Digital Commons Network^™

'Stories From The Cross Disciplinary Trenches' Invited Keynote Address, Warren A. Burt

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Far from being a recent invention, cross-disciplinary thinking in the arts goes back at least to ancient Greece. The more recent history of cross-disciplinary thinking in music is referred to, and the author’s own history of cross-disciplinary work is considered. The point is made that music and sound works should be co-equal partners in any collaborative relationship, and the necessity for new venues for this work is discussed.

Making News Today: Literacy For Citizenship, David R. Blackall, Philip Reece

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a report on an evaluation of the Making News Today project. This project is a partnership involving the University of Wollongong, Apple Computers, WIN Television and participating schools, supported with a grant from the Australian Research Council.

Schools participating in the project are involved in the analysis and creation of news items for television. This evaluation focuses specifically on the potential of the Making News Today project as a vehicle for teaching literacy for citizenship.

Cellular Automata As Spectra: Beyond Sonification Into Composition, Warren A. Burt

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Far from being a recent invention, cross-disciplinary thinking in the arts goes back at least to ancient Greece. The more recent history of cross-disciplinary thinking in music is referred to, and the author’s own history of cross-disciplinary work is considered. The point is made that music and sound works should be co-equal partners in any collaborative relationship, and the necessity for new venues for this work is discussed

Instrumental Relations: Software As Art, Art As Software, Brogan S. Bunt

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Software art is characterised by a close concern with the culture of software and the medium of programming. This inevitably demands an engagement with the terrain of the instrumental; software is a sphere of tool-making and programming is governed by conceptions of functional (and generic) utility. Yet where does this leave art? If, in Kantian terms, art is defined by its uselessness (by its lack of any externally grounded necessity) and if, in classical critical theoretical terms, this alienation from function opens up a space of critique, then how can art explore and participate within the instrumental without abandoning its …

Tactics Against Fear - Creativity As Catharsis Exhibition, Friederike Krishnabhakdi-Vasilakis

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Over the past six years, following the events of 9/11 in 2001, western society has undergone significant political, legal and social changes. The notion of terror - in action, word and image, has institutionalized fear on several levels: the emotional, the social and the political. Fear, it seems, justifies varying degrees of administrative arbitrariness, which as long as there is a commonly acknowledged denominator like terrorism, public opinion (when informed by fear rather than knowledge) can be swayed to overlook politicised abuse of the law. The protection of law from arbitrariness and from fear that makes arbitrariness possible, then, is …

Emergence: The Generation Of Material Spaces In Anthony Mccall's "Line Describing A Cone", Su Ballard

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Anthony McCall's solid light film Line Describing a Cone (1973)is about the emergence of dimensionality in space. This paper uses Line Describing a Cone to discuss emergence as a material algorithmic process occurring across the media of informatic systems and installation art. Evolutionary models of emergence trace patterns, whether behavioural, spatial or genetic. Line Describing a Cone suggests the emergence of a new kind of mobilized viewer within gallery spaces who does not necessarily 'evolve' but who (through interruption and noise)becomes an interactive emergent part of the material processes of the work. Noise travels and generates the excess dimensionality within …

Moirai (String Orchestra) [Musical Score], Wendy Suiter

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

[First page of published score available here.]

Embedded Ecologies: Teaching Digital Theory In Art And Design, Su Ballard, C Mccaw

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

We are both researchers in a traditional sense and also design and art practitioners. We work in an environment where our students make things as well as study theory. Our hypotheses surround our experiences, both as academic 'makers' and through our observations in the classroom. Our position is, that if practice and theory are integrated and embedded within art and design educational experience, meaning is brought to theory and thoughtful positioning to practice. There is a wide range of literature on the theory/practice relationship within art school environments. We draw on this material but in many ways diverge from it …

Susan Norrie - Exhibition Catalogue Essay: Taking Time, Su Ballard

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

In ENOLA this shifted perception is multiplied many times over. We see the camera as it sees, we see the visitors to the themepark looking at the world below them as they step carefully between its buildings, we watch the tour guides watching that scene, we see the spaces of the installation, we see the stools which stand mutely before the screen, we see ourselves amidst others watching the screen. At no point do any of these levels of vision refer back to reality, but instead keep us aware of the multiple and material structures of the architectures of the …

Bilateral Blogging, Lucas Ihlein

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

In this discussion I consider the social and aesthetic functions of participatory visual art practice, with specific reference to my recent project "Bilateral Kellerberrin". Nicholas Bourriaud, in his book Relational Aesthetics, argues that the current era is characterised by the “reification” of social interactions. For Bourriaud, everyday interactions have become commodified and transformed into products which can be sold back to us. Bourriaud sees a role for contemporary visual art in resisting this commodification of everyday experience. He asserts that art is able to bloom in the gaps which are not controlled or mediated by commerce. Some art practices, then, …

Life Of The System 1980 - 2005, Jacky Redgate

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

“In 1980 I worked with sculptural objects that I exhibited as tableaux. They were based on a diary my mother wrote when I was hospitalized as a three-year old child. The sculptures were lost and I recently discovered photographic documentation of them shot in sunlight. I have enlarged them and restaged them as artistic documentation”.

Saltwaterfreshwater, Ian A. Mclean

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Aboriginal and settler Australians share the same place, and issues such as water, which this exhibition addresses, are important to each. So it should be no surprise that exhibitions combining Aboriginal and settler art are now commonplace. Yet each remains distinct from the other, despite the increasing tendency of Aboriginal art towards the aestheticised compositions of modernism, and settler art picking up on Aboriginal patterns, rhythms and colours. In this exhibition Richard Woldendorp's aerial photographs are a good example of the latter. While they have that Aboriginal 'look', they lack the intimate tactility of Aboriginal art: they are ethereal, not …

Effects Of Icts On Media Transformation, Education And Training In Vietnam, Laos And Cambodia, Eric Loo, D. T. T. Hang

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Journalists in the affluent industrialised world have since the mid-80s adopted information and communication technology (hereafter referred to as the internet) as part of their daily work. The internet has also enabled geographically isolated journalists to build an extensive network of contacts and access diverse information sources. Journalists, and citizens alike, are increasingly publishing their work for access by a global audience. This has effectively forced a redefinition of what constitutes professional practice in journalism. We hear varied claims of how the internet have transformed mainstream journalism practices and empowered citizens to tell their own stories via alternative online news …

The Internet: Simulacrum Of Democracy?, Eric Loo

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

This chapter argues that depending on what criteria is used to evaluate the Internet’s democratizing potential, one can easily arrive at disparate assessments of the medium’s impact on society. If the Internet is assumed to be a tool that inherently enhances freedom of communication and social mobilization, then the medium will likely be evaluated positively. Essentially, technology per se does not foster nor hamper participatory democratic culture. Instead, users of the technology determine if the civic and democratizing potential of interactive communication technology can be realized. Therefore, the Internet is only a tool that enables users to disseminate their ideas …

La Musica: Sixteenth And Seventeenth Music And A Surprise [Cd Review], Wendy Suiter

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

La Musica, a compilation of early Baroque Italian songs, is especially significant for its inclusion of music by women: Barbara Strozzi, Francesca Caccini, Settimia Caccini, and Francasca Campana. Together with the "Surprise" (six works by contemporary composer Julie Kabat), more than sixty percent of the music on this Cd was composed by women.

I La Galigo By Robert Wilson, Margaret M. Hamilton

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

No doubt a reference to Einstein’s Twin Paradox constitutes a seemingly incongruous opening to an appraisal of Robert Wilson’s latest production I La Galigo, inspired by an epic poem from South Sulawesi. However, Einstein is not only the subject of one of Wilson’s most acclaimed productions, but this brief allusion to his theory encapsulates the hypnotic dilation of time intrinsic to Wilson’s theatre. Wilson is known for his ability to transform the stage into a temporal sculpture that renders the presence of time aesthetically tangible through duration and repetition. His unique spatial construction imposes a kinetic logic on objects and …

Bilateral Petersham, Lucas M. Ihlein

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

After I finished my blog project Bilateral Kellerberrin in WA (April-May 2005) I had an epiphany.

In Kellerberrin, I had an amazing time “getting to know the townsfolk” 2000km from home, but when I got back to my own suburb, I was struck by how little I knew my own neighbours.

So I decided to do the exact same project at home: and that’s what became Bilateral Petersham: April-May 2006.

Artists And Designers As Collectors: The Aesthetics Of Digital Journaling, Aldegonda Bruekers, Joanne C. Law

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

The visual journal has been a constant companion to artists and designers. It fulfills the multiple functions of a scrapbook, a sketchpad, an observation notebook, a filing cabinet and an archive. Collecting ideas and artifacts using digital devices is an important process for artists and designers today. However, the accessibility provided by these tools also leads to problems in traditional visual journaling. The increasingly diverse formats (such as, audio, video, or digital codes) can pose difficulties when working in conjunction with tangible materials. The storage, access, and usage of materials also need to be reconsidered. The key question is not …

Information, Noise And Et Al, Su Ballard

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

At their most simplistic, there are two means for shifting information around - analogue and digital. Analogue movement depends on analogy to perform computations; it is continuous and the relationships between numbers are keyed as a continuous ordinal set. The digital set is discrete; moving one finger at a time results in a one-to-one correspondence. Nevertheless, analogue and digital are like the two companions in Serres' tale. Each suffers the relationship of noise to information as internal rupture and external interference. In their examination of historical constructions of information, Hobart and Schiffman locate the noise of the analogue within its …

From Battle Metris To Symbiotic Symphony: A New Model For Musical Games, Mark Havryliv, E. Vergara-Richards

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Music and games have a rich history of interplay. Instrumental composers engage with the idea of game play as a way to serialise musical material, facilitate performer’s real-time decision making and organise a particular theatricality in performance. On the other hand, electronic game developers typically use music as a motivational device in a game, and in more sophisticated games conceive the creation of sound and music as an artefact of game play.

Whilst both these types of works can exhibit a tremendous degree of complexity in the relationship between game play and music, this paper argues that the question – …

Reflection And Graphic Design Pedagogy: Developing A Reflective Framework To Enhance Learning In A Graphic Design Tertiary Environment, Grant Ellmers

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

The pedagogical approach employed in the graphic design program at the University of Wollongong is based primarily on a blend of project-based and studio-based learning. Emerging from experience and observations of teaching in this environment, the researcher has identified potential for enhanced learning through a formalised reflective framework. This may address concerns that current teaching frameworks over emphasise the design project, leaving the student at risk of not learning from the design process itself. This paper will describe the ongoing development and implementation of a formalised reflective framework into the University of Wollongong undergraduate graphic design program. Informed by staff …

Ordnance, Five Hats And Constantinople: Benjamin, Gustafsson And Lubitsch, Jon Cockburn

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper concentrates on identifying intellectual, cinematic and commercial representations of the efficiency movement as embodied in the emergent mechanical-flâneuse (the term is an obvious combination of the adjective ‘mechanical’, as a Taylorist/Fordist signifier, with the noun ‘flâneuse’, which is a gender inversion of the masculine flâneur: the metropolitan wanderer profiled in Benjamin’s re-examination of Baudelaire and 19th century Paris). To articulate these representations of the ‘new’ woman, under the influence of Americanism in post-1918 Europe, this paper focuses on two passages in Benjamin’s One Way Street. Benjamin’s passages are then read in juxtaposition to advertisements, the first for hats …

Minefields And Miniskirts: The Perils And Pleasures Of Adapting Oral History For The Stage, S. A. Mchugh

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

A case study of the adaptation of the author's non-fiction book, Minefields and Miniskirts, for the stage. The book, about Australian women's role in the Vietnam war, is based on oral history interviews with over 30 women. Their actual words make up 90% of the script for the dramatised version, also called Minefields and Miniskirts, but their interviews have been blended to make 5 composite fictionalised characters. The show, created by director Terence O'Connell based on McHugh's book, toured Australia to acclaim in 2004/5, playing to over 50,000 people. The author attended the Sydney opening night with 8 of the …

Metris: A Game Environment For Music Performance, Mark Havryliv, Terumi Narushima

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

Metris is a version of the Tetris game that uses a player’s musical response to control game performance. The game is driven by two factors: traditional game design and the player’s individual sense of music and sound. Metris uses tuning principles to determine relationships between pitch and the timbre of the sounds produced. These relationships are represented as bells synchronised with significant events in the game. Key elements of the game design control a musical environment based on just intonation tuning. This presents a scenario where the game design is enhanced by a user’s sense of sound and music. Conventional …

Haptic Carillon: Sensing And Control In Musical Instruments, Mark Havryliv, Greg Schiemer, Fazel Naghdy

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper discusses the proposed design of a hapticrendered practice carillon clavier. This instrument will produce a haptic feedback coupled with a responsive bell synthesis algorithm in order to replicate the authentic playing ‘feel’ and sound of a conventional mechanical carillon. An original classification scheme for haptic devices is presented with two principle goals: 1. to forge a conceptual understanding of the nature of a haptically-enabled version of a traditional instrument, and 2. to identify which existing haptic projects contribute towards a technical roadmap for the haptic carillon. Devices surveyed include both musical instruments and other applications that clarify the …

The Microtonal Legacy Of The Pocket Gamelan, Greg Schiemer, Mark Havryliv Mh675@Uow.Edu.Au

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the origins and motivation for the Pocket Gamelan, a performance interface for mobile phones where musical interaction between players is facilitated via bluetooth. The performance scenario for mobile phones has its origins in two works composed more than 25 years earlier. Mandala 1, composed in 1980 and Mandala 2, in 1981, were the first in a series of works in which an ensemble of players swing mobile sound sources while Mandala 3 and Mandala 4 were composed to be performed using bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. The Mandala series all have a common feature related to microtonal tuning. While …

Pocket Gamelan: Tuneable Trajectories For Flying Sources In Mandala 3 And Mandala 4, Greg Schiemer, Mark Havryliv Mh675@Uow.Edu.Au

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

This paper describes two new live performance scenarios for performing music using bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. Interaction between mobile phones via wireless link is a key feature of the performance interface for each scenario. Both scenarios are discussed in the context of two publicly performed works for an ensemble of players in which mobile phone handsets are used both as sound sources and as hand-held controllers. In both works mobile phones are mounted in a specially devised pouch attached to a cord and physically swung to produce audio chorusing. During performance some players swing phones while others operate phones as hand-held …

Orbophone: A New Interface For Radiationg Sound And Image, D. Lock Dnl463@Uow.Edu.Au, Greg Schiemer, L. Ong

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Orbophone is a new interface that radiates rather than projects sound and image. It provides a cohesive platform for audio and visual presentation in situations where both media are transmitted from the same location and localization in both media is perceptually correlated. This paper discusses the advantages of radiation over conventional sound and image projection for certain kinds of interactive public multimedia exhibits and describes the artistic motivation for its development against a historical backdrop of sound systems used in public spaces. An account of an exhibit using the Orbophone is given together with description and critique of the …

Oblique Reflections: Software Art And The 3d Game Engine, Brogan Bunt

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

Orbophone: A New Interface For Radiating Sound And Image, Damien Lock, Gregory M. Schiemer

Faculty of Creative Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Orbophone is a new interface that radiates rather than projects sound and image. It provides a cohesive platform for audio and visual presentation in situations where both media are transmitted from the same location and localization in both media is perceptually correlated. This paper discusses the advantages of radiation over conventional sound and image projection for certain kinds of interactive public multimedia exhibits and describes the artistic motivation for its development against a historical backdrop of sound systems used in public spaces. One exhibit using the Orbophone is described in detail together with description and critique of the prototype, …