Evolution of life drama program

Life Drama is a program of drama-based experiential learning activities involving groups of community leaders and members. The three-year project evolved from a theatre-in-education approach to an intercultural theatre approach incorporating Papua New Guinean performance traditions. It involved Australian, English and Papua New Guinean researchers at four key sites: Tari, Southern Highlands Province; Port Moresby, National Capital District; Madang, Madang Province; and Karkar Island, Madang Province. The project was innovative in a number of ways, including: a Participatory Action Research approach, involving community leaders at various levels as co-researchers; a participatory theatre approach as opposed to a performance approach; emphasis on sexual health promotion and HIV prevention through an experiential learning paradigm; addressing the norms and realities of the community rather than targeting only individual behaviour; an International Theatre Research Laboratory to explore the fusion of traditional cultural elements with contemporary health promotion aims; and an innovative method-assemblage approach to collecting and triangulating quantitative, qualitative, and performative data. The project attracted over $350,000 in funding and support from the Australian Research Council, National AIDS Secretariat in PNG, and private sector and non-government partners. Findings were presented at various conferences and symposia including the annual Medical Symposium in Wewak (2010), the triennial Research in Drama Education conference in Exeter (2011), and the International Research in Drama Education conference (Sydney 2009 and Limerick 2012). A number of peer-reviewed journal articles have been published. Elements of the program have been incorporated into the University of Goroka's compulsory HIV awareness program for undergraduate students. A national dissemination strategy for Life Drama in Papua New Guinea is now underway, with seed funding of AUD$74,000 from the National AIDS Council Secretariat, PNG.

Broadband, the NBN and screen futures

It is important to try to come to grips with what content and applications are likely to be feasible, popular and beneficial on the National Broadband Network, which is being rolled out now. This short article looks at the three main types of content ('unmanaged', 'managed' and 'publicly supported' services), shows how creative content is being, or could be, deployed across all three, and discusses the policy opportunities and challenges for content industries in connecting with what Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and Minister for the Arts Simon Crean calls 'the largest cultural infrastructure project Australia has ever seen'.

Arts and creative industries : a historical overview; and an Australian conversation

Australia should seek new and liberating ways to bring together the arts, popular culture and the creative industries, according to Arts and creative industries. The report, funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and prepared by Professor Justin O’Connor of the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology, looks at ways in which the policy relationship between these often polarised sectors of arts and creative industries might be re-thought and approached more productively. The report is in two parts, commencing with An Australian conversation, in which Professor O’Connor, with Stuart Cunningham and Luke Jaaniste, document a series of in depth interviews with 18 leading practitioners across the creative industries. They discuss their perceptions of the similarities, differences and connections between the arts and creative industries. The interviews frequently returned to the fundamental question of what was meant by ‘art’ and ‘creative industries’. The second, larger part of Arts and creative industries, addresses this question through an extensive review of the discussions of art and its relation to society and culture over the last few centuries. A historical overview highlights the importance that art has had in developing our comprehension of the modern world. It also examines the enthusiasm for the creative industries over the last 15 years or so and the impact this has had on creative policy-making. Arts and creative industries suggests there is no dividing line between publicly-funded arts, popular culture and the blossoming businesses of the creative sector – and national policy should reflect this. This study was commissioned by the Australia Council as part of a long-running and productive relationship between the council and the ARC Centre of Excellence on Creative Industries and Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology.

Without an Alibi

The project is a book collection of 65 poems, primarily with an environmental focus. This practice-led project draws on eco-critical theory (Wilson, 1992; and Bate, 2000) and Darwinian literary theory (Carroll, 2004) to explore ideas of ecology, the ‘natural’, and conservation. The poems explore a proposal of synthesis: that nature is for us both a construction of language/culture (as argued by post structuralism/ cultural studies) and also a pragmatic, empirical entity that can be experienced through the senses as well as through culture. For example, individual poems describe genres of ‘forest’ (‘Literary Forests’, ‘The Conservative Forest’, ‘The Imperial Forest’) which demonstrate how ‘nature’ can be culturally constructed, but also remain an empirical entity with which we experience a more immediate, physical connection, as posited by Bate (following Heidegger’s ‘being-in-the-world’) . The work also explores through satire the concept of evolutionary adaptation, for example the integration of machine into forest (‘The Black Forest’), animals adopting human characteristics (‘In Praise of Bears’), and ‘nature’ as a damaged or absent ‘other’. Without an Alibi makes various strands of theoretical thinking concrete and manifest by ‘showing not telling’, in creative practice. The work has been high positively reviewed in the prestigious Australian Book Review, and by Professor Peter Pierce in the Canberra Times. Several of the poems have since been reproduced in national anthologies including The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry (2000) and Australian Poetry Since 1988 (Uni of NSW Press).

Queensland Business Women Stories

These projects build on the research of Klaebe and Burgess into digital story-telling, specifically variable workshop scenarios, co-creative media, participatory public history, and the development of co-creative production processes for cultural institutions. The projects represented a partnership between QUT and the State Library of Queensland. The Five Senses project focused on the distributed digital storytelling workshop model and the development of audiences for digital storytelling. The team worked with regional artists whose work had been selected for inclusion in the Five Senses exhibition at the State Library of Queensland to produce stories about their work; these works were then integrated into the physical exhibition space. The Queensland Businesswomen project produced four digital stories profiling the lives of leading Queensland businesswomen. The digital story telling workshop model was disbanded and research teams worked individually with participants to create the digital stories. Academic research and oral history interviews were conducted initially to foreground these productions. This pilot led to a larger project, Business Leaders Hall of Fame, which now has a dedicated viewing room in the SLQ sponsored by an annual silver service dinner event. With the Responses to the Apology project, which stimulated similar projects in Mt Isa and Cairns, the research team worked with Indigenous facilitators, and the participants created their digital stories with assistance from these facilitators and the QUT research team using a mix of workshop and individual meetings. The research component of the work relates to the further development of co-creative production processes for cultural institutions, involving a wide range of institutional and individual partners, while authentically representing the intensely personal perspectives of each of the primary participants. The Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame was a research project that included interviews with eminent Queenslanders that produced oral history interviews and digital stories about the achievements of both Queensland personalities and businesses. 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 All digital stories, oral history interviews and transcripts were accessioned into the library collection – an international first for digital stories. Two publications in refereed journals have resulted, and the digital stories are stored in the SLQ permanent collection for the benefit of national and international scholars and the general public.

Strengthening the role of the adult education sector in training workers for the digital content industries in Australia and Singapore

In 2009, QUT’s Office of Research and the Institute for Adult Learning Singapore funded a six-month pilot project that represented the first stage of a larger international comparative study. The study is the first of its kind to investigate to what extent and how digital content workers’ learning needs are being met by adult education and training in Australia and Singapore. The pilot project involved consolidating key theoretical literature, studies, policies, programs and statistical data relevant to the digital content industries in Australia and Singapore. This had not been done before, and represented new knowledge generation. Digital content workers include professionals within and beyond the creative industries as follows: Visual effects and animation (including virtual reality and 3D products); Interactive multimedia (e.g. websites, CD-ROMs) and software development; Computer and online games; and Digital film & TV production and film & TV post-production. In the last decade, the digital content industries have been recognised as an industry sector of strong and increasing significance. The project compared Australia and Singapore on aspects of the digital content industries’ labour market, skill requirements, human capital challenges, the role of adult education in building a workforce for the digital content industries, and innovation policies. The consolidated report generated from the project formed the basis of the proposal for an ARC Linkage Project application submitted in the May 2010 round.

Tabernacle-Game world

Tabernacle is an experimental game world-building project which explores the relationship between the map and the 3-dimensional visualisation enabled by high-end game engines. The project is named after the 6th century tabernacle maps of Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography. These maps articulate a cultural or metaphoric, rather than measured view of the world, contravening Alper's distinction which observes that “maps are measurement, art is experience”. The project builds on previous research into the use of game engines and 3D navigable representation to enable cultural experience, particularly non-Western cultural experiences and ways of seeing. Like the earlier research, Tabernacle highlights the problematic disjuncture between the modern Cartesian map structures of the engine and the mapping traditions of non-Western cultures. Tabernacle represents a practice-based research provocation. The project exposes assumptions about the maps which underpin 3D game worlds, and the autocratic tendencies of world construction software. This research is of critical importance as game engines and simulation technologies are becoming more popular in the recreation of culture and history. A key learning from the Tabernacle project was the ways in which available game engines – technologies with roots in the Enlightenment - constrained the team’s ability to represent a very different culture with a different conceptualisation of space and maps. Understanding the cultural legacies of the software itself is critical as we are tempted by the opportunities for representation of culture and history that they seem to offer. The project was presented at Perth Digital Arts and Culture in 2007 and reiterated using a different game engine in 2009. Further reflections were discussed in a conference paper presented at OZCHI 2009 and a peer-reviewed journal article, and insights gained from the experience continue to inform the author’s research.

Johnno

The field of research was internationally-oriented contemporary theatre practice. The research challenge was to adapt an iconic Queensland novel – David Malouf’s Johnno - to the stage in a way that would engage, resonate with and be relevant to national and international audiences. This project represented an international collaboration between La Boite Theatre Company, the Derby Playhouse, UK, and the Brisbane Festival. It was the first time that an English and an Australian company had collaborated in such a way, sharing both creative vision and financial costs and providing performances on both continents. The production was well received in both countries, suggesting that a culturally idiosyncratic work such as Johnno can be created that can fulfil not only the needs of the localised audience but also have broad global cultural resonance. The work was performed at the Brisbane Festival and the Derby Playhouse. In Brisbane, it was performed at the Brisbane Powerhouse as the signature work of the 2006 festival, with 30 performances, receiving favourable national reviews and achieving 90% box office. In the UK, it was performed at the Derby Playhouse for 22 performances, once again to favourable national reviews and 60% audiences, a good result for a new work in a regional theatre in the UK. The success of Johnno was also in the power of the collaboration between the three creative companies involved in the work.

Oodgeroo : bloodline to country

In 2009, the researcher acted as director and dramaturg for the development of Sam Watson’s play, Oodgeroo: Bloodline to Country, culminating in a season at La Boite Theatre. This project represents the first time notions of Aboriginal politics were seriously questioned. It aimed to illuminate a key divide in the way Australian indigenous people, and the wider Australian community, deal with issues of grief and outrage – the way of resistance and revolution, or the way of reconciliation and education. The work sought to combine specific cultural artefacts belonging to the Noonuccal people and the family of Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal (Kath Walker) with traditional and contemporary ideas and performance forms.

Commentary : "Our reflections on identity, gender and transforming action"

This paper explores the cultural interplay between Indigenous women from one geographic locality being on and within the locality of the women of another locality – in this case, Whakatāne, Aotearoa. The authors consider identity, gender and place within the processes of transformation and decolonisation. They argue that women need to be involved in ways that restore their power as women and ensure their rightful place. The authors draw on the female ancestor Wairaka and her courage to argue that Indigenous women need to respond, change and adapt to the places in which they live. They argue that decolonisation needs to include action and possibilities for Māori and Indigenous Australian women.

Literacies programs: Debates and demands in cultural context

An introduction to the "four resources" model of literacy, where coding, semantics, pragmatic and critical text work are viewed as necessary components for literacy in contemporary society.

Governing a copyright culture in post-WTO China : copyright in the film and music industries, 2001 - 2005

In 2001 China amended its copyright law in accordance with the requirements of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS). This thesis explores the impact of copyright reform on China’s domestic film and music industries. Through extensive interviews with film and music industry workers – directors, producers, executives, judges, lawyers and musicians – it investigates the role of copyright in film and music’s shift from state driven to commercially focussed. The construction and negotiation of a new ‘copyright culture’ in China is examined through the lens of Yurchak’s (1999) concept of ‘entrepreneurial governmentality.’ Administrative structures put in place prior to China’s economic reform are no longer capable of controlling film and music production and consumption and new approaches to managing it are becoming more important. High levels of unauthorised distribution are forcing these industries to adapt their business models so that they can function in a system with weak copyright protection. Legal, economic and political changes have resulted in the emergence of an ‘entrepreneurial governmentality’ among film and music industry professionals. This commercially focussed group is, in turn, increasing pressure on the state to expand the space in which it can function and support efforts to strengthen the copyright system that allows it to exist. It is suggested that the construction and negotiation of a new ‘copyright culture’ is now taking place. This thesis describes the current situation in the film and music industries. It examines the tension between the theoretical possibilities created by copyright law, and the practical challenges of operating in China. It observes innovative business models being applied by film and music businesses in China. It discusses the impact of traditional attitudes to copying and also examines the role that open licensing models might play in helping limit the negative effects of copyright protection on public access to content and in raising levels of education about copyright among key groups within the community.

China's new Creative Clusters : Governance, Human Capital and Investment

Recognising that creativity is a major driving force in the post-industrial economy, the Chinese government has recently established a range of "creative clusters" – industrial parks devoted to media industries, and arts districts – in order to promote the development of the creative industries. This book examines these new creative clusters, outlining their nature and purpose, and assessing their effectiveness. Drawing on case studies of a range of cluster models, and comparing them with international examples, the book demonstrates that creativity, both in China and internationally, is in fact a process of fitting new ideas to existing patterns, models and formats. It shows how large and exceptionally impressive creative clusters have been successfully established, but raises the important questions of whether profit or culture is the driving force, and of whether the bringing together of independent-minded, creative people, entrepreneurial businessmen, preferential policies and foreign investment may in time lead to unintended changes in social and political attitudes in China, including a weakening of state bureaucratic power. An important contribution to the existing literature on the subject, this book will be of great interest to scholars of urban studies, cultural geography, cultural economics and Asian studies.

How Creativity is Changing China

The question Professor Li Wuwei investigates is not 'whether' creativity is changing China - but 'how' creativity is changing China. The outcome will have a profound impact on how China develops and its economic role in the world. Creative industries maintain and protect historical and cultural heritage, improve cultural capital, and foster communities as well as individual creativity. This leads to the improvement of cultural assets of cities, the establishment of city brands and identity, the promotion of the creative economy, and overall economic and social development. In this context, creativity is changing China forever.

Editor's introduction

It is a very rare event when a book by a senior Chinese policy adviser gets published in English. More often the accepted format is biography or auto-biography, generally published once the person has retired. This book was first published by Xinhua Press in Chinese in a longer version in 2009. Initially it was directed at the Chinese reader, more specifically the Chinese cultural academic, and for this reason some of the material is not repeated in this abridged version. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that the author represents four speaking positions, and the messages that emerge from this work need to be contextualized accordingly.