Stories have the power to save us: A neurological framework for the imperative to tell stories

The evolutionary advantage of humans is in our unique ability to process stories – we have highly evolved ‘narrative organs.’ Through storytelling, vicarious knowledge, even guarded knowledge, is used to help our species to survive. We learn, regardless of whether the story being told is ‘truth’ or ‘fiction.’ This article discusses how humans place themselves in stories, as both observer and participant, to create a ‘neural balance’ or sweet spot that allows them to be immersed in a story without being entirely threatened by it – and how this involvement in story is the formation of empathy – an empathy that is integral to forging a future humanity. It is through empathy, we argue, that stories have the power to save us.

Our true colours: A collage of four womens’ stories

The Our True Colours project brought together a group of four young women from refugee backgrounds to explore life narratives using visual arts and participatory video. The video is a celebration of their strengths and insights into the resettlement process. The Our True Colours storytelling project included an interactive art exhibition, a public screening event on International Women’s Day in 2014 and the creation of a website to permanently host the project: ourtruecolours.org

Co-creating stories in social learning systems : The role of community media and cultural organisations in disseminating knowledge

This paper investigates how community based media organisations are co-creative storytelling institutions, and how they learn to disseminate knowledge in a social learning system. Organisations involved in story co-creation are learning to create in fluid environments.They are project based, with a constant turnover of volunteers or staff. These organisations have to meet the needs of their funding bodies and their communities to remain sustainable. Learning is seen as dialogical, and this is also reflected in the nature of storytelling itself. These organisations must learn to meet the needs of their communities, who in turn learn from the organisation’s expertise in a facilitated setting. This learning is participatory and collaborative, and is often a mix of virtual and offline interaction. Such community-based organisations sit in the realm of a hybrid-learning environment; they are neither a formal educational institution like a college, nor do their volunteers produce outcomes in a professional capacity. Yet, they must maintain a certain level of quality outcomes from their contributors to be of continued value in their communities. Drawing from a larger research study, one particular example is that of the CitizenJ project. CitizenJ is hosted by a state cultural centre, and partnered with publishing partners in the community broadcasting sector. This paper explores how this project is a Community of Practice, and how it promotes ethical and best practice, meets contributors’ needs, emphasises the importance of facilitation in achieving quality outcomes, and the creation of projects for wider community and public interest.

Settings, subjects and stories: Creating Australian cinema

The story of Australian cinema is often told as one of brave and often futile struggle by passionate and talented filmmakers to tell Australian stories against the backdrop of an industry dominated locally as well as globally by Hollywood and its agents. In theses narratives international interests are often cast as the villains in the valiant struggle for national filmic self-expression. But such a focus on the national aspects of Australian cinema elides the depth of the international aspect of Australian cinema. A legend has grown around the last decade of the nineteenth century as a time of intense artistic and political activity when a national sensibility welled in writing, poetry and painting. Film too played a part in creating and sharing a vision of a nation, but from the earliest days film also linked Australia to the world.

Affordances of ICTs: an environmental study of a French language unit offered at university level

This project investigates the integration of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) into educational settings by closely looking at the uptake of the perceived affordances offered by ICTs by students enrolled in a French language course at Queensland University of Technology. This cross-disciplinary research uses the theoretical concepts of: Ecological Psychology (Gibson, 1979; Good, 2007; Reed, 1996); Ecological Linguistics (Greeno, 1994; Leather & van Dam, 2003; van Lier 2000, 2003, 2004a, 2004b); Design (Norman, 1988, 1999); Software Design/ Human-Computer Interaction (Hartson, 2003; McGrenere & Ho, 2000); Learning Design (Conole & Dyke, 2004a, 2004b; Laurillard et al. 2000;); Education (Kirschner, 2002; Salomon, 1993; Wijekumar et al., 2006) and Educational Psychology (Greeno, 1994). In order to investigate this subject, the following research questions, rooted in the theoretical foundations of the thesis, were formulated: (1) What are the learners’ attitudes towards the ICT tools used in the project?; (2) What are the affordances offered by ICTs used in a specific French language course at university level from the perspective of the teacher and from the perspective of language learners?; (3) What affordances offered by ICT tools used by the teacher within the specific teaching and learning environment have been taken up by learners?; and (4) What factors influence the uptake by learners of the affordances created by ICT tools used by the teacher within the specific teaching and learning environment? The teaching phase of this project, conducted between 2006 and 2008, used Action Research procedures (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002; van Lier 1994) as a research framework. The data were collected using the following combination of qualitative and quantitative methods: (1) questionnaires administered to students (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002) using Likert-scale questions, open questions, yes/no questions; (2) partnership classroom observations of research participants conducted by Research Participant Advocates (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002); and (3) a focus group with volunteering students who participated in the unit (semi-structured interview) (Hopkins, 2002; McNiff & Whitehead, 2002). The data analysis confirms the importance of a careful examination of the teaching and learning environment and reveals differences in the ways in which the opportunities for an action offered by the ICTs were perceived by teacher and students, which impacted on the uptake of affordances. The author applied the model of affordance, as described by Good (2007), to explain these differences and to investigate their consequences. In conclusion, the teacher-researcher considers that the discrepancies in perceiving the affordances result from the disparities between the frames of reference and the functional contexts of the teacher-researcher and students. Based on the results of the data analysis, a series of recommendations is formulated supporting calls for careful analysis of frames of reference and the functional contexts of all participants in the learning and teaching process. The author also suggests a modified model of affordance, outlining the important characteristics of its constituents.

The Yonder project: Stories of impact, change, and capacity building through engagement in arts education

This thesis examined the long-term impact of the community arts education project Yonder, a collaboration between Education Queensland and Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The findings from the data reveal that the project was still having impact twelve months after its completion and that in some instances the project served as a 'circuit-breaker', especially for special needs students and struggling students. The intervention of a rich arts project proved to be an opportunity for these students to learn in a different way and to perceive themselves in a new and reinvented light. This confidence was found to transfer into other aspects of their learning.

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.

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.

Amplified stories: Digital technology and representations of lived experiences

New media technologies and the narrative turn in qualitative research has expanded the methods through which we gather data about and share findings of groups who have traditionally been written about by others rather than telling their own stories to reveal the complexities of their experiences. This chapter explores two projects that use storytelling and technology in an effort to change public perceptions about disadvantaged a community or cohort that have specific circumstances but are a result of policies beyond their control.

The Great Gatsby and Ned Kelly: Telling national iconic stories through a transnational lens

This chapter will examine how transnational film making allows national and iconic stories to shift outside their imposed national boundaries, freeing them from “nation building” constraints and predetermined ideological motivations. Each interpretation creates one more dimension to the story’s complexity and hybridity assuring its continuance and relevance into the future. Each new film version, and in the case of iconic stories, each new transnational film version, breathes new energy and life into the stories and also stops monolithic ownership of them. What is also of interest in this chapter is the judgement cast upon each of the retelling and adaptations of these iconic stories. Every adaptation is weighed up and judged against a mythic ideal, and as such, each always falls short of imagined expectations. But in a paradoxical fashion, it is this failure to capture that provides the impetus for the story’s future retellings.

Writing fashion’s future: the gods and monsters of the Anthropocene

This paper identifies two narratives of the Anthropocene and explores how they play out in the realm of future-looking fashion production. Each narrative draws on mythic comparisons to gods and monsters to express humanity’s dilemmas, albeit from different perspectives. The first is a Malthusian narrative of collapse and scarcity, brought about by the monstrous, unstoppable nature of human technology set loose on the natural world. In this vein, philosopher Slavoj Zizek (2010) draws on Biblical analogies, likening ecological crisis to one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. To find a myth to suit the present times, novelist A.S Byatt (2011) proposes Ragnarök, a Norse myth in which the gods destroy themselves. In contrast, the second narrative is one of technological cornucopia. Stewart Brand (2009, 27), self-described ‘eco-pragmatist’ writes, ‘we are as gods and we have to get good at it’. In his view, human technologies offer the only hope to mitigating the problems caused by human technology – Brand suggests harnessing nuclear power, bioengineering of crops and the geoengineering of the planet as the way forward. Similarly, the French philosopher Bruno Latour (2012, 274), exhorts us to “love our monsters”, likening our technologies to Doctor Frankenstein’s monster – set loose upon the world, and then reviled by his creator. For both Brand and Latour, human technology may be monstrous, but it must also be turned toward solutions. Within this schema, hopeful visions of the future of fashion are similarly divided. In the techno-enabled cornucopian future, the fashion industry embraces wearable technology, speed and efficiency. Technologies such as waterless dyeing, 3D printing and self-cleaning garments shift fashion into a new era of cleaner production. Meanwhile, in the narrative of scarcity, a more cautious approach sees fashion return to a new localism and valuing of the hand-made in a time of shrinking resources. Through discussion of future-looking fashion designers, brands, and activists, this paper explores how they may align along a spectrum to one of these two grand narratives of the future. The paper will discuss how these narratives may unconsciously shape the perspective of both producers and users around the fashion of today and the fashion of tomorrow. This paper poses the question: what stories can be written for fashion’s future in the Anthropocene, and are they fated, or can they be re-written?

Mixed reality stories: How creative writers integrate virtual and physical realities

Mixed reality stories (MRS) unfold simultaneously in the physical and the virtual world. Advancements in digital technologies, which are now able to capture more contextual information about our physical environments, are enabling novel ways of blending the two worlds. To explore the process of creating stories from this perspective, we conducted a study with creative writers, in which we asked them to write a MRS script for outdoor running. While we saw instances of intentional connections between physical and virtual worlds in their work, we also observed the use of ambiguity or even deliberate contradiction with available contextual information. In this paper we discuss how these approaches can be beneficial for MRS and propose directions for future work.

Fast forward to the end: Stories of the cassette magazine

Although they made up a significant share of the retail music market from the 60s to the 90s, and were often used as promotional and marketing tools, cassettes became re-configured in the 80s as an integral component of cassette magazines. Binding sound, music, talk, text, visual art and design, they were a truly innovative interdisciplinary form. This paper explores the history of these artefacts with particular emphasis on the Brisbane underground music scene of the late 70s and 80s, and discusses their significance in as a bridge between the music scene and art scenes of this period.