Learning landscapes 2.0 : warning - assembly required

Twenty first century learners operate in organic, immersive environments. A pedagogy of student-centred learning is not a recipe for rooms. A contemporary learning environment is like a landscape that grows, morphs, and responds to the pressures of the context and micro-culture. There is no single adaptable solution, nor a suite of off-the-shelf answers; propositions must be customisable and infinitely variable. They must be indeterminate and changeable; based on the creation of learning places, not restrictive or constraining spaces. A sustainable solution will be un-fixed, responsive to the life cycle of the components and materials, able to be manipulated by the users; it will create and construct its own history. Learning occurs as formal education with situational knowledge structures, but also as informal learning, active learning, blended learning social learning, incidental learning, and unintended learning. These are not spatial concepts but socio-cultural patterns of discovery. Individual learning requirements must run free and need to be accommodated as the learner sees fit. The spatial solution must accommodate and enable a full array of learning situations. It is a system not an object. Three major components: 1. The determinate landscape: in-situ concrete 'plate' that is permanent. It predates the other components of the system and remains as a remnant/imprint/fossil after the other components of the system have been relocated. It is a functional learning landscape in its own right; enabling a variety of experiences and activities. 2. The indeterminate landscape: a kit of pre-fabricated 2-D panels assembled in a unique manner at each site to suit the client and context. Manufactured to the principles of design-for-disassembly. A symbiotic barnacle like system that attaches itself to the existing infrastructure through the determinate landscape which acts as a fast growth rhizome. A carapace of protective panels, infinitely variable to create enclosed, semi-enclosed, and open learning places. 3. The stations: pre-fabricated packages of highly-serviced space connected through the determinate landscape. Four main types of stations; wet-room learning centres, dry-room learning centres, ablutions, and low-impact building services. Entirely customised at the factory and delivered to site. The stations can be retro-fitted to suit a new context during relocation. Principles of design for disassembly: material principles • use recycled and recyclable materials • minimise the number of types of materials • no toxic materials • use lightweight materials • avoid secondary finishes • provide identification of material types component principles • minimise/standardise the number of types of components • use mechanical not chemical connections • design for use of common tools and equipment • provide easy access to all components • make component size to suite means of handling • provide built in means of handling • design to realistic tolerances • use a minimum number of connectors and a minimum number of types system principles • design for durability and repeated use • use prefabrication and mass production • provide spare components on site • sustain all assembly and material information

The 7pm Project

The Making Connections: Innovations in Learning and Teaching Forum, jointly hosted by the Division of Technology, Information and Learning Support (TILS) and the Learning and Teaching Unit (LTU), was held on 20 June. The forum provided a snapshot of innovative practice across QUT, as well as an overview of services supporting innovation. Past events have attracted sizeable audiences and informal feedback has been very positive and encouraging. The objective of the forum is to give an opportunity to academic teaching staff to share their innovative practice with their peers, and it is planned that more events will be held to allow for further sharing of ideas. The program for the June 2012 forum included the following presentations: Ms Lindy Osborne: The 7pm Project Dr Ana Pavasovic: A multifaceted approach to teaching a first year unit Mr Paul Willis: Out of our comfort zone: How can Collaborate engage students in inclusive teaching practices Dr Kelly Zuniga: Can you draw what I see? Recasting the ‘crit’ to engage a larger classroom audience Dr Peter Bell, Dr Mark Lauchs, Amy Henderson and Edward Robinson: Crime Club: Lightbulb moments Dr Deboarh Peach: Improving student engagement through the integration of blended delivery approaches in WIL. Lindy Osborne Biography: As an early career academic, Lindy Osborne draws upon professional experience as a registered architect to offer students pioneering curricula that are firmly grounded in real-world practice. Since commencing her academic career in 2008, she has purposefully reconceptualised the delivery of Architectural Design, Technology, Professional Practice and Research subjects, using innovative digital technology and empowering students to direct their own learning. Lindy is cognisant of the impact that the physical learning environment has on students, and seeks to actively modify it to support students by enabling powerful enactive learning. Using technology embedded flexible learning spaces and innovative simulated office practice pedagogy,students actively learn in an authentic environment, redressing the structural and cyclical factors that have resulted in a lack of workplace learning opportunities. Lindy’s creative integration of interdisciplinary opportunities, popular culture, social media and Web-2.0 technologies connects with students on their level, while they develop critical professional skills both inside and perhaps more importantly outside, the formal classroom environment.

Recipe for success : cooking up a storm in the technology classroom

Ingredients: - 1 cup Vision - 100ml ‘Real World’ Application - 100ml Unit Structure/Organisation - 100ml Student-centric Approach [optional: Add Social Media/Popular Culture for extra goodness] - Large Dollop of Passion + Enthusiasm - Sprinkle of Approachability Mix all ingredients well. Cover and leave to rise in a Lecture Theatre for 1.5 hours. Cook in a Classroom for 1.5 hours. Garnish with a dash of Humour before serving. Serves 170 Students

Cultural diplomacy with Chinese characteristics : the case of Confucius Institutes in Australia

Since 2004,China has set up more than 400 Confucius Institutes and 500 Confucius Classrooms in 108 countries to promote Chinese language and culture. Despite these impressive numbers, these institutions are still surprisingly under-studied. This article uses Confucius Institutes in Australia as a case study to deepen the understanding of China’s new cultural diplomacy tool. The article describes Confucius Institutes as a form of strategic stakeholder engagement and argues that this collaborative tool of cultural diplomacy depends heavily on the commitment of its local stakeholders.

Policy measures for creating an integrated and brand-focused innovation system for film industries in shadow nations : an application to Australia's national film industry

Shadow nations face particular problems in constructing competitive film industries. Shadow nations refer to nations whose relative competitiveness suffers from easy product substitutability by products initiated, produced and distributed by powerful actors, such as media conglomerates located in Hollywood. The dominant literature has so far neglected the developing policy recommendations for dealing explicitly with the challenges of shadow nations. This paper aims to develop and apply a normative model for the development of film industries in shadow nations. The model integrates insights from innovation system studies and place branding. The developed model is applied to the Australian film industry as Australia represents a typical shadow nation within the film industry.

Shanghai modern : replaying futures past

This article discusses different accounts of Shanghai Modern, the period between 1920s and 1940s in which the city occupied a unique position within China and the world. It places discussions of this period in the context of the resurgence of urban led modernization in China, led by Shanghai. It looks in particular at Leo Ou-Fan Lee’s attempt to link the cosmopolitanism of Shanghai modern with prospects for this new post-reform China. I then discuss Ackbas Abbas’ response to this book and use this as a way of reflecting on the progress of Shanghai urban development and its divergence/ convergence with similar processes in the West. The article then looks at the other significant moment of the Cultural Revolution as a way of opening up discussions of Chinese and Shanghainese modernity beyond that of simply an absorption into Western capitalist modernity. It concludes by briefly introducing this volume.

Cutting on action : interference strategies in contemporary art practice

The domestication of creative software and hardware has been a significant factor in the recent proliferation of still and moving image creation. Booming numbers of amateur image-makers have the resources, skills and ambitions to create and distribute their work on a mass scale. At the same time, contemporary art seems increasingly dominated by ‘post-medium’ practices that adopt and adapt the representational techniques of mass culture, rather than overtly reject or oppose them. As a consequence of this network of forces, the field of image and video production is no longer the exclusive specialty of art and the mass media, and art may no longer be the most prominent watchdog of mass image culture. Intuitively and intentionally, contemporary artists are responding to these shifting conditions. From the position of a creative practitioner and researcher, this paper examines the strategies that contemporary artists use to engage with the changing relationships between image culture, lived experience and artistic practice. By examining the intersections between W.J.T. Mitchell’s detailed understanding of visual literacy and Jacques Derrida’s philosophical models of reading and writing, I identify ‘editing’ as a broad methodology that describes how practitioners creatively and critically engage with the field of still and moving images. My contention is that by emphasising the intersections of looking and making, ‘reading’ and ‘writing’, artists provide crucial jump cuts, pauses and distortions in the medley of our mediated experiences.

Destination know-where : a road map of a PhD journey in theatre for young people

Within contemporary performance arenas young people are fast becoming part of the vanguard of contemporary performance. Performativity, convergence and openness of form are key animating concepts in the landscape of Theatre for Young People (TYP). To ignore what is taking place in the making of performance for and by young people is to ignore the new possibilities in meaning-making and theatrical form. This thesis investigates the contemporary practice within the field of Theatre for Young People. Pivotal to the study are three hallmarks of contemporary performance – shifting notions of performativity; convergence articulated in the use of technology and theatrical genres; and Umberto Eco’s realisation of openness in form and authorship. The thesis draws from theatre and performance studies, globalisation theory and youth studies. Using interviews of Theatre for Young People practitioners and observation of thirty-nine performances, this thesis argues that young people and Theatre for Young People companies are among the leaders of a paradigm shift in developing and delivering performance works. In this period of rapid technological change young people are embracing and manipulating technology (sound, image, music) to represent whom they are and what they want to say. Positioned as ‘cultural catalysts’ (McRobbie, 1999), ‘the new pioneers’ (Mackay, 1993) and ‘first navigators’ (Rushkoff, 1996) young people are using mediatised culture and digital technologies with ease, placing them at the forefront of a shift in cultural production. The processes of deterritorialisation allows for the synthesis of new cultural and performance genres by fragmenting and hybridising traditional cultural categories and forms including the use of new media technologies. Almost half of all TYP performances now incorporate the technologies of reproduction. The relationship between live and mediatised forms, the visceral and the virtual is allowing young people to navigate and make meaning of cultural codes and cultural forms as well as to engage in an open dialogue with their audiences. This thesis examines the way young people are using elements of deterritorialisation to become producers of new performance genres. The thesis considers the contemporary situation in relation to issues of performance making and performance delivery within a global, networked and technology-driven society.

Slow horizon

“Slow Horizon” is comprised of six lenticular panels hung in an even, horizontal sequence. As the viewer moves in front of the work, each panel alternates subtly between two vertical colour gradients. From left to right, the panels move through yellow, orange, magenta and violet to ‘midnight blue’. Together, the coloured panels comprise an abstract horizon line that references the changing nature of light at sunset. The scale, movement and chromatic qualities of the panels also allude to the formal characteristics of the screen technologies that pervade contemporary visual culture. “Slow Horizon” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with the relationships between abstraction, colour, signification and perception. Since early Modernity, debates concerning representation and the formal qualities of the picture plane have been fundamental to art practice and theory. These debates have often dovetailed with questions of art’s capacity to generate shifts in thought and perception. Practitioners such as Ellsworth Kelly, James Turrell and Ed Ruscha have variously used block and blended colour to engage in these formal, symbolic and perceptual potentials of colour. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Slow Horizon” furthers this creative inquiry. By conflating the reductive visual logics of abstraction and minimalism with the iconic, romantic evocations of sunset imagery, it questions not only the contemporary relationship between abstraction and image-making, but also art’s ability to create moments of stillness and contemplation in a context significantly shaped by screen technologies. “Slow Horizon” has been exhibited internationally as part of “Supermassive” at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013. The exhibition was reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

Does weaker copyright mean stronger creative industries? Some lessons from China

We review the theory of intellectual property (IP) in the creative industries (CI) from the evolutionary economic perspective based on evidence from China. We argue that many current confusions and dysfunctions about IP can be traced to three widely overlooked aspects of the growth of knowledge context of IP in the CI: (1) the effect of globalization; (2) the dominating relative economic value of reuse of creative output over monopoly incentives to create input; and (3) the evolution of business models in response to institutional change. We conclude that a substantial weakening of copyright will, in theory, produce positive net public and private gain due to the evolutionary dynamics of all three dimensions.

"What is contemporary art? A review of two books by Terry Smith'

What is contemporary art and what are the key components of contemporary culture? This review demonstrates where Terry Smith provides important answers to this question. The books thus help to improve understanding of how art has changed in recent decades and how a global culture now shapes its parameters. This review does not however concur that Smith provides a convincing case for a complete cultural paradigm transformation.

Abstraction as noise : enhancing the poetic

Abstraction in its resistance to evident meaning has the capacity to interrupt or at least provide tools with which to question an overly compliant reception of the information to which we are subject. It does so by highlighting a latency or potentiality inherent in materiality that points to the possibility of a critical resistance to this ceaseless flow of sound/image/data. This resistance has been remarked on in differing ways by a number of commentators such as Lyotard, in his exploration of the avant-garde and the sublime for example. This joint paper will initially map the collaborative project by Daniel Mafe and Andrew Brown, Affecting Interference which conjoins painting with digital sound and animations into a single, large scale, immersive exhibition/installation. The work acts as an interstitial point between contrasting approaches to abstraction: the visual and aural, the digital and analogue. The paper will then explore the ramifications of this through the examination of abstraction as ‘noise’, that is as that raw inassimilable materiality, within which lays the creative possibility to forge and embrace the as-yet-unthought and almost-forgotten. It does so by establishing a space for a more poetic and slower paced critical engagement for the viewing and receiving information or data. This slowing of perception through the suspension of easy recognition runs counter to our current ‘high performance’ culture, and it’s requisite demand for speedy assimilation of content, representing instead the poetic encounter with a potentiality or latency inherent in the nameless particularity of that which is.

Inside the pleasure dome : cultural tourism on Australia’s Gold Coast

The City of the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, will host the Commonwealth Games in 2018. In advance of the Games, the City is beginning to reposition the traditional marketing programs that were based around the four S’s- ‘sun, sand, surf and sex.’ There is a new emphasis on urban sophistication, sport, science, education and the environment. At the same time, local communities are asking for renewed attention to residential issues, particularly relating to recognising the importance of culture to the region. In this paper I explore the development of integrated computer technologies (ICTs) as a way of linking tourism, culture and place in the experience economy of the Gold Coast. The discussion is framed by theories of the post-tourist, contemporary cultural tourism and the role of mobile technologies, and the figure of the ‘referential tourist.’ An examination of stakeholder responses to changing business and social frameworks on the Gold Coast shows how discussions about a range of issues coalesce around cultural tourism. Local communities have the opportunity to engage with the new tourist as they move quickly between leisure and cultural experiences, at once connected to tourist expectations but increasingly self-directed. The Surfers Paradise Nights campaign, which is based around social media, is a case in point. This campaign aims to interest visitors in becoming a part of a familiar third place, an online space, but one that will sustain an emotive connection to the physical location and events. The paper also draws on research carried out in Brisbane, Queensland, in relation to building connections between place and culture on designated, self-directed journeys via iPhone technology. Participant responses indicate the importance of narrative to developing cultural frameworks.

Design minds : an online design education platform for non-designers to enact cultural change

Education in the 21st century demands a model for understanding a new culture of learning in the face of rapid change, open access data and geographical diversity. Teachers no longer need to provide the latest information because students themselves are taking an active role in peer collectives to help create it. This paper examines, through an Australian case study entitled ‘Design Minds’, the development of an online design education platform as a key initiative to enact a government priority for state-wide cultural change through design-based curriculum. Utilising digital technology to create a supportive community, ‘Design Minds’ recognises that interdisciplinary learning fostered through engagement will empower future citizens to think, innovate, and discover. This paper details the participatory design process undertaken with multiple stakeholders to create the platform. It also outlines a proposed research agenda for future measurement of its value in creating a new learning culture, supporting regional and remote communities, and revitalising frontline services. It is anticipated this research will inform ongoing development of the online platform, and future design education and research programs in K-12 schools in Australia.

Hidden Innovation : Policy, Industry and the Creative Sector

The latest book in the internationally acclaimed Creative Economy series. The term ‘two cultures’ was coined more than 50 years ago by scientist and novelist C.P. Snow to describe the divergence in the world views and methods of scientists and the creative sector. This divergence has meant that innovation systems and policies have focussed for decades on science, engineering, technology and medicine and the industries that depend on them. The humanities, arts and social sciences have been bitt players at best; their contributions hidden from research agendas, policy and program initiatives, and the public mind. But structural changes to advanced economies and societies have brought services industries and the creative sector to greater prominence as key contributors to innovation. Hidden Innovation peels back the veil, tracing the way innovation occurs through new forms of screen production enabled by social media platforms as well as in public broadcasting. It shows that creative workers are contributing fresh ideas across the economy, and how creative cities debates need reframing. It traces how policies globally are beginning to catch up with the changing social and economic realities. In his new book, Cunningham argues that the innovation framework offers the best opportunity in decades to reassess and refresh the case for the public role of the humanities, particularly the media, cultural and communication studies disciplines.