Visualising invisible networks as collaborative arts practice

This paper examines approaches to the visualisation of ‘invisible’ communications networks. It situates network visualisation as a critical design exercise, and explores how community artists might use such a practice to develop telematic art projects – works that use communications networks as their medium. The paper’s hypotheses are grounded in the Australian community media arts field, but could be applied to other collaborative contexts.

The enterprising artist and the arts entrepreneur : Emergent pedagogies for new disciplinary habits of mind

Traditional pedagogies in the arts in higher education focus largely on the studio experience in which a novice artist studies under one or more master teachers (e.g., Don, Garvey, & Sadeghpour, 2009). In more recent times, however, a shift in higher education curriculum and pedagogy in the arts has expanded this traditional conservatory model of training to include, among other components, career self-management and enterprise creation—in a word, entrepreneurship.This chapter examines the developing field of arts enterprise and arts entrepreneurship in higher education in a multinational context. The field is contextualized within the broader landscape of the creative industries and the consequential development of knowledge, skills, and the habits of mind necessary for artistic venture creation, sustainability, and success. Whereas the discourse about learning and teaching for business entrepreneurship is well established (e.g., Fiet, 2001), equivalent conversations about arts enterprise and entrepreneurship have only recently begun (Beckman, 2007, 2011; Essig, 2009). This chapter will address the contested definitions of key terms and concepts and also the question of how arts educators, although mindful of the pedagogic traditions of the arts school, are also drawing on the pedagogies of business entrepreneurship and cognitive theories of entrepreneurship to create innovative new transdisciplinary signature pedagogies for creative enterprise and entrepreneurship education in the arts.

Making it creatively : building sustainable careers in the arts and creative industries

Many people aspire to careers in the arts and creative industries. However, it has long been known that it can be challenging to navigate a creative career: that competition for work can be intense, particularly for entry-level positions, and that success requires advanced skill sets in addition to a high degree of artistic talent and proficiency. In this article, Dr Ruth Bridgstock draws upon her doctoral and post-doctoral research to explore the challenges involved in building a creative career in Australia and suggest ways to support emerging creatives to build satisfying and sustainable careers.

Tracking the defining moments of crisis process and practice

Crisis holds the potential for profound change in organizations and industries. The past 50 years of crisis management highlight key shifts in crisis practice, creating opportunities for multiple theories and research tracks. Defining crises such as Tylenol, Exxon Valdez, and September 11 terrorist attacks have influenced or challenged the principles of best practice of crisis communication in public relations. This study traces the development of crisis process and practice by identifying shifts in crisis research and models and mapping these against key management theories and practices. The findings define three crisis domains: crisis planning, building and testing predictive models, and mapping and measuring external environmental influences. These crisis domains mirror but lag the evolution of management theory, suggesting challenges for researchers to reshape the research agenda to close the gap and lead the next stage of development in the field of crisis communication for effective organizational outcomes.

The Remnant Emergency Artlab

The REMNANT/EMERGENCY Artlab was funded by the Australia Council InterArts ArtLab Program in 2010 and involves 22 months of rigorous research and experimentation in several countries. The process will be developed between a core transdisciplinary team of practicing media artists, designers and engineers where possible working in consultation and collaboration with local creatives at each venue. Our team asserts that today’s environmental crisis is underpinned by a deep cultural crisis - and so to get our ‘house in order’ we urgently need to create better and more powerful ‘images’ of what a ‘citizen-led’, sustainable world might be. This ArtLab’s core aim is therefore to begin to understand how to develop and create such ‘powerful images’.

#qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods

Social media, including Facebook and Twitter, played an important role in crisis communication at the height of the 2011 South East Queensland floods crisis (10-16 January). This report examines the role of the short-messaging system Twitter in disseminating and sharing crisis information and updates from state and local authorities as well as everyday citizens. We assess the overall use of Twitter, as well as that of the most important emergency service account, the Queensland Police’s @QPSMedia account.

The crisis in ICT education : an academic perspective

A national Discipline-Based Initiative project for ICT, funded by the ALTC, has sought to identify the issues and challenges facing the sector. The crisis in ICT education spans high schools, universities and industry. The demand for skilled ICT graduates is increasing yet enrolments are declining. Several factors contribute to this decline including the perceived quality of teaching and a poor perception of the ICT profession amongst the general public. This paper reports on a consultation process with the academic community. Academic concerns include the capacity of the sector to survive the downturn, and improving relationships with industry which should benefit students, academics and industry. An outcome of the consultation process has been the formation of the Australian Council of Deans of ICT (ACDICT) which will have broad responsibility for addressing the issues affecting ICT higher education.

Much ado about nothing? The surprising persistence of nascent ventures through the global financial crisis

Using the Global Financial Crisis as a natural experiment, we investigate how a major macro-economic crisis affects nascent (i.e., pre-operational) ventures. We hypothesize adverse effects on behaviors, behavioral plans, and expectations for the future, and that these effects would be more pronounced in ventures that are more innovative and/or more relying on loan funding. Overall, we find very limited support for our hypotheses. Our conclusion is that the main reason for the surprising absence of detrimental effects is that a large majority of nascent ventures are mostly affected by a relatively narrow, immediate task environment rather than directly by the fluctuations of the macro-economy.

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.

The story of the sixties...a pile-up on the freeway of advanced art

When does 1960s art begin and end? Certainly, aside from a few affinities, the decade’s artistic output does not exactly correspond to its popular conception as the ‘Swinging Sixties’. While it was rare that psychedelic art was truly challenging, the decade saw a number of perceptions change regarding the aims, boundaries and possibilities of experiencing art. Thus, this era has come to represent a watershed or crisis in modernist art. While in the Australian context many of these nascent trends were properly realised in the 1970s – with the full force and impact of post-object art – other challenges were first articulated in the 1950s. So, like any other demarcation of a decade, its limits and boundaries are porous.

Reviewing the impact of the 2008/2009 global financial crisis (GFC) on international property markets and property professions

The global financial crisis that impacted on all world economies throughout 2008 and 2009. This impact has not been confined to the finance industries but has had a direct and indirect impact on the property industry worldwide from both an ownership and investment perspective. Property markets have experienced various levels of impact from this event, but universally the greatest impact has been on the traditional commercial and industrial property sectors from the investor perspective, with investment and superannuation funds reporting significant declines in the reported value of these investments. Despite the very direct impact of these declining property markets, the GFC has also had a very significant indirect impact on the various property professions and how these professions are now operating in this declining property market. Of particular interest is the comparison of the property market forecasts in late 2007 to the actual results in 2008/2009.

Strengthening the Foundations: Mutuality and the Performing Arts

Following the positive response by governments to the report of Helen Nugent's major performing arts inquiry, urgent attention needs to be given to the seedbed companies where so often audiences are introduced to the performing arts and practitioners are launched on their professional careers. Doing so calls for lateral thinking such as will enable the widest possible range of stakeholders to become involved. One solution may be to develop multi-stakeholder arts mutuals from the simpler arts mutuals such as co-operatives which are already widespread in many spheres of arts activity. Relevant models include the multi-stakeholder mutuals of the Mondragon Co-operative Corporation and the employee mutuals which are being trialled currently in Britain. Possible stakeholders in an arts mutual could include employed, unemployed and trainee practitioners, professional, quasi-professional and amateur theatre bodies, community groups, municipal councils and statutory bodies such as the ABC. Mutualist models may also be helpful to major performing arts companies facing erosion of their subscription incomes or incurring higher support services costs.

Creating successful cultural Brokers : the pros and cons of a community of practice approach in arts management education

Arts managers play a critical role in creating a strong, sustainable arts and cultural sector. They operate as brokers, creating programs, and, more critically, coordinating the relationships between artists, audiences, communities, governments and sponsors required to make these programs a success. Based on study of model developed for a subject in the Master of Creative Industries (Creative Production & Arts Management) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), this paper examines the pros and cons of a “community of practice” approach in training arts management students to act as cultural brokers. It provides data on the effectiveness of a range of activities – including Position Papers, Case Studies, Masterclasses, and offline and online conversations – that can be used facilitate the peer-to-peer engagement by which students work together to build their cultural brokering skills in a community of practice. The data demonstrates that, whilst students appreciate this approach, educators must provide enough access to voices of authority – that is, to arts professionals – to establish a well-functioning community of practice, and ensure that more expert students do not become frustrated when they are unwittingly and unwillingly thrust into this role by less expert classmates. This is especially important in arts management, where classes are always diverse, due to the fact that most dedicated programs in Australia, as in the US, UK and Europe, are taught via small-scale programs at graduate level which accept applicants from a wide variety of arts and non-arts backgrounds.

More than a backchannel : Twitter and television

Twitter is a social media service that has managed very successfully to embed itself deeply in the everyday lives of its users. Its short message length (140 characters), and one-way connections (‘following’ rather than ‘friending’) lend themselves effectively to random and regular updates on almost any form of personal or professional activity – and it has found uses from the interpersonal (e.g. boyd et al., 2010) through crisis communication (e.g. Bruns et al., 2012) to political debate (e.g. Burgess & Bruns, 2012). In such uses, Twitter does not necessarily replace existing media channels, such as the broadcast or online offerings of the mainstream media, but often complements them, providing its users with alternative opportunities to contribute more actively to the wider mediasphere. This is true especially where Twitter is used alongside television, as a simple backchannel to live programming or for more sophisticated uses. In this article, we outline four aspects – dimensions – of the way that the ‘old’ medium of television intersects and, in some cases, interacts, with the ‘new’ medium of Twitter.