Surfacing urban wetlands in two urban renewal sites in Sydney. Urban wetlands in Australia provide benefits for climate change mitigation, pollution reduction, habitat provision and socioecological connection. However, in large cities like Sydney, urban wetlands are unseen because undergrounded, and, therefore not adequately understood. This illegibility, and loss of understanding by residents, planners and policy makers impedes wetlands' good management. This project surfaces wetlands through v ....Surfacing urban wetlands in two urban renewal sites in Sydney. Urban wetlands in Australia provide benefits for climate change mitigation, pollution reduction, habitat provision and socioecological connection. However, in large cities like Sydney, urban wetlands are unseen because undergrounded, and, therefore not adequately understood. This illegibility, and loss of understanding by residents, planners and policy makers impedes wetlands' good management. This project surfaces wetlands through visualisation in a multimodal knowledge platform focusing on two urban renewal sites, Green Square and Marrickville South. We leverage design ethnography to develop resources for strengthening multiple stakeholders’ socioecological engagement through methods empowering just, creative and open participation.Read moreRead less
Avatars and Identities. The avatar, a virtual representation of its user, is the key element of interface technology for everyday computer use in the twenty-first century. While specialist aspects of the avatar have received intensive attention from the technology industries and scholars, the focus of the work to date has been on the technical efficiency of the interface, rather than understanding the full social implications of its use. Through a historical, ethnographic and critical analysis o ....Avatars and Identities. The avatar, a virtual representation of its user, is the key element of interface technology for everyday computer use in the twenty-first century. While specialist aspects of the avatar have received intensive attention from the technology industries and scholars, the focus of the work to date has been on the technical efficiency of the interface, rather than understanding the full social implications of its use. Through a historical, ethnographic and critical analysis of the role of the avatar, in consultation with industry, this project offers a unique opportunity to develop a wider perspective that will contribute to an understanding of the uses and policies for the digital economy.Read moreRead less
Exploring Botanic Gardens Herbarium's value, via Environmental Aesthetics. . The project aims to aesthetically redefine engagement with the plant collection at Royal Botanic Gardens Herbarium (RBG) Sydney and to communicate its artistic, cultural and heritage value to the public through a Public Program of creative arts case studies. It's expected that new insights will arise from an environmental art methodology utilising the digitisation of the Herbarium specimens, so that audiences can intera ....Exploring Botanic Gardens Herbarium's value, via Environmental Aesthetics. . The project aims to aesthetically redefine engagement with the plant collection at Royal Botanic Gardens Herbarium (RBG) Sydney and to communicate its artistic, cultural and heritage value to the public through a Public Program of creative arts case studies. It's expected that new insights will arise from an environmental art methodology utilising the digitisation of the Herbarium specimens, so that audiences can interactively experience the plant archive through narratives that activate plants as underpinning ecosystems. Benefits to partners RBG, Bundanon Trust and Open Humanities Press will include the digital expansion of audience engagement with the Herbarium at RBG and Mt Annan and communication of collection’s significance.Read moreRead less
Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film. This project develops a new interdisciplinary framework for understanding cinema’s unique power to evoke ethical experience via audiovisual means. Combining philosophy with film analysis, it moves beyond the prevalent view that cinema merely illustrates moral situations, and challenges the long-held suspicion toward film’s manipulative aesthetic power. This project proposes instead a model of cinematic ethics: an investigation of how c ....Cinematic Ethics: Exploring Ethical Experience through Film. This project develops a new interdisciplinary framework for understanding cinema’s unique power to evoke ethical experience via audiovisual means. Combining philosophy with film analysis, it moves beyond the prevalent view that cinema merely illustrates moral situations, and challenges the long-held suspicion toward film’s manipulative aesthetic power. This project proposes instead a model of cinematic ethics: an investigation of how cinema evokes ethical experience through emotional, cognitive, and aesthetic engagement. This project will advance the emerging interdisciplinary field of film-philosophy by highlighting film’s under-recognised potential to enhance ethical understanding, and thus to promote greater social awareness and intercultural communication.Read moreRead less
Extinction Imaginaries: Mapping Affective Visual Cultures in Australasia. This project aims to provide NGOs with new strategies for raising awareness of environmental change by investigating what animal extinction means to Australians. Australasia has the highest global extinction rates, yet despite the wide circulation of visual images of extinction little is known about how they affect people. The project expects to address this critical gap by bringing innovative methodologies to the analysis ....Extinction Imaginaries: Mapping Affective Visual Cultures in Australasia. This project aims to provide NGOs with new strategies for raising awareness of environmental change by investigating what animal extinction means to Australians. Australasia has the highest global extinction rates, yet despite the wide circulation of visual images of extinction little is known about how they affect people. The project expects to address this critical gap by bringing innovative methodologies to the analysis of public responses to images of extinction and how they affect social imaginaries. Expected outcomes include research translations with environmental NGOs which should provide significant benefits by addressing public concern for the deteriorating ecosystems that future generations will inherit.
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Real-time Porosity: Using computer gaming technology to map and analyse pedestrian movement in public and private space. This project will make a major, and ongoing, contribution to our understanding of urban space in a major Australian city. The Porosity Lenses will enable a more complete understanding of pedestrian movement that the Emergency Information Coordination Unit (EICU) believes will directly contribute to protecting Australia from terrorism and crime. In the case of terrorism the soc ....Real-time Porosity: Using computer gaming technology to map and analyse pedestrian movement in public and private space. This project will make a major, and ongoing, contribution to our understanding of urban space in a major Australian city. The Porosity Lenses will enable a more complete understanding of pedestrian movement that the Emergency Information Coordination Unit (EICU) believes will directly contribute to protecting Australia from terrorism and crime. In the case of terrorism the socio/economic benefits of even the smallest success can be immeasurable. The need to anticipate and mitigate the impact of catastrophic events on the city will be balanced, in this study, by a concern to maintain freedom of circulation and promote civic opportunities within previously under-utilised zones.Read moreRead less
Cinema and the Senses: Temporality of the films of Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Kumar Shahani. The resulting monograph, articles and seminars will provide new methodologies for Australian cinema studies which has tended to depend on Euro-American models. The project offers three distinct ways of thinking about an ecology of the human senses in and through cinema. The ideas on cine-synaesthesia would link up with current research on this topic in other disciplines such as neurophysiology, ....Cinema and the Senses: Temporality of the films of Stanley Kubrick, Terrence Malick and Kumar Shahani. The resulting monograph, articles and seminars will provide new methodologies for Australian cinema studies which has tended to depend on Euro-American models. The project offers three distinct ways of thinking about an ecology of the human senses in and through cinema. The ideas on cine-synaesthesia would link up with current research on this topic in other disciplines such as neurophysiology, painting and music. The interdisciplinarity of the project offers, to the public sphere of Australian cinema, cross-cultural and cross-media perspectives on film aesthetics. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100120
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$303,000.00
Summary
Citizen photo-journalism: how is it shaping the news? This project aims to investigate contemporary practices in photojournalism in the Australian news media in the wake of massive layoffs among press photographers. In a media landscape that is more visual than ever, a critical question is whether the news media still has the capacity to bear effective witness. Combining ethnographic and social semiotic approaches, this mixed-method project aims to assess the extent to which contemporary photo-j ....Citizen photo-journalism: how is it shaping the news? This project aims to investigate contemporary practices in photojournalism in the Australian news media in the wake of massive layoffs among press photographers. In a media landscape that is more visual than ever, a critical question is whether the news media still has the capacity to bear effective witness. Combining ethnographic and social semiotic approaches, this mixed-method project aims to assess the extent to which contemporary photo-journalistic practices enable high-quality visual storytelling. It also aims to assess the ways in which citizens and organisations outside of journalism, through their engagement with the digital economy, are re-shaping and re-defining photojournalistic practice.Read moreRead less
A Design History of Australian HIV/AIDS Public Health Campaigns 1983-2004. This project investigates the differing roles of governments and community organisations as influential factors in the formulation of graphic representations which characterise the prevention campaigns used in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Australia 1983-2004. It explains how graphic representations, functioning as an index of official and public responses to the epidemic, impact on the aesthetic and professional autonomy of t ....A Design History of Australian HIV/AIDS Public Health Campaigns 1983-2004. This project investigates the differing roles of governments and community organisations as influential factors in the formulation of graphic representations which characterise the prevention campaigns used in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Australia 1983-2004. It explains how graphic representations, functioning as an index of official and public responses to the epidemic, impact on the aesthetic and professional autonomy of the designer. Complimenting existing quantitative assessments this study uses a textual-visual analysis and triangulation method to demonstrate the agency of these institutional constraints placed within the broader range of material forms relating to the campaigns including brochures, posters, and videos.Read moreRead less
The Power of the Image: affect, audience and disturbing imagery. In a period of fear and uncertainty about terrorism and war there is a pressing need to examine the specific contemporary modes of teenagers' engagements with media violence and the ways it contributes to their understanding of violence in the world around them. This project will identify the links young people make between affective and emotional reactions to media imagery, their own values and attitudes about the violence in ever ....The Power of the Image: affect, audience and disturbing imagery. In a period of fear and uncertainty about terrorism and war there is a pressing need to examine the specific contemporary modes of teenagers' engagements with media violence and the ways it contributes to their understanding of violence in the world around them. This project will identify the links young people make between affective and emotional reactions to media imagery, their own values and attitudes about the violence in everyday life (e.g. sexual harassment, bullying, fights at school), and their assessment of their own power and agency. It adds much needed Australian research to a field lacking a distinctive Australian perspective.Read moreRead less