Brett Pawson is interested in transmedia and interactive narrative explored through emergent gaming, social media, and installation art. As a researcher and media artist he questions the easy juxtaposition of terms like ‘social’ and ‘media’, proposing that true innovation arises when we begin to ask what meaning these labels hold for us as individuals and transitional cultures.
During his time at the Centre for Digital Media he has acted as researcher and creative direction lead on a project for the First Nations Technology Council, helping them to develop a social media strategy relevant to distributed remote connectivity and conducting user studies on the initial designs. From there he took a widened sense of cultural sensitivity and brought it to the early concept design of a transmedia strategy for Zeroes 2 Heroes, providing the project team with the foundations that led to the development of an iPhone App for the interconnection and distribution of a television series and related media acknowledging the Centenary of the First World War. He also functioned in the role of technical artist insuring all assets in that production pipeline met design specifications, providing experienced asset management and style guides to the UI team.
He additionally wrote and directed an interactive internet film project, The Balmoral, examining perceptions about life in Vancouver’s lower East side, and designed and wrote the script for an international collaboration between CDM team Canasia and a student team at the Communication University of China. That project, Dear Magpie, was an interactive narrative web site that told the story of two lovers separated by space and time, drawn from the Chinese Theory of 5 Elements. Brett acted in the role of Project Manager for project team Seeing Voices in the development The Golden Thread, a design proposal for a Kinect driven audio environment for the technologically motivated meditator.
Brett’s current project with CDM creative unit UFO13 is the production of a full-dome sound and light show for the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, Vancouver. Brett is acting in the role of concept designer and technical artist (3D assets and Planetarium dome motion graphics) for the inaugural offering of the newly refurbished theatre’s stunning 4K immersive media projection system.
Brett's web site is currently being revised but still stands in its pre CDM phase at www.bpvisuals.com