Stephen Boyd Davis’ interest in spatialised media led in 2005 to the development of a mobile digital game ‘Ere be Dragons’ in collaboration with the arts organisation Active Ingredient – engaging players with the performance of their own body. Funded by the Wellcome Trust it was a world first in combining location-aware devices and heart-rate sensing, enabling players to explore both the external space they inhabit and the internal space of their own body processes. Issues arising from the project are discussed in several conference papers, journal articles and book chapters, including a handbook on information technology in healthcare. The work has been presented internationally. Further developed by the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham as ‘Heartlands’, the project won the international Nokia Ubimedia Mindtrek award and the national Galileo Masters Satellite Navigation Award.

Building on this experience, Stephen developed with his colleagues Helen Bendon (narrative), Nye Parry (sound design) and Magnus Moar (interaction) a new approach to locative media in the ‘Scratch’ project for BBC Radio Drama. This focuses on the translocational – using space without being tied to any particular place. The main outcome was a full public performance of a location-sensitive drama for FreeThinking 2008 in Liverpool as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations. This has been written up in papers and a book chapter.

Stephen has developed innovative work on the visualisation of historic time, and is currently directing an academic-industrial project with a London software engineering company. For more information, see Research.