The main areas explored can be summarised as a series of related concepts including embodiment and ownership, perception and behaviour, and representation and power.
The breadth of expertise is essential to the research group and its approach, developing a uniquely comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of avatars as it is becoming more and more prominent in daily life.
Social
The research group draws on expertise in digital games, both in the form of game studies and game art and animation. Exploring avatars in a games context, exploring issues of identification and embodiment, and taking an intersectional approach to representation including gender and critical race studies, contributes significantly to the focus of the research group. Our expertise also engages with sociological perspectives around, identities, representation, the body and embodiment and the social context of living avatars in everyday life.
Legal
Within the scope of legal and regulatory fields, the research group boasts expertise in legal theory and jurisprudence and aims to define how the use of avatars can potentially affect peoples’ understanding of ownership and representation – some of the foundational notions that define how we live together and organise society. The research group also has legal expertise in constitutional law, data protection and privacy, and generally broad technology horizon scanning. From the perspective of the constitutional law space: where the conception of avatars can challenge the idea of ‘normal’ relationships between state and individuals – to the doctrine of legal personality, where avatars can also be regarded as bio-constitutional creatures – to considerations of safeguarding human rights in the Metaverse through equality, equanimity, inclusion, etc.
Digital
The group also benefits from expertise in critical digital literacy and data analytics with specific emphasis on interdisciplinary projects combining programming and arts and humanities research. It also has expertise in the field of political philosophy, specifically biopolitics, seen through the lens of social media and digitisation.
Cognitive
Finally, the expertise of the research group also includes psychology and neuroscience, including multi-modal neural representations of body parts and faces, and how these representations are affected and modified by learning and experience.