Poetry, politics and place : black and white perceptions of landscape in modern Australian poetry 1965-1990

Argues that the most influential landscape poetry deals with landscape as an aesthetic concept, and also with the politics of land ownership. Several "landscape poets". Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, have given voice to some of the most compelling social currents in society, and their work has an important place in contemporary political debate.

Modern Irish theatre (Book review)

Book review of "Modern Irish Theatre" by Mary Trotter. ISBN 978074563343-5

Models for reform : the directors’ duty of care in a modern commercial world

The Australian responses to corporate collapses in the modern commercial world have been
implemented at both judicial and legislative levels over a period of decades. South Africa has lagged behind the reform process, only recently reviewing its company laws with a view to legislatively incorporating, inter alia, its directors’ duties. The consequence of such review of the duty of care is found in subsection 76(3)(c) of the Companies Act 71 of 2008. This article critically evaluates the existing South African common law and the new legislative directors’ duty of care in light of the equivalent duties in Australia and the United States. The analysis ultimately aims at determining whether the approach taken in any of these jurisdictions provides useful guidance in regard to reform options for the duty of care. While the Companies Act contains features that are preferable to the Australian Corporations Act 2001, the impact of the Companies Act on crucial features, such as the objectivity of the duty of care, is unclear and will have to await judicial review. It is concluded that while the South African measures at times echo Australian law in a positive manner, the Australian legislative regime is not without legitimate criticism as it can be unnecessarily complicated. Ultimately it is the United States and Australian common law duty of care that provides the best model for legislative reform.

Dance movement therapy in Australia : a survey of practitioners and practice

This article reports the results of a survey of 41 dance-movement therapy practitioners in Australia. Issues for dance-movement therapy practice in Australia were investigated within the themes of practitioners; programs and clients, and philosophical and industrial concerns. Overall, it was apparent that the dance-movement therapy profession in Australia is both diverse and homogenous: therapists’ professional orientations and backgrounds, and the types of settings in which they work, are very diverse, but therapists are much more similar in their ages, gender, cultural backgrounds and geographic location. The issues raised by the variation and lack of diversity are discussed, along with possible strategies to address them.

Haptics and virtual reality in modern manufacturing

Product assembly is one of the most studied processes in modern manufacturing. In recent years a number of computer-based virtual reality systems have been proposed, developed and adopted by the manufacturing industries. Such systems have major advantages over conventional training practices for product assembly. Significant cost savings can be realized due to shorter training-scenario development times and reuse of existing engineering math models. In addition, the time span from the product design to full production can be shortened due to non-reliance on actual components and subsystems for training. Such training systems are effective if the knowledge required to be transferred is just process sequence such as assembly sequence. However, knowledge transfer for procedural and cognitive learning as well as skills development is very limited, due to the lack of user interactivity and immersion.

This talk will focus on a research technology platform where haptics and virtual reality are integrated to create an effective environment for production assembly operators’ training. In this system virtual reality provides the grounds for realistic visualization, as well as immersion, whereas haptics enforces physical constraints within the virtual world generating the feelings of realistic interaction, making it accessible for formal learning and better understanding during task performance.

The developed research technology platform imitates real physical training scenarios by providing comprehensive user interaction, constrained within the physical limitations of the real world. Through the utilization of a haptics device, providing realistic force feedback, users are able to engage in product assembly training with a stronger sense of ‘reality’.

Dies of culture and religion : India and Australia, from settlement to post/modern times

In historical sketches of India-Australia or Australia-India relations, the important dimensions of the cultural and religious connections from the shared colonial period and Gandhi's nationalist voice echoing in all corners of the Empire, through to the diasporic migration, settlement and temple culture, is largely overlooked. This essay intends the redress that absence in current research and contribute toward a critical appraisal of that rather 'esoteric' part of history, arguably still in its infancy. The story begins close to the early white settlement period to the aftermath of the events of 9/11 (2001 in New York) and Bali (2002). The focus will be on Hindus with some reference to Sikhs, Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils, and migrants from the subcontinent, as the conduits for the particular Indian-Australian diasporic connection and 'spiritual diplomacy' being explored.

Touching space : using motion capture and stereo projection to create a virtual haptics of dance

This paper describes the work of a group of artists in Australia who used real-time motion capture and 3D stereo projection to create a large-scale performance environment in which dancers seemed to "touch" the volume. This project re-versions Suzanne Langer's 1950s philosophy of dance as "virtual force" to realize the idea of a "virtual haptics" of dance that extends the dancer's physical agency literally across and through the surrounding spatial volume. The project presents a vision of interactive dance performance that "touches" space by visualizing kinematics as intentionality and agency. In doing so, we suggest the possibility of new kinds of human-computer interfaces that emphasize touch as embodied, nuanced agency that is mediated by the subtle qualities of whole-body movement, in addition to more goal-oriented, task-based gestures such as pointing or clicking.