Sustainable futures : the new design landscape

Design talks LOUDLY!!! Is a series of interactive presentations exploring issues and opportunities involving professional design. These seminars are organised by the Industrial Design Network Queensland (IDnetQLD) in coordination with the Design Institute of Australia (DIA). This event was held at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) with invited public presentations by a panel of industry experts from Brisbane City Council, Sims Recycling Solutions and BEST Futures. The second seminar "Sustainable Futures: The New Design Landscape" highlighted to design professionals the positive effect the design industry can achieve in moving towards a sustainable future. A series of presentations from specialist speakers outlined the new generation of design and how design can surf the sustainable shift. A product’s journey from concept to creation and a life beyond was presented and discussed as a basis of designing for sustainability. The intent of the seminar was to inject a brand new sense of purpose into the design world through inspiring designers to find solutions which move forward into this new sustainable landscape.

Dynamic analysis of on-board mass data to determine tampering in heavy vehicle on-board mass systems

Transport Certification Australia Limited, jointly with the National Transport Commission, has undertaken a project to investigate the feasibility of on-board mass monitoring (OBM) devices for regulatory purposes. OBM increases jurisdictional confidence in operational heavy vehicle compliance. This paper covers technical issues regarding potential use of dynamic data from OBM systems to indicate that tampering has occurred. Tamper-evidence and accuracy of current OBM systems needed to be determined before any regulatory schemes were put in place for its use. Tests performed to determine potential for, and ease of, tampering. An algorithm was developed to detect tamper events. Its results are detailed.

Static accuracy and precision of heavy vehicle on-board mass systems

Objective • Feasibility programme for on-board mass (OBM) monitoring of heavy vehicles (HVs) • Australian road authorities through Transport Certification Australia (TCA) • Accuracy of contemporary, commercially-available OBM units in Australia • Results need to be addressed/incorporated into specifications for Stage 2 of Intelligent Access Program (IAP) by Transport Certification Australia

Business Leaders Hall of Fame collection

"Qld Business Leaders Hall of Fame" is a research project that includes interviews with eminent Qlders that produced oral history interviews and digital stories about their life/company's achievements. This model was able to test and evaluate the use of oral history and digital storytelling for learning and community heritage purposes. Interviewees include; Sir John and Valmai Pidgeon, Joseph Saragossi, Robert Bryan, Clem Jones, Jim Kennedy, Sr Angela Mary, Castelmaine Perkins, Burns and Philp, Qantas, Don Argus & Steve Irwin.

Telling tales, shaping stories : the creative practitioner and the artful life story

Norman K. Denzin (1989) claims that the central assumption of the biographical method—that a life can be captured and represented in a text—is open to question. This paper explores Denzin’s statement by documenting the role of creative writers in re-presenting oral histories in two case studies from Queensland, Australia. The first, The Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame, was a commercial research project commissioned by the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) in 2009, and involved semi-formal qualitative interviews and digital stories. The second is an on-going practice-led PhD project, The Artful Life: Oral History and Fiction, which investigates the fictionalisation of oral histories. Both projects enter into a dialogue around the re-presentation of oral and life histories, with attention given to the critical scholarship and creative practice in the process. Creative writers represent a life having particular preoccupations with techniques that more closely align with fiction than non-fiction (Hirsch and Dixon 2008). In this context, oral history resources are viewed not so much as repositories of historical facts, but as ambiguous and fluid narrative sources. The comparison of the two case studies also demonstrates that the aims of a particular project dictate the nature of the re-presentation, revealing that writing about another’s life is a complex act of artful ‘shaping’. Alistair Thomson (2007) notes the growing interdisciplinary nature of oral history scholarship since the 1980s; oral histories are used increasingly in art-based contexts to produce diverse cultural artefacts, such as digital stories and works of fiction, which are very different from traditional histories. What are the methodological implications of such projects? This paper will draw on self-reflexive practice to explore this question.

A story worth telling : putting oral history and digital collections online in cultural institutions

Digital platforms in cultural institutions offer exciting opportunities for oral history and digital storytelling that can augment and enrich traditional collections. The way in which cultural institutions allow access to the public is changing dramatically, prompting substantial expansions of their oral history and digital story holdings. In Queensland, Australia, public libraries and museums are becoming innovative hubs of a wide assortment of collections that represent a cross-section of community groups and organisations through the integration of oral history and digital storytelling. The State Library of Queensland (SLQ) features digital stories online to encourage users to explore what the institution has in the catalogue through their website. Now SLQ also offers oral history interviews online, to introduce users to oral history and other components of their collections,- such as photographs and documents to current, as well as new users. This includes the various departments, Indigenous centres and regional libraries affiliated with SLQ statewide, who are often unable to access the materials held within, or even full information about, the collections available within the institution. There has been a growing demand for resources and services that help to satisfy community enthusiasm and promote engagement. Demand increases as public access to affordable digital media technologies increases, and as community or marginalised groups become interested in do it yourself (DIY) history; and SLQ encourages this. This paper draws on the oral history and digital story-based research undertaken by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) for the State Library of Queensland including: the Apology Collection: The Prime Minister’s apology to Australia’s Indigenous Stolen Generation; Five Senses: regional Queensland artists; Gay history of Brisbane; and The Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame.

The embodied hybrid space : designing ubiquitous computing towards an amplification of situated real world experiences

The emergence of mobile and ubiquitous computing technology has created what is often referred to as the hybrid space – a virtual layer of digital information and interaction opportunities that sit on top of and augment the physical environment. Embodied media materialise digital information as observable and sometimes interactive parts of the physical environment. The aim of this work is to explore ways to enhance people’s situated real world experience, and to find out what the role and impact of embodied media in achieving this goal can be. The Edge, an initiative of the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and case study of this thesis, envisions to be a physical place for people to meet, explore, experience, learn and teach each other creative practices in various areas related to digital technology and arts. Guided by an Action Research approach, this work applies Lefebvre’s triad of space (1991) to investigate the Edge as a social space from a conceived, perceived and lived point of view. Based on its creators’ vision and goals on the conceived level, different embodied media are iteratively designed, implemented and evaluated towards shaping and amplifying the Edge’s visitor experience on the perceived and lived level.

Responses to 2008 Apology : Digital story collection

On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an apology to Australia’s Indigenous People on behalf of the Parliament of Australia. The State Library of Queensland, with assistance from Queensland University of Technology and Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, captured responses to this historic event in a collection of digital stories. Stories were created with: Tiga Bayles; Jeremy Robertson; Natalie Alberts; Sam Wagan Watson Jr; Nadine McDonald-Dowd; Anna Bligh; and Quentin Bryce.

Suzumushi : the silent swarm

This silent swarm of stylized crickets is downloading data from Internet and catalogue searches being undertaken by the public at the State Library Queensland. These searches are being displayed on the screen on their backs. Each cricket downloads the searches and communicates this information with other crickets. Commonly found searches spread like a meme through the swarm. In this work memes replace the crickets’ song, washing like a wave through the swarm and changing on the whim of Internet users. When one cricket begins calling others, the swarm may respond to produce emergent patterns of text. When traffic is slow or of now interest to the crickets, they display onomatopoeia. The work is inspired by R. Murray Schafer’s research into acoustic ecologies. In the 1960’s Schafer proposed that many species develop calls that fit niches within their acoustic environment. An increasing background of white noise dominates the acoustic environment of urban human habitats, leaving few acoustic niches for other species to communicate. The popularity of headphones and portable music may be seen as an evolution of our acoustic ecology driven by our desire to hear expressive, meaningful sound, above the din of our cities. Similarly, the crickets in this work are hypothetical creatures that have evolved to survive in a noisy human environment. This speculative species replaces auditory calls with onomatopoeia and information memes, communicating with the swarm via radio frequency chirps instead of sound. Whilst these crickets cannot make sound, each individual has been programmed respond to sound generated by the audience, by making onomatopoeia calls in text. Try talking to a cricket, blowing on its tail, or making other sounds to trigger a call.

Lumia : art/light/motion

Lumia: art/light/motion is an exciting new media exhibition presented by State Library of Queensland in partnership with Queensland-based Kuuki collective artists Priscilla Bracks and Gavin Sade. The exhibition explored contemporary life and encourages thought about the future through an extraordinary collection of hand-crafted and interactive electronic creatures and installations. The beautifully crafted new media artworks in Lumia: art/light/motion combine the bespoke with art and technology to create strange but intriguing objects. Lumia invited audiences to play, learn and then ponder the way we live and the environmental and social implications of our choices.

Lumia : Art | light | motion. The Art of Kuuki.

The State Library of Queensland is delighted to present Lumia: art/light/motion, a culmination of many years of collaboration by the Kuuki collective led by Priscilla Bracks and Gavin Sade. This extraordinary exhibition not only showcases the unique talent of these Queenslanders, it also opens up a world of future possibilities while re-presenting the past and present. These contemporary new media installations sit comfortably within the walls of the library as they are the distinctive products of inquisitive and philosophical minds. In a sense the exhibition highlights the longevity and purposefulness of a cultural learning institution, through the non-traditional use of data, information, research and collection interpretation. The exhibition simultaneously articulates one of our key objectives – to progress the state’s digital agenda. Two academic essays have been commissioned for this joint Kuuki and State Library of Queensland publication. The first is by artist and writer Paul Brown, who has specialised in art, science and technology since the late 1960s and in computational and generative art since the mid 1970s. Brown investigates the history of new media, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary, and clearly places Sade and Bracks at the forefront of this genre nationally. The second essay is by arts writer Linda Carroli, who has delved deeply into the thoughts and processes of the artists to bring to light the complex workings of the artists’ minds. The publication also features an interview Carroli conducted with the artists. This exhibition is playful, informative and contemplative. The audience is invited to play, and consequently to ponder the way we live and the environmental and social implications of our choices. The exhibition tempts us to travel deep into the Antarctic, plunge into the Great Barrier Reef, be swamped by an orchestra of crickets, enter the Charmed world and travel back in time to a Victorian parlour where you can interact with a ‘new-world’ lyrebird and consider a brave new world where our only link to the animal world is with robotic representations. In essence this exhibition is about ideas and knowledge and what better institution than the State Library of Queensland to partner such a project?. State Library is committed to preserving culture, exploring new media and creating new content as a lasting legacy of Queensland for all Queenslanders.

Remixing social media for location sharing on public urban screens

This paper introduces Sapporo World Window (hereafter SWW), an interactive social media mash-up deployed in a newly built urban public underground space utilising ten public displays and urban dwellers’ mobile phones. SWW enables users to share their favourite locations with fellow citizens and visitors through integrating various social media contents to a coherent whole. The system aims to engage citizens in socio-cultural and technological interactions, turning the underground space into a creative and lively social space. We present first insight from an initial user study in a real world setting.

Design horizons : provoking thoughts

The future of industrial design is not set in stone. The future whether we think of it as next year or 50 years from now, is in fact forged by the actions that we make today. Thus, as we dome to a close on the first decade of the 21st Century it is an opportune time to reflect, take stock, and assess the landscape of the industrial design profession. The inaugural Design Horizons forum, titled Provoking Thought, was held on Friday the 6th July 2010 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland. It was conceptualised by Cara Wrigley and Rafael Gomez to provide a space for industrial designers to motivate, challenge and encourage healthy debate on the future of industrial design in the spirit of respect and integrity. The vision was for all involved to walk away inspired, engaged and most of all provoked by the ideas, questions and propositions presented on the day.

Food(ing): between human-computer and human-food-experience

This workshop is a continuation and extension to the successful past workshops exploring the intersection of food, technology, place, and people, namely 2009 OZCHI workshop, Hungry 24/7? HCI Design for Sustainable Food Culture and Sustainable Interaction with Food, Technology, and the City [1] and 2010 CHI panel Making Food, Producing Sustainability [3]. The workshop aims to bring together experts from diverse backgrounds including academia, government, industry, and non-for-profit organisations. It specifically aims to create a space for discussion and design of innovative approaches to understanding and cultivating sustainable food practices via human-computer-interaction (HCI) as well as addressing the wider opportunities for the HCI community to engage with food as a key issue for sustainability The workshop addresses environmental, health, and social domains of sustainability in particular, by looking at various conceptual and design approaches in orchestrating sustainable interaction of people and food in and through dynamic techno-social networks.

Urban Informatics Research and Insights for Libraries, Cultural Industries and Innovation Systems

Over less than a decade, we have witnessed a seismic shift in the way knowledge is produced and exchanged. This is opening up new opportunities for civic and community engagement, entrepreneurial behaviour, sustainability initiatives and creative practices. It also has the potential to create fresh challenges in areas of privacy, cyber-security and misuse of data and personal information. The field of urban informatics focuses on the use and impacts of digital media technology in urban environments. Urban informatics is a dynamic and cross-disciplinary area of inquiry that encapsulates social media, ubiquitous computing, mobile applications and location-based services. Its insights suggest the emergence of a new economic force with the potential for driving innovation, wealth and prosperity through technological advances, digital media and online networks that affect patterns of both social and economic development. Urban informatics explores the intersections between people, place and technology, and their implications for creativity, innovation and engagement. This paper examines how the key learnings from this field can be used to position creative and cultural institutions such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) to take advantage of the opportunities presented by these changing social and technological developments. This paper introduces the underlying principles, concepts and research areas of urban informatics, against the backdrop of modern knowledge economies. Both theoretical ideas and empirical examples are covered in this paper. The first part discusses three challenges: a. People, and the challenge of creativity: The paper explores the opportunities and challenges of urban informatics that can lead to the design and development of new tools, methods and applications fostering participation, the democratisation of knowledge, and new creative practices. b. Technology, and the challenge of innovation: The paper examines how urban informatics can be applied to support user-led innovation with a view to promoting entrepreneurial ideas and creative industries. c. Place, and the challenge of engagement: The paper discusses the potential to establish place-based applications of urban informatics, using the example of library spaces designed to deliver community and civic engagement strategies. The discussion of these challenges is illustrated by a review of projects as examples drawn from diverse fields such as urban computing, locative media, community activism, and sustainability initiatives. The second part of the paper introduces an empirically grounded case study that responds to these three challenges: The Edge, the Queensland Government’s Digital Culture Centre which is an initiative of the State Library of Queensland to explore the nexus of technology and culture in an urban environment. The paper not only explores the new role of libraries in the knowledge economy, but also how the application of urban informatics in prototype engagement spaces such as The Edge can provide transferable insights that can inform the design and development of responsive and inclusive new library spaces elsewhere. To set the scene and background, the paper begins by drawing the bigger picture and outlining some key characteristics of the knowledge economy and the role that the creative and cultural industries play in it, grasping new opportunities that can contribute to the prosperity of Australia.