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
What is successful public art today?: exploring how contemporary public art and memorial design shapes public engagement, perceptions and behaviour. Much public money is invested in public art and memorials. The research explores critical questions of value: what the public enjoys about such artworks, if and how artworks contribute amenity to public spaces, and whether recent artworks engage effectively with social memory, identity and politics. The research situates local practice within intern ....What is successful public art today?: exploring how contemporary public art and memorial design shapes public engagement, perceptions and behaviour. Much public money is invested in public art and memorials. The research explores critical questions of value: what the public enjoys about such artworks, if and how artworks contribute amenity to public spaces, and whether recent artworks engage effectively with social memory, identity and politics. The research situates local practice within international trends, to inform Australian designers, policymakers, art patrons and public space managers about recent innovations in technology, craft, creativity and critique, so they can create and choose public artworks and memorials which engage with the potentials of contemporary arts practice, the complexities of contemporary culture, and the diversity of social behaviour in public spaces.Read moreRead less
Curating Cities: the social and ecological potential of public art practice. This project researches the contribution of public art to eco-sustainable development, focusing on world’s best practice and potential benefits to Sydney and cities in general. It seeks to establish how the arts can promote environmentally beneficial behaviour change and the development of green infrastructure.
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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THE UNWRITTEN HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN MODERNISM. Most histories treat modernism in Australia as a phenomenon of ?fine art,? or simply painting. This project will instead reveal modernism's highly public impact across a range of media (design, photography, advertising, architecture and art). This new history will better explain how modernist visual idioms became ubiquitous in everyday contemporary design and our built environment after their initial, often hostile reception. The project will provid ....THE UNWRITTEN HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN MODERNISM. Most histories treat modernism in Australia as a phenomenon of ?fine art,? or simply painting. This project will instead reveal modernism's highly public impact across a range of media (design, photography, advertising, architecture and art). This new history will better explain how modernist visual idioms became ubiquitous in everyday contemporary design and our built environment after their initial, often hostile reception. The project will provide an integrated research analysis of the extensive, but disparate, archives on Australian modernism. It will communicate its research findings through a new scholarly study, a major large-scale travelling public exhibition, a CD, and a website.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE0775489
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$300,000.00
Summary
Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, DAAO: public release version. The DAAO is already positioned as the sole system for the creation and discovery of research into art history in Australia. The DAAO will provide global exposure of Australian research and artists with tangible benefits both economically for cultural industries (including the art industry and tourism) and socially. It will also increase the breadth and depth of general knowledge of Australian art, contributing to the developm ....Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, DAAO: public release version. The DAAO is already positioned as the sole system for the creation and discovery of research into art history in Australia. The DAAO will provide global exposure of Australian research and artists with tangible benefits both economically for cultural industries (including the art industry and tourism) and socially. It will also increase the breadth and depth of general knowledge of Australian art, contributing to the development of national identity through the diversity and richness of Australia's visual cultures. Read moreRead less
Gravity and quantum-limited measurements with a fundamental minimum length. This project aims to investigate the effects of a fundamental minimum length on the nature of gravity and on how accurately we can make measurements in our world. The key challenge is to combine our best theories of fundamental physics to model what happens at ultra-short distances. This project will generate new knowledge at this interface by using a novel approach inspired by information theory. The expected outcomes a ....Gravity and quantum-limited measurements with a fundamental minimum length. This project aims to investigate the effects of a fundamental minimum length on the nature of gravity and on how accurately we can make measurements in our world. The key challenge is to combine our best theories of fundamental physics to model what happens at ultra-short distances. This project will generate new knowledge at this interface by using a novel approach inspired by information theory. The expected outcomes are new connections between fundamental limitations on measurements, the nature of gravitation, and ultra-small-scale quantum physics. The benefit of this work is breaking the logjam in answering the most important open question in all of physics: how to unite quantum theory and gravitation.Read moreRead less
Self-supervised feature learning for rapid processing of marine imagery. Fast and reliable quantitative estimates of marine environmental health are needed for scientific studies, design and management of protected areas, and regulatory compliance of industrial activity in the ocean. Australia is collecting seafloor images at increasing rates but expert annotations are not keeping up, meaning that typical machine learning approaches struggle. This project will develop self-supervised techniques ....Self-supervised feature learning for rapid processing of marine imagery. Fast and reliable quantitative estimates of marine environmental health are needed for scientific studies, design and management of protected areas, and regulatory compliance of industrial activity in the ocean. Australia is collecting seafloor images at increasing rates but expert annotations are not keeping up, meaning that typical machine learning approaches struggle. This project will develop self-supervised techniques that use large amounts of unlabeled data to enhance performance. Our design takes advantage of additional information available for marine imagery such as geolocation and remote sensing context. We will explore how these representations can guide additional sampling and improve performance in classification tasks.Read moreRead less
A new theory of Aboriginal art. The paradigms developed by scholars have a huge impact on the value of art. After the Australian artworld repositioned Aboriginal art from the frame of 'primitive art' to that of contemporary art, the price of and market for Aboriginal art increased enormously. However, Aboriginal art failed to penetrate the international contemporary artworld because the paradigms of contemporary art within which it was framed were outmoded. Through examining the production of Ab ....A new theory of Aboriginal art. The paradigms developed by scholars have a huge impact on the value of art. After the Australian artworld repositioned Aboriginal art from the frame of 'primitive art' to that of contemporary art, the price of and market for Aboriginal art increased enormously. However, Aboriginal art failed to penetrate the international contemporary artworld because the paradigms of contemporary art within which it was framed were outmoded. Through examining the production of Aboriginal art from the perspectives of its producers and recent globalised contemporary art practices, this project aims to develop a new theory of Aboriginal art that is more aligned with the thinking of current curators who set the agenda at the upper end of the market.Read moreRead less