Centre for the Study of the Networked Image
CSNI (Centre for the Study of the Networked Image) aims to bring together researchers from cultural studies, software studies, contemporary art, media, and performance practice, who seek new knowledge and understanding of the myriad ways in which culture and society has been affected by computational systems.
The main aim of the group is to gain new understandings of how meaning and value is communicated and engaged within the digital media cultures of photography, film and video, generative AI, game engines, online platforms, and social media. At the centre of this range of media forms is the recognition that the network of networked computers has transformed the production and circulation of our cultural systems of contemporary and historical values.
CSNI’s objectives are:
- To develop new knowledge through innovative, practice-as-research methodologies.
- To forge transdisciplinary links across the arts and sciences.
- To build upon and expand the international reputation of CSNI within relevant fields of research and scholarship.
- To further collaborative partnerships with external cultural organisations to apply research to real world problems.
- To develop and articulate a critical framework for research founded upon the ethics of equality, diversity and inclusion.
CSNI supports LSBU’s research strategy through innovative, collaborative and transdisciplinary research, focused upon new knowledge of how computational culture informs media and communication and hence impacts upon social life and individual experience. Much of the research is practice-based and orientated to seeking creative solutions to real world problems. The research group considers the integration of arts and humanities with STEM subjects (i.e. STEAM) to be essential for addressing the complex societal challenges of today.
CSNI works closely with other research groups/centres and the cultural industries to achieve its aims and render research and innovation purposeful and achieve local and global impact. We aim to strengthen and extend these partnerships that serve to underpin our projects and collaborative PhDs, as in the case of our ongoing work with The Photographers’ Gallery, Serpentine Galleries, Tate, and Whitechapel Gallery.
If you are interested in collaborating with CSNI, please contact us on our email.
More details on our activities can be found on our dedicated website.
We are an international group of researchers, joined by an extensive list of visiting researchers from our partners institutions. We welcome applications to spend some research time at CSNI, as well as applications for PhDs in relevant areas of research.
- Prof Geoff Cox
- Adam Brown
- Dr Annet Dekker
- Prof Andrew Dewdney
- Tim Fransen (TSS)
- Dr Matthew Hawkins
- Joshua Magor
- Prof Elena Marchevska
- Dr Paula Roush
- Simon Terrill
View the full Centre for the Study of the Networked Image staff list.
CSNI fosters transdisciplinary research with a wide public reach and has pioneered collaborative and embedded research with the cultural sector. CSNI is currently involved in the following funded projects:
"Ways of (Machine) Seeing: towards a new visual literacy in AI” is supported by Responsible Ai UK Skills Programme, in collaboration with UCL Institute of Education, Justice Matrix and The Photographers’ Gallery (2024-25). It extends our earlier project Learning Experiments in Computer Vision and Visual Literacy (Sept 2022-23), a public engagement project funded by The Alan Turing Institute.
ServPub (April 2023-26) is a collaborative research project to explore alternative publishing infrastructures, with the participation of CSNI, UCL Slade School of Art, SHAPE at Aarhus University, and grassroot art-tech collectives Systerserver and In-Grid. We are currently working on an experimental book project with Minor Compositions as part of Open Book Futures. Find out more.
CSNI works with other research centres/groups and has partnerships with: Aarhus University, University of Amsterdam, Australian National University, Exeter University, Lucerne University of Applied Arts and Sciences, Royal College of Art, Winchester School of Art, University of Zurich, UCL Institute of Education, and UCL Slade School of Fine Arts.
Our work is distinctive for its close collaboration with the cultural sector including current partnerships with The Photographers’ Gallery, Serpentine Galleries, Gasworks, Tate , transmediale festival for art and digital culture, Whitechapel Gallery. Examples:
- CSNI works closely with the Aarhus University’s Digital Aesthetics Research Centre at Aarhus University on a yearly research workshop/publication with transmediale festival for art and digital culture, and also with the Centre for Research in Artistic Practice under Contemporary Conditions on The Contemporary Condition book series.
- The research group Networked Images (CSNI), at Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam is part of the wider network of CSNI.
- CSNI has an established relationship with the Royal College of Art through long-term shared research interests and collaborations between Professor Andrew Dewdney (LSBU) and Professor Victoria Walsh, Professor of Art History and Curating and Head of MA Curating Contemporary Art. Their collaborative research and doctoral supervisions has focused upon the art museum’s knowledge and practices of and in network culture. See the report of the AHRC funded project Cultural Value and the Digital: Practice, Policy and Theory can be found.
- CSNI and The Photographers’ Gallery have been in a research partnership since 2013. Currently the partnership centres on the collaborative PhDs on computer vision and ICT sustainability, as well as provides support for the Unthinking Photography platform, edited by Ioanna Zouli. Previous researcher: Nicolas Malevé. Current researchers: Marloes de Valk and Kendal Beynon.
- CSNI works in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery to examine the potential of networks – social and technological – for an expanded curatorial practice. This complements our collaborative course MA Curating Art and Public Programmes. Researcher: Rachel Falconer.
- CSNI has partnered with the Serpentine Galleries to undertake research on building new collaborative networks between the arts and technology in the context of the stark differences between the cultures of the art sector and technology sector. Researcher: Victoria Ivanova.
- The social agency of residencies in transnational art practice is a collaborative project with the contemporary art organisation Gasworks, in partnership with the Curating Contemporary Art programme at the RCA and CSNI. Researcher: Rosie Hermon.
- CSNI also co-produces the DATA browser book series published by Open Humanities Press.
CSNI researchers publish books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and talks, and act as series editors, e.g., for The Contemporary Condition books (Sternberg Press), DATA browser books (Open Humanities Press), the open access online journal APRJA (Aarhus University and transmediale festival for art and digital culture), and support the Unthinking Photography platform of The Photographers’ Gallery.
Recent publications
- Dewdney, Andrew, and Katrina Sluis, eds. 2022. The Networked Image in Post-Digital Culture. Routledge.
More information about our research outputs can be found at LSBU Open Research and at our publications page.