Project alliancing at National Museum of Australia : the collaborative process

Project alliancing is a new alternative to traditional project delivery systems, especially in the commercial building sector. The Collaborative Process is a theoretical model of people and systems characteristics that are required to reduce the adversarial nature of most construction projects. Although developed separately, both are responses to the same pressures. Project alliancing was just used successfully to complete the National Museum of Australia. This project was analyzed as a case study to determine the extent to which it could be classified as a “collaborative project”. Five key elements of The Collaborative Process were reviewed and numerous examples from the management of this project were cited that support the theoretical recommendations of this model. In the case of this project, significant added value was delivered to the client and many innovations resulted from the collective work of the parties to the contract. It was concluded that project alliances for commercial buildings offer many advantages over traditional project delivery systems, which are related to increasing the levels of collaboration among a project management team.

Project alliancing Vs project partnering : a case study of the Australian National Museum project

Significant differences between project partnering and project alliancing occur in the selection process, management structure of the organisations undertaking the project and nature of risk and reward incentives. This paper helps clarify the nature of project alliancing and how alliance member organisations were selected for this case study. A core issue that differentiates between the two approaches is that in partnering, partners may reap rewards at the expense of other partners. In alliancing each alliance member places their profit margin and reward structure ÁÁat riskÂÂ. Thus in alliancing, the entire alliance entity either benefits together or not all. This fundamentally changes the motivation and dynamics of the relationship between alliance members.

An example of developing a business model for information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption on construction projects – the National Museum of Australia project

Effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is necessary for delivering efficiency and improved project delivery in the construction industry. Convincing clients or contracting organisations to embrace ICT is a difficult task, there are few templates of an ICT business model for the industry to use. ICT application in the construction industry is relatively low compared to automotive and aerospace industries. The National Museum of Australia project provides a unique opportunity for investigating and reporting on this deficiency in publicly available knowledge. Concentrates on the business model content and objectives, briefly indicates the evaluation framework that was used to evaluate ICT effectiveness.

Case study of the National Museum (Action Peninsula) project

The Acton Peninsula project alliance is the first project alliance in building construction in the world. The project alliance is set out to achieve the best possible outcome for the project with all participants in the alliance sharing both risks and rewards. The construction of the National Museum of Australia and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, will be a significant Australian architectural and construction achievement. The design and construction project team is committed to achieve outstanding results in all aspects of the design, construction and delivery of this significant national project. Innovation and creativity are valued, and outstanding performance will be rewarded.

The art of careful listening : children as co-artists in the making of live performance

Since 2007 Kite Arts Education Program (KITE), based at Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), has been engaged in delivering a series of theatre-based experiences for children in low socio-economic primary schools in Queensland. The twelve-week workshop experience culminates in a performance developed by the children with the assistance of the teacher artists from KITE for their community and parents/carers in a peak community cultural institution. Using Wartella’s notion of the socially competent child this analysis interrogates the performance product Precious, child participation modes, the intersection between the professional artists, teacher artists and child artists and outcomes in terms of building capacities for the development of social competencies in children.

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.

Transgression and the everyday : art and fashion in the 1970s

Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren has said that punk fashion truly began in New York. In the 1970s, New York was home to the burgeoning punk scene, Fluxus artists and Andy Warhol’s ‘Factory’. Trace the connections between designers, artists and the musicians who became fashion icons such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, Malcolm McLaren, Richard Hell, Lou Reed, and Andy Warhol with Alice Payne (PhD candidate).

Intimate transactions : art, exhibition and interaction within distributed network environments

The broad research questions of the book are: How can successful, interdisciplinary collaboration contribute to research innovation through Practice-led research? What contributes to the design, production and curation of successful new media art? What are the implications of exhibiting it across dual sites for artists, curators and participant audiences? Is it possible to create an 'intimate transaction' between people who are separated by vast distances but joined by interfaces and distributed networks? Centred on a new media work of the same name by the Transmute Collective (led by Keith Armstrong), this book provides insights from multidisciplinary perspectives. Visual, sound and performance artists, furniture designers, spatial architects, technology systems designers, and curators who collaborated in the production of Intimate Transactions discuss their design philosophies, working processes and resolution of this major new media work. Analytical and philosophical essays by international writers complement these writings on production. They consider how new media art, like Intimate Transactions, challenges traditional understandings of art, curatorial installation and exhibition experience because of the need to take into account interaction, the reconfiguration of space, co-presence, performativity and inter-site collaboration.

Why a child needs a critical eye, and why the art classroom is central in developing it

It is a common acceptance that contemporary schoolchildren live in a world that is intensely visual and commercially motivated, where what is imagined and what is experienced intermingle. Because of this, contemporary education should encourage a child to make reference to, and connection with their ‘out-of-school’ life. The core critical underpinnings of curriculum based arts appreciation and theory hinge on educators and students taking a historical look at the ways artists have engaged with, and made comment upon, their contemporary societies. My article uses this premise to argue for the need to persist with pushing for critique of/through the visual, that it be delivered as an active process via the arts classroom rather than as visual literacy, here regarded as a more passive process for interpreting and understanding visual material. The article asserts that visual arts lessons are best placed to provide fully students with such critique because they help students to develop a ’critical eye’, an interpretive lens often used by artists to view, analyse and independently navigate and respond to contemporary society.

The three little pigs and the art of playfulness

A number of pictorial based texts for children use animals as models for displaying or approaching aspects of childhood. Although authors and illustrators utilise various tactics for including anthropomorphic animals in their books, those that are used as 'surrogate' children can be seen to focus in the main on issues of behaviour, socialisation and maturity - issues that reflect the everyday life of the growing child. This paper aims to explore three pictorial texts that specifically utilise the pig character as a child model, to facilitate for authors/illustrators the opportunity to deal with examples of childhood experience. The paper also tentatively examines how such roles might encourage a reassessment of other more stereotypical associations some audiences have historically/culturally formed about the pig.

Resonance : a music director’s theomusicological study of ‘praise’ and ‘glory’ in a selection of four liturgical music excerpts

Some of my most powerful spiritual experiences have come from the splendorous and sublime sounding hymns performed by a choir and church organ at the traditional Anglican church I’ve attended since I was very young. In the later stage of my life, my pursuit of education in the field of engineering caused me to move to Australia where I regularly attended a contemporary evangelical church and subsequently became a music director in the faith community. This environmental and cultural shift altered my perception and musical experiences of Christian music and led me to enquire about the relationship between Christian liturgy and church music. Throughout history church musicians and composers have synthesised the theological, congregational, cultural and musical aspects of church liturgy. Many great composers have taken into account the conditions surrounding the process of sacred composition and arrangement of music to enhance the experience of religious ecstasy – they sought resonances with Christian values and beliefs to draw congregational participation into the light of praising and glorifying God. As a music director in an evangelical church this aspiration has become one I share. I hope to identify and define the qualities of these resonances that have been successful and apply them to my own practice. Introduction and Structure of the Thesis In this study I will examine four purposively selected excerpts of Christian church vocal music combining theomusicological and semiotic analysis to help identify guidelines that might be useful in my practice as a church music director. The four musical excerpts have been selected based upon their sustained musical and theological impact over time, and their ability to affect ecstatic responses from congregations. This thesis documents a personal journey through analysis of music and uses a context that draws upon ethno-musicological, theological and semiotic tools that lead to a preliminary framework and principles which can then be applied to the identified qualities of resonance in church music today. The thesis is comprised of four parts. Part 1 presents a literature study on the relationship between sacred music, the effects of religious ecstasy and the Christian church. Multiple lenses on this phenomenon are drawn from the viewpoints of prominent western church historians, Biblical theologians, and philosophers. The literature study continues in Part 2, where the role of embodiment is examined from the current perspective of cognitive learning environments. This study offers a platform for a critical reflection on two distinctive musical liturgical systems that have treated differently the notion of embodied understanding amidst a shifting church paradigm. This allows an in-depth theological and philosophical understanding of the liturgical conditions around sacred music-making that relates to the monistic and dualistic body/mind. Part 3 involves undertaking a theomusicological methodology that utilises creative case studies of four purposively selected spiritual pieces. A semiotic study focuses on specific sections of sacred vocal works that express the notions of ‘praise’ and ‘glorification’, particularly in relation to these effects,which combine an analysis of theological perspectives around religious ecstasy and particular spiritual themes. Part 4 presents the critiques and findings gathered from the study that incorporate theoretical and technological means to analyse the purposive selected musical artefact, particularly with the sonic narratives expressing notions of ‘Praise' and 'Glory’. The musical findings are further discussed in relation to the notion of resonance, and then a conceptual framework for the role of contemporary musicdirector is proposed. The musical and Christian terminologies used in the thesis are explained in the glossary, and the appendices includes tables illustrating the musical findings, conducted surveys, written musical analyses and audio examples of selected sacred pieces available on the enclosed compact disc.

Investigating the development of the internal and external service tasks of non-executive directors: the case of the Netherlands (1997-2005)

During the last decade, globalisation and liberalisation of financial markets, changing societal expectations and corporate governance scandals have increased the attention for the fiduciary duties of non-executive directors. In this context, recent corporate governance reform initiatives have emphasised the control task and independence of non-executive directors. However, little attention has been paid to their impact on the external and internal service tasks of non-executive directors. Therefore, this paper investigates how the service tasks of non-executive directors have evolved in the Netherlands. Data on corporate governance at the top-100 listed companies in the Netherlands between 1997 and 2005 show that the emphasis on non-executive directors' external service task has shifted to their internal service task, i.e. from non-executive directors acting as boundary spanners to non-executive directors providing advice and counselling to executive directors. This shift in board responsibilities affects non-executive directors' ability to generate network benefits through board relationships and has implications for non-executive directors' functional requirements.