Dr Simon Perkins

Simon Perkins is an academic and design researcher in the Faculty of Media & Communication. He is a Pākehā, originally from Te Wai Pounamu (South Island) in Aotearoa New Zealand.

His current research focuses on the form of the video cut-up as a contemporary means of meta-textual content production and cultural critique. The form centres on the process of generating creative works through appropriating, reinterpreting and re-authoring existing published material. In doing so such video cut-ups represent a direct challenge to accepted concepts of authorship, ownership and copyright as well as further exposing the divide between high culture and popular culture (where despite the significant number of video cut-ups being created, such works are easily dismissed as amateur cultural-production and therefore tend to be seen as a purely cultural and not a critical phenomenon).

Simon has taught across both undergraduate and post-graduate levels; including PhD supervision. His teaching is primarily focused on contemporary cultural theory and creative practice, and in doing so has significance lecturing experience and dissertation and major project supervision in areas including: digital culture and theory; communication, information and graphic design; web software development and project-management; social media identity construction and performance; as well as short-form screenwriting and experimental film-making.

Additionally, he also has 10 years combined experience managing academic programmes, including Programme Leader for Bournemouth University's BA (Hons) Digital Media Design degree programme and Course Leader for Nottingham Trent University's BA (Hons) Graphic Design and BA (Hons) Multimedia courses. He also has significant experience working in quality assurance areas including: External Examining, Franchise External Verifier, Degree Validation and Programmatic Review panel member.