Rethinking grassroots campaigners in the digital media: The ‘grassroots orchestra’ in Italy

The diffusion of digital media allows the emergence of new types of relations between grassroots campaigners and organisers. This article presents the results of a comparative qualitative study of two Italian cases of grassroots online participation: a local electoral campaign and a single-issue social movement. The first case is ‘Tell your Milano’, a project that took place during the electoral campaign for Mayor of Milan in the spring of 2011. The second case is the ‘Purple People’ (Popolo Viola), an Italian social movement started in 2009 to demand the resignation of the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The article introduces the concept of a ‘grassroots orchestra’: a grassroots campaign aimed at a short-term objective, coordinated by a non-grassroots political actor and performed by a community sharing a uniform and coherent context.

Adapting musicology for commercial outcomes

Recent claims that orchestras around the world are facing new financial pressures threatening their survival, suggest that it is critical to investigate the potential for musicology to adapt to commercial outcomes. This paper takes the Australian music industry as a case study to prototype a new and sustainable orchestral model appropriate for twenty first century audiences. The paper includes a review of musical and social innovations from previous and current orchestral models, a review of arts marketing strategies developed for the new consumer, the identification of successful new performance modes including distribution methods and developments in acoustic and digital instrument design, and the documentation of the implementation and testing of such a model to live audiences.

The role of Riparian habitats in forest mosaics in promoting Avifauna at the landscape scale

The importance of riparian habitats to bird communities is well documented internationally, however the value of these habitats in largely intact landscapes is less well understood, particularly in Australia. Thirty paired riparian and adjacent non-riparian sites were selected within extensive forest mosaics of the Victorian Central Highlands and were surveyed over a two year period. Bird assemblages occurring within riparian habitats supported a significantly greater richness, abundance and diversity of species. These assemblages were also found to have species compositions significantly different from those occurring at adjacent non-riparian sites separated by a distance of approximately 750 m. Differences were attributed to a suite of distinctive species and significant contrasts in the densities of a range of species that occur in both habitat types. At the landscape level, there was a strong patterning of the avifauna centred on riparian habitats. Bird assemblages typically comprised four distinct suites of species: 1. species widespread in forests and woodlands of southeastern Australia; 2. riparian associated species (wet forest intruders); 3. riparian selective species, and; 4. riparian avoiding species. Both physiognomic and floristic differences between riparian and adjacent non-riparian habitats appear to drive responses in the structure of bird communities. There exists a distinctiveness and variability among the range of vegetation types and associated bird assemblages occurring throughout the forest matrix, including in riparian habitats. The occurrence of complimentary bird assemblages throughout the landscape mosaic highlights the importance of whole landscape planning for avifauna conservation.

Between traditions : the villa and the country house

Sir Leslie Martin wrote in 1983, “The formal composition used by Lutyens is something totally related to the problems and culture of his time”. to reinforce this point Martin included a plan of Heathcote (1905) next to an illustration of one of Palladio’s final commissions, the Villa Rotonda (1566). Comparing the planning and symmetry strategies of the two architects, Martin was able to demonstrate how Heathcote embodied an eclectic yet fundamental link between two traditions - the irregularity of an Edwardian planning arrangement, and its containment within the symmetry demanded by the “full classical orchestra of a Doric order” (Hussey, 1950 p128). “Once inside the balanced mass of the exterior, the visitor’s movement through the building is controlled by volumes and composition of a totally different kind” 1. While Palladio appears to have been a significant influence on Lutyens, as revealed in the often quoted letter about the “High Game” which he wrote to Herbert Baker in 1903, few studies appear to explore the extent to which his newfound inspiration went beyond the issue of fenestration in affecting other aspects of his work. The following paper analyses Lutyens’s relationship to Palladio with particular reference to three concepts fundamental to the work of
both architects: proportion, plan arrangement and movement.

Arts marketing : a new tool for development of the arts sector in the market context in Vietnam

Since the economic reform in Vietnam in 1986 provided more artistic and financial autonomy, the arts community has had more opportunity to develop. It has hence become necessary for arts leaders to obtain management and marketing skills to adapt to the new competitive environment. This necessity became vital when the Vietnamese government sought to tackle the problem of inadequate state funding for arts organisations through its policy of socialisation. This paper sets out to examine how performing arts organisations in Vietnam apply arts marketing strategies to adapt to the market context via empirical data from the cases studied: Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra and Hanoi Youth Theatre. Further, it identifies implications for the development of the sector. Findings indicate that Vietnamese performing arts organisations focus on the role of marketing for organisational development, although there are a lack of resources and a limited knowledge in this area. Thus, training in arts marketing and arts management is needed to maximise capacity of arts leaders in managing their organisations in the changing context.

Feminist poetics : symbolism in an emblematic journey reflecting self and vision

My thesis tilled Feminist Poetics: Symbolism in an Emblematic Journey Reflecting Self and Vision, consists of thirty oil paintings on canvas, several preparatory sketches and drawings in different media on paper, and is supported and elucidated by an exegesis. The paintings on unframed canvases reveal mise en scčnes and emblems that present to the viewer a drama about links between identities, differences, relationships and vision. Images of my daughter, friends and myself fill single canvases, suites of paintings, diptyches and triptychs. The impetus behind my research derives from my recognition of the cultural means by which women's experience is excluded from a representational norm or ideal. I use time-honoured devices, such as, illusionist imagery, aspects of portraiture, complex fractured atmospheric space, paintings and drawings within paintings, mirrors and reflective surfaces, shadows and architectural devices. They structure my compositions in a way that envelops the viewer in my internal world of ideas. Some of these features function symbolically, as emblems. A small part of the imagery relies on verisimilitude, such as my hands and their shadow and my single observing eye enclosed by my glasses. What remains is a fantasy world, ‘seen’ by the image of my other eye, or ‘faction’, based on memories and texts explaining the significance of ancient Minoan symbols. In my paintings, I base the subjects of this fantasy on my memories of the Knossos Labyrinth and matristic symbols, such as the pillar, snake, blood, eye and horn. They suggest the presence of a ritual where initiates descended into the adyton (holy of holies) or sunken areas in the labyrinth. The paintings attempt a ‘rewriting’ of sacrality and gender by adopting the symbolism of death, transformation and resurrection in the adyton. The significance of my emblematic imagery is that it constructs a foundation narrative about vision and insight. I sought symbolic attributes shared by European oil painting and Minoan antiquity. Both traditions share symbolic attributes with male dying gods in Greek myths and Medusa plays a central part in this linkage. I argue that her attributes seem identical to both those of the dying gods and Minoan goddesses. In the Minoan context these symbols suggest metaphors for the female body and the mother and daughter blood line. When the symbols align with the beheaded Medusa in a patriarchal context, both her image and her attributes represent cautionary tales about female sexuality that have repercussions for aspects of vision. In Renaissance and Baroque oil painting Medusa's image served as a vehicle for an allegory that personified the triumph of reason over the senses. In the twentieth century, the vagina dentata suggests her image, a personified image of irrational emotion that some male Surrealists celebrated as a muse. She is implicated in the male gaze as a site of castration and her representation suggests a symbolic form pertaining to perspective. Medusa's image, its negative sexual and violent connotations, seemed like a keystone linking iconographic codes in European oil painting to Minoan antiquity. I fused aspects of matristic Minoan antiquity with elements of European oil paintings in the form of disguised attribute gestures, objects and architectural environments. I selected three paintings, Dürer's Setf-Portrait, 1500, Gentileschi's Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1630 and Velazquez's Las Meniruis, 1656 as models because 1 detected echoes of Minoan symbolism in the attributes of their subjects and backgrounds. My revision of Medusa's image by connecting it to Minoan antiquity established a feminist means of representation in the largely male-dominated tradition of oil painting. These paintings also suggested painting techniques that were useful to me. Through my representations of my emblematic journey I questioned the narrow focus placed on phallic symbols when I explored how their meanings may have been formed within a matricentric culture. I retained the key symbols of the patriarchal foundation narratives about vision but removed images of violence and their link to desire and replaced it with a ritual form of symbolic death. I challenged the binary oppositional defined Self as opposed to Other by constructing a complex, fluid Self that interacts with others. A multi-directional gaze between subjects, viewers and artist replaces the male gaze. Different qualities of paint, coagulation and random flow form a blood symbolism. Many layers of paint retaining some aspects of the Gaze and Glance, fuse and separate intermittently to construct and define form. The sense of motion and fluidity constructs a form of multi-faceted selves. The supporting document, the exegesis is in two parts. In the first part, I discuss the Minoan sources of my iconography and the symbolic gender specific meanings suggested by particular symbols and their changed meanings in European oil painting, I explain how I integrate Minoan symbols into European oil paintings as a form of disguised symbolism. In the second part I explain how my alternative use of symbolism and paint alludes to a feminist poetic.

Performing arts management in a climate of adjustment : case studies from Vietnam and Australia

This paper presents a series of empirical case studies to discuss impacts of economic globalisation on the development of performing arts organisations in Vietnam (Hanoi Youth Theatre and Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra) and Australia (Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Symphony Orchestra), and focuses on how Vietnamese organisations have adapted to these changes. The paper also identifies cultural policy implications for the development of the sector; for arts management training in Vietnam so that the sector (and more importantly, the artists) may fully benefit from the open market context. The findings indicate that Vietnamese performing arts organisations have attempted to adapt to the new market context while struggling to balance artistic quality, freedom and financial viability in the new socialist regime. The Australian case studies offered a relevant management model to Vietnamese arts management practice and training.

Stream bryophytes of Victorian temperate rainforests

Cool Temperate, Warm Temperate and Gallery Rainforests of Victoria were examined and found to heave distinct suites of stream bryophytes, although a ubiquitous group occurred. Bryophytes represented seven biogeographic elements; most were Australasian. Species reproducing sexually did so synchronously but most species reproduced asexually.

Zoophycos composite ichnofabrics and tiers from the Permian neritic facies in South China and south-eastern Australia

Zoophycos composite ichnofabrics (ZCI) comprising two or more suites of the same form of Zoophycos are widespread and densely distributed in Early and Middle Permian (Cisuralian–Guadalupian) neritic limestones (Qixia and Maokou Formations) of palaeotropical origin in the Laibin area, Guangxi, South China. Similar ZCI also occur in neritic greywackes of glaciomarine origin from the Middle Permian (Guadalupian) Westley Park Sandstone Member (Broughton Formation) in the southern Sydney Basin, southeastern Australia. Zoophycos from both regions consists of planar spreite with major and minor lamellae and a cylindrical tunnel interpreted as a marginal tube and ⁄ or axial shaft. The cylindrical tunnel is herein considered to be an essential component of Zoophycos, and thus can be used to define and characterize the morphological variability of Zoophycos. It is suggested that the variation of spreite and major and minor lamellae originated from the different morphologies and migration manners of the cylindrical tunnel. The shallowest, shallow, middle and deepest Zoophycos tiers have been distinguished in ZCI on the basis of cross-cutting relationships, the soft-sediment deformation and the contrast in colour between Zoophycos and its host rock. The multiple tiers may represent the substrate consistency spectrum from a softground through a stiffground to a firmground.The different Zoophycos tiers may have been constructed by tracemakers of either different or the same taxonomic affinities in response to the gradual accretion and lithification of sediment layers on the seafloor. The tracemakers appeared to be very sensitive to neither climate nor lithology. The width of the planar spreiten of Zoophycos decreases slightly with the depth of tiering in ZCI

Enabling strategic transformations with enterprise systems : beyond operational efficiency

The last few decades have seen the widespread adoption of large-scale, integrated, packaged software suites collectively called Enterprise Systems. However, most studies done so far have largely focused on the operational efficiency achieved by using these systems. This paper reports on research-in-progress that seeks to explore the strategic potential of Enterprise Systems to enable business transformations. In doing so, a new model is proposed that places the emphasis on the potential of Enterprise Systems to achieve innovation and reshape business strategy, rather than merely focusing on operational benefits. This model proposes that Enterprise Systems, when used to integrate, optimise and informate, can help firms achieve alliance innovation, process innovation and reshaped business strategy. The paper also provides preliminary empirical evidence that supports the propositions. This model will be tested further through primary case studies and a survey. This research, once completed, will assess the strategic role of Enterprise Systems in enabling business transformations beyond operational benefits.

Integrating time-series hydroacoustics and video observations for detecting changes in benthic habitats

The ability to quantify change in marine benthic habitats must be considered a key goal of marine habitat mapping activities. Changes in distribution of distinct suites of benthic biological species may occur as a result of natural or human induced processes and these processes may operate at a range of temporal and spatial scales. It is important to understand natural small scale inter-annual patterns of change in order to separate these signals from potential patterns of longer term change. Work to describe these processes of change from an acoustic remote sensing stand point has thus far been limited due to the relatively recent availability of full coverage swath acoustic datasets and cost pressures associated with multiple surveys of the same area. This paper describes the use of landscape transition analysis as a means to differentiate seemingly random patterns of habitat change from systematic signals of habitat transition at a shallow (10–50 m depth) 18 km2 study area on the temperate Australian continental shelf between the years 2006 and 2007. Supervised classifications for each year were accomplished using independently collected high resolution (3 m cell-size) multibeam echosounder (MBES) and video-derived reference data. Of the 4 representative biotic classes considered, signals of directional systematic changes were observed to occur between a shallow kelp dominated class, a deep sessile invertebrate dominated class and a mixed class of kelp and sessile invertebrates. These signals of change are interpreted as inter-annual variation in the density and depth related extent of canopy forming kelp species at the site, a phenomenon reported in smaller scale temporal studies of the same species. The methods applied in this study provide a detailed analysis of the various components of the traditional change detection cross tabulation matrix allowing identification of the strongest signals of systematic habitat transitions across broad geographical regions. Identifying clear patterns of habitat change is an important first step in linking these patterns to the processes that drive them.

The spiral of learning : 4 R’s of education

The purpose of this paper is to explore the integration of learning, continuous improvement theories and reflective evaluation for enhancing management education. Conceptual development is combined with the outcomes of a pilot focus group as an example of reflective evaluation. The Spiral of Learning concept is uniquely augmented through hermeneutics, action research and the Deming cycle. Four R’s are identified in the Spiral of Learning: Review, Revise, Reconstruct and Reveal. Recommendations for each of the 4 R’s are made to assist continuous improvement of management education. For instance, emerging suites of social software appropriately chosen, timed and applied can assist student learning. Direct human connection in some form is recommended for learners when information is delivered online. The concepts and resultant recommendations inform practice through prioritization of online applications and development of appropriate checks and balances by academics and administrators.