Through a series of three workshops, the Silences of Science network will examine different aspects of the paradox that science depends both on prolixity and on reticence. It will seek to interrogate the assumption that open and efficient channels of communication are always of greatest benefit to science and to society. It aims to draw the attention of the research community to the creative importance of silence, of interruptions in communication, of isolation and of 'stuckness'. Discussion of the theory and practice of science communication typically emphasises the removal of barriers (for example, between scientist and citizen) and the reduction of distortion (scientific inaccuracy and misrepresentation in the media). Restricted access to scientific knowledge becomes the object of moral censure, whilst maximised communication is frequently taken as an unquestioned social good. However, science - and its communication - depends as much on discontinuities, on barriers and lacunae, as it does on the free flow of information. Contrary to the ideal of science as an open enterprise, scientific innovation and scientific commerce rely on the constant use of moral, legal and technical devices that restrict, rather than encourage, the sharing of ideas. For instance, Information Property Rights procedures close off the flow of information to the scientific community, even as they enable the subsequent commercial development of an idea. Likewise, fear of plagiarism can radically restrict scientists' willingness to discuss their work openly. Humanities scholars from a range of disciplines have drawn attention to the constructive role of silence - from the meaningfulness of pauses and omissions in literature, to the role of solitude and quietude in the history of religion, or the uses of silence within the legal system. However, to date such interests have been sporadic and largely directed towards disciplinary interests. In particular, there has been no attempt to draw on this work to inform the study of the practice and communication of science. The Silences of Science research network will bring together a range of scholars - for instance, from literary studies, media studies, legal studies, religious studies, as well as from the history and philosophy of science, policy studies and science communication studies - who are able to draw on insights from their disciplines in order to develop a conceptual framework with which to examine the role of silence within the sciences. The workshop format facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and is intended to stimulate novel research among the academic participants. The network will also include practising scientists and those working in science policy, with the aim of informing research communication practice and policy.

ENHANCING CHOREOGRAPHIC OBJECTS (EChO). How can one capture the 'intelligences underpinning dance making' (Wayne McGregor) in order to communicate them to a wide public? To answer this question, many of the world's leading choreographers are turning to the possibilities of computer generated imagery and interactive digital technologies. The result is a new genre of digital adjuncts to dance making called 'Choreographic Objects' made to both enhance, and to illustrate, their creative process. Choreographic Objects are providing insights into the valuable knowledge that choreographers and dancers create when they investigate form and structure through movement in the context of making dances. The result is that 'choreographic thinking' is becoming available not only for the purpose of educating audiences, but also in ways that scientists and philosophers can study, architects and designers can utilize, and other artists can draw upon. 'Enhancing Choreographic Objects' (EChO) is an innovative project that uses the results of previous AHRC funded research in a practical manner. In the previous research, social scientists were able to show how the social relations involved in the production of Choreographic Objects were important in shaping them, highlighting both positive and negative potentials generated by the context and process of their construction. The social scientists were able to draw on theories of embodied, skilled and practiced-based knowing, and of its translation into representational media to illuminating effect. This (previous) project demonstrated that social science has a key role in enhancing the awareness of the makers of Choreographic Objects and thereby ensuring more effective outcomes from their endeavours. We will now transfer the results of that research to professional artists and programmers during the construction of a Choreographic Object called the Choreographic Language Agent (CLA) Public Installation. The CLA currently exists as software used by leading UK choreographer Wayne McGregor for generating and investigating choreographic ideas in the studio. McGregor and his dancers use the CLA as a sketchpad in which they can quickly assemble, animate and share complex three-dimensional drawings to take as inspiration for movement generation into the rehearsal studio. The main aim of EChO is to apply the framework developed in the previous research to evaluate how the CLA represents and transfers the creative strengths and skills of dance, and then collaboratively feed back this assessment to the design team building an enhanced CLA for public viewing. This CLA Public Installation will be displayed in a major London exhibition space to encourage wide engagement with the possibilities of choreographic thinking during the creation of a new work by Wayne McGregor | Random Dance (WM|RD) that is set to premiere in October 2013. In EChO, academics will collaborate with the company (WM|RD), digital artists, the exhibition space (Wellcome Collection) and the performance venue (Sadler's Wells) to produce an interactive experience that communicates the thinking and understanding generated in creating dance to a wide public. EChO will thereby utilise the outcomes of the previous AHRC funded research and apply them as academic knowledge transfer directly to institutions whose core aim is to increase public understanding of the value of dance, and of art and science's creative interface. The project will result in a new Choreographic Object tailored to the specific qualities of dance as knowledge creation, and to its public display.

This project will establish an international network of interdisciplinary scholars working on the period from c. 1500-1800 to develop new approaches to uncovering the sounds of the early modern world. Our focus is on how sonic interaction shapes early modern identities. From the chiming of the clock regulating the daily patterns of the city, to the bell calling all to church, the itinerant ballad hawker singing the ballads they wanted to sell, and the literate reading pamphlets to the illiterate, sounds governed everyday life. The network will explore how sounds create communities, civil society, sociability and ways of knowing and understanding the wider world and the self. We will consider how under-explored music was performed in particular places and spaces. We will unearth sensory stories of the past and how they connect with the soundscape. The project will extend our understanding of early printed texts, music and sites where sounds are heard: it will make knowledge of them available to a wider community, and foster opportunities for future collaborations. The network will organise three interdisciplinary workshops, an international conference and commission an electroacoustic composition that recreates the sounds of the past. We will also organise public events in collaboration with our partners; the National Trust, the Wellcome Collection and the University of British Columbia. The workshops will be centred around three key topics and how they relate to sound: theory, space, archives. Practice-led events such as practical demonstrations and skills-set sharing will be included in the workshops and in the conference. We will also establish a blog where approaches to soundscapes can be developed and ideas shared. Network members will contribute podcasts, written reports from events and online resources that will be of interest to academic and non-academic audiences. The major academic intervention in the field that the project will make is to develop a fully multidisciplinary understanding of what the 'soundscape' is and how this broadens our understanding of every day life in the early modern period.

The proposed research network will act as a forum for the discussion of non-sighted modes of beholding art, within the context of situated forms of contemporary art practice. It will question how a shift in the aesthetic engagement afforded by hybrid (intermedia) forms of contemporary art opens up new engagements for the partially sighted and blind community. Sound, smell and touch, for instance, have become an important factor in some installation art, while the discipline of sound art has expanded the spatial reception of the auditory. The network aims to develop a deeper understanding of the spatial and curatorial possibilities of such forms of engagement, and their potential application beyond the world of contemporary art. The proposal is set against a background where the engagement of 'visual' art by blind and partially sighted beholders has primarily been addressed through questions of improving access to medium-specific forms of art, such as through audio descriptions and touch tours, or (more problematically) mediated forms such as 'tactile' paintings and 3D facsimiles. While in a post-pandemic situation access is an ongoing concern, a narrow focus on 'traditional' art does not register how intermedial/installation art has (i) fundamentally challenged ontologies of art, (ii) deliberately sets out to dehabitualise the beholder position, and (iii) challenges the notion of 'context independent' art. Addressing where the criticality lies in non-sighted modes of engagement, the proposition is that the engagement afforded a blind or visually impaired audience should be every bit as complex as that of sighted beholders. This issue is pressing given the prevalence of the default white cube gallery situation and entrenched conventions of 'viewing' art. A deeper understanding of non-visual ontologies of art will not only widen participation to new audiences, but enhance the experience of non-sighted and sighted beholders. This will impact upon the design of galleries and museums - the types of spaces made available, such as their acoustic properties and embedded tactile cues - and attitudes to curating (where partially and non-sighted beholders are rarely treated as part of the core audience, despite the RNIB estimating that over two million people in the UK have visual impairment). This means challenging museum conventions of engagement which prioritise sighted audiences (such as the ubiquitous 'please do not touch'). This research network will facilitate an exchange of ideas that engages interdisciplinary thinking on the phenomenology of the non- or partially-sighted engagement of art. Crucially, it will engage the blind and partially sighted community and organisations that promote cultural opportunities for this audience, and those within institutions enacting policy around inclusion and access to (and the design of) museum/gallery environments. But it will also draw upon disciplinary insights from: cognitive science and psychology (i.e. non-sighted spatial orientation, and the interdependence of perceptual systems); the philosophy of art (the ontology of art and the aesthetics of reception); art and design practice (sighted and non-sighted artists making work where the engagement extends beyond the visual); theoreticians engaging critical disability studies. The workshops and symposium will be organised around three key themes: (i) non-visual perception and orientation (such as sound/haptic localisation); (ii) architectural and spatial situations/contexts (rethinking the gallery situation); (iii) expanding art and curatorial practices (theorising new types of encountering art). The discussions will be transcribed and made available through the network's research website, and live-streaming will facilitate virtual participation. An edited book, organised around themes emerging from the network discussions, will be published at a later date, and made available as an audiobook and large format print edition.

As more and more museums and archives are making their image collections digitally available, new forms of knowledge and exploration of this growing mass of pictures from the past are needed. Computational techniques, which can process and help visualise tens of thousands of images, will be key to unlocking these digital archives in the future. One of the main achievements of the project is to create an innovative database on wartime photography that will include previously unpublished material. EyCon focuses on early conflict photography (1890-1918) documenting mass armed violence, from often overlooked colonial campaigns to the First World War. It is designed as a collection of thousands of original photographs and printed images: despite its scale, this collection will be made discoverable thanks to computational techniques. One of EyCon's tasks is to improve the recognition of objects in images that are very different from the photographs current models have trained on. EyCon will also provide and apply tools to identify similarities between photographs and printed images in contemporary prints in order to retrace the circulation of images. Various visualisations of the entire corpus will also be developed and tested to help users navigate a very large collection of images in a rewarding way. The large-scale discovery of early wartime imagery raises a wide range of ethical and methodological issues that EyCon will directly address. First, EyCon will develop solutions to overcome bias and inaccuracies when AI techniques are applied to a potentially contested visual heritage. Computational methods are not neutral. They may reproduce existing power structures or fail to unravel the unbalanced relationships of the past. EyCon will take great care in emphasising both the benefits and limitations of distant vision. Second, wartime photographs can be very sensitive material, especifically in colonial and imperial contexts that are characterised by racial and gendered violence. Making these pictures available and discoverable in a sensible way that might open the way for a multiplicity of narratives and perspectives is central to the project. Third, while EyCon will help restore the visibility of several conflicts in thousands of images, it also has to consider absent images, forms of violences and conflicts that were not recorded by cameras and that can be crushed under the weight of a large mass of digitised visual material. The EyCon project will lead to the following research outputs: _2 workshops organised in collaboration with Project Partners _2 collections of essays (special issues of journals or edited volumes) _1 demo website integrating all AI functionalities and a metasearch engine to explore data held on Huma-Num and partner institutions' servers. This website will be designed for both specialist and non-specialist end-users. It will be conceived as a user-friendly tool for everyone with or without technical expertise. It will allow us to offer increased discoverability and smart visualisations to users who want to explore the entire Eycon corpus. _An open-source repository (Gitlab) that will make EyCon's scripts and other tools openly available to a broad community. This repository will be useful for data scientists and developers to reuse the scripts and data produced by the project. This will ensure that the project code is replicable and usable in other projects. Archives are of course not reserved to academic researchers. The demo website will foster public engagement on the topic of early conflict photography and computational methods applied to the history of photography. Associated social media and a dedicated Eycon list-serv will help us connect with interested parties - in academia, archival institutions and beyond.