Day 2, Stream 4
Topic
Creation, Collaboration and Consumption
Chair
Nikos Papastergiadis: University of Melbourne, Australia
Panelists
Cecelia Cmielewski: University of Western Australia
Ross Gibson: University of Sydney, Australia
Scott McQuire: University of Melbourne, Australia
Audrey Yue: University of Melbourne, Australia
Leon Cmielewski: University of Western Sydney, Australia
Amelia Barikin: University of Queensland, Australia
Matt Jones: Federation Square, Australia
Xin Gu: University of Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
The Large Screens and the Transnational Sphere research project completes in 2013 following five years of consistent production, community engagement and critical appraisal. The project tests the use of large video screens as a communication platform for an experimental transnational public sphere linking major public screens located in Melbourne, Seoul and recently Perth, for three ‘urban media events’ involving specifically commissioned content. The events utilise live and interactive components to engage publics in each place simultaneously. Initiation of original content is complemented by longitudinal analysis of both the process of artistic production and the effects of public dissemination. The research methodology is based on feedback loops allowing insights from different strands of research to inform the development of future phases. By drawing upon the specific expertise and resources of the research partners, and enabling leading academics to work collaboratively with key large screen operators in Australia (Fed Square P/L, Melbourne and City of Perth, Northbridge) and Korea (Art Center Nabi, Seoul), and peak cultural institutions (Australia Council for the Arts), the project offers critical insights into the process of cultural exchange, the impact of media technologies on public space and the transformation of the ‘public sphere’ in the global era.
Our roundtable of partners will discuss the results of the research and engage conference participants in their appraisal of the creative challenges proposed. The areas for discussion will address how we:
deepened regional cultural links and developed technical infrastructure for cultural exchange via Large Screens
commissioned and curated innovative interactive content
undertook empirical investigation of public interaction with large screens
tested theoretical frameworks for understanding cultural exchange in the global context
established more comprehensive grounds for the regulation and use of large screens in urban planning and design policy.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Nikos Papastergiadis is Professor in the School of Culture and Communication and Director of the Research Unit in Public Culture (RUPC) at the University of Melbourne. He is Project Leader of the Australian Research Council Linkage Project, Large Screens and the Transnational Public Sphere’, and Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery Projects, the ‘Spatial Impact of Digital Technology on Contemporary Art and New Art Institutions’ and ‘Public Screens and the Transformation of Public Space’. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining the School of Culture and Communication, he was Deputy Director of the Australia Centre at the University of Melbourne, Head of the Centre for Ideas at the Victorian College of Arts, and lecturer in Sociology and recipient of the Simon Fellowship at the University of Manchester.
Throughout his career, Nikos has provided strategic consultancies for government agencies on issues relating to cultural identity and has worked in collaborative projects with artists and theorists of international repute such as John Berger, Jimmie Durham and Sonya Boyce. His long involvement with the ground breaking international journalThird Text, as both co-editor and author, was a formative experience in the development of an interdisciplinary and cross cultural research model, which continues to inform his research practice.
Cecelia Cmielewski is the Manager of SymbioticA, the arts science laboratory at the University of Western Australia. Cecelia produces artworks where social, technological and cultural engagements intersect to encourage new understanding across knowledge systems, and realises these as an artist, curator and manager. Cecelia is an arts leader who strategically develops and builds the capacity of the Australian creative sector.
Cecelia has worked in the arts for over 25 years, including when she lived in Ernabella, Central Australia; as a practicing artist, and with the independent film sector. Cecelia curated the international film and media programs for two Adelaide Festival of Arts. She has exhibited in contemporary art and design spaces in Australia and New Zealand. Cecelia works closely with the academic community to further an actively informed arts sector through a number of international conferences, including “Empires Ruins + Networks” (2004), and in collaboration with the British Council: “Making Creative Cities: the value of cultural diversity in the arts” (2008). She is the co-curator and PI for the ARC project, “Large Urban Screens and the Transnational Sphere” with the University of Melbourne, Federation Square and Nabi Art Centre, Seoul (2009-2013). Cecelia produced the SymbioticA exhibition “Semipermeable (+)” for ISEA2013.
Matt Jones manages Federation Square’s year-round public program of over 2000 events and activities. Spanning multicultural community festivals, original art commissions, commercial activations, live performances, 24/7 screen-based content and a variety of seasonal initiatives, the program is an ever-evolving, dynamic mix of influences originating from throughout the entire community. Matt has worked at Fed Square since 2008 and before that spent 10 years working in the UK for a variety of arts organizations, including Brighton Festival, England’s largest multi-arts festival, where he was Producer of the Theatre program for four years. In this time Brighton Festival developed an international reputation as an incubator of cutting-edge, site-specific performance and visual arts projects delivered in unconventional contexts, as a strategy to broaden the appeal, impact and opportunities for public engagement in the arts. Prior to that, Matt was instrumental in establishing The Basement, South East England’s leading production company and venue for the presentation of inter-disciplinary and live art.
Ross Gibson is Professor of Contemporary Arts at the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, and Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Linkage Project, ‘Large Screens and the Transnational Public Sphere’. Prior to joining the Sydney College of the Arts he was Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at UTS. With a particular expertise in the history of new-media arts, Ross has worked in government and industry as well as in academic contexts. He has worked as a producer, critic and creator of cultural institutions all designed to enhance the public understanding of the interrelated histories of communication-forms and technological innovations. In 1998 and 1999 he was the inaugural Australia Council Fellow in New Media. From early 1999 until March 2002, he was Creative Director for the establishment of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
Ross makes books, films and art installations. His recent works include the booksSeven Versions of an Australian Badland and Remembrance + The Moving Image(editor), the video installation Street X-Rays, the interactive audiovisual environmentBYSTANDER (a collaboration with Kate Richards) and the durational work‘Conversations II’ for the 2008 Biennale of Sydney.
Audrey Yue is Associate Professor in the Screen and Cultural Studies Program at The University of Melbourne. Her research covers the fields of Asian media and cultural policy, diasporic cultures and sexuality studies. She has published 5 books, 30 book chapters and 25 refereed journal articles, including Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (2013), Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures (2012) and Ann Hui’s Song of the Exile (2010); received more than AU$2m in competitive research grants, and; passed 17 PhD theses as principal supervisor. She is Chief Investigator in two currently funded Australian Research Council projects on transnational large screens and multicultural arts governance. Between 2009-2011 she was Ministerial Appointment to the Multicultural Arts Policy Advisory Committee for the Australian State Government of Victoria. She is Executive Board Member at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, Research Unit in Public Cultures and the International Association of Visual Cultures, and Editorial Board Member of Feminist Media Studies, Journal of ChineseCinemas, Sexualities Journal of Culture and Society and Metro Screen Education.
Amelia Barikin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland. Amelia completed her art history PhD in 2008 at the University of Melbourne on the work of contemporary French artist Pierre Huyghe. Prior to joining UQ, Amelia worked as a Senior Research Associate on the ARC Linkage Project ‘Large Screens and the Transnational Public Sphere’ (University of Melbourne School of Culture and Communications 2010-2012), and has also worked as a lecturer, editor and curator with numerous Australian arts institutions including Liquid Architecture, Experimenta, Bus Projects and The Australian Centre for the Moving Image. She is on the editorial advisory board of the academic art history journal emaj and is an editorial committee member of the independent arts publication, un Magazine. Amelia has taught on modern and contemporary art, art theory and curatorship and has published widely. Her book Parallel Presents: The Art of Pierre Huyghe was published by MIT Press in 2012.
Leon Cmielewski is an artist and researcher, he works in collaboration with Josephine Starrs. Together they create and exhibit media art projects that are situated at the juncture of cinema, information visualisation, and data mapping, playing off the tensions between the large and small screen, and between information and sublime landscape. Over the past decade they have produced a range of video and interactive media projects which have been widely exhibited, including at Ars Electronica, Austria; Guangzhou Triennale, China; Museum of the Moving Image, New York; ACMI, Melbourne; Seoul Media Art Biennale, Korea; Transmediale, Berlin; MCA, Chicago; MCA, Taipei; Videobrasil, Sao Paolo; Pompidou Centre, Paris.
