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Animations & Interaction

The Leeds Beckett University website occasionally uses animations to page elements and animated gifs to add impact to pages. If you wish to stop them from playing for accessibility purposes or for personal preference then please see the guidance below. Please note that browsers sometimes change how they operate, so please refer to your browser help files to find their latest information.
How do I turn off animations?

Chrome

Chrome users will need to use browser extensions. Animation Policy from Google will help you set your own preferences.

Microsoft Edge

There is currently no way to disable animations within Microsoft Edge. Users of Edge (Chromium) browser can install the Chrome extensions above and use them.

Internet Explorer

To stop animations on a single page you can just press the 'Esc' key. This will stop the animation on that page. If you wish to restart the animations you need to refresh the page. To permanently disable the playing of animated GIF images, open Internet Options > Advanced tab. Under the Multimedia section, uncheck the Play animations in webpage check-box, click Apply and Exit and then restart your computer.

Firefox

Type about:config in Firefox address bar and hit Enter to open Settings. Search for the image.animation_mode flag and change its value from Normal to None. Once you restart Firefox this will disable animations.

Dr Jess Blaise Ward

Lecturer

Jess is a songwriter, vocalist and synth player with interests in pop music of the 1980s and 1990s. Her research areas include genre formation, online music communities, subcultural theory and feminist scholarship.

Jess’ passion for songwriting has involved a diversity of projects. Her solo work ranges from cinematic to synthpop, while her collaboration projects include works in the pop and metal styles.

Jess regularly collaborates with singer-songwriter Tobias Joel Ward, former punk artist Bishmanrock, and Joe Leonard, lead guitarist of Manchester metal band 40,000 Leagues. She has also written music for synchronisation, including audiobook work, game music and soundtrack.

Jess is an ambassador for the Yorkshire Women Sound Network.

Current Teaching

BA (Hons) Music Industries Management
BA (Hons) Music Performance & Production
BA (Hons) Music Production
MA Popular Music and Culture

Research Interests

Jess' research areas concern genre formation, the activities of online music communities, subcultural theory and feminist scholarship. Her PhD investigated the online music community of synthwave, a 1980s inspired genre which formed on the internet in the mid-2000s. Her thesis is titled, 'An ethnographic study of the online synthwave community, a community of practice – by a composer and performer' and incorporated her own work as a songwriter through autoethnography.

Previous publications by Jess include her study about the memory of post-punk women and her conference paper 'Metalheads in the Synthwave Community' at the 2022 Internet Musicking conference.