Restrung New Chamber Festival : Bridging the Gap Between High Art Music and Popular Sensibilities

The Restrung New Chamber Festival was a practice-led research project which explored the intricacies of musical relationships. Specifically, it investigated the relationships between new music ensembles and pop-oriented bands inspired by the new music genre. The festival, held at the Brisbane Powerhouse (28 February-2 March 2009) comprised 17 diverse groups including the Brodsky Quartet, Topology, Wood, Fourplay and CODA. Restrung used a new and distinctive model which presented new music and syncretic musical genres within an immersive environment. Restrung brought together approaches used in both contemporary classical and popular music festivals, using musical, visual and spatial aspects to engage audiences. Interactivity was encouraged through video and sound installations, workshops and forums. This paper will investigate some of the issues surrounding the conception and design of the Restrung model, within the context of an overview of European new music trends. It includes a discussion of curating such an event in a musically sensitive and effective way, and approaches to identifying new and receptive audiences. As a guide to programming Restrung, I formulated a working definition of new music, further developed by interviews with specialists in Australia and Europe, and this will be outlined below.

Young children’s experience of visual displays of their artwork

The practice of displaying children's artwork in early childhood classrooms poses a number of questions about the child and his or her visual artwork. This paper focuses on young children’s experiences with the display of their own visual artwork. Following Giorgi's (1985a; 1985b) approach to conducting phenomenological psychological research, 13 children between the ages of 4 and 6 years attending an independent school outside metropolitan Detroit, Michigan (USA) participated in semi-structured interviews as a way of uncovering their lived experiences of seeing their artwork displayed. The study yielded 12 essential themes and from these three key issues and their implications for early childhood art education are explored.

The “Iranian ART Revolution”: infertility, assisted reproductive technology, and third-party donation in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Infertility is a social onus for women in Iran, who are expected to produce children early within marriage. With its estimated 1.5 million infertile couples, Iran is the only Muslim country in which assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) using donor gametes and embryos have been legitimized by religious authorities and passed into law. Th is has placed Iran, a Shia-dominant country, in a unique position vis-à-vis the Sunni Islamic world, where all forms of gamete donation are strictly prohibited. In this article, we first examine the “Iranian ART revolution” that has allowed donor technologies to be admitted as a form of assisted reproduction. Then we examine the response of Iranian women to their infertility and the profound social pressures they face. We argue that the experience of infertility and its treatment are mediated by women’s socioeconomic position within Iranian society. Many women lack economic access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) technologies and fear the moral consequences of gamete donation. Thus, the benefits of the Iranian ART revolution are mixed: although many Iranian women have been able to overcome their infertility through ARTs, not all women’s lives are improved by these technologies.

The effective and the evocative : reflecting on practice-led research approaches in art and design

Early in the practice-led research debate, Steven Scrivener (2000, 2002) identified some general differences in the approach of artists and designers undertaking postgraduate research. His distinctions centered on the role of the artefact in problem-based research (associated with design) and creative-production research (associated with artistic practice). Nonetheless, in broader discussions on practice-led research, 'art and design' often continues to be conflated within a single term. In particular, marked differences between art and design methodologies, theoretical framing, research goals and research claims have been underestimated. This paper revisits Scrivener's work and establishes further distinctions between art and design research. It is informed by our own experiences of postgraduate supervision and research methods training, and an empirical study of over sixty postgraduate, practice-led projects completed at the Creative Industries Faculty of QUT between 2002 and 2008. Our reflections have led us to propose that artists and designers work with differing research goals (the evocative and the effective, respectively), which are played out in the questions asked, the creative process, the role of the artefact and the way new knowledge is evidenced. Of course, research projects will have their own idiosyncrasies but, we argue, marking out the poles at each end of the spectrum of art and design provides useful insights for postgraduate candidates, supervisors and methodologists alike.

Cascading appearance-based features for visual speaker verification

The cascading appearance-based (CAB) feature extraction technique has established itself as the state of the art in extracting dynamic visual speech features for speech recognition. In this paper, we will focus on investigating the effectiveness of this technique for the related speaker verification application. By investigating the speaker verification ability of each stage of the cascade we will demonstrate that the same steps taken to reduce static speaker and environmental information for the speech recognition application also provide similar improvements for speaker recognition. These results suggest that visual speaker recognition can improve considerable when conducted solely through a consideration of the dynamic speech information rather than the static appearance of the speaker's mouth region.

The vernacular terrain : Songzhang Art Museum, Beijing, China

The field was the curation of cross-cultural new media/ digital media practices within large-scale exhibition practices in China. The context was improved understandings of the intertwining of the natural and the artificial with respect to landscape and culture, and their consequent effect on our contemporary globalised society. The research highlighted new languages of media art with respect to landscape and their particular underpinning dialects. The methodology was principally practice-led. --------- The research brought together over 60 practitioners from both local and diasporic Asian, European and Australian cultures for the first time within a Chinese exhibition context. Through pursuing a strong response to both cultural displacement and re-identification the research forged and documented an enduring commonality within difference – an agenda further concentrated through sensitivities surrounding that year’s Beijing’s Olympics. In contrast to the severe threats posed to the local dialects of many of the world’s spoken and written languages the ‘Vernacular Terrain’ project evidenced that many local creative ‘dialects’ of the environment-media art continuum had indeed survived and flourished. --------- The project was co-funded by the Beijing Film Academy, QUT Precincts, IDAProjects and Platform China Art Institute. A broad range of peer-reviewed grants was won including from the Australia China Council and the Australian Embassy in China. Through invitations from external curators much of the work then traveled to other venues including the Block Gallery at QUT and the outdoor screens at Federation Square, Melbourne. The Vernacular Terrain catalogue featured a comprehensive history of the IDA project from 2000 to 2008 alongside several major essays. Due to the reputation IDA Projects had established, the team were invited to curate a major exhibition showcasing fifty new media artists: The Vernacular Terrain, at the prestigious Songzhang Art Museum, Beijing in Dec 07-Jan 2008. The exhibition was designed for an extensive, newly opened gallery owned by one of China's most important art historians Li Xian Ting. This exhibition was not only this gallery’s inaugural non-Chinese curated show but also the Gallery’s first new media exhibition. It included important works by artists such as Peter Greenway, Michael Roulier, Maleonn and Cui Xuiwen. --------- Each artist was chosen both for a focus upon their own local environmental concerns as well as their specific forms of practice - that included virtual world design, interactive design, video art, real time and manipulated multiplayer gaming platforms and web 2.0 practices. This exhibition examined the interconnectivities of cultural dialogue on both a micro and macro scale; incorporating the local and the global, through display methods and design approaches that stitched these diverse practices into a spatial map of meanings and conversations. By examining the contexts of each artist’s practice in relationship to the specificity of their own local place and prevailing global contexts the exhibition sought to uncover a global vernacular. Through pursuing this concentrated anthropological direction the research identified key themes and concerns of a contextual language that was clearly underpinned by distinctive local ‘dialects’ thereby contributing to a profound sense of cross-cultural association. Through augmentation of existing discourse the exhibition confirmed the enduring relevance and influence of both localized and globalised languages of the landscape-technology continuum.

Flood fatalities in contemporary Australia (1997-2008) : disaster medicine

Objective: Flood is the most common natural disaster in Australia and causes more loss of life than any other disaster. This article describes the incidence and causes of deaths directly associated with floods in contemporary Australia. ---------- Methods: The present study compiled a database of flood fatalities in Australia in the period of 1997–2008 inclusive. The data were derived from newspapers and historic accounts, as well as government and scientific reports. Assembled data include the date and location of fatalities, age and gender of victims and the circumstances of the death. ---------- Results: At least 73 persons died as a direct result of floods in Australia in the period of 1997–2008. The largest number of fatalities occurred in New South Wales and Queensland. Most fatalities occurred during February, and among men (71.2%). People between the ages of 10 and 29 and those over 70 years are overrepresented among those drowned. There is no evident decline in the number of deaths over time. 48.5% fatalities related to motor vehicle use. 26.5% fatalities occurred as a result of inappropriate or high-risk behaviour during floods. ---------- Conclusion: In modern developed countries with adequate emergency response systems and extensive resources, deaths that occur in floods are almost all eminently preventable. Over 90% of the deaths are caused by attempts to ford flooded waterways or inappropriate situational conduct. Knowledge of the leading causes of flood fatalities should inform public awareness programmes and public safety police enforcement activities.

Uncertainties that matter : risk, response-ability, ethics and the moment of exchange in Live Art

This article examines the moment of exchange between artist, audience and culture in Live Art. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, including examples from the Exist in 08 Live Art Event in Brisbane, Australia, in October 2008, it argues that Live Art - be it body art, activist art, site-specific performance, or other sorts of performative intervention in the public sphere - is characterised by a common set of claims about activating audiences, asking them to reflect on cultural norms challenged in the work. Live Art presents risky actions, in a context that blurs the boundaries between art and reality, to position audients as ‘witnesses’ who are personally implicated in, and responsible for, the actions unfolding before them. This article problematises assumptions about the way the uncertainties embedded in the Live Art encounter contribute to its deconstructive agenda. It uses the ethical theory of Emmanuel Levinas, Hans-Thies Lehmann and Dwight Conquergood to examine the mechanics of reductive, culturally-recuperative readings that can limit the efficacy of the Live Art encounter. It argues that, though ‘witnessing’ in Live Art depends on a relation to the real - real people, taking real risks, in real places - if it fails to foreground theatrical frame it is difficult for audients to develop the dual consciousness of the content, and their complicity in that content, that is the starting point for reflexivity, and response-ability, in the ethical encounter.

Queensland Arts Council road trip : an examination of in-schools touring productions (2005-2008)

This research project explores the nature of In-School Touring Productions that are presented in Queensland classrooms by Queensland Arts Council (QAC). The research emerged from my background as a drama teacher working on secondment at QAC in the Ontour inschools department. The research follows the development of a new production Power Trip: the Adventures of Watty and Volt. The research was guided by the key question: What are some of the production and pragmatic issues that relate to In-school Touring Productions and in what ways do QAC’s Ontour inschools productions offer learning experiences? This research involved the creation of three intersecting elements: (1) a 45 minute personal documentary film, 8 Times Around the Equator. The film follows my enthusiasms for this hybrid form of theatre which developed from my childhood, teaching practice and finally in my role at QAC; (2) a multimedia DVD, Queensland Arts Council 2008 inschools Season, which presents a series of short video clips promoting QAC’s Ontour inschools program; and finally (3) this exegetical paper, Queensland Arts Council Road Trip: an Examination of In-Schools Touring Productions (2005-2008). This exegesis supports the multimedia presentations and provides additional descriptions of QAC's Ontour inschools productions which are contextualised within the history of QAC and the field of Youth Theatre generally. During the project I observed 37 QAC productions and analysed them against set criteria and as a result four types of learning experiences were identified: • Category X: X-periencing the Art Form – providing students with exposure to traditional forms of main stage theatre; • Category L: Learning Through the Art Form – communicating information using an art form to educate. For example using comedy, clowning or slapstick to teach science; • Category U: Unpacking the Art Form – deconstructing art forms and providing students with increased awareness and appreciation; and • Category M: M-bodying the Art Form – workshops and artist residencies that allow students to create their own work. The creative works (documentary film and DVDs) combine to make up 65% of the project. This exegetical paper concludes the final 35% required for submission.

AITPM national newsletter December 2008 president's report

It’s fast approaching the end of the year and the festive season, and I have a few things on my mind. First, how I’ll fit in all of my holiday plans and projects within my period of leave, which always seems to pass oh so quickly! But more important are the two issues of global financial uncertainty and safe travel. Judging by what is in the media, it appears to be proving difficult for any self respecting financial industry specialist to define and grapple with the so-called current economic crisis, let alone those of us who have not been formally and extensively schooled in the sciences of finance and economics. Perhaps the latter is even more of a “black art” than the discipline of transport planning. The situation has affected all of us with our superannuation and/or share portfolios; however, judging by the still-crowded shopping centres in many areas, the downstream general economic impacts appear to be less serious in Australia than in other developed countries, even with the significant market fluctuations taking place. There are many important decisions facing Australian governments, from the top down, on how they manage their budgets and spending. Infrastructure spending is in competition with other necessities such as the public health system and education. But it appears that infrastructure is an avenue of public spending that, over all time windows, may be able to significantly bolster local economies and that of the nation as a whole. This, however, is against the spectre of deficits. I would suggest that now, more than ever, we as transport and other professionals within the system, should use our knowledge and experience to take a key role in helping government and the private sector make sound decisions on infrastructure planning, delivery and management.

The human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 : a multidisciplinary workshop

Event report following a multidisciplinary workshop at the Economic and Social Research Council's Genomics Policy and Research Forum, which took place at the University of Edinburgh on 20 January 2011.

On secrets, lies, and fiction : girls learning the art of survival

This chapter’s interest in fiction’s relationship to truth, lies, and secrecy is not so much a matter of how closely fiction resembles or mirrors the world (its mimetic quality), or what we can learn from fiction (its epistemological value). Rather, the concern is both literary and philosophical: a literary concern that takes into account how texts that thematise secrecy work to withhold and to disclose their secrets as part of the process of narrating and sequencing; and a philosophical concern that considers how survival is contingent on secrets and other forms of concealment such as lies, deception, and half-truths. The texts selected for examination are: Secrets (2002), Skim (2008), and Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (2003). These texts draw attention to the ways in which the lies and secrets of the female protagonists are part of the intricate mechanism of survival, and demonstrate the ways in which fiction relies upon concealment and revelation as forms of truth-telling.

Reclaiming the art of teaching

This paper explores the art and craft of teaching in higher education. It presents a model of the relationship between art and craft drawn from the author’s theoretical and empirical work, and provides examples from the higher education context to illustrate the model. It discusses the characteristics of teaching as art and craft and critiques the move towards standardisation and conformity in favour of originality, creativity and innovation. It suggests that to see teaching as art is more holistic, satisfying and transformative than to see it as craft. It argues for reclaiming the art of teaching and provides strategies for encouraging and supporting artistic teaching.