Kurunuavanua: Fijian bodies and the economy of war

In Kurunavanua (the trembling of the earth) Bolatagici investigates representations of Pacific Island masculinity, Fiji and the economy of war. Her ongoing research is concerned with neo-colonial encounters between the US, Australia, Britain and Pacific Island nations. This exhibition is informed by research into the exploitation of the Pacific by comparing the participation of Fijian soldiers in the nuclear tests at Christmas Island in the 1950s to the current recruitment of Fijians to work for Private Security Military Companies in the Middle East.

Nude and naked : refiguring voyeuristic structures through feminist photographic techniques

Using theoretical, aesthetic and formal means specific to photographic processes, the relational exegesis and exhibition "Visual pleasures" attempts to disrupt visual structures and notions that have traditionally been used to objectify and idealize the body and, at the same time, open the field of vision to alternative and lived feminine pleasures.

Evaluation of three remote camera systems for detecting mammals and birds

Automated camera systems have widespread application in wildlife studies and their use is increasing (Kucera & Barrett 1993; Cutler & Swann 1999; Swann et al. 2004; Parker et al. 2008). Among other applications, they have been used to produce species inventories, estimate population sizes, study behaviour and examine the impact and activity of predators (Cutler & Swann 1999; Swann et al. 2004). Modern camera systems can operate for extended durations, are relatively non-invasive, easy to operate, portable, durable and can take good-quality images by day and night (Kucera & Barrett 1993; Peterson & Thomas 1998; Allison & Destefano 2006; Parker et al. 2008). Beyond their scientific applications, the generation of high-quality images can be useful for educational and conservation purposes (Cutler & Swann 1999). The two most common types of systems currently used in ecological research are passive and active infrared (IR) systems (Cutler & Swann 1999; Parker et al. 2008). An older form of remote photography is video which captures a continuous record of activity at a focal site (Stewart et al.1997; King et al. 2001). Camera systems have certain limitations and biases (Swann et al. 2004), yet these have not been well studied. Refinement of the use of camera systems is required to fully realize their value (Towerton et al. 2008). Here, we describe a comparison of detection rates of mammals and birds by passive and active IR camera systems, using a video system to benchmark detection rates.

Just like home : suburban realities and the art of Lisa Hilli

This article profiles the work of Australian-based Tolai artist Lisa Hilli and her photographic, video, installation and performance-based arts practice. Hilli's work deals with contemporary Pacific diasporic identity in Australia.

Representing Fijian bodies and the economy of war

This paper traces representations of the black body, which I have related to contemporary masculine identities in Fiji. I have linked historical representations to what I perceive as the ongoing commodification of the Fijian body and argue that opportunities that have arisen from conflict in the Middle East have had a significant impact on employment opportunities for Fijians. I have framed the discussion around a description and analysis of my own photographic and installation artworks produced between 2007 and 2009.

Export quality : representing Fijian bodies and the economy of war

Fijian bodies have become a valuable commodity in the economy of war. Remittances from workers overseas are Fiji’s largest income – exceeding that of tourism and sugar export. This essay examines historical and contemporary representations of the black male body that perpetuate the exploitation of Fijians by inscribing the Fijian male body as warrior, criminal and protector. Taking a multidisciplinary approach informed by sociology, cultural theory, Pacific studies, visual culture, feminist and post-colonial theory, my practice is the vehicle through which I address issues of neocolonial commodification of Fijian bodies. Through an analysis of my own staged photographs and vernacular images taken by Fijians working for private security military companies and British and US armies, I hope to challenge audiences to consider their own perceptions of Fijian agency and subjectivity. By theorising the politicisation of the black body and interrogating colonial representations of blackness, I argue that we can begin to create links between the historical and contemporary exploitation of Fijians and that at the essence of both is an underlying racial hierarchy and economic requirement for cheap and, arguably, expendable labour.

Suburb as site : virtual collaborative learning for undergraduate photography

This paper describes a learning and teaching approach implemented in an undergraduate photography unit that is designed around a virtual collaborative experience. The approach was adopted several years ago and the process of continually refining the approach to enhance the student experience is outlined as are the benefits and challenges that have been encountered to date. The primary aim of the learning and teaching approach is to allow students to develop graduate attributes and technical skills that will prepare them to work in a contemporary media context – working in the virtual so as to understand approaches to developing and presenting work in the modern photography workplace. The approach also aims to engage and support students in a self reflective process where they examine the self and others focusing on aspects of contemporary culture and lifestyle, architecture and concepts of the home. Central to the approach is a virtual collaborative project where students are matched with partners to develop and present a cohesive virtual photography portfolio that contrasts their local environment: Suburb as Site. Finally, the paper describes the research project that is underway to enhance the collaboration matching process and evaluate the student experience. The research aims to contribute to improved staff understanding of the student experience with a view to further enhancing the learning and teaching approach.

Photography at the chiasm

 This paper works across a number of theories from phenomenology, 'ecological perception' and psychogeography to demonstrate from recent experiments how contemporary photomedia qua the static image, deals with being (noun and verb), and moving, in space. The author presents research findings from inviestigations into photography employing slow shutter speeds and axial panning to render 2D images of 3D spatial effects to show how with one-eyed viewing the images effectively restore the spatial relationships and observer location of the photographed situation.

Doubling and convergence : novel models of vision and sense of space

Re-photography is considered in this paper as a synthesis of the processes of seeing, to develop an aesthetic of space.

This practice deals with being (noun and verb) in space and the perception of space and depiction of space; space at the intersection of landscape and human. A key to the conundrum of the figure and the ground arises out of practical photographic investigations to convey the very human sensations of being on the ground, in the confounding landscape of the Central Victorian (Australian) ironbark forests and goldfields.

What is revealed is that what we see, what we attend to, actually appears concentrated at the nodes of a series of vortices. Each vortex is a moiré interference of converging views of the same scene. Attention is a convergence on particulars. Like a magnetic field, the vortex remains invisible in our everyday vision, but it appears in these images. It is imprinted from individual perspectives at particular places; a new perspective with a point of apparition rather than of vanishing.

Placing space/time through photography’s old and new technologies

The discovery that an impressively strong 3-dimensional effect in a 2-dimensional photographic representation of natural outdoor scenes occurs when a single camera is directed around one point in the scene, thus drawing into relief the subject of attention and blurring the surrounding space, has important implications for understanding basic processes in 3-dimensional vision. For the development of new ways for generating 3D effects in motion and static representations of scenes we might well learn from photography’s old technologies, as well as digital technologies of the static print, which have yet to release the full impact of their potential in the representation of motion and space.

Shifting ground in some Australian photography

This is a report of a practice-as-research project. The chapter outlines McArdle's discoveries of means by which the pre-conscious processes of binocular vision and steropsis can be made visible in an effect which with one-eyed vision renders the scene 3-dimensional.

In the book's introduction editor Mehigan writes "[The] will to creation is only assayable once we estimate the role of the observer in the construction of space. McArdle's contribution, in engaging with the question of the animating presence of the observer focuses not just on what is caught in the lens of the photographer at the moment of depiction, but how the photographer's movement through space is the 'force field' that insinuates itself into the landscape and enters into a reciprocal relationship with it. The schematism of Euclidean geometry, for this reason, cannot account for the truth of the photographer's images; McArdle's metaphors are singularly non-Euclidean in their description of how objects are held together in the imaginative space of mental awareness."