Ethics approval required (not applied for yet) 
• 12th June – meeting arranged to meet with Dr John Ravenscroft, Scottish Sensory Centre, Edinburgh University. Productive and insightful meeting. Lots of information and contacts. The SSC will facilitate any public engagement events that I wish to do, plus plug into the nationwide network of vision impaired specialists. Also wants to put a team of VR and eye-tracking experts from Dundee Uni/DJCAD together for a future project (post PhD) VR and cerebral vision impairment. Book loaned and he can connect me with blindness experts in Glasgow. 

• 12th June – meeting arranged with RNIB Edinburgh. Highly supported project idea and they see that it could ‘grow arms and legs’. They are willing to provide all support for public engagement events, getting their client’s there, training sessions and facilitators, would like to use my project as a training tool 
• 17th June – facetime call with blind Scottish photographer Rosita McKenzie – willing to be part of the project, chimes with her VR ideas of the past couple of years 
• 4th July – meeting scheduled in London with Matthew Cock and Anna Fineman of Vocaleyes. Their combined backgrounds include the British Museum and the V&A London. Anna is in charge of Museums, Galleries and Heritage Programme Manager and is interested in my project. I am wondering if it maybe an opportunity for a Public Engagement event further down the line?  A PhD student from the University of Westminster will also attend the meeting.  
• 5th July – meeting scheduled with Dr Alison Eardley, University of Westminster. Research explored imagination, imagery and spatial representation in the blind and sighted. 
• 8th July – meeting scheduled with Dr Hannah Thompson, Royal Holloway University. Visually impaired and Director of the College’s Humanities and Arts Research Institute. Research and activities include co-organiser of the Blind Creations Conference, The Blind spot blog. 

• Meeting pencilled in July 4 – 9th with Aaron McPeake Blind Artist. 
• Unity VR software training with Sean Yu. Animating and creating a simple scene 
• Storyboarding 

OPD Training and Teaching completed 

• MSc assessments 
• OPD_ Introduction to Public Engagement – 22nd May 
• OPD_Innovation and Design Thinking for Your Research – 24th May 

Events attended 

• Research Kitchen Talks – setting up a new committee 

Planned training: 

OPD courses  

• Introduction to Public Engagement – 22nd May 

• Innovation and Design Thinking for Your Research – 24th May 
• HTC vive VR software and tilt brush – 18th June & 23rdJuly 
• Lecture to the International Summer School Students – 20th June 

Meetings 

• Writing with other PhD’s in the Dalhousie 10th June 

To be discussed:  

• Upgrade external examiner. Who? When? 

• Ethics  - priority to find out who will be case studies?  
• 
  
• Next Steps… 

Notes… 

Next meeting….