School of Culture and Communication

Research interests

Media theory; new media; digital technology; urban communication; interactions between media and public space; participatory culture; mobile media; media arts; digital cinema.

 

Biography

Scott McQuire joined the Media and Communications Program in 2001 and co-founded the Spatial Aesthetics research program for interdisciplinary research linking the fields of new media, contemporary art, urbanism, and social theory in 2004. He is the author or editor of 7 books and over 100 essays in journals, books and exhibition catalogues. His most recent sole-authored book The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space (Sage/Theory Culture and Society 2008) won the 2009 Jane Jacobs Publication Award presented by the Urban Communication Foundation. His most recent collaborative book is the Urban Screens Reader (2009) co-edited with Meredith Martin and Sabine Niederer.

Scott has been Chief Investigator on seven grants from the Australian Research Council. He has also received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, and has undertaken research consultancies for the Communications Law Centre, the Communications Alliance, the Australian Film Commission and the Australian Key Centre for Media and Cultural Policy. He has held a number of research fellowships including visiting fellowships at the Department of Film, Theatre and Television, UCLA (1998) and a visiting fellowship at the Celeste Bartos International Film Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2000). Scott is a member of the Executive Committee of the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society at the University of Melbourne where he co-chairs the Social Infrastructure and Community theme.

 

 

Current research

My research explores the social effects of media technologies, with particular attention to their impact on the social relations of space and time, the formation of identity, and the dynamics of cities. I am currently Chief Investigator on two ARC funded projects. Large Screens and the Transnational Public Sphere (2009-13) is a five year project exploring the potential for linking up large video screens in public spaces in Melbourne and Seoul for live events using specially commissioned interactive artworks. Participatory Public space:  A right to the networked city (2012-14) explores the interplay between technology, policy, culture and user-led innovation in the context of networked public space.  I am currently completing a book GEOMEDIA: networked cities and the politics of public space for Polity press.

 

Postgraduate Supervisions 

Current PhD Students

“Creative Practice, Creative Research, Creative Industries: The transformation of the creative practitioner in the research university”.

“Migrant Cartographies Constructed through Mediated Cosmopolitanism”. (associate supervisor)

"Digital interactive narratives in networked public environments".

“The critical potential of post-autonomist Marxist theories of subjectivity and global capitalism in the framework of networked communication”. (associate supervisor)

“New Media, Spatio-temporality and Dimensional Politics: The Latent Aesthetics of Mapping". (associate supervisor)

“Friendology: the Negotiation of Intimacy on Facebook”.

“Location-based Gaming and the Politics of Play in the City”. 

“Jeff Wall: a photo-concept of the picture”.

“Technology as a process of embodied dynamics in the art of Rafael Lozano-Hemmer”. (MA)

“Meteorological Art”.

“Technology and changing cultural practices: music in the age of digital networks”.

 

Completed

“Gaming rhythms: play and counterplay from the situated to the global”.

“Forms in Flux: the shifting sites of photographic practice”.

“Beyond telling: in making stories of traumatic memory”. (co-supervisor)

“Interactive television: impact on the Australian television industry 1999-2007”. (MA)

“Dynamics of critical internet culture (1994-2001)”.

“Culture, Identity and Trade in the European Union: regulating television content in the global era”.

“Moving images, the museum and a politics of movement : a study of the museum visitor”.

 “Remote participation and the distributed court : an approach to court architecture in the age of video-mediated communications”. (Architecture – supervisory panel)

"Attachments and dislocations: everyday life in the mobile media system". (associate supervisor)

"Processing the animated documentary". (associate supervisor)

 

Teaching

• MECM 3004 Media Futures & New Technologies
• MECM 9007 Media Convergence and Digital Culture
• MECM 9003 Mobility, Culture and Communication

Full subject descriptions are available in the University of Melbourne Handbook.

 

Selected Publications 

Books

The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space, London, Sage/Theory Culture and Society series, 2008 (228p). Complex Chinese language edition contracted to Weber Publications. 

Visions of Modernity: Representation, Memory, Time and Space in the Age of the Camera, Sage, London, 1998. (288p)

The Look of Love (with photographs by Peter Lyssiotis), limited edition artists’ book, Masterthief, Melbourne, 1998. 

Maximum Vision; Large Format and Special Venue Cinema, Australian Film Commission, Sydney and Australian Key Centre for Media and Cultural Policy, Brisbane, 1999 (156p) 

Crossing the Digital Threshold, Australian Film Commission, Sydney and Australian Key Centre for Media and Cultural Policy, Brisbane, 1997 (64p).

 

Edited Books

McQuire, S. Martin, M. and Niederer, S. (eds.) Urban Screens Reader, Amsterdam, Institute of Network Cultures, 2009 (288p). Available at networkcultures.org 

McQuire, S. and Papastergiadis, N. (eds.)  Empires, Ruins + Networks: The Transcultural Agenda in Art, Melbourne, Melbourne, University Press and London, Rivers Orams Press, 2005 (319p). Details at The Australian Centre Publications Archive.

 

Book chapters  

McQuire, S. (2011) ‘Virilio’s Media as Philosophy’ in Armitage, J. (ed.) Virilio Now: Current Perspectives in Virilio Studies, Polity, 92-114.

McQuire S.  ‘City times: negotiating public space in the 21st century city’ in Keightley, E. (ed.) Time in modernity: Changing media, alternative temporalities, Palgrave MacMillan (forthcoming 2012).

McQuire, S. 2011. ‘Geomedia, networked culture and participatory public space’, in Hinkel,  R. (ed.) Urban Interior: informal explorations, interventions and occupations, Spurbuchverlag, Baunach, Germany, pp. 113-128. 

McQuire S. 2010 ‘Media technologies, mobility and the nation state’ in Handbook of Cultural Sociology, John Hall, Laura Grindstaff  and Ming-Cheng Lo (eds.), London and New York, Routledge, pp. 598-607.

McQuire S. 2009. Mobility, Cosmopolitanism and Public Space in the Media City.  Urban Screens Reader. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 45-64.

McQuire S & Gibbons, M. 2009. Public Space Broadcasting: An Interview with Mike Gibbons.  Urban Screens Reader. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 135-143.

McQuire S, Martin M & Brennan, K. 2009. Sustaining Public Space: An Interview with Kate Brennan.  Urban Screens Reader. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 121-133.

McQuire S & Schuijren J. 2009. Putting Art Into Public Space: An Interview with Jan Schuijren.  Urban Screens Reader. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 145-150.

McQuire, S., Martin, M. and Papastergiadis, N. 2009 ‘Large Screens, Cultural Creativity And The Global City’ in Lim, W. (ed.) Asian Design Culture, Singapore, AA Asia & Singapore Design: 43-53.

McQuire S. 2009 Public Screens, Civic Architecture and the Transnational Public Sphere. In Doring, J. and Thielmann, T. (eds.) Mediengeography: Theory - Analyse - Diskussion (Media Geography: Theory - Analysis - Discussion). Bielefeld, Germany: Verlag fur Regionalgeschichte, pp. 565-587. 

McQuire S. 2008.  ‘Film in the Age of Digital Media’, in Donald, J. and Renov. M.  (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Film Studies, London, Sage, pp. 493-510.

McQuire S. 2007. ‘Space for rent in the last suburb', in Bell, D. and Kennedy, B.  (eds.)  The Cybercultures Reader (2nd edition), London, Routledge, 66-79. 

McQuire S. 2006. ‘Dream Cities: The Uncanny Powers of Electric Light’, in Potts, J and Scheer, E. (eds.) Technologies of Magic; A cultural study of ghosts, machines and the uncanny. Sydney, Power Publications, pp. 2-13. 

McQuire S and Papastergiadis, N. 2006.  ‘History On Trial’, in Dennis Del Favero, Ursula  Frohne, Anna Munster, Jeffrey Shaw (eds.)  Conversation (Digital Arts Edition DVD and book, iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, UNSW, Sydney; ACMI, Melbourne; ZKM, Centre for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; the  International University Bremen, Bremen (IUB).

McQuire S. 2005. ‘Screening Urban Space’ in Lehmann, S. (ed.) Absolutely Public. Crossover: Art and Architecture, Melbourne, Images Publishing Group, pp. 60-65. 

McQuire S. 2005.  ‘The Burden of Culture in the Global City’ in McQuire, S and 
Papastergiadis, N. (eds.) Empires, Ruins + Networks: The Transcultural Agenda in Art,  Melbourne, Melbourne, University Press and London, Rivers Orams Press, pp. 204- 209. 

McQuire S. 2005. ‘After Empire’ in McQuire and Papastergiadis (eds.)  Empires, Ruins + Networks: The Transcultural Agenda in Art, Melbourne, Melbourne, University Press and London, Rivers Orams Press, pp. 2-10. 

McQuire S and Papastergiadis, N. 2005  ‘From Parafunctional Spaces to Shiny Ruins’ in N Tsoutas (ed.), Knowledge + Dialogue + Exchange: Remapping Cultural Globalisms From the South, Artspace, Sydney, 2005, pp. 83-100. 

McQuire S. 2004. ‘City Surfaces’ in Creative Cities: Cinema and the Built Environment, CIRAC, Brisbane, pp. 29-34.  

McQuire S. 2004 ‘Art of the Future: The Land that has never been yet.  And yet must be’ in Gerz, J. (ed.) Die Anthologie der Kunst, Cologne, Dumont Verlag, pp. 47-49.

McQuire S. 2003. ‘Paul Virilio’, in Elliott, A. and Ray, L. (eds.), Key Contemporary Social Theorists, Blackwell, London, pp. 259-266.

McQuire S. 2003. ‘The cathedral of fictions’ in Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel (eds.)  Future Cinema. The Cinematic Imaginary after Film, (eds.), ZKM, Karlsruhe and The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 134-35.

McQuire S. 2002. ‘Space for rent in the last suburb’, in Cavallaro, A, Johnson, A. and Tofts, D. (eds.) Prefiguring Cyberculture, Power Publications & MIT Press, pp. 166-178.

McQuire S. 2002. ‘Walls of light— immaterial architectures’’ in Stuart Koop (ed.), Value-Added Goods, Melbourne, Centre for Contemporary Photography, pp. 159-167.

McQuire S. 2001. ‘When is art IT?’ in Hugh Brown et al (eds.), Politics of a Digital Present: An Inventory of Australian Net Culture, Criticism and Theory, Melbourne: Fibreculture Publications, pp. 205-213. 

‘The public and the private: John Berger’s writing on photography and memory’ in Papastergiadis, N. (ed.) What John Berger Saw, ANU Canberra School of Art Gallery, Canberra, 2000, pp. 127-140.

‘Blinded by the (speed of) light’ in Armitage, J. (ed.) Paul Virilio: From Modernism to Hypermodernism and Beyond, Sage, London, 2000, pp. 143-160.

 

Articles in refereed journals

McQuire S. 2011. ‘City Life’ , Theory, Culture & Society, 28 (4): 151-156

McQuire, S. and Radywyl, N. (2010) ‘From Object to Platform: Digital Technology and Temporality’, Time and Society, 19 (1): 1-23. 

McQuire S. 2010. ‘Rethinking “Media Events”: large screens, public space broadcasting and beyond’, New Media and Society 12 (4) 2010: 567–582.

McQuire, S. Papastergiadis, N, Cubitt, S. 2008 ‘Public Screens and the Transformation of Public Space’, Refractory: a journal of entertainment media 12.

McQuire S. 2007. ‘Immersion, reflexivity and distraction:  spatial strategies for digital cities’, Journal of Visual Communication 6 (2): 146-155.

McQuire S. 2006. ‘Technology’, Theory, Culture and Society, 23 (2/3): 253-265. 

McQuire S. 2006. ‘The Politics of Public Space’, First Monday Special Issue #4: 'Urban Screens – Discovering the potential of outdoor screens for urban society' (February 2006) .

McQuire S. 2005. ‘Immaterial architectures: Urban Space and Electric Light', Space and Culture,  8 (2):  126-140.

McQuire S. 2005. ‘From code to the everyday’, Continuum 19:3, 2005: 427-434.

McQuire S. 2004. ‘Slow train coming? The transition to digital distribution and exhibition in cinema‘ Media International Australia, 110: 105-119.

McQuire S. 2004. ‘Dream Cities: The Uncanny Powers of Electric Light’, Scan: Journal of media arts culture, 1 (2).

McQuire S. 2003. ‘From glass architecture to Big Brother’, Cultural Studies Review 9 (1): 103-123.

McQuire S. 2002 ‘Impact aesthetics: back to the future in digital cinema?’, Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 6 (2): 41-61.

McQuire S. 1999. ‘Blinded by the (speed of) light’, Theory Culture and Society, 16 (5): 143-159.

McQuire S. 1999 ‘Digital dialectics: the paradox of cinema in a studio without walls’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 19(3): pp. 379-397.

Major Catalogue Essays  

McQuire, S. 2011, 'Distant wars, cool screens' in Lyssiotis, P. and Oppen, M. The Silent Scream: Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists, Ant Press, Petersham NSW, pp58-61. 

McQuire S. 2010.  ‘Awaiting the barbarians on the road to Baghdad’, catalogue essay for Phillip George, Edge of Empire, Breenspace, Sydney. 

McQuire S. 2008. ‘Tongues untied: speaking sex in the space between feeling and knowing’ in Engberg, J. (ed.) (2008) Darwin with Tears, Melbourne, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, pp. 21-24. 

McQuire S. 2008. ‘Architecture under erasure: Scratching the surface of the wounded city’, The City: A Memory Album, exhibition in the Cowan Gallery at the State Library Victoria, October 2008-April 2009 (no page numbers). 

McQuire S. 2007. ‘Interstitial moments’ in Hjorth, L. (ed.) Waiting for Immediacy, pp. 20-23 (English and Korean). 

McQuire S. 2006 ‘Electrical storms’ in Callas, P. The Invisible Histories of the Present, Budapdest, Pixel Gallery & Jovo Hava.  (trans. into Hungarian), pp. 9-31. 

McQuire S. 2001 ‘Space creation: lessons from the city’ in Lynn, V. (ed.), Space Odysseys: Sensation and Immersion, Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, pp. 64-70.

McQuire S. 2000.  ‘The rites of the photographic passage’ in Trois Photographes Australiens à Genève, Galerie Rivolta, Geneva, 2000 (French and English, no page numbers)

McQuire S. 1999. ‘Electrical storms: high speed historiography in the video art of Peter Callas’, in Cavallaro, A. (ed.), Initialising History, Sydney, Dlux Media Arts, pp. 30-47.

McQuire S. 1998. ‘Burn everything, save nothing: The laws of memory, the riddles of forgetting’ in Defteros, G. (ed.) Mnemosyne, or do humans dream in negative strips?,  Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, pp. 14-16.

McQuire S. 1998. ‘Pure speed: from transport to teleport’ in Millar, J. and Schwarz, M. (eds.), Speed: Visions of an Accelerated Age, London, Photographers Gallery, pp. 26-33.

McQuire S. 1997. ‘Unofficial histories’ in Smith, T. (ed.), Archives and the Everyday, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, pp. 79-87.

 

Articles in non-refereed journals 

McQuire, S. 2011 ‘Passanten and Projektionen: wie Künstler in Metropolen bespielen und vernzetzen’  (German), KULTURAUSTAUSCH: Zeitschrinft für internationale Perspektivan 61 (2/3), 90-91. 

  McQuire, S. 'The dilemma of public space in cities on the move: control space and ludic space', Aether: the journal of media geography (forthcoming).

McQuire, S. 2011 'The art of interactive lighting', Realtime 104.

McQuire, S. 2010 ‘Sun work: mathematics as media’, Realtime 97.

McQuire, S. 2009. 'Making images with audiences’, Realtime 89 (Feb-March) 2009), p. 22.

McQuire, S., Papastergiadis, N. and Cubitt, S. 2009.  ‘Transient Media, Public Screens’, Public: Art/Culture/Ideas 37: (Special 20th anniversary issue) 76-85. 

McQuire, S., Papastergiadis, N., Martin, M. and Cubitt, S. 2009. ‘Moving Messages & Uncertain Content’, Realtime, 84 April-May, p. 30.

McQuire, S. 2001. ‘Fritz Lang’s M’, Metro 127-128:  210-213

McQuire, S. and Papastergiadis, N. 2001. ‘Cityscapes and dreamscraps’, Camera Austria 76: 71-72 (photographs by Peter Lyssiotis)

McQuire, S. 2000. ‘“I’m not a racist, I’m a realist”: snapshots from Fortress Australia’ (photographs by Peter Lyssiotis), Camera Austria 71, 2000.

McQuire, S. 2000. ‘Liquid Architecture’ in Fear, B (ed.) Architecture and Film II,  Architecture and Design, 70 (1), pp. 6-8 (with photographs by Peter Lyssiotis).

McQuire, S. 1999. ‘Pages from the City of Strangers’, Photofile 57: 12-17 (with photographs by Peter Lyssiotis). 

McQuire, S. 1999. 'Video theory' Globe.