Professor Mary Oliver

Professor Mary Oliver is Dean of the Media and Performance Faculty at the Arts University in Bournemouth. She was the first in her family to go to University taking a Foundation Arts Course before taking the ‘secure’ option of training to be a teacher, then the ‘unsecure’ option of studying for an Arts Degree which opened up opportunities that she never imagined were possible. She trained as a painter before becoming a film maker, singer, stage performer, writer, pioneer of digital performance, devisor of interactive theatre and interactive art works and finally a future proofer of Higher Education. Her inter-disciplinary interests led her to work with computer scientists in the 1990’s and it was this meeting point that led her to be aware that when creative arts practice and computation combine it opens up the possibility for creating new forms of interaction.

Mary created a four-year long Sci-Art research project call the “The As Yet Impossible” which led directly to the development of the innovative International Screen School in Manchester chaired by Danny Boyle before coming to join the staff of AUB last summer. She describes herself as a consummate example of the life-long learner “The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know so I’m always looking for the next opportunity to learn new things”.

Mary’s talk will focus on the future of Media Production methods, and the range of new job roles that are opening up as a result of the convergence of creative and technological expertise. Mary will address how important the Creative Industries are to the future economic success of the UK and she will challenge you to think about how you can be the pioneers of future skills and to be the creators of jobs that do not currently exist.