Creative Methods for Environmental Futures

Creative Methods for Environmental Futures: Moss, Batteries, Walking, Collage and Socio-Sensing Technological Landscapes
About this Event

Digital Society Research Group (DISC) invites you to join us for an exploratory event focused on creative research methods on Wednesday 18th November 2026 16.00–19.00 at AD England 70 Oldham Road, New Cross, Manchester, Eng. M4 5EB

Join us for an opportunity to test, explore, discuss and promote solidarity across creative practices that respond to the environment, followed by an opportunity to network in the relaxed surroundings of AD England.

Programme

16.00-16.45. Entangled light , Dr. Helen McGhie and Dr. Antony HallArtist-researchers Helen McGhie and Antony Hall from Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Digital Arts will showcase and discuss their recent collaborative work on urban gardens and bio-electronbics as spaces for creativity, community connection and sustainable futures. They will be sharing photographs made using light generated by soil batteries. There will be an opportunity to examine and discuss both the images made and the ‘mud batteries’ developed from recycled materials to imagine new energy systems.

16.45-17.30 Living/Breathing Lab, Dr. Jessica Elias, Dr. Adi Kuntsman, Dr. Adam Cooke and Niamh CusackResearchers Jessica Elias, Adi Kuntsman , Adam Cooke and Niamh Cusack from Manchester Metropolitan University’s DISC research group will introduce the creative methods proposed for their forthcoming interdisciplinary EnviroTech: Living/Breathing Lab. Their ethnographic, art-science based exploratory work aims to address the emergent, complex issues of Climate Impact, Mitigation and Adaptation. They will discuss how creative practice can bridge gaps between marginalised communities and policymakers through creative practice, lived experience, cultural heritage, and community authorship.

17.30-18.00 Discussion

18.00-19.00 Drinks and networking

Speakers

Adam Cooke is Senior Lecturer in Tech for Good at Manchester Metropolitan University. Based in the School of Digital Arts (SODA), his interdisciplinary research combines creative coding, interaction design, extended reality, data literacy and participatory design methodologies to develop socially engaged technological innovation. His work brings together artists, designers, citizen scientists, researchers, communities and industry partners through collaborative co-creation processes.

Jessica Elias is a Digital Zemiologist, co-lead lead of the Digital Society Research Group (DISC), and Lecturer in Criminology at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research investigates the intersection of digitalisation and harm production; analysing the emergent harms of digitality for human self-relation, agency and autonomy. Her work draws upon Critical Criminology, Surveillance Studies, Cyberfeminism, Marxism, and Post Colonial Critique to engage in interdisciplinary theoretical developments in the digital context.

Antony Hall is a practising artist-researcher working across art, science, ecology and technology. His practice creates experimental interfaces between living systems, materials, technologies and human perception, using creative coding, sound, photography, video, bio-art, sensors, electronics and workshops. His recent research extends environment concerns into eco-technological systems, urban ecology, mosses, pond life and walking as research.

Niamh Cusack is a research assistant at the EnviroTech project, and a doctoral researcher working across the disciplines of fashion, engineering, and exercise science. Her doctoral project, Enhancing Urban Safety Perceptions for Women: The Role of Smart Garments in City Navigation, investigates how wearable technologies can improve feelings of safety and situational awareness in urban environments for women.

Adi Kuntsman is Reader in Digital Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK; author/editor of multiple monographs and edited collections; a co-editor (with Erinma Ochu and Liu Xin) of a new book series, “Digital Materialities and Sustainable Futures” at Emerald, and a visual artist using illustrations to explore the relations between technology and society.

Helen McGhie is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Digital Arts at MMU. Her research engages with young people’s civic and cultural connections formed through social and digital media and addresses the challenge of digital safety and misinformation.