Finding the edge : online persona creation by fringe artists

Self-presentation through the creation of profiles and pages on digitally networked spaces is becoming ever more ubiquitous. In order to develop greater depth of understanding of the place of social media in our self-identification practice, my dissertation investigates the experiences of online persona creation by eight artists. Drawing on sociological and cultural studies approaches to understanding identity as performance, I tie current artists’ presentational and representational practices to historically grounded, socio-culturally constructed discourses of ‘artistness’. Through this connection, I argue that the creation of online persona has not radically changed notions of what it means to be an artist, or how artistness is represented and understood by audiences of fans or followers, but rather that digital technology has allowed for renegotiation of the boundaries of artistness that still draws from historical understandings of the role and persona of the artist. This shifting of boundaries, allowing for more inclusivity within the art world, is demonstrated by my focus on ‘fringe’ artists: those whose creative practice places them outside of the traditional art world and its existing structures of representation, distribution and consumption. The eight fringe artists who participated in this study are drawn from street art, performance poetry, craftivism and tattoo.

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis drives the methodological focus on the experiences of the artists. Rather than a consideration of behaviour and habit, or what the artists do, this phenomenological approach allowed me to instead focus on what it is like for the artists to create persona, what drives particular types of representational practices. Using unstructured interviews, and online listening as an extension of participant observation, the artists’ narratives of experience are expressed through transcript extracts and screenshots: both are necessary to fully explore the nature of online persona creation.

My analysis of the artists experiences has demonstrated that there are three somewhat distinct registers of performance with which an artist’s persona can engage: the professional register, where one demonstrates ones proficiency, experience, popularity, and professionalism; the personal register, where one connects with
wider social and political interests and activities; and the intimate register, where one allows the audience in to one’s private world. These three registers occupy the same performance space, but are implicitly or explicitly for different segments of the digitally networked audience of fans, followers, friends and family. The complexity of the performance and reception of these registers is influenced by the shared nature of the performance space – where previously different roles would be performed for different audiences without reference to one another, the networked nature of online social media influences decisions of how much, and when, to share with whom.

Interpreted here using themes of strategy|happenstance, specialisation|diversification, visibility|self-protection,
self|others and work|play, the professional, personal and intimate registers of performance enable us to see the consideration and care with which each participant creates their artists persona. The experiences of performing the self in these three registers, as presented here, provides an insight into the complexities involved in creating online persona, while also demonstrating that this type of presentation of self is, in itself, no different from the types of role play and performance of self that has arguably always occurred in our physical world. Despite focusing on the role and performance of artistness, this dissertation speaks to the creation and performance of online persona more broadly. 

Randai Hari Bela Negara

This was a traditional theatre form with an original script in Indonesian (as opposed to the local language of the region) that retold the events leading to the formation of the emergency government of Indonesian following Dutch aggression after Indonesia declared independence. The performance features an original script based on in-depth historical research, originally choreographed dance based on traditional styles, a play script for the actors, and original songs. The preparation of this script required extensive historical research, including interviews, as well as the conversion of traditional art genres into Indonesian for presentation in the modern context. This was the first time a randai, a traditional theatre form, has ben done in Indonesian and represents a significant innovation in the performing and literary arts. The performance involved dance, music, singing, written text, and acting, all of which were composed, directed, and overseen by the author.

A stakeholder approach to corporate social responsibility, reputation and business performance

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate business managers' assessment of stakeholders' influence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The key stakeholders included "employees" and "unions" as internal and "public", the "media" and the "government" as external stakeholders. The purpose was to estimate the influence of stakeholders that managers perceive as important. Moreover, the study sought to identify association between the CSR construct and corporate reputation and in turn whether this influences business performance. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses a mail survey with a random sampling of senior managers sourced from Dun & Bradstreet's Australian business database, focusing on large organizations (i.e. minimum $10 million p.a. reported sales and minimum 100 employees) as the selection criteria. A conceptual model was developed and tested using structural equation modeling. Findings - The results identified that "employees" and the "public" are perceived to be the influential stakeholder groups in CSR decision-making. There was evidence of a positive relationship between the CSR construct and reputation, which in turn influenced market share, but not profitability. Research limitations/implications - This study examined a cross-section of organizations using Dun & Bradstreet's database of Australian businesses and may not fully represent the Australian business mix. The effective response rate of 7.2 per cent appears to be low, even though it is comparable with other research in the CSR area. There may have been some self-selection by the respondents, although there were no statistically significant differences identified in the corporate characteristics of those invited to participate and those responding with usable questionnaires. Practical implications - Managers can adopt a stakeholder-influenced CSR strategy to generate strong corporate reputation to improve business performance. It is important to ensure that the interests of "employees" and "public" stakeholders are addressed within organizational strategy. Respondents were less concerned about government stakeholders and thus government involvement in organizational CSR may need to be revisited. Social implications - The major concern that emerges from these findings is the absence of the perceived importance of regulatory stakeholders on firms' CSR activities. Regulatory controls of CSR messages could reduce or eliminate inaccurate and misleading information to the public. Originality/value - The analysis explains the perceived relative influence of stakeholders on CSR decisions. It also provides an understanding of the link between organizational CSR reputation and organization's performance.

The Pinoke Project Performance

The Pinoke Project is a 6 week creative development to create a full-length transmedia dance performance at the cutting edge of artificially intelligent technology, elite contemporary dance practice, and publication. This process will be a collaboration between creative coders, 3D graphics and motion artists, a dance/choreographer, and an embedded dance critic who will work with an artificially intelligent robot, Pinoke, on the creative development of a new stage production as well as the documentation and dissemination of the process. This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

Temporal analysis of tourism research collaboration network

Network analysis is an effective tool for the study of collaboration relationships among researchers. Collaboration networks constructed from previous studies, and their changes over time have been studied. However, the impact of individual researchers in collaboration networks has not been investigated systematically. We introduce a new method of measuring the contribution of researchers to the connectivity of collaboration networks and evaluate the importance of researchers by considering both contribution and productivity. Betweenness centrality is found to be better than degree centrality in terms of reflecting the changes of importance of researchers. Accordingly, a method is further proposed to identify key researchers at certain periods. The performance of the identified researchers demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Fragmentos

Curatorial Aims and Objectives: Fragmentos was a curated exhibition (or expose) of 13 contemporary Australian artists. It was presented at the upstairs gallery at the Escuela Activa de fotografia in Cuernavaca, Morelos in Mexico. The curatorial objective was to present small samples or fragments from the creative practice of a number Australian artists. It would therefore act as introduction to their broader practice and as a way of representing the diverse range of creative explorations by a number contemporary, mostly Melbourne based Australian artists. These artists were selected on the basis of their diverse and often conceptual approaches to art making. All the artists have an established practice in the arts and their work reflects an experimental and investigative approach to materials and processes as well as exploring a wide range of conceptual and thematic concerns. Visitors to the Fragmentos exhibition were primarily local Mexican artists, art students and academics and members of the general public. The gallery is located in the heart of a photography school in central Cuernavaca but the students are engaged in a wide range of practices and the local arts community is vibrant and divers. Many of the works presented in this exhibition invited audience interaction and even the opportunity to contribute to the works providing a connection to the Australian artists involved and as a way of demystifying the ideas behind the works. One of the main curatorial objectives was to create a sense of connection and dialogue between local Mexican artists and the works. By offering samples and fragments, some of which were from unfinished work (in development) the audience could have an experience which was akin to visiting an artists studio or at least seeing something from behind the scenes This gives a sense of the artists as people, which is often not the case with highly resolved and finished works of art, displayed in a white cube. To facilitate this sense of discovery I made a number of small tables using builders timber work horses with a simple ply wood top to act as benches on which the artists work could be placed and to suggest the idea of things being in a transitional stage and undergoing and development. Also, the inclusion of pin boards, magnifying glasses, G Clamps were used during the installation to invoke this sense of workshop or studio. The works were very well received and I gave a number of public talks and presentation to student groups as well as after hour’s appointments to discuss the exhibition with various academics. The project has also generated some new engagements between Mexican and Australian artists with at least 3 outcomes emerging.

Open me when you feel it's necessary

In this work, purportedly the introduction to a conference workshop, the humanist teacher figure is absent and therefore flattened into the material landscape of the auditorium, which remains open to transformation; the “stage” merely contains an envelope, lamp-lit on a plastic chair, for participants to open if they wish, playing with learner/audience expectations and disrupting conventional ideas of what a conference presentation should be. This work seeks to move beyond merely interrogating designs for future subjects to ask how the pedagogical imagination works with both the material and immaterial, with ecologies continually transforming in the process of making as the audience participates in the unfolding performance. Through this, I have sought to explore ways to challenge delivery or conduit metaphors for education, and to resist stasis and closure.

Designing a healthy food partnership: lessons from the Australian food and health dialogue

BACKGROUND: Poor diets are a leading cause of disease burden worldwide. In Australia, the Federal Government established the Food and Health Dialogue (the Dialogue) in 2009 to address this issue, primarily through food reformulation. We evaluated the Dialogue's performance over its 6 years of operation and used these findings to develop recommendations for the success of the new Healthy Food Partnership.

METHODS: We used information from the Dialogue website, media releases, communiqués, e-newsletters, materials released under freedom-of-information, and Parliamentary Hansard to evaluate the Dialogue's achievements from October 2013 to November 2015, using the RE-AIM (reach, efficacy, adoption, implementation and maintenance) framework. We also engaged closely with two former Dialogue members. Our findings update a prior assessment done in October 2013.

RESULTS: Little data is available to evaluate the Dialogue's recent achievements, with no information about progress against milestones released since October 2013. In the last 2 years, only one additional set of sodium reduction targets (cheese) was agreed and Quick Service Restaurant foods were added as an area for action. Some activity was identified in 12 of a possible 137 (9 %) areas of action within the Dialogue's mandate. Independent evaluation found targets were partially achieved in some food categories, with substantial variation in success between companies. No effects on the knowledge, behaviours or nutrient intake of the Australian population or evidence of impact on diet-related disease could be identified.

CONCLUSIONS: The new Healthy Food Partnership has similar goals to the Dialogue. While highly laudable and recognised globally as cost-effective, the mechanism for delivery in Australia has been woefully inadequate. Strong government leadership, adequate funding, clear targets and timelines, management of conflict of interest, comprehensive monitoring and evaluation, and a plan for responsive regulation in the event of missed milestones will be required if the new Healthy Food Partnership is to achieve its urgent public health goals.

Material damage: 4 projector film performance

Dirk de Bruyn’s expanded cinema performances engage the æsthetics of process at a number of levels. At the core of these performances are several of three- or four-screen, essentially abstract films of the same duration which comment upon and echo each other in a constant interplay of flicker-like positive and negative imagery. The soundtrack of the films works in a related way: the same or similar words and sound fragments are overlayed, or are repeated in an absurd call-and-answer pattern running from one speaker to another. This overall design or formal system is then set into play and relativised in the live event through a number of treatment-techniques. Reels are placed out of order or interspliced with other short films or fragments of found footage or tests, the bulb of one or more projectors can be occasionally turned off while the soundtrack continues, or the projector can be stopped altogether, extending, stretching out or disrupting completely the apparent synchrony between each screen and soundtrack. The light beam of each projector is filtered, distorted, split and multiplied using hand-held colour gels, plastic bottles, prisms and mirrors, or else silhouetted or blocked completely with the artist’s own hands and body. The projectors themselves can be inverted, turned around or physically transported across the space, mixing and overlaying the imagery, animating different areas of the performance environment and transforming the body of the audience itself into a screen medium.

Body, space and time in networked performance

This special issue of Liminalities has been compiled from the outcomes of the conference Remote Encounters: Connecting bodies, collapsing spaces and temporal ubiquity in networked performance held at the University of South Wales on the 11th and 12th of April 2013. By providing an overview of contributions to the issue this editorial aims to both introduce networked performance to a new readership and for those already practicing in the field assemble and present the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary practice that can be considered as networked performance. Contributor's research themes, practice issues and their creative solutions are identified revealing common threads of enquiry running throughout the issue. In addition notable papers and performances from the conference that have not been included in this issue are discussed briefly.

Perceptions of the learning context and learning approaches : implications for quality learning outcomes in accounting

This study analyses learning approaches, course perceptions and learning outcomes of a group of second year accounting students at an Australian university using qualitative data analysis techniques. The research method involves the development of a series of matrices linking types of motives and strategies used by students in their study, together with their perceptions of the learning context associated with learning outcomes. The study focuses on assessing the links between learning approaches and a qualitative assessment of students' conceptual understanding of aspects of financial accounting studied at the undergraduate level. The results confirm how individual differences in the perceptions of the learning context relate to study motives and strategies. The findings show how different forms of memorisation relate to study strategies and how the completion of accounting tasks link to students' perceptions of course requirements. There was also some evidence that, in terms of learning outcomes, students with sophisticated levels of understanding of concepts, tended to have consistent deep and achieving approaches to learning. This result was compared with students' academic performance as a measure of learning outcome. Discrepancies between these two measures of learning outcome are highlighted in the conclusions. The findings strengthen the case for further investigation of the use of measures other than academic performance in examining relationships between learning approaches and learning outcomes.

Are age-related variations in breeding performance greatest when food availability is limited?

Age-related improvements in reproductive performance in seabirds have been well documented, and may be explained by improvements in foraging efficiency or increased experience and reproductive effort with age. The interactive effects of parental age and food supply on reproductive performance, however, remain poorly understood. A widespread mass mortality of pilchards Sardinops sagax in southern Australian waters in 1998 provided a unique opportunity to investigate the effects of a sudden reduction in the availability of amajor prey species on Australasian gannets Morus serrator, an important local marine predator. Age-related differences in the breeding performance of gannets were evident in 1 year of reduced pilchard availability; when food was not limited, both young and experienced parents were equally capable of rearing chicks and had similar levels of breeding success. These data clearly demonstrate the interactive effects of parental age and food supply on breeding performance and suggest that such differences only become apparent when conditions become more stressful.

Person-organization congruence of high performance values in Australian universities

This study explores the applicability of the personal and organizational value clusters identified by Abbott, White & Charles, (2005) employing the McDonald & Gandz (1991) list of values to university settings. It examines the personal values of business students in two universities, their perception ofthe organizational values important to their university, and measures the extent to which the personal and organizational values are consistent with 'High Performance Work Systems '. Results provide support for individual and organizational values factors similar to those found by Finegan, (2000) and Abbott et al. (2005) and consistent with Schwartz s (1992) an-cultural values hierarchy. While usiness/commerce students rated their personal values as consistent with HPWS and the major pan-cultural values, this did not match their perception of the organizations' values. The implications of personal-organizational value incongruence on motivation, satisfaction, organizational commitment and effectiveness are discussed.

Paediatric quality of life instruments: a review of the impact of the conceptual framework on outcomes

With an increasing number of paediatric quality of life (QOL) instruments being developed, it is becoming difficult for researchers and clinicians to select the most appropriate instrument. Reviews of QOL instruments tend to report only basic properties of the instruments such as domains and psychometric properties. This paper seeks to appraise critically the conceptual underpinnings of paediatric QOL instruments. A systematic review was conducted to identify QOL instruments for children aged 0 to 12 years, and to examine and compare their conceptual frameworks, definitions employed, and structure. Both generic and condition-specific measures were reviewed. Fourteen generic and 25 condition-specific QOL instruments were identified. Eleven types of definition of QOL and health-related QOL and three theories of QOL were identified. QOL was measured by a variety of domains including emotional, social and physical health, and well-being. Items commonly assessed difficulties, or intensity/frequency of feelings/symptoms, in contrast to positive aspects of life and happiness. The findings highlight the diversity that is apparent in the conceptualization of paediatric QOL and draw attention to the lack of empirical evidence for many of the fundamental assumptions. The impact of the conceptual underpinnings of the instruments on the resulting QOL scores is discussed.

Mobile Architecture and Built Environment Laboratory (MABEL) - a building performance evaluation tool

This paper describes the Mobile Architecture and Built Environment Laboratory (MABEL) and its application for systematic building performance evaluation for compliance testing, commissioning, strategic and operational facility management and continuous improvement in the built environment.

The first part of the paper introduces the application areas of on-site building performance evaluation and discusses the shortcomings in this regard in current practice. It emphasises the need for on-site investigations to generate information on 'as built performance' for the 'feedback' loop between design, operation and occupancy of new buildings, retrofit or adjustment.

The second part introduces the Energy-Comfort-Behaviour Framework for 'across-the-board' building evaluation and discusses MABEL's role in this scheme. MABEL's objectives, procedures and the performance measurement matrix are explained and discussed.