How does ‘Newstainment’ actually work? : ethnographic research methods and contemporary popular news

Much debate has taken place recently over the potential for entertainment genres and unorthodox forms of news to provide legitimate – indeed democratized – in-roads into the public sphere. Amidst these discussions, however, little thought has been paid to the audiences for programs of this sort, and (even when viewers are considered) the research can too easily treat audiences in homogenous terms and therefore replicate the very dichotomies these television shows directly challenge. This paper is a critical reflection on an audience study into the Australian morning “newstainment” program Sunrise. After examining the show and exploring how it is ‘used’ as a news source, this paper will promote the use of ethnographic study to better conceptualize how citizens integrate and connect the increasingly fragmented and multifarious forms of postmodern political communication available in their everyday lives.

Knowmore (House of Commons)

Knowmore (House of Commons) is a large scale generative interactive installation that incorporates embodied interaction, dynamic image creation, new furniture forms, touch sensitivity, innovative collaborative processes and multichannel generative sound creation. A large circular table spun by hand and a computer-controlled video projection falls on its top, creating an uncanny blend of physical object and virtual media. Participants’ presence around the table and how they touch it is registered, allowing up to five people to collaboratively ‘play’ this deeply immersive audiovisual work. Set within an ecological context, the work subtly asks what kind of resources and knowledges might be necessary to move us past simply knowing what needs to be changed to instead actually embodying that change, whilst hinting at other deeply relational ways of understanding and knowing the world. The work has successfully operated in two high traffic public environments, generating a subtle form of interactivity that allows different people to interact at different paces and speeds and with differing intentions, each contributing towards dramatic public outcomes. The research field involved developing new interaction and engagement strategies for eco-political media arts practice. The context was the creation of improved embodied, performative and improvisational experiences for participants; further informed by ‘Sustainment’ theory. The central question was, what ontological shifts may be necessary to better envision and align our everyday life choices in ways that respect that which is shared by all - 'The Commons'. The methodology was primarily practice-led and in concert with underlying theories. The work’s knowledge contribution was to question how new media interactive experience and embodied interaction might prompt participants to reflect upon the kind of resources and knowledges required to move past simply knowing what needs to be changed to instead actually embodying that change. This was achieved through focusing on the power of embodied learning implied by the works' strongly physical interface (i.e. the spinning of a full size table) in concert with the complex field of layered imagery and sound. The work was commissioned by the State Library of Queensland and Queensland Artworkers Alliance and significantly funded by The Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, QUT, RMIT Centre for Animation and Interactive Media and industry partners E2E Visuals. After premiering for 3 months at the State Library of Queensland it was curated into the significant ‘Mediations Biennial of Modern Art’ in Poznan, Poland. The work formed the basis of two papers, was reviewed in Realtime (90), was overviewed at Subtle Technologies (2010) in Toronto and shortlisted for ISEA 2011 Istanbul and included in the edited book/catalogue ‘Art in Spite of Economics’, a collaboration between Leonardo/ISAST (MIT Press); Goldsmiths, University of London; ISEA International; and Sabanci University, Istanbul.

Information technology support to improved construction processes : inter-disciplinarity in research and practice

Research and innovation in the built environment is increasingly taking on an inter-disciplinary nature. The built environment industry and professional practice have long adopted multi and inter-disciplinary practices. The application of IT in Construction is moving beyond the automation and replication of discrete mono and multi-disciplinary tasks to replicate and model the improved inter-disciplinary processes of modern design and construction practice. A major long-term research project underway at the University of Salford seeks to develop IT modelling capability to support the design of buildings and facilities that are buildable, maintainable, operable, sustainable, accessible, and have properties of acoustic, thermal and business support performance that are of a high standard. Such an IT modelling tool has been the dream of the research community for a long time. Recent advances in technology are beginning to make such a modelling tool feasible.----- Some of the key problems with its further research and development, and with its ultimate implementation, will be the challenges of multiple research and built environment stakeholders sharing a common vision, language and sense of trust. This paper explores these challenges as a set of research issues that underpin the development of appropriate technology to support realisable advances in construction process improvements.

A natural model for architecture : the nature of the evolutionary model 1995

John Frazer's architectural work is inspired by living and generative processes. Both evolutionary and revolutionary, it explores informatin ecologies and the dynamics of the spaces between objects. Fuelled by an interest in the cybernetic work of Gordon Pask and Norbert Wiener, and the possibilities of the computer and the "new science" it has facilitated, Frazer and his team of collaborators have conducted a series of experiments that utilize genetic algorithms, cellular automata, emergent behaviour, complexity and feedback loops to create a truly dynamic architecture. Frazer studied at the Architectural Association (AA) in London from 1963 to 1969, and later became unit master of Diploma Unit 11 there. He was subsequently Director of Computer-Aided Design at the University of Ulter - a post he held while writing An Evolutionary Architecture in 1995 - and a lecturer at the University of Cambridge. In 1983 he co-founded Autographics Software Ltd, which pioneered microprocessor graphics. Frazer was awarded a person chair at the University of Ulster in 1984. In Frazer's hands, architecture becomes machine-readable, formally open-ended and responsive. His work as computer consultant to Cedric Price's Generator Project of 1976 (see P84)led to the development of a series of tools and processes; these have resulted in projects such as the Calbuild Kit (1985) and the Universal Constructor (1990). These subsequent computer-orientated architectural machines are makers of architectural form beyond the full control of the architect-programmer. Frazer makes much reference to the multi-celled relationships found in nature, and their ongoing morphosis in response to continually changing contextual criteria. He defines the elements that describe his evolutionary architectural model thus: "A genetic code script, rules for the development of the code, mapping of the code to a virtual model, the nature of the environment for the development of the model and, most importantly, the criteria for selection. In setting out these parameters for designing evolutionary architectures, Frazer goes beyond the usual notions of architectural beauty and aesthetics. Nevertheless his work is not without an aesthetic: some pieces are a frenzy of mad wire, while others have a modularity that is reminiscent of biological form. Algorithms form the basis of Frazer's designs. These algorithms determine a variety of formal results dependent on the nature of the information they are given. His work, therefore, is always dynamic, always evolving and always different. Designing with algorithms is also critical to other architects featured in this book, such as Marcos Novak (see p150). Frazer has made an unparalleled contribution to defining architectural possibilities for the twenty-first century, and remains an inspiration to architects seeking to create responsive environments. Architects were initially slow to pick up on the opportunities that the computer provides. These opportunities are both representational and spatial: computers can help architects draw buildings and, more importantly, they can help architects create varied spaces, both virtual and actual. Frazer's work was groundbreaking in this respect, and well before its time.

Work integrated learning for design : a scholarship of integration

Within an action research framework, this paper describes the conceptual basis for developing a crossdisciplinary pedagogical model of higher education/industry engagement for the built environment design disciplines including architecture, interior design, industrial design and landscape architecture. Aiming to holistically acknowledge and capitalize on the work environment as a place of authentic learning, problems arising in practice are understood as the impetus, focus and ‘space’ for a process of inquiry and discovery that, in the spirit of Boyer’s ‘Scholarship of Integration’, provides for generic as well as discipline-specific learning.

Fallen Awake

Photo from process: David Megarrity, albury 2007 - example of convergence of writing/design/perfomance/video RESEARCH COMPONENT Fallen Awake was a practice-led research process that opened the development process to the influence of collaborative authorship across artforms. The project focused on of how multiple artforms and artists converge their vision into a singular text, in the context of collaborative authorship. The work also uncovered new questions relating to the dream-life of children. The stimulus for the work was a selection of verbal statements by three-year-olds, raising complex ethical questions as the project progressed about the child’s voice, mediated by the adult artist, for the eventual presentation to a child audience. With the text emergent and open to influence, this project raised other questions related to the lived experience of children, dreaming, creative play and the development of consciousness. It pushed the creative process to experiment with associative, rather then causal narratives, and to negotiate the challenges this raises for traditional story structures and the development processes that usually shape them. It led to the consideration of each artforms and artist as equal contributors in the development of story: traditionally the province of the sole author. The outcomes appeared in various artforms, none of which was live-performance based. An ‘artist’s book’ by the designer, a ‘video treatment’ - a DVD capturing the approach to the performance and a script for an innovative large-scale performance. Fallen Awake was developed with the assistance of Strut & Fret Production House, Arts Queensland, and HotHouse Theatre, Albury Wodonga, through their ‘Month in the Country’ initiative.

Concerning the house museum and the picturesque landscape in the work of Sir John Soane : with raw hints for post-heritage museum space

The picturesque aesthetic in the work of Sir John Soane, architect and collector, resonates in the major work of his very personal practice – the development of his house museum, now the Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London. Soane was actively involved with the debates, practices and proponents of picturesque and classical practices in architecture and landscape and his lectures reveal these influences in the making of The Soane, which was built to contain and present diverse collections of classical and contemporary art and architecture alongside scavenged curiosities. The Soane Museum has been described as a picturesque landscape, where a pictorial style, together with a carefully defined itinerary, has resulted in the ‘apotheosis of the Picturesque interior’. Soane also experimented with making mock ruinscapes within gardens, which led him to construct faux architectures alluding to archaeological practices based upon the ruin and the fragment. These ideas framed the making of interior landscapes expressed through spatial juxtapositions of room and corridor furnished with the collected object that characterise The Soane Museum. This paper is a personal journey through the Museum which describes and then reviews aspects of Soane’s work in the context of contemporary theories on ‘new’ museology. It describes the underpinning picturesque practices that Soane employed to exceed the boundaries between interior and exterior landscapes and the collection. It then applies particular picturesque principles drawn from visiting The Soane to a speculative project for a house/landscape museum for the Oratunga historic property in outback South Australia, where the often, normalising effects of conservation practices are reviewed using minimal architectural intervention through a celebration of ruinous states.

Work at hand : an exploration of gesture in the context of work and everyday life to inform the design of gestural input devices

This research explores gestures used in the context of activities in the workplace and in everyday life in order to understand requirements and devise concepts for the design of gestural information applicances. A collaborative method of video interaction analysis devised to suit design explorations, the Video Card Game, was used to capture and analyse how gesture is used in the context of six different domains: the dentist's office; PDA and mobile phone use; the experimental biologist's laboratory; a city ferry service; a video cassette player repair shop; and a factory flowmeter assembly station. Findings are presented in the form of gestural themes, derived from the tradition of qualitative analysis but bearing some similarity to Alexandrian patterns. Implications for the design of gestural devices are discussed.

SCOOT CBN

SCOOT is a hybrid event combining the web, mobile devices, public displays and cultural artifacts across multiple public parks and museums in an effort to increase the perceived and actual access to cultural participation by everyday people. The research field is locative game design and the context was the re-invigoration of public sites as a means for exposing the underlying histories of sites and events. The key question was how to use game play technologies and processes within everyday places in ways that best promote playful and culturally meaningful experiences whilst shifting the loci of control away from commercial and governmental powers. The research methodology was primarily practice led underpinned by ethnographic and action research methods. In 2004 SCOOT established itself as a national leader in the field by demonstrating innovative methods for stimulating rich interactions across diverse urban places using technically-augmented game play. Despite creating a sophisticated range of software and communication tools SCOOT most dramatically highlighted the role of the ubiquitous mobile phone in facilitating socially beneficial experiences. Through working closely with the SCOOT team, collaborating organisations developed important new knowledge around the potential of new technologies and processes for motivating, sustaining and reinvigorating public engagement. Since 2004, SCOOT has been awarded $600,00 in competitive and community funding as well as countless in kind support from partner organisations such as Arts Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square, Art Centre of Victoria, The State Library of Victoria, Brisbane River Festival, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane Maritime Museum, Queensland University of Technology, and Victoria University.

A collaborative digestion and design game for community and technology exploration

In this paper, we present interim results from the Communities and Place project, which is exploring methods for understanding communities in a variety of contexts, and how to inform the design of technology to support them. We report on our experience with adapting an existing game-based approach for working with video as a resource in participatory design processes. Our adaptations allow the approach to be used with diverse data arising out of the different communities we are engaged with, and different design traditions we approach the problem from, leading to the formation of common design themes to inform our future work on this project.

A multiliteracies project in the middle school : Parents as coteachers

This paper examines the experiences of one middle years’ English and Studies of Society and Environment (SoSE) teacher who adopted a multiliteracies project-based orientation to a unit on War and Refugees. It details the multiliteracies teaching and learning cycle, which is based on four non-hierarchical, pedagogical orientations: situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing and transformed practice (New London Group, 2000; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005a). Following the work of Kalantzis and Cope (2005a), it draws out the knowledge processes exacted in each of these four phases: experiencing the known and the new; conceptualising by naming and theorising; analysing functionally and critically; and, applying appropriately and creatively. Two parents were invited to enter the study as coteachers with the teacher and researcher. Using Bourdieu’s (1992) construct of capital, the findings report on how the multiliteracies approach enabled them to engage in school-based literacy practices differently than they had done previously in classrooms. An unexpected finding concerns the teacher’s altered view about how his role and status were perceived by the parents.

School students and part-time work: Workplace problems and challenges.

This paper uses data from a large national project on student-working to examine problems and challenges for school students working in part-time jobs. While literature has identified some potential problems and challenges, and some potential difficulties can be extrapolated from the nature of a young teenage workforce and the nature of the workplaces, these were largely absent in the two companies researched because the companies already had policies in place that addressed the potential problems. Some suggestions are made about how problems and challenges could be avoided in a wider range of adolescent workplaces.

Maintaining your career “edge” in a global world of work

The world of work in the 21st century has been described by many as globalised (Peiperl & Jonsen, 2007; Levy, 2007; Bhagat, 2006; Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2005). Globalisation is generally understood as a greater awareness of the world as a whole; an integrated stage where the countries of the world are seen to be players on the one playing field. This notion is driven by a perception of the world as being occupied by global citizens who are affiliated not with the country in which they are born but whose loyalties lie with planet Earth. They strive to live and work with this focus foremost in their consciousness. Indeed, many of these global citizens will enjoy global careers during their lifetime whereby they work in more than one region of the world during the course of their employment. The present chapter will present a discussion on globalisation and its impact on the world of work, in particular the changes on particular demographic groups in both developed and developing economies. It will then discuss implications for workers and their careers, specifically focusing on changing relationships between workers and organisations and the need for individuals to maintain their competitive edge in the market place through an ongoing focus on relevant career management competencies.