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Mel
Frances

art // play // tech // maths

Photo by Atul Vinayak on Unsplash

WHAT I DO

WHO I AM

A picture of Mel. A white woman with brown hair smiling at the camera.

I'm Mel Frances, a game designer, digital storyteller and creative mathematician. I make interactive experiences - books, performances and games - that travel to unknown places, speculative futures and alternative realities. My work is for people who like adventures, probing rules, and finding hidden possibilities. 

 

I am Joint Artistic Director of Produced Moon: a digital, interactive arts organisation based in Scotland. We create mixed reality experiences, live performance and participatory projects. Produced Moon are Associate Artists at Platform Glasgow. We've been mentored by Punchdrunk, Gob Squad and Coney. 

 

Most recently, I created cloudwith artists Vaishnavi Singh & Michael-Jon Mizra. cloud, which was funded by Creative Informatics, is an interactive story about a cloud which explores some of the relationships between data and creative practice, how we use data to tell stories and how data tells stories to us. You can play cloud here

I'm proudly part of Coney's Guild. 

Photo by Willy Corner

PROFESSIONAL 

WHAT I DO

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Creative
Mathematics
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Creative
Mathematics

The Ex

Boyfriend

Yard Sale

Photograph: Sophie le Roux

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Digital
artworks
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Digital
artworks

IMPRINT


Commisioned by
Peshkar Productions
EXPERIENCEO

RECENT PROJECTS

ARTWORKS                COLLABORATIONS

Modern Art Oxford

An immersive forest of stories exploring possible futures, alternative worlds and the question 'what if?'. branch was live on the Modern Art Oxford website between 10 Feb and 13 March 2022. 

Guild Member

Melanie has worked artistically on a variety of projects for Coney since 2017 as a writer, game designer, artist and facilitator. 

donut/moneY
(in development)

Commissioned by the Place, Bedford

An escape-room style experience inspired by Kate Raworth's model of the doughnut economy.

Innovating knowledge exchange
Student Involvement in Delivering Better Patient Experience in the NHS

Digital Theatre Consultant 

A collection of digital creative projects for older adults living with Dementia, delivered jointly by practitioners from the Dementia Care Team within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and RCSSD, and led by Dr Nicola Abraham and Consultant Nurse Jo James. 

seer
(IN DEVELOPMENT)

Paper Nations - Beyond the Book
A digital novella investigating the limits of perception, perspective and how we act when truth is unclear. Commissioned as part of the Beyond the Book project, exploring new models of storytelling for the smartphone.

Co-Author

The first in a series of 'escape books' for Ammonite Press, all set in the world of Sherlock Holmes and co-written with Charles Phillips.

KEEP A LIGHT ON FOR THOSE WHO ARE LOST
BUSH THEATRE neighbourhood company

Digital Artist

I worked as digital artist on 'Keep a Light on For Those Who Are Lost' with the Bush Theatre's Neighbourhood Company. I created a digital experience to compliment a physical installation and audio play. The play was written by Titas Halder and Lead Artist was Abigail Graham. 

Imitating the Dog, New Adventures in Performance - Artist 

I created issue 5 of Imitating the Dog's 'New Adventures in Performance' in which I explored making work at the digital / physical boundary. 

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Visiting Lecturer and Digital Consultant

with the Applied Theatre team working to explore and promote best practice in digital interactivity in applied theatre projects.

 Alternarration - Peshkar

Digital artwork exploring the tension between knowledge and fear. IMPRINT was commissioned as part of Alternarration which approached the sensitive issue of youth radicalisation with partners in Belgium and Macedonia on a project funded through the Erasmus+ programme.

Mathematics collaborator

The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale premiered in London at Camden People's Theatre in Nov 2018. This autobiographical work offers eight items “for sale” – all gifts from Haley’s exes – and introduces a brand new formula, developed with math expert Melanie Frances, to calculate the cost of love.

Artist - Heather Barnett's
Crowd Control Festival

Crowd Control explored the mechanisms of collective behaviour through observation, simulation and experimentation. Connecting visual, digital and performance art practices with contemporary scientific research, law and urban design.

Assistant Director - Tortoise in a Nutshell

A brand new piece of exciting, innovative visual theatre co-produced with Figurteatret i Nordland (Nordland Visual Theatre) and in association with Macrobert Arts Centre. I was funded to undertake this role by the Federation of Scottish Theatre. 

A logo with the words 'Produced Moon' in the centre, surrounded by three circles.

Melanie is the Co-Artistic Director of interactive, digital theatre company Produced Moon.

Melanie has co-created all of Produced Moon’s projects, including two sell-out Edinburgh Fringe runs.

 

Produced Moon are Associate Artists at Platform Glasgow, and were 2019 Accelerator Artists with Boundless Theatre

CONTACT

CONTACT

If you'd like to get in touch for any reason please email

melaniefrancescontact@gmail.com

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