Spun from four horizons : re-writing the Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Sydney Harbour Bridge provides an imaginative space that is revisited by Australian writers in particular ways. In this space novelists, poets, and cultural historians negotiate questions of emotional and psychological transformation as well as reflect on social and environmental change in the city of Sydney. The writerly tensions that mark these accounts often alter, or query, representations of the Bridge as a symbol of material progress and demonstrate a complex creative engagement with the Bridge. This discussion of ‘the Bridge’ focuses on the work of four authors, Eleanor Dark, P.R. Stephensen, Peter Carey and Vicki Hastrich and includes a range of other fictional and non-fictional accounts of ‘Bridge-writing.’ The ideas proffered are framed by a theorising of space, especially referencing the work of Michel de Certeau, whose writing on the spatial ambiguity of a bridge is important to the examination of the diverse ways in which Australian writers have engaged with the imaginative potential and almost mythic resonance of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The new wave : a Brisbane perspective : La Boite Theatre Company's distinctive contribution

In 1967 Brisbane Repertory Theatre made a decision that was to change the city's cultural landscape in a significant and lasting way. Faced with crippling theatre rental costs, Brisbane Rep. found a realistic solution by converting one of its properties - an old Queenslander - into a unique theatre space. The theatre-in-the box that emerged, aptly called La Boite, opened on 23 June 1967 with a production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger. This experimental space excited the imagination of a new, younger audience not previously interested in Brisbane Rep's essentially conservative fare. It attracted a new group of directors and actors keen to be part of a changing repertoire that embraced more radical, non-mainstream productions, some of which were of Australian plays. The decade after 1967 was a period of change and development unprecedented in La Boite's history. Since then the company has sustained and grown its commitment to Australian plays and the commissioning of new works. To what extent was this most significance moment in La Boite's transformational journey influenced by southern 'new waves' of change? With the benefit of hindsight, it is now time for a re-consideration of Brisbane's distinctive contribution to the New Wave.

The creative sector in New Zealand : mapping and economic role : report to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

The New Zealand creative sector was responsible for almost 121,000 jobs at the time of the 2006 Census (6.3% of total employment). These are divided between • 35,751 creative specialists – persons employed doing creative work in creative industries • 42,300 support workers - persons providing management and support services in creative industries • 42,792 embedded creative workers – persons engaged in creative work in other types of enterprise The most striking feature of this breakdown is the fact that the largest group of creative workers are employed outside the creative industries, i.e. in other types of businesses. Even within the creative industries, there are fewer people directly engaged in creative work than in providing management and support. Creative sector employees earned incomes of approximately $52,000 per annum at the time of the 2006 Census. This is relatively uniform across all three types of creative worker, and is significantly above the average for all employed persons (of approximately $40,700). Creative employment and incomes were growing strongly over both five year periods between the 1996, 2001 and 2006 Censuses. However, when we compare creative and general trends, we see two distinct phases in the development of the creative sector: • rapid structural growth over the five years to 2001 (especially led by developments in ICT), with creative employment and incomes increasing rapidly at a time when they were growing modestly across the whole economy; • subsequent consolidation, with growth driven by more by national economic expansion than structural change, and creative employment and incomes moving in parallel with strong economy-wide growth. Other important trends revealed by the data are that • the strongest growth during the decade was in embedded creative workers, especially over the first five years. The weakest growth was in creative specialists, with support workers in creative industries in the middle rank, • by far the strongest growth in creative industries’ employment was in Software & digital content, which trebled in size over the decade Comparing New Zealand with the United Kingdom and Australia, the two southern hemisphere nations have significantly lower proportions of total employment in the creative sector (both in creative industries and embedded employment). New Zealand’s and Australia’s creative shares in 2001 were similar (5.4% each), but in the following five years, our share has expanded (to 5.7%) whereas Australia’s fell slightly (to 5.2%) – in both cases, through changes in creative industries’ employment. The creative industries generated $10.5 billion in total gross output in the March 2006 year. Resulting from this was value added totalling $5.1b, representing 3.3% of New Zealand’s total GDP. Overall, value added in the creative industries represents 49% of industry gross output, which is higher than the average across the whole economy, 45%. This is a reflection of the relatively high labour intensity and high earnings of the creative industries. Industries which have an above-average ratio of value added to gross output are usually labour-intensive, especially when wages and salaries are above average. This is true for Software & Digital Content and Architecture, Design & Visual Arts, with ratios of 60.4% and 55.2% respectively. However there is significant variation in this ratio between different parts of the creative industries, with some parts (e.g. Software & Digital Content and Architecture, Design & Visual Arts) generating even higher value added relative to output, and others (e.g. TV & Radio, Publishing and Music & Performing Arts) less, because of high capital intensity and import content. When we take into account the impact of the creative industries’ demand for goods and services from its suppliers and consumption spending from incomes earned, we estimate that there is an addition to economic activity of: • $30.9 billion in gross output, $41.4b in total • $15.1b in value added, $20.3b in total • 158,100 people employed, 234,600 in total The total economic impact of the creative industries is approximately four times their direct output and value added, and three times their direct employment. Their effect on output and value added is roughly in line with the average over all industries, although the effect on employment is significantly lower. This is because of the relatively high labour intensity (and high earnings) of the creative industries, which generate below-average demand from suppliers, but normal levels of demand though expenditure from incomes. Drawing on these numbers and conclusions, we suggest some (slightly speculative) directions for future research. The goal is to better understand the contribution the creative sector makes to productivity growth; in particular, the distinctive contributions from creative firms and embedded creative workers. The ideas for future research can be organised into the several categories: • Understanding the categories of the creative sector– who is doing the business? In other words, examine via more fine grained research (at a firm level perhaps) just what is the creative contribution from the different aspects of the creative sector industries. It may be possible to categorise these in terms of more or less striking innovations. • Investigate the relationship between the characteristics and the performance of the various creative industries/ sectors; • Look more closely at innovation at an industry level e.g. using an index of relative growth of exports, and see if this can be related to intensity of use of creative inputs; • Undertake case studies of the creative sector; • Undertake case studies of the embedded contribution to growth in the firms and industries that employ them, by examining taking several high performing noncreative industries (in the same way as proposed for the creative sector). • Look at the aggregates – drawing on the broad picture of the extent of the numbers of creative workers embedded within the different industries, consider the extent to which these might explain aspects of the industries’ varied performance in terms of exports, growth and so on. • This might be able to extended to examine issues like the type of creative workers that are most effective when embedded, or test the hypothesis that each industry has its own particular requirements for embedded creative workers that overwhelms any generic contributions from say design, or IT.

ePortfolios and preservice teachers : governing at a distance through non-human actors

This chapter seeks to develop an analysis of the contemporary use of the ePortfolio (Electronic Portfolio) in education practices. Unlike other explorations of this new technology which are deterministic in their approach, the authors seek to reveal the techniques and practices of government which underpin the implementation of the e-portfolio. By interrogating a specific case study example from a large Australian university’s preservice teacher program, the authors find that the e-portfolio is represented as eLearning technology but serves to govern students via autonomization and self responsibilization. Using policy data and other key documents, they are able to reveal the e-portfolio as a delegated authority in the governance of preservice teachers. However, despite this ongoing trend, they suggest that like other practices of government, the e-portfolio will eventually fail. This however the authors conclude opens up space for critical thought and engagement which is not afforded presently.

Creative Industries

We are experiencing a period of profound social and economic transformation. This is a shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy (or a “creative economy”; or an “economy of the imagination”.) This new, emerging economic system is fundamentally organised around people (not machines or buildings); and around place. We heard Richard Florida argue that creative, talented people won’t go to where the job is, but vice versa, the job will come to them. So according to Florida, where we live is becoming the primary factor in global economic development. (Incidentally, it is worth contrasting this idea with the alternative proposition - put by speakers at this Forum - of “new nomadism”, that is, that creativity is nomadic and not bound by place.)

Applied theatre and organisational transformation

Applied Theatre is an umbrella term for a range of drama-based techniques, all of which align with a lineage of pedagogical theory and practice: (e.g.) Freire, Moreno, Heathcote. It encompasses methods and forms including Drama Education (O’Neill); Forum Theatre (Boal); and Process Drama (Haseman, O’Toole). Applied theatre often occurs in non-theatrical settings (schools, hospitals, prisons) with the aim of helping participants address issues of local concern. Increasingly, Applied Theatre practices are utilised in the corporate environment. Appied Theatre adopts artistic principles in production, but posits a practical utility beyond simple entertainment.

Creative Industries : A New Direction?

This paper looks at the work of the ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology. They have attempted to deal with some of the definitional and policy ambiguities surrounding the DCMS’s re-branding of ‘cultural industries’ as ‘creative industries’. The paper focuses on three central claims. First, that Art falls outside the creative industries; second, that the creative industries moves beyond a cultural policy paradigm towards that of innovation systems; third, that the notion of ‘social network markets’ represents the central defining characteristic of the creative industries. The paper suggests that the attempt to separate out art and culture from the creative industries is misplaced and represents a significant shift away from a longer trajectory of ‘cultural industries’ policies with some damaging consequences for cultural policy and creative businesses.

CARRS-Q screen profiles

Staff from QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty (Drama, Film & TV) collaborated with CARRS-Q (Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland) to research, develop and produce a series of screen products. These products are designed to profile CARRS-Q for a variety of Australian and international audiences including potential students, research colleagues and collaborators, industry partners and professional bodies. They are designed for multiplatform display, including web, DVD and mobile devices. This project entails the adoption of practice-led research methodologies to explore and apply innovative screen production techniques including multi-image display; rapid-cut editing; and a combination of trained and non-trained talent.