Bran Richards
The thematic thread throughout my education has been holistic and interdisciplinary thought about issues of human wellbeing in our contemporary world. My BA thesis focused on the modern pandemic of adolescent anxiety and depression and aimed to reconcile the conflicting research from different disciplines by establishing a viable foundational understanding of how power operates in adolescent social structures. My MFA work aimed to bridge knowledge from psychology, physics, and spirituality to create emotionally uplifting spaces. And my MSc dissertation in Design Ethnography identified an emerging storytelling behavior on Twitter and showed how people have appropriated social media for the purposes of making sense of their self-narratives.
In HighWire I have found an environment in which I can finally blend all these earlier interests, and to push them that much further. My PhD research is a critique of both the meaning embodied by our technology, and of our technological mission itself. Is making ever more ‘stuff’ – even if that ‘stuff’ represents technological ‘progress’ – a meaningful goal? And given the influence of technologies on our very ways of understanding and experiencing the world, do we not have a responsibility to ask questions about why we are developing technologies and what their impact will be on our wellbeing?
Specifically, in my PhD research I am looking at the issue of cyber-sustainability. While a number of researchers are looking at the potential for Green IT, this takes a broader and arguably more fundamental perspective. Coined in a paper accepted at the Alt.HCI, cyber-sustainability describes necessary considerations for the future of the digital economy, such as both the environmental and psychological impacts of major technological trends (e.g. Web 3.0, ubiquitous and cloud computing). Drawing from a range of literature related to psychology, sociology, sustainability, computing and design, I am exploring radical alternatives for Web development and attempting to redefine ‘progress’ in the Digital Age in a way that is conducive to both human and planetary wellbeing.
My enthusiastic, supportive, and otherwise very excellent supervisors are:
- Stuart Walker, Imagination School
- Lynne Blair, School of Computing and Communications
My qualifications are as follows:
- BA, University of Chicago (2002, with honors) – Comparative Human Development (psychology, anthropology, sociology, which concentration in mental health)
- MFA, University of Dundee (2008) – Installation Art
- MSc, University of Dundee (2009, first degree honors, class medal) – Design Ethnography
- MRes, Lancaster University (2010, with distinction) – HighWire
Read about Cyber-Sustainability at: http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/66792677?access_key=key-1oprbyck44ng0f30538f
Follow my blog at: http://soulsatisfyingtech.blogspot.com/