Media and Communications research projects
Speed, time and political process in Australia
Dr Robert Hassan, ARC Senior Research Fellow
The interrelated processes of globalisation and the revolution in information and communications technologies are creating an increasingly networked and high-speed society whose effects have left many areas unexplored and under-analysed. Amongst these are the effects of digital networks and speed upon political processes and institutions within the Australian polity. The project will comprise a five-year theoretical and political-ethnographic study into how formal political processes such as background research, reflective analysis, debate, canvassing of expert opinion, and the awareness of future consequences of political decision-making are affected by the global pressures of the network society and the acceleration of everyday life.
Large Screens and the Transnational Public Sphere
Prof Nikos Papastrgiadis, Prof Sean Cubitt, Assoc Prof Scott McQuire, Prof Ross Gibson, Dooeun Choi, Cecilia Cmielewski, Dr Audrey Yue
This project tests the use of large video screens as a communication platform for constructing an experimental public sphere. The project will pioneer the linking of public screen located in Melbourne and Seoul for three 'urben media events' involving specifically commissioned content utilising live and interactive elements. This will be complemented by qualitative longitudinal analysis of both the process of artistic production and the effects of public dissemination. The project will produce the world's first study of the possibilities of using large video screens as a platform for cultural exchange and transformation of the 'public sphere' of the global era.
Australian Research Council International Linkage Project with University of Technology Sydney, Art Centre Nabi (Seoul) and Australia Council for the Arts
Global Youth & Media - Notions of Cosmopolitanism in the Global Public Space
Assoc Prof Ingrid Volkmer; Dr Robert Hassan; Dr Sarmila Bose, Assoc Prof Martin Hadlow, Prof Klaus Schoenbach, Prof Ruth Teer-Tomaselli, Dr Sigrid Niedermayer, Susan Pascoe, and Laurence Zwimpfer
As Australia repositions itself in the globalized world of the 21st century, an understanding of new global communication spheres is increasingly important. Our research into the mediated experience and expectations of globalization among 14-17 year olds in 12 countries is explicitly concerned with the possibilities of future world citizenship among the most highly networked generation to date. Its findings will be of value to education, media and cultural policy makers in Australia. Through the data and analysis it will provide insights into the changing forms of national and global citizenship, national and global public space, and the integration of both into regional identities and communications.
Australian Research Council Discovery Project with Oxford University, University of Queensland, University of Amsterdam, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Australian National Commission to UNESCO, and UNESCO.
Genealogies of digital light
Prof Sean Cubitt, Dr Daniel Palmer, Dr Les Walkling
This research project will provide a critical account of the capacities and limitations of contemporary digital light-based technologies and techniques by tracing their genealogies and comparing them with their predecessor media. Through interview, analysis, experiment and critique, we hope to demonstrate that artists and artisans have a major role in redefining technologies through technique; and that close acquaintance with and appreciation of their working practices and the principles they work to are a significant resource for future generations.
Australian Research Council Discovery Project with Monash University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Public screens and the transformation of public space
Prof Sean Cubitt, Dr Scott McQuire and Assoc Prof Nikos Papastergiadis
Visit the Spatial Aesththetics website for more information
The aim of this project is to produce a critical analysis of the impact of large electronic screens on contemporary forms of social agency in public space. Our key hypothesis is that the new generation of interactive public screens offer unique opportunities for public participation and civic revitalization. The project proposes an interdisciplinary methodology combining cross-cultural fieldwork with theoretical analysis of artistic interventions into urban culture. These different strands of investigation will culminate in a grounded evaluation of new forms of public engagement. This has strategic relevance to understanding the impact of new media in civic spaces.
Australian Research Council Discovery Project
Media & Citizenship: Transnational Television Cultures Reshaping Political Identities in the European Union
Assoc Prof Ingrid Volkmer, Prof Christina Slade, Dr Myria Georgiou, Dr Leonor Camauër, Dr Chamia Ghanjaoui
Citizenship in the EU is no simple matter. All EU citizens are officially members of a nation state but many share family and languages beyond the Union. The Arabic speakers of the EU have access to over 300 satellite television channels. What is being watched, and how does that viewing contribute to Arabic speakers' understanding of their role in Europe? A consortium of 5 universities is conducting this research (2008 - 2011). The research project is funded by the European Commission.
European Union Framework 7 Research Project with Universiteit Utrecht, University of Leeds, Örebro Universitet, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Media Art History 09 re:live
Prof Sean Cubitt and Dr Paul Thomas
Third International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology to be held in Melbourne, Victoria in 2009. The event follows the success of the two previous Media Art History conferences, re:fresh (Banff 2005) and re:place (Berlin 2007). An initiative of Leonardo/ISAST (International Society for Art, Science and Technology, the conference addresses the following themes: How do the media arts change? Through innovation, accident, discovery, mutation or crisis? How did contemporary media arts come to look and sound like they do? What options and potentialities and eccentricities in the history of media have been lost or overlooked or suppressed? What hopes have been realised and which dashed? What is the history of speculation on alternate histories, and how have they altered the course of media art history?
Supported by Arts Victoria, the Victorian College of Art and the Australia Council for the Arts
More research projects
Further information on the variety of projects in which staff and research fellows are involved is available on their profile pages, which can be accessed from the following pages: