SPARC

SPARC [the Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference] was interesting.

Due to previously being rather prolific via email, I finally got the opportunity to put some faces to names/addresses including one of the people that has been intrinsic to getting all the elements together for my AHRC funding application. Then I met my PhD personal tutor too. In fact the latter was in the audience when I did my 60 second "pitch" and caught up with me afterwards - having not noticed my name - as he was interested in what I'd outlined. Which is handy. Especially as he's one of the organisers of the Bigger Than Words, Wider Than Pictures conference. And what I was outlining was what I'll be revising for that.

Additionally I spoke to the coordinator of the Graduate Trainee Assistantships who will be in touch ahead of my post in October. And she was really nice too. Also amazing was the further contact who expressed genuine interest in the development of the ideas within Sshhh and mentioned another proposed conference that they will be organising. And also asked if I would be interested in speaking at that.

I did feel a bit out of my depth at times. As mentioned, most of the research work displayed was hard science rather than the kind of visceral work that I have a habit of developing. In fact, work from the school of Art & Design appears to be under-represented within programmes like SPARC [I was the only one - although there was a contributor from the school of Music, Media & Performance]. And some of the panels were very much outside of my comfort zone. Plus a woman asked if my work was for my Masters. When I said yes, she pointed out that SPARC is a post-graduate research conference. I replied that I was a postgraduate student presenting a research project and she insisted that it was for PhD research. I disagreed [because, like, I was there and had therefore met the criteria to contribute to the conference] and she commented that I was the only Masters student there. I've just had another glance at the section clarifying eligibility and it doesn't mention MAs. Just that it includes MRes, MPhils and MSCs by research [in addition to all PhDs] so she might have had a point. But then I wasn't completely wrong either.

Meantime my new blog - which will be used for my dissertation project (given that this one is still ongoing) - is now live at http://musicecology.blogspot.com.

SPARC poster #2

The poster arrived for the SPARC conference that is happening this week [it is closer to the colour below but the photo was taken while it was particularly overcast]. The sound recording card was delivered too so I'm just recording the sounds to that while I've also made the stickers that show where to push to generate the samples. I'll update how that all goes on Thursday. However I already feel that the other SPARC abstracts are really science-y and tied into really solid research while mine now feels very much about looking into a subject, finding out some stuff and then formulating a solution that is based on what I really want to produce. In a way, it is as much informed by my own taste and feelings as it is the theory that I applied. I can't see that particular approach being mirrored by those postgrads that have been working in medicine and other 'serious' subjects.

Meanwhile I'm also seeing the external examiner tomorrow. On Wednesday we're getting briefed on the final MA project/dissertation too. I'll be starting a new blog for that one.

SPARC poster

The poster for SPARC has been sent for printing. The four little circles at the bottom are hopefully above where the buttons are on the sound playback card. I say "hopefully" as it hasn't arrived yet. I subsequently had to map their position using a little jpeg of it that I scaled up to what were listed as its dimensions.

I also decided not to label the buttons on the poster just in case disaster strikes and the audio device gets lost in the post. I can add some stickers to it later.