MediaWall was born as a place to experiment, create, and challenge the boundaries between art, space, and technology.

MediaWall can trace its origins back to California. 

Inspired by the large-scale media and interactive experiences created by Moment Factory for the Los Angeles Tom Brady International Airport, Bath Spa's Academic Developer and designer, Neil Glen, saw an opportunity to create a space for staff and students to collaborate, experiment and develop large-scale digital media works.

Julian Opie's 'Lily' – in conjunction with his exhibition 'Collected Works' at the Holburne Museum – caused a "fluttering of the eyelashes" at the official opening of Commons in June 2014.

Lord Puttnam CBE remarked:

“Having walked around the Commons, the facilities are absolutely stunning. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to be 18 years old again and going to university. This is the sort of facility that any university anywhere in the world would envy.”

Over five years MediaWall hosted more than 50 projects from international artists and researchers, and created spaces for students and staff to learn through creation; blurring the boundaries between bodies and space, between movement and dimensionality. 

Victor Explains the Mysteries saw Bath Spa Dance, Music, and Photography students team up with the award-winning dance company Earthfall for a residency exploring technology and dance, culminating in a promenade performance to over 120 guests. World-renowned land artist Richard Long opened a week-long interdisciplinary creative education research project 'Lines of Desire' in which Art, Geography, Creative Media and Film students responded to the multi-layered experience of place.

Enabling such collaborative learning experiences to sit alongside work from international artists, including Bruce Munro's first truly digital piece, Between Worlds II, and Larry Cuba's unique reworking of Two Space (1979) – a formative work in the field of computer-generated arts – is in the DNA of MediaWall. The fact that these artists were inspired to create unique installations for MediaWall underscores how special it is.

MediaWall is for everyone

Creating a community of activity around large-scale, public-facing, digitally-mediated work, MediaWall's curated programme of artworks, research outcomes and socially mediated interventions sit alongside learning and teaching activities within three key themes:

  • creativity, design and exploration
  • teaching and learning
  • curation, exhibition and display.

Our technology

Screens

MediaWall consists of thirty HD display panels arranged in a 3x10 grid extending over two storeys of the atrium in Commons building.

The overall size is 7.35m high x 3.75m wide. Static images can be presented in incredible 10800 pixel high detail, and moving image work is specially authored at 3600 pixels high by 1920 pixels wide.

Technical information

MediaWall artworks are hosted on a Windows PC and created using any medium artists feel comfortable with. Artworks ranged from static images and video works to custom coded works using MaxMSP, Pure Data, HTML 5, Unity, Processing, Python and OpenFrameworks.

Want to know more?

You can read more about the history behind MediaWall in our SPACE Magazine feature.

A curatorial committee with oversight of the programme of works collaborated with the events team to create engagement both within the wider University and with external audiences, with appropriate circulation and support via social media.

The flexible architecture allowed a range of formats or programming environments to encourage wider cross-disciplinary support for the work, in alignment with the University vision and strategy.

Running the programme several months in advance enabled testing, artistic and technical developments, and communications to ensure projects were reliable. The unique format often inspired the development of unique work, responding to the format of MediaWall and the 24/7 nature of the open atrium space in Commons.

Below is a summary of these works, representing the breadth of creativity from our staff and students to our global community of partners and alumni. You can also take a look at the Project Archive.

External artists

A collaboration with the Holbourne Museum's 'Julian Opie: Collected Works' exhibition in 2014 enabled the university to present an installation of his animated artwork 'Lily' following its debut at the Barbara Krakow Gallery in Boston, 2013.

Internationally acclaimed artist Bruce Munro, known for producing large immersive site-specific works, presented his first truly digital artwork created especially for MediaWall: Between Worlds II, 2014.

Originally produced by Larry Cuba in 1979 as a 16mm film, subsequent digitised in 2009, 'Two Space 2009 (MediaWall)' tiled the video sequence across 30 HD screens as a single high resolution moving image 10,800 pixels high to open 'Seeing Sounds' conference 2016.

View the MediaWall archive

Performance events

Many works used the architecture of the building to stage performances, simultaneously shaping and creating the artwork.

Created using an animated graphic score system responding to an EEG signal from a ‘brain performer’ as they are stimulated by the improvisation of an instrumentalist, 'Mondrisonic' was performed live by Tim Sayer as ‘brain performer’ using an EEG headset and Andy Visser as instrumentalist playing Bass Clarinet on 14 June 2016, opening the Performance Studies Network conference.

Forming part of a second-year Dance assessment in 2014, 'Victor Explains the Mysteries' was a week-long choreographic residency with award-winning professional dance company Earthfall, concluding in a performance mixing live and recorded visuals with music and movement to over 120 guests.

View the MediaWall archive

Collaborations

Several projects created opportunities for students to collaborate and explore the scale of MediaWall 

A one-week intensive experience 'Lines of Desire' brought together Art and Geography students to co-create a piece, informed by the approach of land artist Richard Long

For the 5x5x5=Creativity conference, Year 4 children from St Andrew's School, Bath, worked with staff and students on a one-day workshop to create a marble machine featuring their images and designs: 'Marvellous Marble Machine'

'Atlantic Crossings' saw MA Dance students from Bath Spa University and Roger Williams University, Rhode Island, USA work with Cardiff based choreographer Jo Fong and tutor Chris Lewis-Smith to construct short dances concluding in performances streamed, looped, layered and delayed, in a multi-screen layout with music provided by Bath Spa University jazz musicians.

View the MediaWall archive

Coding artworks

Kelly Thompson, Associate Professor at Concordia University, presented 'Fluid Data' in 2016, exploring the relationship between digital data, scale, trustworthiness and fallibility through the medium of woven textiles as part of her research 'Material Codes: Ephemeral Traces'. A sequence of 10,800-pixel images could be inspected, revealing individual threads and glitches in the weave.

'General Intellect' questioned the value of digital labour and shifting conditions of exploitation. For one month Amazon mTurk workers recorded themselves for one minute of every hour between 9am and 5pm; these short videos were curated and updated live. First shown at MIX Digital Conference 2015 and subsequently at Aktionsart, Seattle.

Premiered in 2015, 'Lake King William: Every Day of November 2014' displayed photographs from the highest impoundment of Tasmania's Derwent hydroelectric scheme. Taken every five minutes, and cycling through a 24 hour day in 24 minutes, the 30 screens displayed the same time during each day of November, in which the level of the lake recedes with the approach of the Australian summer.

View the MediaWall archive