Dr Rebecca Collins

Job title:

Lecturer in Contemporary Art Theory

Role:

Researcher on funded European Project 'Parametres for Understanding Uncertainty: Creative Practice and Sonic Detection as Strategies for Scientific Outreach'

rebecca.collins@ed.ac.uk

Office:

E03A, School of Art

Office hours:

2022-2023 out of office for Funded Research Fellowship

Research Output:

Edinburgh Research Explorer link

Biography

Rebecca Collins is an award-winning artist researcher working at the intersection between contemporary performance and sound studies. Her practice, grounded in specific sites or communities, investigates the relationships between social, political and cultural phenomena. Current works explore eavesdropping and amateur espionage, the performativity of gender online and the vibrant potential of landscapes and rural communities

Rebecca is interested in how critical, fictional and performative interventions might cultivate attention towards our contemporary condition indicating potential levers for change. Rebecca is concerned with sharing her scholarship and practice through multiple outcomes which might include performed material, exhibitions, screenings, workshops and publications.

Current projects include ‘Stolen Voices’ (2014-2019), a collaboration with Johanna Linsley (University of Dundee). The project uses eavesdropping as a method, combining this with the dramaturgy of detective fiction. Fieldwork in the form of site investigations along the East coast of the UK and a listening practice are combined with research into social, political and economic concerns found at the borders and margins of the UK. To date outputs include a series of performances, participatory workshops, the release of a limited-edition vinyl album, a number of seminars and conference presentations and a journal article for MDPI Arts. A book project is currently in process.

Rebecca is co-organiser of Women In Sound/Women On Sound (WISWOS), a research network which tackles inequality and gender bias in the sonic arts. She is a member of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present, the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) and Artea, an interdisciplinary research group based in Spain. Between 2018-2020 Rebecca was part of PICA a competitively selected group of international researchers investigating collective creative processes. The group met regularly at AZALA in Northern Spain. As a member of PICA, Rebecca contributed to critical discussions at experimental film festival, Punto de Vista held in Pamplona and BAD, a dance/performance festival held in Bilbao.

Rebecca's work has featured on 'Ars Sonora' a sound art program broadcast on Spanish National Radio, Resonance FM, BBC Wales, BBC Newcastle and Radiophrenia. Her writing has been published in Contemporary Theatre Review, M/C Journal of Media and Culture and Bricks from the Kiln amongst others.

Research interests

Artistic Research
Critical Thinking
Sound Art / Listening
Performance Studies
Experimental Writing

Teaching

Rebecca is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and has extensive experience of teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses on a variety of practical and theoretical modules. Her specialist knowledge and expertise in sound, curatorial strategies and performance informs and drives both her research and teaching practices. She has knowledge of a range of research techniques and methodologies including critical theory, aesthetics and practice-based research. Rebecca teaches Visual Culture across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the School of Art. She is currently course organiser for 'Gendered Soundings? Sound Art and Feminisms' which brings her interest in sonic practices into dialogue with critical feminist theory.

Rebecca has supervised undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations on a range of topics including gender, visual aesthetics, sound, art writing and fiction.

Rebecca previously worked at The University of Leeds and made a substantial contribution to the design and delivery of practice-based research modules at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries and The Workshop Theatre at the School of English. Prior to this Rebecca lectured at Aberystwyth University and Sunderland University and has been a guest lecturer on the MA in Performance and Visual Cultures at the University of Alcalá and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Spain.

Research

Rebecca's main research interests are in the fields of sound, listening, performance and writing. Rebecca is particularly interested in practice-led research methodologies for investigating aural attention, affect, mood and atmosphere through listening, text and vocal delivery techniques.

Rebecca's work is informed by transdisciplinary interests in politics, site and aesthetics. She is currently thinking through theories of the event, the dramaturgy of crisis, writing the swarm and the slippery borders between public and private space for her forthcoming book publication.