Multi-level order, friction and contradiction : the evolution of Australian film industry policy

Cultural policy studies have previously highlighted the importance of multiple logics, friction and contradiction in cultural policy. Recent developments in institutional theory provide a framework for analysing change in cultural policy which explores movement between these multiple and sometimes contradictory logics. This paper analyses the role of friction in the evolution of Australian film industry policy and in particular the tension between competing logics regarding nationalism, commercialism and the state. The paper is suggestive of the relevance of institutional theory as a framework for understanding cultural policy evolution.

The politics of literacy in David Almond and Dave McKean’s "The Savage" (2008)

Competency in language and literacy are central to contemporary debates about education in Anglophone nations around the world. This paper suggests that such debates are informing not just educational policy but children’s literature itself as can be seen in Almond and McKean’s The Savage. This hybrid text combines prose and graphic narrative and narration in order to tell the story of Blue, a young British boy negotiating his identity in the aftermath of his father's death. While foregrounding a narrative of ideal masculinity, The Savage enacts and privileges a formal and thematic ideal of literacy as index of individual agency and development. Almond and McKean produce a politicised understanding of language and literacy that simultaneously positions The Savage in a textual tradition of socio-culturally disenfranchised youth, and intervenes in that tradition to (perhaps ironically) affirm the very conditions previously critiqued by that very tradition. Where earlier authors such as Barry Hines sought to challenge normative accounts of language and literacy in order to indict educational policy and praxes, Almond and McKean work to naturalise the very logics of education and agency by which their protagonist has been disenfranchised. In doing so, The Savage exemplifies current approaches to education which claim to value social and cultural diversity while imposing national standardised testing predicated on assumptions about the legitimacy of uniform standards and definitions of literacy.

Anthony Browne and the cultural capital of classic fairy tales

Prolific British author/illustrator Anthony Browne both participates in the classic fairy-tale tradition and appropriates its cultural capital, ultimately undertaking a process of self-canonisation alongside the dissemination of fairy tales. In reading Browne’s Hansel and Gretel (1981), The Tunnel (1989) and Into the Forest (2004), a trajectory emerges that moves from broadly intertextual to more exclusively self-referential modes of representation which reward readers of “Anthony Browne”, rather than readers of “fairy tales”. All three books depict ‘babes in the woods’ stories wherein child characters must negotiate some form of threat outside the home in order to return home safely. Thus, they represent childhood agency. However, these visions of agency are ultimately subordinated to logics of capital, which means that child readers of Browne’s fairy-tale books are overtly invited to identify with children who act, but are interpellated as privileged if they ‘know’. Bourdieu’s model of ‘cultural capital’ offers a lens for considering Browne’s production of ‘value’ for his own works within a broader cultural landscape which privileges literary fairy tales as a register of juvenile cultural competency. If cultural capital can be formulated most simply as the symbolic exchange value of approved modes of knowing and being, it is clearly helpful when trying to unpack logics of meaning within heavily intertextual or citational texts. It is also helpful thinking about what kinds of stories we as a culture choose to disseminate, choose to privilege, or choose to suppress. Zipes notes of fairy tales that, “the genre itself becomes a kind of institute that is involved in the socialization and acculturation of readers” (22). He elaborates that, “We initiate readers and expect them to learn the fairy-tale code as part of our responsibility in the civilizing process” (Zipes 29), so it is little wonder that Tatar describes fairy tales as “a vital part of our cultural capital” (xix). Although Browne is clearly interested in literary fairy tales, the most obvious strategies of self-canonisation take place in Browne’s work not in words but in pictures: hidden in plain sight, as illustration becomes self-reflexive citation.

Labyrinthine literacies : navigating cultural agency in the arrival and requiem for a beast

The OED reminds us as surely as Ovid that a labyrinth is a “structure consisting of a number of intercommunicating passages arranged in bewildering complexity, through which it is it difficult or impossible to find one’s way without guidance”. Both Shaun Tan’s The Arrival (2006) and Matt Ottley’s Requiem for a Beast: A Work for Image, Word and Music (2007) mark a kind of labyrinthine watershed in Australian children’s literature. Deploying complex, intercommunicating logics of story and literacy, these books make high demands of their reader but also offer guidance for the successful navigation of their stories; for their protagonists as surely as for readers. That the shared logic of navigation in each book is literacy as privileged form of meaning-making is not surprising in the sense that within “a culture deeply invested in myths of individualism and self-sufficiency, it is easy to see why literacy is glorified as an attribute of individual control and achievement” (Williams and Zenger 166). The extent to which these books might be read as exemplifying desired norms of contemporary Australian culture seems to be affirmed by the fact of Tan and Ottley winning the Australian “Picture Book of the Year” prize awarded by the Children’s Book Council of Australia in 2007 and 2008 respectively. However, taking its cue from Ottley’s explicit intertextual use of the myth of Theseus and from Tan’s visual rhetoric of lostness and displacement, this paper reads these texts’ engagement with tropes of “literacy” in order to consider the ways in which norms of gender and culture seemingly circulated within these texts might be undermined by constructions of “nation” itself as a labyrinth that can only partly be negotiated by a literate subject. In doing so, I argue that these picture books, to varying degrees, reveal a perpetuation of the “literacy myth” (Graff 12) as a discourse of safety and agency but simultaneously bear traces of Ariadne’s story, wherein literacy alone is insufficient for safe navigation of the labyrinth of culture.

Producing the intercultural citizen in the International Baccalaureate

The International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBD) is currently offered in 2,718 schools across 138 countries, and explicitly aims to produce ‘internationally-minded’ citizens with a sense of belonging to both the local and the global community. It thus offers an opportunity to enquire how a school curriculum might produce more intercultural or global dispositions, knowledge and skills, and the challenges inherent in such design. To frame this empirical enquiry, the chapter distinguishes between the fact of living together in difference as a life circumstance, and a range of ethical dispositions for such living together, including cosmopolitanism, internationalism, interculturality and global citizenship. These alternatives are understood as competing social imaginaries with different premises and logics. This chapter offers an empirical exploration of how the IBD’s curricular goal of ‘international-mindedness’ is interpreted firstly in current official documents, then reinterpreted by teachers and students in three case study schools in Australia. Traces of these overlapping but distinct discourses are found in the teachers’ recontextualisation of the IBD’s ‘internationalmindedness’ producing diffuse and contradictory versions of what ‘internationalmindedness’ means, and looks like in educational settings.

Livable housing design: Is it likely to work?

The need for accessible housing in Australia is acute. Both government and the community service sector recognise the importance of well designed accessible housing to optimise the integration of older people and people with disability, to encourage a prudent use of scarce health and community services and to enhance the liveability of our cities. In 2010, the housing industry, negotiated with the Australian Government and community representatives to adopt a nationally consistent voluntary code (Livable Housing Design) and a strategy to provide minimal level of accessibility in all new housing by 2020. Evidence from the implementation of such programs in the United Kingdom and USA, however, serves to question whether this aspirational goal can be achieved through voluntary codes. Minimal demand at the point of new sale, and problems in the production of housing to the required standards have raised questions regarding the application of program principles in the context of a voluntary code. In addressing the latter issue, this paper presents early findings from the analysis of qualitative interviews conducted with developers, builders and designers in various housing contexts. It identifies their “logics in use” in the production of housing in response to Livable Housing Design’s voluntary code and indicates factors that are likely to assist and impede the attainment of the 2020 aspirational goal.

Enacting strategy through projects : an archetypal approach

Project management is increasingly regarded as a strategic competency because projects play an active part in defining an organization’s relationship to its environment. It is now widely accepted that projects and programmes are at the centre of strategy implementation. However, the conditions and underlying assumptions of this dynamic relationship are still unclear. This paper aims to clarify the dynamics of the strategy process, by defining traditional approaches (corporate/business) and introducing three strategy core logics (archetypes). Building on this 'archetypology' the authors demonstrate how project management, through enactment and sense-making of strategy, enables organizations to face the challenge of complexity and uncertainty. While recognizing that the "traditional" methods of analysis and management remain valid under certain conditions, this paper offers new avenues of reflection concerning the necessary contextualization of the project management approaches in order to ensure coherence between archetypes, enactment, learning and decision-making.

The Globalisation of Crime Control: The Case of Youth and Juvenille Justice

The concept of globalization has gradually permeated criminology, but more so as applied to transnational organized crime, international terrorism and policing than in addressing processes of criminal justice reform. Based on a wide range of bibliographic and web resources, this article assesses the extent to which a combination of neo-liberal assaults on the social logics of the welfare state and public provision, widespread experimentation with restorative justice and the prospect of rehabilitation through mediation and widely ratified international directives, epitomized by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, have now made it possible to talk of a global juvenile/youth justice. Conversely it also reflects on how persistent national and local divergences, together with the contradictions of contemporary reform, may preclude any aspiration for the delivery of a universal and consensual product

Culture, technology and the city

The 21st century has been described as the “century of cities”. By 2030, 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, with the most rapid urbanization occurring in the developing world. This paper will draw up geographer Ed Soja’s concept of the “spatial turn” in social theory to consider how the culture of cities can act as a catalyst to innovation and the development of new technologies. In doing so, the paper will develop a three-layered approach to culture as: the arts; the way of life of people and communities; and the embedded structure underpinning socio-economic relations. It will also consider technology at a three-layered element, including devices, practices and ‘logics��� of technology, or what the Greeks termed techne. The paper will consider recent approaches to urban cultural policy, including cluster development and creative cities, and suggest some alternatives, noting that a problem with current approaches is that they focus excessively upon production (clusters) or consumption (creative cities). It will also consider the development of digital creative industries such as games, and the strategies of different cities to develop an innovation culture.

Slow horizon

“Slow Horizon” is comprised of six lenticular panels hung in an even, horizontal sequence. As the viewer moves in front of the work, each panel alternates subtly between two vertical colour gradients. From left to right, the panels move through yellow, orange, magenta and violet to ‘midnight blue’. Together, the coloured panels comprise an abstract horizon line that references the changing nature of light at sunset. The scale, movement and chromatic qualities of the panels also allude to the formal characteristics of the screen technologies that pervade contemporary visual culture. “Slow Horizon” contributes to studies in the field of contemporary art. It is particularly concerned with the relationships between abstraction, colour, signification and perception. Since early Modernity, debates concerning representation and the formal qualities of the picture plane have been fundamental to art practice and theory. These debates have often dovetailed with questions of art’s capacity to generate shifts in thought and perception. Practitioners such as Ellsworth Kelly, James Turrell and Ed Ruscha have variously used block and blended colour to engage in these formal, symbolic and perceptual potentials of colour. Using a practice-led research methodology, “Slow Horizon” furthers this creative inquiry. By conflating the reductive visual logics of abstraction and minimalism with the iconic, romantic evocations of sunset imagery, it questions not only the contemporary relationship between abstraction and image-making, but also art’s ability to create moments of stillness and contemplation in a context significantly shaped by screen technologies. “Slow Horizon” has been exhibited internationally as part of “Supermassive” at LA Louver Gallery, Venice, California in 2013. The exhibition was reviewed in The Los Angeles Times.

Beyond the modular film school : Australian film and television schools and their digital transitions

In this chapter we will describe the contemporary variety of practice-oriented training institutions in Australia. We will examine the different ways in which public and private providers are managing the challenges of digitization and convergence. We will consider the logics governing film education this mix of providers pulls into focus, and we will outline some of the challenges providers face in educating, (re)training, and preparing their graduates for life and work beyond the film school. These challenges highlight questions about the accountabilities and responsibilities of practice-oriented film education institutions. This chapter begins with an introductory section that outlines these logics and questions. It explores some of the tensions and dynamics within the spectrum of issues through which we can understand film schools. The chapter then goes on briefly to describe the multifaceted training landscape in Australia, before profiling the leading public provider, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS), as well as the other leading public providers the Victorian College of the Arts, and the Griffith Film School. It concludes with a short section on film education in primary and secondary schools as the education sector prepares for the implementation of a national curriculum in which ‘media arts’ has a new centrality.

Suicide, statistics and the coroner: A comparative study of death investigations

Australia has a significantly higher suicide rate than England. Rather than accepting that this ‘statistical fact’ is a direct reflection of some positivist truth, this paper begins with the premise that how suicide is counted depends upon what counts as suicide. This study involves semi-structured interviews with coroners both in Australia and England, as well as observations at inquests. Important differences between the two coronial systems include: first, quite different logics of operation; second, the burden of proof for reaching a finding of suicide is significantly higher in England; and third, the presence of family members at English inquests results in far greater pressure being brought to bear upon coroners. These combined factors result in a reduced likelihood of English coroners reaching a finding of suicide. The conclusions are twofold. First, this research supports existing criticisms of comparative suicide statistics. Second, this research adds theoretical weight to criticisms of positivist analyses of social phenomena.

Grateful fateful sunshine rain

Grateful Fateful Sunshine Rain is a permanent public artwork commissioned by Aria Property Group through a competitive process for the Austin apartment building in South Brisbane. Artist Statement: Residents of Brisbane have a complex relationship with weather. As the capital of the Sunshine State, weather is an integral part of the city’s cultural identity. Weather deeply affects the mood of the city – from the excitement of scantily clad partygoers on balmy December evenings and late February’s lethargy, to the deepening anxiety that emerges after 100 days of rain (or more commonly, 100 days without rain). With a brief nod to the city’s – now decommissioned – iconic MCL weather beacon, Grateful Fateful Sunshine Rain taps into this aspect of Brisbane’s psyche with poetic, illuminated visualisations of real-time weather forecasts issued by the Bureau of Meteorology. Each evening, the artwork downloads tomorrow’s forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology website. Data including, current local temperature, humidity, wind speed & direction, precipitation (rain, hail etc), are used to generate a lighting display that conveys how tomorrow will feel. The artwork’s background colour indicates the expected temperature – from cold blues through mild pastel pinks and blues to bright hot oranges and reds. White fluffy clouds roll across the artwork if cloud is predicted. The density of these clouds indicates the level of cover whilst movement indicates expected wind speed and direction. If rain is predicted, sparkles of white light will appear on top of whichever background colour is chosen for the next day’s temperature. Sparkles appear constantly before wet, drizzly days, and intermittently if scattered showers are predicted. Intermittent, but more intense sparkles appear before rain storms or thunderstorms. Research Contribution: The work has made contributions to the field in the way it rethinks approaches to the conceptualization, design and realization of illuminated urban media. This has led to new theorizations of urban media, which consider light and illumination can be used to convey meaningful data. The research has produced new methods for controlling illumination systems using tools and techniques typically employed in computation arts. It has also develop methods and processes for the design and production of illuminated urban media architectures that are connected to real time data sources, and do which not follow the assumed logics of screen based media and displays.