Dr
Charlie Tweed
- Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture - Co-Director Centre for Media Research
- Email: c.tweed@bathspa.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 (0)1225 875549
- School or Department: School of Creative Industries
- Campus: Newton Park
- Website:

Personal statement
Charlie Tweed is the Co-Director of the Centre for Media Research and leads the Digital Materialities cluster. He is a media artist and practice based researcher who lectures in digital media practice and culture at Bath Spa University.
His performative, digital and video based works have interrogated the human desire to control the natural world using various forms of technology and systems of management.
Past projects have been informed by detailed research into the development of machines as forms of human prosthetic and their relation with various theories of control, from disciplinary control to informatics and the societies of control. His works utilise methods of fictional writing, appropriation, re-mixing and re-contextualisation to construct detailed proposals and parallel fictions which are often site specific and identify new relations between technology and ecology and new visions of human and non-human agency.
His current research focuses on the materialities and infrastructures of media technologies and their relation with the ecological. He recently developed a large scale project titled 'Re-writing the overcode' which traces the complex production networks and ‘hyperobjects' of digital devices. It exposed the material origins of the black boxed device and looked at defining a new set of relations between the human, the earth’s crust and its raw materials. The outputs of this project included a large scale audio installation that manifests as a performative transmission from dead and forgotten technologies.
He has exhibited his works internationally including recent solo shows at The Stanley Picker Gallery, London; Spike Island, Bristol and Aspex Portsmouth and group shows at WRO, Poland; Nunnery Gallery, London; Meetfactory, Prague; Whitechapel Gallery, London and Zentrum Paul Klee, Switzerland.
He has also created performances and lectures for international conferences and events including Geologies of Value and Vestige, Kingston University; The Signal and the rock at Central Art Academy, Beijing and at Arnolfini, Bristol and Strata Conference, Aberystwyth University. He is the organiser of the Digital Ecologies symposia series at Bath Spa University, the first symposium was titled 'Digital Ecologies and the Anthropocene' and took place in 2017.
He also recently completed a collaborative project with scientist Dr Darren Logan at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge which was funded by a Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award and produced by Animate Projects, London. In this project, he researched the technologies and software used by Dr Logan to sequence genomes. In response he produced a short film titled 'The Signal and the Noise' which looks at aligning the history of computer coding with human coding and looks towards potential future scenarios of hybrid computing and genome sequencing.
In the past he has also worked in a range of commercial roles focusing specifically on user experience design, digital strategy and research. He has worked as a freelancer and with a range of digital agencies and broadcasters.
Academic qualifications
- PhD - Kingston University, London
- MFA Art Practice - Goldsmiths College, University of London
- MA Electronic Media - Oxford Brookes University
- BA (Hons) Fine Art - Oxford Brookes University
Teaching specialism
- Media art
- Digital media practice
- Digital cultures
- Transmedia practice
- Digital materiality
- Practice Based research methodologies.
Current scholarship
Current research focuses on:
- Contemporary systems of control and their associated belief systems
- Fictional methods and their potential as a strategy within critical practice
- Actor networks, hyperobjects and non-human voices
- Environmental media and technological materiality
Other external roles
- Link Tutor for FdA Film and Media Arts Production and BA Lens Based Media, Weston College
- PhD external examiner - Aberystwyth University.
Research and academic outputs
Fiction Machines: Oporavak
article
Tweed, C (2019) 'Fiction Machines: Oporavak.' The International Journal of Creative Media Research, 1. ISSN 2631-6773
Transmedia UK: sector by sector
conference_item
Freeman, M and Tweed, C (2017) Transmedia UK: sector by sector. In: One-Day Academic-Industry Workshop, 24 November 2017, Bath Spa University, Corsham, UK.
We make stuff: film and social context
conference_item
Turner, P, Levy, C, White, R, Tweed, C and Wilkins, S (2017) We make stuff: film and social context. In: We Make Stuff, 27 March 2017, Holbourne Museum, Bath, UK.
Artist's talk: Charlie Tweed
conference_item
Tweed, C (2016) Artist's talk: Charlie Tweed. In: LifeSpace Science Art Research Gallery Artist Talks Series, 30 September 2016, LifeSpace Science Art Research Gallery, Dundee, Scotland.
Oporavak
conference_item
Tweed, C (2016) Oporavak. In: Cold Bodies, Warm Machines: Art, Technology and the Posthuman, 9 - 11 September 2016, NRW-Forum, Düsseldorf, Germany.
The signal and the noise
conference_item
Tweed, C (2016) The signal and the noise. In: Silent Signal Symposium, 26 February 2016, College of Arts, University of Derby, UK.
The signal and the rock
conference_item
Tweed, C (2016) The signal and the rock. In: STRATA: Art and Science Collaborations in the Anthropocene, 15 January 2016, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, Wales.
Charlie Tweed
conference_item
Tweed, C (2014) Charlie Tweed. In: Art in the City Talks, 12 November 2014, Arnolfini, Bristol.
Re-writing the overcode
conference_item
Tweed, C (2013) Re-writing the overcode. In: Trans – what? Across and Beyond (Artistic) Research: Symposium, 28 July 2013, Supermarkt Creative Resource Centre, Berlin, Germany.
I am the tantalum
conference_item
Tweed, C (2013) I am the tantalum. In: Geologies of Value and Vestige Symposium, 10 July 2013, Centre for Useless Splendour, Kingston University, UK.
Solutionising the overcode: artistic methods of escape from the electronic super-panopticon
conference_item
Tweed, C (2012) Solutionising the overcode: artistic methods of escape from the electronic super-panopticon. In: Space and Place: 3rd Global Conference, 3 - 5 September 2012, Mansfield College, Oxford.
Soon we will become output
exhibition
Tweed, C (2017) Soon we will become output. Stanley Picker Gallery, London, UK, 13 - 20 December 2017. ISBN 9781527217836
Oporavak
exhibition
Tweed, C (2017) Oporavak. In: WRO 2017 Biennale: Draft Systems, WRO Art Center, Wroclaw, Poland, 17 - 21 May 2017.
Archimeters (2011)
exhibition
Tweed, C (2016) Archimeters (2011). In: Both Sides Now 3: Screenings in East Asia, Woolloomooloo, Taipei, 19 August - 9 December 2016.
Archimeters (2011)
exhibition
Tweed, C (2016) Archimeters (2011). In: Selected VI, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland, 25 May 2016.
The signal and the noise
exhibition
Tweed, C (2016) The signal and the noise. In: Silent Signal, Quad, Derby, UK, 6 February - 6 March 2016 and 18 March - 23 April 2016.
i am algorithm
exhibition
Tweed, C (2013) i am algorithm. Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, UK, 26 April - 7 July 2013.
Notes I, II and III
exhibition
Tweed, C (2010) Notes I, II and III. Spike Island, Bristol, UK, 9 October - 5 September 2010.
The signal and the rock: performative lecture
performance
Tweed, C (2015) The signal and the rock: performative lecture. In: Charlie Tweed at CAFA, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, 14 December 2015.
Re-writing the machinic anthropocene [multi-component output with contextualising information]
video
Tweed, C (2020) Re-writing the machinic anthropocene [multi-component output with contextualising information].
Fiction machines [multi-component output with contextualising information]
video
Tweed, C Fiction machines [multi-component output with contextualising information].
The signal and the noise [single-component output with contextualising information]
video
Tweed, C The signal and the noise [single-component output with contextualising information].