Curating in uncharted territories: An examination of a programming model & communicative platform for curation in non-traditional art spaces

This thesis articulates and examines public engagement programming in an emerging, non¬-traditional site. As a practice-led research project, the creative work proposes a site responsive, engagement centric, agile model for curatorial programming that developed out of the dynamic, new media/digital, curatorial practice at QUT's Creative Industries Precinct. The model and its accompanying exegetical framework, Curating in Uncharted Territories, offer a theoretically informed approach to programming, delivering and reporting for curatorial practices in a non¬-traditional sites of public engagement. The research provides the foundation for full development of the model and the basis for further research.

Brisbane Art Deco: Stories of our Built Heritage

Our built heritage plays an important role in the ongoing story of our city. Modern cities such as Brisbane embraced Art Deco style in its architecture as it swept the world during the interwar period. From inner city landmarks such as the striking McWhirters department store to lesser-known gems further afield like the streamlined Archerfield Airport administration building, Brisbane has a significant range of intriguing and beautiful Art Deco buildings. This publication documents and celebrates a selection of our favourite residential and commercial examples. Written contributions from a range of authors are complemented by stunning modern photography and historic archive imagery, taking readers on a journey through this fascinating era. The articles not only describe the aesthetic and architectural features, but also delve into the associated social history. Brisbane Art Deco: Stories of our Built Heritage is a charming and informative reference, and offers a colourful insight into Brisbane’s built heritage and the life and times of this dynamic city.

Art museums and the global tourist: Experience centres in experience-scapes

In the experience economy, the role of art museums has evolved so as to cater to global cultural tourists. These institutions were traditionally dedicated to didactic functions, and served cognoscenti with elite cultural tastes that were aligned with the avant-garde’s autonomous stance towards mass culture. In a post-avant-garde era however museums have focused on appealing to a broad clientele that often has little or no knowledge of historical or contemporary art. Many of these tourists want art to provide entertaining and novel experiences, rather than receiving pedagogical ‘training’. In response, art museums are turning into ‘experience venues’ and are being informed by ideas associated with new museology, as well as business approaches like Customer Experience Management. This has led to the provision of populist entertainment modes, such as blockbuster exhibitions, participatory art events, jazz nights, and wine tasting, and reveals that such museums recognize that today’s cultural tourist is part of an increasingly diverse and populous demographic, which shares many languages and value systems. As art museums have shifted attention to global tourists, they have come to play a greater role in gentrification projects and cultural precincts. The art museum now seems ideally suited to tourist-centric environments that offer a variety of immersive sensory experiences and combine museums (often designed by star-architects), international hotels, restaurants, high-end shopping zones, and other leisure forums. These include sites such as Port Maravilha urban waterfront development in Rio de Janiero, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, and the Chateau La Coste winery and hotel complex in Provence. It can be argued that in a global experience economy, art museums have become experience centres in experience-scapes. This paper will examine the nature of the tourist experience in relation to the new art museum, and the latter’s increasingly important role in attracting tourists to urban and regional cultural precincts.

Heretic: Copyright law and dramatic works

The production of the play Heretic in 1996 prompted a debate over copyright and the dramatic arts in Australia. The playwright David Williamson argued that the role of the writer was supreme. Although he was willing to acknowledge the contributions of other collaborators, the playwright did not believe that these interpreters deserved copyright protection. The director Wayne Harrison advocated a more collaborative vision of the performing arts. He believed that the role of the director and the position of the producer deserved greater legal recognition. Furthermore he was also willing to countenance limited rights for performers. This article argues that recognition should be accorded to all of the main collaborators in the performing arts. It contends that economic rights and moral rights should not be just limited to the writer, the director, and the producer, but they should extend to the performers and the designers.

The culture wars of climate change

Of late, there has been a growth in cultural expression about climate change – with the rise of climate fiction (‘cli-fi’); art and photography responding to changes in nature; musical anthems about climate change; plays and dramas about climate change; and environmental documentaries, and climate cinema. Drawing comparisons to past controversies over cultural funding, this paper considers the cultural wars over climate change. This article considers a number of cultural fields. Margaret Atwood made an important creative and critical contribution to the debate over climate change. The work examines Ian McEwan's novel, Solar, a tragi-comedy about authorship, invention, intellectual property, and climate science. After writing a history of Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have experimented with fiction – as well as history. This article focuses upon artistic works about climate change. It analyses James Balog’s work with the Extreme Ice Survey, which involved photography of glaciers under retreat in a warming world. The work was turned into a documentary called Chasing Ice. It also considers the artistic project of 350.org 'to transform the human rights and environmental issues connected to climate change into powerful art that gets people to stop, think and act.' The paper examines musical storytelling in respect of climate change. The paper explores dramatic works about climate change including Steve Waters' The Contingency Plan, Stephen Emmott's Ten Billion, and Andrew Bovell's When the Rain Stops Falling and Hannie Rayson’s Extinction. The paper also examines the role of documentary film-making. It also considers the cinematographic film, Beasts of the Southern Wild. Such a survey will enable a consideration of the larger question of whether creative art about climate change matters; and whether it is deserving of public funding.

Stone baby: An exploration of trembling and its potential for visual art

Informed by Kristeva's formulation of affect and Winnicott's Holding Environment, this practice-led visual art project is an exploration into how sensitivity to the physical sensation of trembling can sustain a creative practice. Building upon this is a further enquiry into what the significance of the affective experience of trembling is for an ethics of affect in contemporary art. I have done this through object and video-based installations informed by my own experience of trembling. This has been further informed by the work of artists like Louise Bourgeois, Dennis Del Favero and Willie Doherty. The creative outcomes contribute to the discourse around ethical responses to affect by extending and developing on the works of these artists.

The politics of art/Art of politics

Author Toni Morrison said, “All good art is political! There is none that isn’t”. Perhaps this is why the arts and artists throughout history have been positioned as dangerous, troubling and on the margin. Art works can ask questions of us, challenge assumptions and name the un-nameable. Art works challenge hegemonies and the status quo – they trouble politics. So what happens when arts meets politics when it comes to the entitlement for young Australians to an arts-rich education? How do we navigate the tricky waters of the political ebb and flow to champion the agenda for arts education in contemporary classrooms so that our young people can be cultural navigators, cultural auteurs and culture makers?

New microscale vertically oriented organic photovoltaics cells

We initially look at the changing energy environment and how that can have a dramatic change on the potential of alternative energies, in particular those of organic photovoltaicvs (OPV) cells. In looking at OPV's we also address the aspects of where we are with the current art and why we may not be getting the best from our materials. In doing so, we propose the idea of changing how we build organic photovoltaics by addressing the best method to contain light within the devices. Our initial effort is in addressing how these microscale optical concentrators work in the form of optical fibers in terms of absorption. We have derived a mathematical method which takes account of the input angle of light to achieve optimum absorption. However, in doing so we also address the complex issue how the changing refractive indices in a multilayer device can alter how we input the light. We have found that by knowing the materials refractive index our model takes into account the incident plane, meridonal plane, cross sectional are and path length to ensure optical angular input. Secondly, we also address the practicalities of making such vertical structures the greater issue of changing light intensity incident on a solar cell and how that aspects alters how we view the performance of organic solar cells.

Damned to fame: The moral rights of the Beckett estate

The Company B production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot raises important questions about copyright law, moral rights, and dramatic works. The playwright's nephew and executor, Edward Beckett, threatened to bring a legal action against the Sydney company for breach of contract on the grounds that unauthorised music appeared in the production. The Company B production denied that the contract made any such express provisions. The director Neil Armfield complained: 'In coming here with its narrow prescriptions, its dead controlling hand, the Beckett estate seems to me to be the enemy of art'. In the biography Damned to fame, James Knowlson documents a number of other proceedings taken by Beckett and his agents to control the productions of his work: 'He was often represented as a tyrannical figure, an arch-controller of his work, ready to unleash fiery thunderbolts onto the head of any bold, innovative director, unwilling to follow his text and stage directions to the last counted dot and precisely timed pause.' However, Knowlson notes that Beckett was inconsistent in his willingness to use legal action: 'It made a tremendous difference if he liked and respected the persons involved or if he had been able to listen to their reasons for wanting to attempt something highly innovative or even slightly different'. Famously, in 1988, Beckett brought legal action against a Dutch theatre company, which wanted to stage a production of Waiting for Godot, with women acting all the roles. His lawyer argued that the integrity of the text was violated because actresses were substituted for the male actors asked for in the text. The judge in the Haarlem court ruled that the integrity of the play had not been violated, because the performance showed fidelity to the dialogue and the stage directions of the play. By contrast, in 1992, a French court held a stage director was liable for an infringement of Beckett's moral right of integrity because the director had staged Waiting for Godot with the two lead roles played by women. In 1998, a United States production of Waiting for Godot with a racially mixed cast attracted legal threats amid accusations it had 'injected race into the play'. In the 2000 New York Fringe Festival, a company made light of this ongoing conflict between the Beckett estate and artistic directors. The work was entitled: The complete lost works of Samuel Beckett as found in an envelope (partially burned) in a dustbin in Paris labelled 'Never to be performed. Never. Ever. EVER! Or I'll sue! I'LL SUE FROM THE GRAVE!'. The plot concerned a fight between three producers and the Beckett estate. In the wake of such disputes, Beckett and later his estate sought to tighten production contracts to state that no additions, omissions or alterations should be made to the text of the play or the stage directions and that no music, special effects or other supplements should be added without prior consent.

A right of resale? Indigenous art under the hammer

This week, Sotheby's sold the late Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's painting, Warlugulong. The auction-house's spokesman, Tim Klingender, was enthusiastic about the high price commanded by the art work: "The painting was a really great painting and it deserved to make a really fantastic price, and it made that price."

Four stories about copyright law and appropriation art

This article considers copyright law and the art of appropriation in an Australian context. It tells four stories about Australian artists - Imants Tillers, Gordon Bennett, Juan Davila and Tracey Moffatt. The stories examine the postmodern critique of copyright law, indigenous copyright and self-determination, the introduction of moral rights, and copyright, photography and film. The article concludes that the work of such contemporary artists has practical implications for the reform of copyright law.

Rehabilitation of individuals with bone-anchored prosthesis: State-of-the-art and challenges

Individuals with limb amputation fitted with conventional socket-suspended prostheses often experience socket-related discomfort leading to a significant decrease in quality of life. Bone-anchored prostheses are increasingly acknowledged as viable alternative method of attachment of artificial limb. In this case, the prosthesis is attached directly to the residual skeleton through a percutaneous fixation. To date, a few osseointegration fixations are commercially available. Several devices are at different stages of development particularly in Europe and the US.[1-15] Clearly, surgical procedures are currently blooming worldwide. Indeed, Australia and Queensland in particular have one of the fastest growing populations. Previous studies involving either screw-type implants or press-fit fixations for bone-anchorage have focused on fragmented biomechanics aspects as well as the clinical benefits and safety of the procedure. However, very few publications have synthetized this information and provided an overview of the current developments in bone-anchored prostheses worldwide, let alone in Australia. The purposes of the presentation will be: 1. To provide an overview of the state-of-art developments in bone-anchored prostheses with as strong emphasis on the design of fixations, treatment, benefits, risks as well as future opportunities and challenges, 2. To present the current international developments of procedures for bone-anchored prostheses in terms of numbers of centers, number of cases and typical case-mix, 3. To highlight the current role Australia is playing as a leader worldwide in terms of growing population, broadest range of case-mix, choices of fixations, development of reimbursement schemes, unique clinical outcome registry for evidence-based practice, cutting-edge research, consumer demand and general public interest.

Surface materials and aspects of care: A study in modes of being in a visual art practice

Through creative practice and written research, this thesis explores the peculiar qualities of surface materials, revealing a broader ethos of practice which I identify as care. I propose that care arises as a mode of being between artist and work, work and beholder, and between the parts of the work. The thesis situates the art practice within an ethical framework, premised on, but extending, Heidegger's ontological equation of care with being. The original contribution is in the claim that the particular qualities of worldly matter generate the terms for care as a particular mode of engagement that is reciprocal and intransitive.

Cosmopolitan tendencies in recent intersubjective art

This thesis uses cultural studies approaches to ask in what ways can intersubjective art act on the disparities brought about by late capitalism through the auspices of cosmopolitanism? How do the same processes that oppress others allow the artist to be mobile and self-reflexive while accruing and deploying a broad range of knowledges and competencies? The answer is paradoxical: those oppressed by the processes of late capitalism become the focus, theme, and content of the intersubjective artwork while the artists benefit from a system they seek to problematise and critique. Three case study chapters highlight these complex and disconcerting politics.