How does ‘Newstainment’ actually work? : ethnographic research methods and contemporary popular news

Much debate has taken place recently over the potential for entertainment genres and unorthodox forms of news to provide legitimate – indeed democratized – in-roads into the public sphere. Amidst these discussions, however, little thought has been paid to the audiences for programs of this sort, and (even when viewers are considered) the research can too easily treat audiences in homogenous terms and therefore replicate the very dichotomies these television shows directly challenge. This paper is a critical reflection on an audience study into the Australian morning “newstainment” program Sunrise. After examining the show and exploring how it is ‘used’ as a news source, this paper will promote the use of ethnographic study to better conceptualize how citizens integrate and connect the increasingly fragmented and multifarious forms of postmodern political communication available in their everyday lives.

Knowmore (House of Commons)

Knowmore (House of Commons) is a large scale generative interactive installation that incorporates embodied interaction, dynamic image creation, new furniture forms, touch sensitivity, innovative collaborative processes and multichannel generative sound creation. A large circular table spun by hand and a computer-controlled video projection falls on its top, creating an uncanny blend of physical object and virtual media. Participants’ presence around the table and how they touch it is registered, allowing up to five people to collaboratively ‘play’ this deeply immersive audiovisual work. Set within an ecological context, the work subtly asks what kind of resources and knowledges might be necessary to move us past simply knowing what needs to be changed to instead actually embodying that change, whilst hinting at other deeply relational ways of understanding and knowing the world. The work has successfully operated in two high traffic public environments, generating a subtle form of interactivity that allows different people to interact at different paces and speeds and with differing intentions, each contributing towards dramatic public outcomes. The research field involved developing new interaction and engagement strategies for eco-political media arts practice. The context was the creation of improved embodied, performative and improvisational experiences for participants; further informed by ‘Sustainment’ theory. The central question was, what ontological shifts may be necessary to better envision and align our everyday life choices in ways that respect that which is shared by all - 'The Commons'. The methodology was primarily practice-led and in concert with underlying theories. The work’s knowledge contribution was to question how new media interactive experience and embodied interaction might prompt participants to reflect upon the kind of resources and knowledges required to move past simply knowing what needs to be changed to instead actually embodying that change. This was achieved through focusing on the power of embodied learning implied by the works' strongly physical interface (i.e. the spinning of a full size table) in concert with the complex field of layered imagery and sound. The work was commissioned by the State Library of Queensland and Queensland Artworkers Alliance and significantly funded by The Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, QUT, RMIT Centre for Animation and Interactive Media and industry partners E2E Visuals. After premiering for 3 months at the State Library of Queensland it was curated into the significant ‘Mediations Biennial of Modern Art’ in Poznan, Poland. The work formed the basis of two papers, was reviewed in Realtime (90), was overviewed at Subtle Technologies (2010) in Toronto and shortlisted for ISEA 2011 Istanbul and included in the edited book/catalogue ‘Art in Spite of Economics’, a collaboration between Leonardo/ISAST (MIT Press); Goldsmiths, University of London; ISEA International; and Sabanci University, Istanbul.

here/there/then/now

here/there/then/now was a practice-led research project that brought together 10 independent artists in dance, music, theatre and visual/media arts to create a site-specific program within the walls of the Brisbane Powerhouse. The purpose was to explore how to best conceive flexible performance platforms, theatricalise site-specific work and engage new audiences through forms of promenade experience that could provide open choices on how and where to view it. The sold out season of 6 performances, which took place 14-19 May 2002, presented three discrete performance installations set in intimate parts of the building, each with their own aesthetic and communicative intention, culminating in a fourth in-theatre installation, where memories of the first three coalesced and were reinterrogated. Each site thereby investigated meaning-making via the moving body and its critical relationship with space and objects, in a dramatic re-contextualisation of traditional solo dance forms, now re-articulated through interdisciplinary practices. The benefit of this approach was the creation of a layered and multimodal experience that could be both shared and subsequently critiqued by performers and audience alike.

Injury prevention in Queensland : report to Queensland Injury Prevention Council

Injury is the fourth leading cause of death in Australia. Injury rates in Queensland are amongst the highest in Australia and 21.5% of people surveyed for this research reported that their lifestyle or that of an immediate family member had been permanently affected by injury. Injury results in over 40,000 hospital admissions and 200,000 attendances at hospital Emergency Departments in Queensland each year. Queensland's death rate from injuries is higher than the national average, with consistently higher rates of deaths related to transport injuries. Queensland statistics also show higher than national average rates of injuries due to falls, homicide and accidental drowning. (Pike, Muller, Baade & Ward, 2000) In 2000-01 injuries represented over $4 billion (or 8%) of total health system expenditure, and 185,000 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), or 7% of the total morbidity burden of disease and injury in Australia in 2003. (Begg, Vos, Barker, Stevenson, Stanley & Lopez, 2007). Injury is one of seven key health areas identified by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments for priority attention as National Health Priority Areas

Professional development for the integration of biotechnology education

Views on the nature and relevance of science education have changed significantly over recent decades. This has serious implications for the way in which science is taught in secondary schools, particularly with respect to teaching emerging topics such as biotechnology, which have a socio-scientific dimension and also require novel laboratory skills. It is apparent in current literature that there is a lack of adequate teacher professional development opportunities in biotechnology education and that a significant need exists for researchers to develop a carefully crafted and well supported professional development design which will positively impact on the way in which teachers engage with contemporary science. This study used a retrospective case study methodology to document the recent evolution of modern biotechnology education as part of the changing nature of science education; examine the adoption and implementation processes for biotechnology education by three secondary schools; and to propose an evidence based biotechnology professional development model for science educators. Data were gathered from documents, one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions. Analysis of these data has led to the proposal of a biotechnology professional development model which considers all of the key components of science professional development that are outlined in the literature, as well as the additional components which were articulated by the educators studied. This research is timely and pertinent to the needs of contemporary science education because of its recognition of the need for a professional development model in biotechnology education that recognizes and addresses the content knowledge, practical skills, pedagogical knowledge and curriculum management components.

Through the clock's workings

Through the Clock’s Workings is a world first: a remixed and remixable anthology of literature.----- Prominent Australian authors have written new short stories and released them under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike licence. What that means is you can remix the stories, but only if you acknowledge the author, the remix is not for commercial use, and your new work is available for others to remix. The authors’ stories were made available on our website and new and emerging writers were invited to create their own remixes to be posted on the website and considered for publication in the print anthology alongside the original stories.----- The result is a world first: a remixed and remixable anthology of literature. Buy your copy now from the Sydney University Press eStore or download the electronic version.----- So how do you use a remixable anthology? Simple.----- Step 1 - Read. Thumb your way through the pages at will. Find the stories you love, the ones you hate, the ones that could be better.----- Step 2 - Re/create. Each story is yours to share and to remix. Use only one paragraph or character or just make subtle changes. Change the genre, alter its formal or stylistic characteristics, or revise its message. Use as little or as much as you like - as long as it works.----- Step 3 - Share. Be part of a growing community of literature remixing. Email your remix to us and start sharing. The entire anthology can be remixed - the original stories, the remixes, and even the fonts.----- Through the Clock’s Workings is Read&Write!

Concerning the house museum and the picturesque landscape in the work of Sir John Soane : with raw hints for post-heritage museum space

The picturesque aesthetic in the work of Sir John Soane, architect and collector, resonates in the major work of his very personal practice – the development of his house museum, now the Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Soane was actively involved with the debates, practices and proponents of picturesque and classical practices in architecture and landscape and his lectures reveal these influences in the making of The Soane, which was built to contain and present diverse collections of classical and contemporary art and architecture alongside scavenged curiosities. The Soane Museum has been described as a picturesque landscape, where a pictorial style, together with a carefully defined itinerary, has resulted in the ‘apotheosis of the Picturesque interior’. Soane also experimented with making mock ruinscapes within gardens, which led him to construct faux architectures alluding to archaeological practices based upon the ruin and the fragment. These ideas framed the making of interior landscapes expressed through spatial juxtapositions of room and corridor furnished with the collected object that characterise The Soane Museum. This paper is a personal journey through the Museum which describes and then reviews aspects of Soane’s work in the context of contemporary theories on ‘new’ museology. It describes the underpinning picturesque practices that Soane employed to exceed the boundaries between interior and exterior landscapes and the collection. It then applies particular picturesque principles drawn from visiting The Soane to a speculative project for a house/landscape museum for the Oratunga historic property in outback South Australia, where the often, normalising effects of conservation practices are reviewed using minimal architectural intervention through a celebration of ruinous states.