After-life of modernist abstraction

An investigation of the consequences of pluralism for abstract painting. A central theme examines the possibilities for contemporary abstraction to question its own condition and history. The theoretical model of after-life forms facillitates an understanding of modes of abstraction which recombine unresolved, syncretic forms and address domains excluded by modernism.

Painting equality : female artists as cultural entrepreneurial marketers

Purpose – There is growing interest by marketers in historical accounts that paint early female artists as entrepreneurial marketers. The purpose of this paper is to challenge the traditional view of entrepreneurship to incorporate a feminist theory of cultural entrepreneurship by considering the role of two female artists.
Design/methodology/approach – Using calls for historical research and new methods of enquiry in marketing, this paper traces early female artists and applies modern entrepreneurial theory to their marketing methods to identify their innovation, adaptability to change and planned marketing approach.
Findings – The paper suggests that entrepreneurial marketing is fused with the artists’ persona resulting in their celebrated status being widely recognised. It contributes an important fresh body of knowledge to the wider entrepreneurship debate by offering a new model of cultural entrepreneurial marketing. The three concepts of innovation, adaptability and marketing approach have not previously been applied to link women artists as entrepreneurs, however, this article argues that there is plenty of evidence to do so.
Research limitations/implications – While these artists are Australian (which could be seen to be a limitation), the art market is indeed international. In this respect, these artists join a longer international history as producers and consumers involved in entrepreneurial organisations from early days.
Originality/value – The artists’ significance falls within the context of emerging modernism, feminism and cultural identity during the 1920s and 1930s in Sydney, Australia. It is combined with and explains the actions and the success of two female artists’ unusual marketing approach. It is of value to readers interested in historical context regarding equality in the visual arts.

Deborah Walker : recent painting

Artworks exhibited : Life 2008 - BKK 2008 - The Oracle 2008 - The Revolution 2008 - The Little Dog 2008 - Modern 2008 - The Unifier 2008 - Love 2008 - Mother 2008 - Shiva 2008 - Homage 2008 - The Beauty 2008 - Apollo 2008 - Troy 2008 - Suvarnabhumi (the plane) 2008 - Uncle Basil 2008 - The Daughter 2008 - Gods of War 2008 - The Trojans 2008 - Le Grand pere 2008 - Albert -  I Remember The Beach 2007 - I Remember The Beach II - My Cosmic Lady 2008 - On The Avenue - Space Pervades a Jar Drawings : Cyberman - Minatour - Fishlady - Italy - Kaspar - Madonna - Red Vessel - Ganesa - Cowboys - Sun - Fire Engine - Kneeling Woman - Blowing Bubbles - Bridge and Horse and Cloud - Kasper Hauser - Eyeball and Watering Can - Red Head - Bombay - Blue Eyes and monkey God - Blue Girl With Buddha

Making modern lives: subjectivity, schooling and social change

Making Modern Lives looks at how young people shape their lives as they move through their secondary school years and into the world beyond. It explores how they develop dispositions, attitudes, identities, and orientations in modern society. Based on an eight-year study consisting of more the 350 in-depth interviews with young Australians from diverse backgrounds, the book reveals the effects of schooling and of local school cultures on young people's choices, future plans, political values, friendships, and attitudes toward school, work, and sense of self. Making Modern Lives uncovers who young people are today, what type of identities and inequalities are being formed and reformed, and what processes and politics are at work in relation to gender, class, race, and the framing of vocational futures.

"Roll Up and Spend Your Last Dime". The Merry-go-round of Children`s Extra-curricular Activities in Modern Society.

"Step up and play" begins the famous hit song 'Penny Arcade'. And so it
was for thousands of Australian families, as their eldest child began school
this year, and the associated endless merry-go-round of extra-curricular
activities also began. But how many of those families realise that the song ends "Roll up and spend your last dime!"? While the perceived benefits of
children's involvement in extracurricular activities are many and are widely accepted, there are also costs, not only in terms of money but also in terms
of time. Evidence from a study conducted in Melbourne highlights the fact that, for many families such as those on low incomes and those headed by a single parent, both the time and the money costs may be prohibitive. This article highlights parents' perceptions of the benefits·and costs of children's extra-curricular activities, and explores the implications of changing family and household structures for families' capacity to sustain such activities.

`Modern` learning methods : rhetoric and reality - further to Sadler-Smith et al

Working in the UK, Sadler-Smith, Down and Lean, in their article “‘Modern’ learning methods: rhetoric and reality”, Personnel Review, Vol. 29 No. 4, 2000, pp. 474-90, have shown that distance learning methods are neither favoured nor perceived as effective by enterprises pursuing training that yields a competitive edge. They have suggested that these methods need to be integrated with other more conventional on-job training methods. This paper, based on Australian research, shows a tension between the requirements of flexible training methods based on distance learning methods, and the characteristics that typify learners and their workplaces. That identified tension is used to suggest how an integration of training methods may be effected in workplaces.

The making of modern scientific personae: the scientist as a moral person? Emil Du Bois-Reymond and his friends

This article examines the notion of the 'scientist as a moral person' in the light of the early stages of the commodification of science and the transformation of research into a big enterprise, operating on the principle of the division of labour. These processes were set in train at the end of the 19th century. The article focuses on the concomitant changes in the public persona and the habitus of scientific entrepreneurs. I begin by showing the significance of the professional networks that were built up and maintained to further a group's research ideas and the careers of its members, thus demonstrating one condition on which depended their practice of science and their ability to earn a living. This leads to a characterization of the changing styles of work, thought and life, and to a consideration of public perceptions and of the ways in which a new self-image of scholarship and science was fashioned. A critical discussion of the public role of these mandarin scientists follows in order to highlight the strains created by the commodification of science at a time of international tensions and conflicts, when shared beliefs in scholarly cosmopolitanism were subverted by appeals to science and scholarship to work in the service of one's own nation as its 'courtiers'. Various considerations of peculiar analogies between national styles of research and the style of social organization are then noted. In the final section, the article queries the long-term impact of these developments on the ideal of the scientist as a 'moral person'. Taking a cue from Max Weber and pursuing reflections by Zygmunt Bauman on 'science moralized', I argue that the emergence of a type of 'specialists without spirit' was an unintended but fatal consequence of the changes in research practices promoted by scientific entrepreneurs such as Du Bois-Reymond. I conclude that the temptation to sever the ties to a general ethos of civil virtues lay in the rationalization, specialization and potential de-humanization of the objectifying scientific outlook once advocated for its efficiency.

The presence of an-other: the prescience of racism in post-modern times

In this paper, I explore conversations with teachers and parents at one Melbourne secondary school, as the modern definition of identity,defined at the end of the 1980s, took on the fluidity of post-modern definition a decade later. Even as identification seemed contingent and negotiated, and difference seemed to disappear, teachers and parents continued to understand their identity in relation to the ambivalent definition of others. This became increasingly frightening as notions of otherness, and therefore of self, became increasingly fluid and unclear. That which seemed other and outside, now appears as part-of-us and inside-us-all. Even as descriptions of difference, and thereforeidentity, become more fluid, conceptions of otherness – and therefore – self, do not disappear. Prescient manifestations of exclusion and racism are contiguous with, yet in juxtaposition to, older forms.

An IT Bachelor degree using modern technologies to illustrate core concepts and principles and building generic skills

Information Technology (IT) changes very quickly and influences business, industry and the public in an enormous manner. Outsourcing of IT jobs to cheaper overseas labor and globalization of IT companies become a common practice. Graduates of IT university courses must be well prepared to address the needs and expectations of business, industry and every day life. Many factors in an Information Technology curriculum influence graduates’ professional preparation and image. The most important of them is to reflect technology change, the current state of knowledge of computing, business and industry demands and students’ expectations. The aim of our project was to develop a new Bachelor of IT curriculum that satisfies these requirements. In this report we concentrate our attention on two critical aspects of IT curriculum content, the modern technologies to be used to illustrate basic concepts and principles of computing, and the generic skills that each graduate is expected to acquire to get a job in Australia.

Browsing the modern kitchen - a feast of gender, place and culture (part 1)

Assembling 10 essays from around the globe which engage variously with the space in which food preparation occurs—the kitchen—revealed stunning diversity but also commonalities. In this first of two sets of theme papers on this vital but often unexamined domestic space, the discourse of modernity unites the look and use of twentieth-century kitchens in Australia, Britain and Finland. Imbued with notions of scientific management, the modern kitchen had some common designs which prescribed women's place within it—first as the main occupant and then as the family overseer. The construction of this semi-private space also involved particular domestic technologies which, as the new century dawns, now literally connect the kitchen to the world beyond via the internet fridge. This Introduction begins the two-part feast of gender, place and culture—with an overview of Australia and sketch of subsequent essays—Supski on mid-century migrant Australia, Saarikangas on Finland, Bennett on rural Britain and Watkins on the fridge.