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
Superheroes: Creative Force, Cultural Zeitgeist and Transmedia Phenomenon. Since their emergence in 1938 comic book heroes have become imbedded in our popular culture, becoming part of our modern mythology. In each form and every generation these characters serve as cultural signposts, articulating our loftiest ideals and deep-seated anxieties. The project aims to explore the historic, creative and artistic development of the genre across multiple media and its political and social significance. ....Superheroes: Creative Force, Cultural Zeitgeist and Transmedia Phenomenon. Since their emergence in 1938 comic book heroes have become imbedded in our popular culture, becoming part of our modern mythology. In each form and every generation these characters serve as cultural signposts, articulating our loftiest ideals and deep-seated anxieties. The project aims to explore the historic, creative and artistic development of the genre across multiple media and its political and social significance. The genre has been enormously successful in film, with the top 100 films accounting for approximately $13 billion in profit for the companies that produced them. The project will explore how the successful transmedia crossover further offers insight into the strategies that drive creative industries such as film, television, video games and comics. The project will work with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to develop a Melbourne Winter Masterpiece exhibition and a series of research projects, public events and an international conference to engage both the general public and academics.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100578
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$413,745.00
Summary
Art and cultural diplomacy. This project aims to investigate questions about cross-cultural communication through the circulation of art objects across the globe. Focusing on early modern diplomatic gifts that are now housed in museums around the world, this project examines the preservation and display of material culture in contemporary museology. Expected outcomes of this project include a better understanding of the role of art in cultural diplomacy, new digital methods for the analysis of c ....Art and cultural diplomacy. This project aims to investigate questions about cross-cultural communication through the circulation of art objects across the globe. Focusing on early modern diplomatic gifts that are now housed in museums around the world, this project examines the preservation and display of material culture in contemporary museology. Expected outcomes of this project include a better understanding of the role of art in cultural diplomacy, new digital methods for the analysis of cultural networks, and advanced theories for understanding cultural identity in an increasingly connected world.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100795
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$412,606.00
Summary
Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message ....Message sticks: Long-distance communication in Indigenous Australia. Message sticks are marked wooden objects that were once used throughout Indigenous Australia to convey important information between communities. The intended outcome of this project is to answer a central question: What role did message sticks play in Indigenous long-distance communication? Drawing on archival evidence and original fieldwork in the Top End, the project aims to be the first empirically grounded study of message sticks as a practice. The project expects to define message sticks as a class of material culture, explain their communicative dynamics, generate new cross-cultural insights, and strengthen collaborations between research institutions, museums and Indigenous cultural organisations. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230101262
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$458,318.00
Summary
Art, Migration, State-Building: India in the Indian Ocean World. This project aims to investigate the historical movement of objects, knowledge, and people across cultures in the Indian Ocean world, countering the Eurocentric framework of previous scholarship by adopting a trans-Asian network lens. Focusing on art and architecture in fifteenth-century central India, it examines how an independent, largely Muslim state comprised of migrants fashioned itself through works of art that challenged cu ....Art, Migration, State-Building: India in the Indian Ocean World. This project aims to investigate the historical movement of objects, knowledge, and people across cultures in the Indian Ocean world, countering the Eurocentric framework of previous scholarship by adopting a trans-Asian network lens. Focusing on art and architecture in fifteenth-century central India, it examines how an independent, largely Muslim state comprised of migrants fashioned itself through works of art that challenged cultural and geographical boundaries. This project expects to advance new methodologies for studying hybrid visual cultures, generate new knowledge about the dynamics of global connectedness in the early modern era, and deepen our understanding of the mechanics of migration and cultural exchange today.Read moreRead less
Reconfiguring the World: China. Art. Agency, 1900s to Now. This research project will use modern and contemporary Chinese art to understand intercultural communication in the 21st century. It will do this by recovering forgotten histories and perspectives on modern and contemporary Chinese art in a global context. It will map the complexities of understanding Chinese art and charts the misunderstandings that have arisen in engaging with China.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101607
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$395,220.00
Summary
Moving Stories: Emerging Documentary Desert Painting and Interactive New Media. New forms and practices of desert Aboriginal women's 'documentary' art and media that depart markedly from the Dreaming story-based traditions are emerging in a context of severe socio-economic disadvantage. The implications of this important 'witnessing' work have not yet been studied. This project is an innovative arts practice-led ethnographic study that will investigate the significance of experimental narrative- ....Moving Stories: Emerging Documentary Desert Painting and Interactive New Media. New forms and practices of desert Aboriginal women's 'documentary' art and media that depart markedly from the Dreaming story-based traditions are emerging in a context of severe socio-economic disadvantage. The implications of this important 'witnessing' work have not yet been studied. This project is an innovative arts practice-led ethnographic study that will investigate the significance of experimental narrative-based desert arts, focusing on documentary paintings and their transformation into interactive animated multi-lingual multimedia works. It will critically assess digitally creative intercultural collaboration as a key mode of contemporary Indigenous cultural survival and national cultural production.Read moreRead less
Caring for Cosmologies: Making Living Maps for West Miyarrka. This project aims to develop a new kind of digital mapping to document endangered forms of knowledge along a coastline under threat from climate change. The project expects to draw on unique Yolngu knowledge practices and representational systems - with traditional owners and managers guiding digital media experts, rangers and artists. Expected outcomes include: 1) expanded Indigenous research capacities and digital expertise; and, 2) ....Caring for Cosmologies: Making Living Maps for West Miyarrka. This project aims to develop a new kind of digital mapping to document endangered forms of knowledge along a coastline under threat from climate change. The project expects to draw on unique Yolngu knowledge practices and representational systems - with traditional owners and managers guiding digital media experts, rangers and artists. Expected outcomes include: 1) expanded Indigenous research capacities and digital expertise; and, 2) access to novel resources for a new generation of Indigenous leaders. Benefits include: enhanced intergenerational and intercultural knowledge transmission and negotiation; methods adaptable to other Indigenous contexts; and greater national recognition of Indigenous seeing and caring for country.Read moreRead less