Mark Webb Survey Exhibition

The exhibiton brought together a diverse group of works using an array of presentational strategies, which critically facilitate a dialogue across the material and conceptual aspects of my practice over 25 years. It focussed on my ongoing explorations into art as a model for research, as a site for intermediary exchange between different discursive forms and as a space to engage the politics of the everyday.

In pursuit of an architecture realism

The noble idea of studying seminal works to ‘see what we can learn’ has turned in the 1990s into ‘let’s see what we can take’ and in the last decade a more toxic derivative ‘what else can’t we take’. That is my observation as a student of architecture in the 1990s, and as a practitioner in the 2000s. In 2010, the sense that something is ending is clear. The next generation is rising and their gaze has shifted. The idea of classification (as a means of separation) was previously rejected by a generation of Postmodernists; the usefulness of difference declined. It’s there in the presence of plurality in the resulting architecture, a decision to mine history and seize in a willful manner. This is a process of looking back but never forward. It has been a mono-culture of absorption. The mono-culture rejected the pursuit of the realistic. It is a blanket suffocating all practice of architecture in this country from the mercantile to the intellectual. Independent reviews of Australia’s recent contributions to the Venice Architecture Biennales confirm the malaise. The next generation is beginning to reconsider classification as a means of unification. By acknowledging the characteristics of competing forces it is possible to bring them into a state of tension. Seeking a beautiful contrast is a means to a new end. In the political setting, this is described by Noel Pearson as the radical centre[1]. The concept transcends the political and in its most essential form is a cultural phenomenon. It resists the compromised position and suggests that we can look back while looking forward. The radical centre is the only demonstrated opportunity where it is possible to pursue a realistic architecture. A realistic architecture in Australia may be partially resolved by addressing our anxiety of permanence. Farrelly’s built desires[2] and Markham’s ritual demonstrations[3] are two ways into understanding the broader spectrum of permanence. But I think they are downstream of our core problem. Our problem, as architects, is that we are yet to come to terms with this place. Some call it landscape others call it country. Australian cities were laid out on what was mistaken for a blank canvas. On some occasions there was the consideration of the landscape when it presented insurmountable physical obstacles. The architecture since has continued to work on its piece of a constantly blank canvas. Even more ironic is the commercial awards programs that represent a claim within this framework but at best can only establish a dialogue within itself. This is a closed system unable to look forward. It is said that Melbourne is the most European city in the southern hemisphere but what is really being described there is the limitation of a senseless grid. After all, if Dutch landscape informs Dutch architecture why can’t the Australian landscape inform Australian architecture? To do that, we would have to acknowledge our moribund grasp of the meaning of the Australian landscape. Or more precisely what Indigenes call Country[4]. This is a complex notion and there are different ways into it. Country is experienced and understood through the senses and seared into memory. If one begins design at that starting point it is not unreasonable to think we can arrive at an end point that is a counter trajectory to where we have taken ourselves. A recent studio with Masters students confirmed this. Start by finding Country and it would be impossible to end up with a building looking like an Aboriginal man’s face. To date architecture in Australia has overwhelmingly ignored Country on the back of terra nullius. It can’t seem to get past the picturesque. Why is it so hard? The art world came to terms with this challenge, so too did the legal establishment, even the political scene headed into new waters. It would be easy to blame the budgets of commerce or the constraints of program or even the pressure of success. But that is too easy. Those factors are in fact the kind of limitations that opportunities grow out of. The past decade of economic plenty has, for the most part, smothered the idea that our capitals might enable civic settings or an architecture that is able to looks past lot line boundaries in a dignified manner. The denied opportunities of these settings to be prompted by the Country they occupy is criminal. The public realm is arrested in its development because we refuse to accept Country as a spatial condition. What we seem to be able to embrace is literal and symbolic gestures usually taking the form of a trumped up art installations. All talk – no action. To continue to leave the public realm to the stewardship of mercantile interests is like embracing derivative lending after the global financial crisis.Herein rests an argument for why we need a resourced Government Architect’s office operating not as an isolated lobbyist for business but as a steward of the public realm for both the past and the future. New South Wales is the leading model with Queensland close behind. That is not to say both do not have flaws but current calls for their cessation on the grounds of design parity poorly mask commercial self interest. In Queensland, lobbyists are heavily regulated now with an aim to ensure integrity and accountability. In essence, what I am speaking of will not be found in Reconciliation Action Plans that double as business plans, or the mining of Aboriginal culture for the next marketing gimmick, or even discussions around how to make buildings more ‘Aboriginal’. It will come from the next generation who reject the noxious mono-culture of absorption and embrace a counter trajectory to pursue an architecture of realism.

Talking across the fence : partners for art education

This presentation explores a model for building and sustaining secondary – tertiary partnerships in Arts education. It traces the evolution of partner relationships in a challenging educational landscape, assesses the value of dialogue between educators, design professionals and community stakeholders, and tells the story of a particular secondary – tertiary partnership exploring new pedagogy in Art and Design, between Kelvin Grove State College, the School of Design Creative Industries Faculty of QUT, and the Design Minds program of the State Library of Queensland. Among other benefits, tertiary and industry partners have brought a myriad of diverse voices into the classrooms, enabled the direct interaction of learners with tertiary student mentors, and with art and design practitioners. The working model has also now matured into formal and informal partner agreements that help guarantee its viability into the future. This presentation, which deals with the opening of new terrain between committed partners, is also the story of how design has gradually been integrated in the curriculum, enriching and expanding the repertoire of Art programs, and how one Visual Art Faculty in a large inner city Brisbane School has adopted design thinking and “metadesign” as a model for future innovation. From the process of interaction and dialogue among educators and practitioners over several years has emerged a conviction that both partnering and design pedagogy are key tools in developing forward thinking curriculum for the Arts. In addition, hammering out a model that works for students across different year levels and in diverse settings by putting ideas into practice and micro-managing this process in studios and workshops has challenged teachers to rethink their own Art pedagogy. Finally, in the ecosystem of Schools and in the wider systems that are now driving change in education, survival for the Arts may depend on the networking and affirmation derived from innovating partners. Our story, the story of committed individuals who have sustained a dialogue across boundaries, may provide a valuable model for other arts educators fighting to retain agency in their schools.

Reflexivity and aesthetic inquiry : building dialogues between the arts and literacy

Reflection can form the basis for powerful dialogue between the arts and literacy as we seek interpretive and expressive fluency across modes. Through deep, cumulative reflection we make aspects of our world and experiences more perceivable, and open them up for artistic expression and aesthetic inquiry. Such reflections are also the catalysts for self-awareness and identity building. Theories of reflexivity offer a useful lens with which to understand our relationship with the world and the people, texts and things within it. The reflexive process can prompt us to challenge our understandings and change our representations of self and others through text. This paper offers a discussion of reflexivity and the ways in which it can be expressed and performed in discursive and non-discursive ways to develop literacies through and in the arts.

Evaluation of the Australian Performing Arts Market 2014-2018 - Year One Report

The Australia Council awarded the tender of APAMs 2014, 2016 and 2018 to the Brisbane Powerhouse. The Australia Council, in awarding the contract for the presentation of APAM by Brisbane Powerhouse, stipulated that a formal evaluation of the three iterations of APAM and activity in the intervening years be undertaken. Queensland University of Technology, Creative Industries Faculty, under the leadership of Associate Professor Sandra Gattenhof, were contracted to undertake the formal evaluation. This is the first year report on the Brisbane iteration of the Market. This report has drawn from data collected across a range of sources, drawing on the scoping study undertaken by Justin Macdonnell addressing the Market from 1994–2010; the tender document submitted by the Brisbane Powerhouse; in-person interviews with APAM staff, APAM Stakeholders, Vox Pops from delegates in response to individual sessions, producer company/artist case studies and, most significantly, responses from a detailed online survey sent to all delegates. The main body of the report is organised around three key research aims, as outlined in the Brisbane Powerhouse Tender document (2011). These have been articulated as: Evaluation of international market development outcomes through showcasing work to targeted international presenters and agents Evaluation of national market development outcomes through showcasing work to national presenters and producers Evaluation of the exchange ideas, dialogue, skill 
development, partnerships, collaborations and co- productions and networks with local and international peers. The culmination of the data analysis has been articulated through five key recommendations, which may assist the APAM delivery team for the next version, in 2016. In summary, the recommendations are described as: 1. Indigenous focus to remain central to the conception and delivery of APAM 2. Re-framing APAM’s function and its delivery 3. Logistics and communications in a multi-venue approach, including communications and housekeeping, volunteers, catering, re-calibrating the employment of Brisbane Powerhouse protocols and processes for APAM 4. Presentation and promotion for presenters 5. Strategic targeting of Asian producers.

Metal Skin and the cinema of noise

In traditional communication and information theory, noise is the demon Other, an unwelcome disruption in the passage of information. Noise is "anything that is added to the signal between its transmission and reception that is not intended by the source...anything that makes the intended signal harder to decode accurately". It is in Michel Serres' formulation, the "third man" in dialogue who is always assumed, and whom interlocutors continually struggle to exclude. Noise is simultaneously a condition and a by-product of the act of communication, it represents the ever present possibility of disruption, interruption, misunderstanding. In sonic or musical terms noise is cacophony, dissonance. For economists, noise is an arbitrary element, both a barrier to the pursuit of wealth and a basis for speculation. For Mick (Jeremy Sims) and his mate Kev (Ben Mendelsohn) in David Caesar's Idiot Box (1996), as for Hando (Russell Crowe) and his gang of skinheads in Geoffrey Wright's Romper Stomper (1992), or Dazey (Ben Mendelsohn) and Joe (Aden Young) in Wright's Metal Skin (1994) and all those like them starved of (useful) information and excluded from the circuit - the information poor - their only option, their only point of intervention in the loop, is to make noise, to disrupt, to discomfort, to become Serres' "third man", "the prosopopoeia of noise" (5).

Teaching spelling in the middle years : reviewing programs for diverse student groups

In what follows, I draw attention to understandings about the teaching of Standard Australian English spelling developed by being immersed in the URL project site for four years though sharing professional dialogue with teachers and educators and entering into informal conversations with some of the students and their parents. My understandings focus on the potential and problematics of oft-used generic spelling programs and approaches for student cohorts marked by social, cultural and linguistic diversity. This article concludes by considering two possible extensions to the word study approach that may have utility for working with middle years students from diverse backgrounds: creating a discursive ‘Third Space’ that overtly recognises students’ language experiences and the technique of colour blocking to create a visual stress.

Taking up the discourse : theory or praxis

This article responds to the invitation extended by Carney to engage in a dialogue on the topic of graduate legal research units. In his paper, Carney stated the approach of the Sydney course as being to teach theory rather than skills, to "pursue academic goals over skill competencies... ". The Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology introduced a postgraduate legal research unit in 1993 with different perspectives and purposes to the Sydney course, and given this experience, the opportunity for a discussion on aspects of such units including the theoretical versus practical approach to teaching cannot be ignored.

Rupturing otherness : becoming Estonian in the context of contemporary Britain

While identity construction continues to be a widely discussed and researched area in contemporary social sciences, the existing theories have overlooked the importance of understanding why and how identities as semiotic constructions emerge in individuals' consciousness in the flow of their everyday functioning. This article seeks to address this limitation in the theorizing by proposing an alternative conceptualization of identity, according to which identity construction is triggered by rupturing life-experience, which surfaces another perspective and makes the person aware of a possibility to be otherwise or of the reality of being different. Theoretical claims put forward in the paper are drawn from data gathered in a recent study, which explored lived-through experiences of young Estonians, who made study-visits to the United Kingdom. The discussed data will also highlight some interesting aspects in Estonians' self-definition as it is constructed in relation to Eastern-European identity in the context of contemporary Britain.

Commentary: Making sense of identity dialogues

In this commentary an alternative conceptual model of identity construction is proposed. In this model, identity construction is seen as part of a person’s ongoing sense-making. Identity is perceived as a subjective sense of continuity and sameness that renders one’s being in the world meaningful. Drawing on empirical examples provided in the target articles, it is shown how this model, which is built around the notions of rupture, identity dialogues and striving towards meaningfulness, can be utilized to analyse identity dynamics in different space and time contexts. The importance of examining links between an individual’s sense-making and collective meaning field, in which sense-making is embedded, is also highlighted.

Analysing children’s persuasive texts : the use of hedging and intensification

Research Quality This is a dialogue between two Australian literacy scholars about two persuasive writing techniques that posed difficulty for the students in our research. This dialogue flows from the analysis of Year 6 writing samples from an ARC Linkage Project, URLearning (2009-2013) - the focus of the symposium. We use vivid examples of writing from students’ handwritten persuasive texts on topics that were chosen by teachers. The persuasive structure in the texts followed the Toulmin (2003) model: a thesis statement, three arguments with evidence, and a conclusion. The findings show that to realise the effective power of rhetorical persuasion, students need an expanded lexicon that does not rely on intensifiers, and which employs a greater range of advanced hedging techniques to use to their advantage. National & International Importance The study is potentially of national and international relevance, given that argumentation or persuasion is a key life skill in many professional, personal, and discourses. It is also a requirement in the International English Language Testing Systems (IELTS) tests, which are a critical gateway for tertiary studies in many English-speaking countries (Coffin, 2004). Timeliness The research is timely given the Australian Curriculum English, in which persuasive texts figure prominently from Preparatory to Year 10 (ACARA, 2014). The recommendations are also timely in the context of educational policies in other parts of the world. For example, in the United States, the Common Core Standards: English Language Arts, mandates the teaching of persuasive texts (Council of Chief State School Officers & National Governors Association, 2013) Implications for practice/policy The findings of the study have specific practical implications for teachers, who can address the persuasive writing techniques of hedging and intensification with which children need targeted support and explicit instruction. The presentation is positioned at the nexus of teacher practice to better address the national priorities of the Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2014), while having implications for applied linguistics research by identifying common problems in students' persuasive writing.

Working on the edge : Exploring the creative tensions experienced by practitioners facilitating participatory media projects with refugees and asylum seekers in Australia

This paper aims to provide a contextualised and embedded exploration of how the notions of "practice" and "participation", key concepts in the study of culture and media, are manifest in an example of a complex creative project. This project aimed to engage with refugees and asylum seekers through the co-creation of cultural material and is an outcome of an? ethnographic action research (Tacchi et al. 2003) partnership involving a community development worker in a settlement support agency and a storytelling/community media researcher (the author), along with other project collaborators. The discussion of this project focuses on the role of the facilitator and illustrates the processes of orchestrating a complex project involving a series of linked stages with cumulative effect. As practitioners at this site we are working in the space where personal narratives, participatory arts and media, and the staging of intercultural, civic dialogue events, intersect. Co-creative media facilitation in these contexts involves both managing hybrid communicative spaces and (re)combining the "integrative practices" (Schatzki 1996) of a range of professional approaches and creative roles. This is liminal work, located on the boundaries of several disciplines and practices. Drawing on reflections gathered from collaborative ethnographic descriptions (Bhattacharya 2008), this paper traces moments of practitioner uncertainty that can be linked to the way "practice" and “participation” is problematised within the community cultural development field in a way that is at times an uneasy fit with conventional ways of operating in social service roles. These moments of tension also indicate where this project pushed practitioners into spaces of improvisation and new learning. Keywords: Youth, refugees, community cultural development, co-creative media facilitation, ethnographic action research, intercultural dialogue.

Brave New Welcome

Brave New Welcome is the title of a short film, and a project, which was driven by a diverse group of young people who engaged with arts practices such as playback theatre, visual and media arts, and who worked with a range of professionals to develop their own response to the issue of how young people from refugee backgrounds are welcomed in Brisbane. Film Description on Vimeo: In January 2014, at a time when Australia is full of messages of ‘unwelcome’, a group of 20 young people from diverse backgrounds came together in Brisbane. We asked, ‘What does it take to make friends with people who are really different from ourselves?’ We told stories using music, playback theatre and community café dialogue. Our experience was so awesome we decided to give others a taste. So, three months later, we brought over 80 young people together in a forum to meet each other and tell stories in creative and interesting ways. We shared our ideas, asked big questions, and challenged others in our community. What can you do to create a Brave New Welcome?

Feminism and art in 2013 : a panel discussion

Brisbane-based artist and Founding Co-Director of LEVEL artist run initiative Courtney Coombs reports on a one day forum about Feminism and Art held at LEVEL on International Womens Day 2013. LEVEL is focused on providing opportunities for female visual artists and generating dialogue around gender and arts practice. To listen to podcasts from the event visit http://www.ciprecinct.qut.edu.au/archive/2013/feminism-art.jsp

Theorizing why in digital learning: Opening frontiers for inquiry and innovation with technology

Asking why is an important foundation of inquiry and fundamental to the development of reasoning skills and learning. Despite this, and despite the relentless and often disruptive nature of innovations in information and communications technology (ICT), sophisticated tools that directly support this basic act of learning appear to be undeveloped, not yet recognized, or in the very early stages of development. Why is this so? To this question, there is no single factual answer. In response, however, plausible explanations and further questions arise, and such responses are shown to be typical consequences of why-questioning. A range of contemporary scenarios are presented to highlight the problem. Consideration of the various inputs into the evolution of digital learning is introduced to provide historical context and this serves to situate further discussion regarding innovation that supports inquiry-based learning. This theme is further contextualized by narratives on openness in education, in which openness is also shown to be an evolving construct. Explanatory and descriptive contents are differentiated in order to scope out the kinds of digital tools that might support inquiry instigated by why-questioning and which move beyond the search paradigm. Probing why from a linguistic perspective reveals versatile and ambiguous semantics. The why dimension—asking, learning, knowing, understanding, and explaining why—is introduced as a construct that highlights challenges and opportunities for ICT innovation. By linking reflective practice and dialogue with cognitive engagement, this chapter points to specific frontiers for the design and development of digital learning tools, frontiers in which inquiry may find new openings for support.