Existentialism : providing an ideal framework for educational research in times of uncertainty ®

Issues such as anxiety, alienation, crises and concerns over self-identity typify this era of uncertainty. These are also recognised themes of Existentialism and have implications for educational practice and research. The purpose of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it aims to clarify Existentialism, as too often it is mistakenly assumed to refer to an atomistic view of the individual, who is able to exercise absolute freedom. This clarification refers primarily to the works of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Heidegger.

The second purpose is to present an outline of a particular existential framework. This is mainly structured around the notion of the learner, who is characterised as being in relation, culturally embedded, alienated and a meaning-maker. These attributes have direct implications for the ideal of 'the educated person' - an often-articulated 'aim' of education programmes. Becoming educated, according to this framework, means becoming authentic, spiritual, critical, empathetic, and having personal identity.

A third purpose is to argue how educators may usefully employ such a framework. By engaging with it, educators are able to examine effective pedagogical approaches using notions of 'the existential crisis' and anxiety. In this way, educational curriculums, programmes and policies can also be critiqued using this framework.

Gyration

European Renaissance and Romantic landscape appeared in vistas. The conditions of the industrial revolution and, according to Patrick Maynard and Jonathon Crary, the film camera especially, led to a Modernist re-vision vividly recorded in Xavier Herbert’s contrary Modernist vision, prompted by seeing the Australian bush, its ‘... stunted trees, the mulga and the wilga and the gimlet gum, doing a kind of dance, spinning past, seeming to swing away from the train to the horizon and race ahead, to come back...the same set of trees in endless gyration’.

Jemima

The Salon Series provided an opportunity to present the work "Jemima". "Jemima" plays with multiple physicalities, performance states and expression as they jostle up against each other al at once. The jostling in the moment of performance creates a viscosity in the musculature, a tension, that also creates an intensity in performance. The discussion post performances provided an opportunity to articulate discoveries made in the studio prior to performance and also insights from performance. The questions asked by audiences have further stimulated studio practice as research. 

A new era for research education in Australia?

Use of the Australian research assessment exercise, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) to influence the policy and practice of research education in Australia will undoubtedly have many consequences, some of them unintended and potentially deleterious. ERA is a retrospective measure of research quality; research education is prospective.

Story vessels

Twelve sculptors were chosen to research and create a story vessel to represent the stories of the twelve wards of The City of Greater Geelong. I organised the community meetings for nine of the sculptors including myself.  This involved facilitating 27 meetngs.  I then documented and curated the exhibition of the twelve story vessels at three locations (Geelong City Hall, Johnstone Park and Federation Square).  This was part of the project called Connecting Identities in which other artists consulted with other communities to record stories, write and compose songs, poetry and performance art.

Learning from arid planning and design history and practice : from Woomera to creating the new Roxby Downs communities

The principles and knowledge about arid planning and design have much applicability to contemporary Australian planning discourses because of climate change evidence and policy shifts that sketch a hotter and more unreliable future climate with an emphasis upon a semi-arid environment for Australia. Despite this merit and intent, we appear to have learnt little from the past and are failing to draw upon the pioneering planning and design knowledge that underpinned community development and scaffolding in numerous Australian arid and semi-arid communities, and to bring this knowledge into our future planning processes and strategies.

This paper considers the essential attributes and variables of three Australian arid planning and design, drawing upon historical practice and research that have been explored in the planning of semi-arid and arid places including Port Pirie, Whyalla, Monarto, Broken Hill, Port Augusta, Leigh Creek, Andamooka, Olympic Dam Village and Roxby Downs. It specifically reviews Woomera Village (1940s) Shay Gap (1970s) and the proposed extensions to Roxby Downs (2010s) as models of how to better plan and design communities in arid environments. Instrumental in these innovations is the use of landscape-responsive urban design strategies, water harvesting and irregular rainfall capture, arid horticulture, building design, colour and materiality, orientation and shading strategies, and social community construction under difficult isolationist circumstances. The paper points to key strategies that need to be incorporated in future climate change responsive community developments and policy making.

Radical practice? Writing 'beyond' system

Might writing be at once the context or system that restricts and forms us but also, in some instances, the means to evade or transform this very system? The question posed in the call for papers for this conference outlines the very grounds upon which the writing subject may be seen as negotiating questions posed by artistic practice and creative research. Here these are formulated around ‘encounters’ between seemingly autonomous or pre-determined realms: between subjects and objects, between knowing and being, between aesthetic systems however defined. This view accepts the fragmentary definitional world of capitalist social relations. What I suggest is that the kind of subject that is at stake in creative practice and research has much in common with a kind of radical subjectivity. What I suggest is that writing is a practice that can be seen through the lens of Karl Marx’s notion of purposeful activity. Writing, in other words, is a critical/creative practice founding a radical view of subjectivity that attempts to overcome the dualism of subject and object via the category of human practice. Against an individual expressivist paradigm, or modes of thought that envision writing (and language) objectively, this might be called radical practice in that writing is a critical/creative practice: critical in that it is against what exists, and creative in that it seeks to move beyond it.

i1234m

In experimental film-artist Dirk De Bruyn’s work, these gestures of syntactical erasure can be understood as a poetic practice which seeks to grasp preverbal early childhood states – an (inevitably futile) attempt to excise meaning from experiences, before language and its attendant comprehension of the world. De Bruyn attributes this impulse to his early immigration from The Netherlands to Australia, and the confusion he experienced in the consequent liminal space between cultures, identities and languages. His tumultuous performances, which typically begin and end in darkness, combine urgent vocal utterances – hollering, screaming and chanting – with the sumptuous illumination of projected film. De Bruyn’s vocalisations meld with and amplify the images’ blooming fields of colour and intricately layered, hand-animated imagery. At Gertrude, Dirk will perform a new work for three 16mm projectors and voice entitled ‘i1234m’.

WORK

Steph Hutchison's solo WORK is fuelled by an interest in pushing the body to its physical limit. A hybrid performance, interweaving dance, circus arts, improvisation, sports and theatre, WORK is inspired by the physical journey of Julie Moss. In 1982, Julie Moss competed in her first Ironman without ever completing the total distance before. What began as a lark became a struggle for survival and a test of human will. Each time she felt like quitting, she thought it was her 'ego trying to self-sabotage,' but her real self was 'that voice that said; "just keep moving forward. There is no limit." Hutchison explores the notion of dance as extreme sport and emphatically engages her body in rigorous physical practices. Her attention is to muscularity and the performance of effort, work and labour, to the point of physical exhaustion. Using circus apparatus such as tissu, rope and acrobatic mats, Steph pushes to and beyond the limits of her physical ability during the performance. In preparation for the show, she puts herself through intense bootcamp style training, classical and contemporary dance training and teaches herself new acrobatic tricks. Her aim is to push herself past exhaustion to another level.

How to pack a bag

The artworks in this exhibition form part of my practice-led PhD research. As a daily task while travelling, packing a bag becomes a complex process, as we juggle the many movements in acquiring, discarding and arranging objects.

These artworks aim to highlight the many material interactions we have during the packing process, emphasising the ways in which we arrange materials and consider spatial constraints. For instance, how much we can “fit” in a bag, or, how we use the space of the room we are within, as well as the many movements our bodies undertake with the materials.

Exhibited works:
"Packing Diagrams", laminated digital prints
"Tracking the packing process", interactive installation
"Packing (exploring)", interactive installation, mixed media
"Packing (puzzle)", interactive installation
"bodies + bags" (excerpt), digital video loop

Engaging clinicians in research: Issues to consider

The beginning of nursing research is attributed to Florence Nightingale whose research during the Crimean War in the 1850s ultimately shaped health care, including nursing practice. Modern research, like clinical care, is influenced by technological, societal, organisational and environmental changes. However, ‘nursing research’ is a simple term that may not encompass complex inter-related concepts and practices and various research methods: quantitative, qualitative, implementation science, evaluation and audit. All research methods follow a similar basic ‘research process,’ but the way the process is applied and rigor is demonstrated differs among the methods. All nurses must engage in research on some level, given they practice in a climate of evidence-based care and are expected to adhere to evidence-based protocols and guidelines. In addition, they need to be able to implement evidence-based best practice and use clinical judgement to treat each person as an individual.

Advancing community engagement practice for strategic urban planning : learning from allied and remote disciplines

Urban planning has the potential to draw on allied and remote disciplines to improve community consultation processes for strategic planning projects. Urban design and landscape architecture have quantitative and qualitative methods which can be utilised to visualise different options of urban intensification which may fit within communities’ expectations of change. Furthermore political science has long used scientifically established psychometric techniques to collect data from broad sections of the population, analysing demographic profiles of communities and understanding their perceptions and attitudes. By appropriating quantitative and qualitative methods from other disciplines, urban planning policies can be developed which may reflect communities’ aspirations of amenity and neighbourhood character. The aim of this paper is to assist local government urban planners with their community engagement practice in order to form policies which are acceptable to the affected communities. The paper draws on Victoria as a case study of community engagement practice, examines research methods from allied and remote disciplines and proposes a community engagement framework which introduces rigour within the community engagement process.

Improving the practice of subcontract nomination in the UAE construction industry

Subcontracting is a common aspect of procurement strategy in construction. The practice of subcontract nomination has produced many problems to the construction industry in the UAE. Examining the nature of associated challenges and investigating new approaches to improve the nomination practice become more critical and demanding. An initial research on the relevant literature was conducted to establish a better understanding of the problems and possible solutions. Then, a series of semi structured interviews were carried out with senior construction professionals in the UAE to examine how the findings of the initial research apply and relate to the UAE construction industry. The analysis and findings of the interviews formed the basis of a closed questions questionnaire. The respondents of the questionnaire were mainly asked to rate the nomination challenges and the approaches to improve the nomination practice. The research concluded that despite the significant reasons and benefits of nomination, the associated risks and challenges don’t encourage adopting it. The full involvement of the MC in the nomination process from the outset and the better detailed provisions of the contract nomination clauses were found the best possible approaches to improve the practice of subcontract nomination in the UAE.