There's a dinosaur in my armoire: A creative exploration of women's dress choice

This project explores social negotiation, that sees dress used to style a personal and appropriate public image in everyday situations. The research seeks to identify and gain insight into the external influences and internal motivations of a small group of Australian women.

Frameworks for engaging creative practice in bureaucratised project environments

This project examines procurement of creative services in a bureaucratic setting and proposes alternative procedures that better negotiate the tensions between creative and bureaucratised ways of working. The outcome is a project procurement strategy called 'Creative Practice Enabled Procurement' and a prototype industry toolkit 'It's Not Shopping! A Guide to Purchasing Innovation and Creativity'. The research is of benefit to managers and creative practitioners, especially those working in interpretive settings. The goal is to propagate better forms of creative procurement across government and private sectors by providing an evidence-based case for improved, practical alternatives.

(Re)presenting Masculinity: A theatre director's critical observations of, and theatrical experimentation with, (re)presentations of masculinity in selected works of contemporary Australian theatre

Health professionals, academics, social commentators and the media are increasingly sending the same message – Australian men are in crisis. This message has been supported by documented rises in alcoholism, violence, depression, suicide and crime amongst men in Australia. A major cause of this crisis, it can be argued, is an over-reliance on the out-dated and limited model of hegemonic masculinity that all men are encouraged to imitate in their own behaviour. This paper, as part of a larger study, explores representations of masculinity in selected works of contemporary Australian theatre in order to investigate the concept of hegemonic masculinity and any influence it may have on the perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’. Theatre is but one of the artistic modes that can be used to investigate masculinity and issues associated with identity. The Australia Council for the Arts recognises theatre, along with literature, dance, film, television, inter-arts, music and visual arts, as critical to the understanding and expression of Australian culture and identity. Theatre has been chosen in this instance because of the opportunities available to this study for direct access to specific theatre performances and creators and, also, because of the researcher’s experience, as a theatre director, with the dramatic arts. Through interviews with writers, directors and actors, combined with the analysis of scripts, academic writings, reviews, articles, programmes, play rehearsals and workshops, this research utilises theatre as a medium to explore masculinity in Australia.

Party 25

Party 25 involved the conception and public launch of a radically new form of political party during that year’s Australian general election. The entire project was also intentioned as a conceptual artwork. Party 25 avoided conventional party-political approaches and was neither a protest group nor an advocacy organisation, but rather a new form of political association that confronted what we understood as the debilitating limits and impotence of contemporary parliamentary democracies in transitioning our societies towards ecological sustainability.----- Party 25 was based on responding to one fundamental question which all of its policies served - “how does humanity get to the 25th century?” By basing itself on a dramatically long-term approach uncommon within conventional politics it raised the proposition that humanity does not have an assured future. Party25 therefore shaped its agendas around the idea that any future now lies in human hands and so how humanity treats the ecologies on which it depends innately determines the quality of the inseparable relationship between its being, and the being of the biophysical world.----- The project was conceived through a number of discussion papers, workshops and creative works and was launched publicly at the Judith Wright Centre Brisbane accompanied by a full length showing of evocative imagery, text and sound, a series of speeches and the launch of a succinct web presence. Through the website and this party launch a community of interested participants and creative practitioners was sought who then would form the basis of a nascent community of change.

‘Storyline patents’: are plots patentable?

The most interesting questions that arise in patent law are the ones that test the boundaries of patentable subject matter. One of those questions has been put forward recently in the United States in an argument in favour of patenting the plots of fictional stories. United States attorney Andrew F Knight has claimed that storylines are patentable subject matter and should be recognised as such. What he claims is patentable is not the copyrightable expression of a written story or even a written outline of a plot but the underlying plot of a story itself. The commercial application of ‘storyline patents’, as he describes them, is said to be their exclusive use in books and movies. This article analyses the claims made and argues that storylines are not patentable subject matter under Australian law. It also contends that policy considerations, as well as the very nature of creative works, weigh against recognition of ‘storyline patents’.

The new lows : representing Asian-Australians on television

This project utilises creative practice as research, and involves writing and discussing four sample episodes of a proposed six-part dramatic, black-comedy1 television mini-series titled The New Lows. Combined, the creative project and accompanying exegesis seeks to illuminate and interrogate some of the inherent concerns, pitfalls and politics encountered in writing original Asian-Australian characters for television. Moreover, this thesis seeks to develop and deliberate on characters that would expand, shift and extend concepts of stereotyping and authenticity as they are used in creative writing for television. The protagonists of The New Lows are the contemporary and dysfunctional Asian-Australian Lo family: the Hong Kong immigrants John and Dorothy, and their Australian-born children Wendy, Simon and Tommy. Collectively, they struggle to manage the family business: a decaying suburban Chinese restaurant called Sunny Days, which is stumbling towards imminent commercial death. At the same time, each of the characters must negotiate their own personal catastrophes, which they hide from fellow family members out of shame and fear. Although there is a narrative arc to the series, I have also endeavoured to write each episode as a selfcontained story. Written alongside the creative works is an exegetical component. Through the paradigm of Asian-Australian studies, the exegesis examines the writing process and narrative content of The New Lows, alongside previous representations of Asians on Australian and international television and screen. Concepts discussed include stereotype, ethnicity, otherness, hybridity and authenticity. However, the exegesis also seeks to question the dominant cultural paradigms through which these issues are predominantly discussed. These investigations are particularly relevant, since The New Lows draws upon a suite of characters commonly considered to be stereotypical in Asian-Australian representations.

Girl in the Shadows and resilience and coping strategies in contemporary young adult fiction

The novel manuscript Girl in the Shadows tells the story of two teenage girls whose friendship, safety and sanity are pushed to the limits when an unexplained phenomenon invades their lives. Sixteen-year-old Tash has everything a teenage girl could want: good looks, brains and freedom from her busy parents. But when she looks into her mirror, a stranger’s face stares back at her. Her best friend Mal believes it’s an evil spirit and enters the world of the supernatural to find answers. But spell books and ouija boards cannot fix a problem that comes from deep within the soul. It will take a journey to the edge of madness for Tash to face the truth inside her heart and see the evil that lurks in her home. And Mal’s love and courage to pull her back into life. The exegesis examines resilience and coping strategies in adolescence, in particular, the relationship of trauma to brain development in children and teenagers. It draws on recent discoveries in neuroscience and psychology to provide a framework to examine the role of coping strategies in building resilience. Within this broader context, it analyses two works of contemporary young adult fiction, Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates and Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender, their use of the split persona as a coping mechanism within young adult fiction and the potential of young adult literature as a tool to help build resilience in teen readers.

Divining the martyr : a multimedia installation presentation on contemporary makeover surgery

Divining the Martyr is a project developed in order to achieve the Master of Arts (Research) degree. This is composed of 70% creative work displayed in an exhibition and 30% written work contained in this exegesis. The project was developed through practice-led research in order to answer the question “In what ways can creative practice synthesize and illuminate issues of martyrdom in contemporary makeover culture?” The question is answered using a postmodern framework about martyrdom as it is manifested in contemporary society. The themes analyzed throughout this exegesis relate to concepts about sainthood and makeover culture combined with actual examples of tragic cases of cosmetic procedures. The outcomes of this project fused three elements: Mexican cultural history, Mexican (Catholic) religious traditions, and cosmetic makeover surgery. The final outcomes were a series of installations integrating contemporary and traditional interdisciplinary media, such as sound, light, x-ray technology, sculpture, video and aspects of performance. These creative works complement each other in their presentation and concept, promoting an original contribution to the theme of contemporary martyrdom in makeover culture.

¡Latin jazz! : a syncretic journey from Spain, Cuba, the United States and back

The creative work, ¡Latin Jazz! is a 50 minute radio documentary to be broadcast on ABC Classic FM. It looks at the evolution of Latin jazz from Spain, Cuba and the United States. It examines the social effects on the style and specifically on the syncretic movement between the countries. The documentary traces my travel to Madrid, Spain and looks at Latin jazz through a deconstruction of the style, musical examples and interviews with prominent artists. Artists interviewed were Chano Domínguez, a Spanish flamenco jazz pianist, Bobby Martínez an American saxophonist, Alain Pérez a Cuban bassist and Pepe Rivero a Cuban pianist. The exegesis supports the radio documentary by examining the style in more depth, and is broken into three main sections. First it traces the historical relationship that occurred through the Ida y Vuelta (To and Fro), the similarities and influences through the habanera, the decíma and the religion of Santería. This is followed by specific musical elements within Latin jazz such as instrumentation, clave, harmony and improvisation, whilst the third section looks at the influences of the new syncretic movement back to Spain.

Reciprocity : where art meets the community : action research in response to artistic encounters and relationships

This practice-led research project examines some of the factors and issues facing artists working in the public domain who wish to engage with the community as audience. Using the methodology of action research, the three major creative projects in this study use art as a socio-political tool with the aim of providing an effective vehicle for broadening awareness, understanding forms of social protest and increasing tolerance for diversity. The three projects: Floodline November 7, 2004, Look in, Look out, and The Urban Terrorist Project, dealt with issues of marginalisation of communities, audiences and graffiti artists respectively. The artist/researcher is outlined as both creator and collaborator in the work. Processes included ephemeral elements, such as temporary installation and performance, as well as interactive elements that encouraged direct audience involvement as part of the work. In addition to the roles of creator and collaborator, both of which included audience as well as artist, the presence of an outside entity was evident. Whether local, legal authorities or prevailing attitudes, outside entities had an unavoidable impact on the processes and outcomes of the work. Each project elicited a range of responses from their respective audiences; however, the overarching concept of reciprocity was seen to be the crucial factor in conception, artistic methods and outcomes.

Drama and the dreaming : framing the play West of West Wirrawong

This thesis consists of two parts, a stageplay "West of West Wirrawong" and an accompanying exegesis. The exegesis works as preface to the stageplay and interrogates via self-reflective analysis the various theoretical and practical notions that shaped the creative process. The exegesis has a special focus in ideas of indigenous myth and Nietzsche.

Managing hostile environments : journalists and media workers : learning to survive the world's difficult, remote and hostile environments

The aim of this research is to examine the changing nature of risks that face journalists and media workers in the world's difficult, remote and hostile environments, and consider the 'adequacy' of managing hostile environment safety courses that some media organizations require prior to foreign assignments. The study utilizes several creative works and contributions to this area of analysis, which includes a documentary film production, course contributions, an emergency reference handbook, security and incident management reviews and a template for evacuation and contingency planning. The research acknowledges that employers have a 'duty of care' to personnel working in these environments, identifies the necessity for pre-deployment training and support, and provides a solution for organizations that wish to initiate a comprehensive framework to advise, monitor, protect and respond to incidents. Finally, it explores the possible development of a unique and holistic service to facilitate proactive and responsive support, in the form of a new profession of 'Editorial Logistics Officer' or 'Editorial Safety Officer' within media organizations. This area of research is vitally important to the profession, and the intended contribution is to introduce a simple and cost-efficient framework for media organizations that desire to implement pre-deployment training and field-support – as these programs save lives. The complete proactive and responsive services may be several years from implementation. However, this study demonstrates that the facilitation of Managing Hostile Environment (MHE) courses should be the minimum professional standard. These courses have saved lives in the past and they provide journalists with the tools to "cover the story, and not become the story."

Two voices : the marginalised body as a voice & Imperfect Offerings a novel

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of self-harm as a form of political protest using two different, but complementary, methods of inquiry: a theoretical research project and a novel. Through these two approaches, to the same research problem, I examine how we can re-position the body that self-harms in political protest from weapon to voice; and in doing so find a path towards ethical and equitable dialogue between marginalised and mainstream communities. The theoretical, or academic, portion of the thesis examines self-harm as protest, positing these acts as a form of tactical selfharm, and acknowledge its emergence as a voice for the otherwise silenced in the public sphere. Through the use of phenomenology and feminist theory I examine the body as site for political agency, the circumstances which surround the use of the body for protest, and the reaction to tactical self-harm by the individual and the state. Using Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism, and the dialogic space I propose that by ‘hearing’ the body engaged in tactical selfharm we come closer to entering into an ethical dialogue with the otherwise silenced in our communities (locally, nationally and globally). The novel, Imperfect Offerings, explores these ideas in a fictional world, and allows me to put faces, names and lives to those who are compelled to harm their bodies to be heard. Also using Bakhtin’s framework I encourage a dialogue between the critical and creative parts of the thesis, challenging the traditional paradigm of creative PhD projects as creative work and exegesis.

Trace, a novel and exegesis

Trace concerns writing-walking and walking-writing. The multiple voices of both novel and exegesis assemble a rhizomic map of a walk and create a never-entirely-certain wandering look upon a woman walking, rather than a single cocksure gaze. Trace explores the aesthetics of Western walking literature and the various nostalgias inherent in that tradition. Trace wonders how lost a character can become on a walk and whether a walk is itself a kind of becoming. In the undefined liminal space where the urban bleeds into the rural, Trace challenges the singular perspective of the dominating gaze with a wandering look, which aims to make an original contribution to both the walk in literature and to exegetical form.

A connective model for the practice-led research exegesis : an analysis of content and structure

Since the formal recognition of practice-led research in the 1990s, many higher research degree candidates in art, design and media have submitted creative works along with an accompanying written document or ‘exegesis’ for examination. Various models for the exegesis have been proposed in university guidelines and academic texts during the past decade, and students and supervisors have experimented with its contents and structure. With a substantial number of exegeses submitted and archived, it has now become possible to move beyond proposition to empirical analysis. In this article we present the findings of a content analysis of a large, local sample of submitted exegeses. We identify the emergence of a persistent pattern in the types of content included as well as overall structure. Besides an introduction and conclusion, this pattern includes three main parts, which can be summarized as situating concepts (conceptual definitions and theories); precedents of practice (traditions and exemplars in the field); and researcher’s creative practice (the creative process, the artifacts produced and their value as research). We argue that this model combines earlier approaches to the exegesis, which oscillated between academic objectivity, by providing a contextual framework for the practice, and personal reflexivity, by providing commentary on the creative practice. But this model is more than simply a hybrid: it provides a dual orientation, which allows the researcher to both situate their creative practice within a trajectory of research and do justice to its personally invested poetics. By performing the important function of connecting the practice and creative work to a wider emergent field, the model helps to support claims for a research contribution to the field. We call it a connective model of exegesis.