#QUT Creative Lab

[lcurham]

Wordpress site changes bio and CV

BIO

Louise Curham uses her art and her expertise as an archivist to explore how we can look after things we can’t digitise. Louise invites us to think about the wisdom that accompanies things we want to keep and how we can pass that on.

Louise writes: Keeping heritage can be a difficult business. Our commonsense assumption is that the internet and digital systems will save and store everything, but some things don’t digitise well. Here’s an example: under the nom-de-plume of ‘Teaching and Learning Cinema’, an artist-colleague and I re-enact Expanded Cinema, a form of live art that involves film projection and performance. One of our projects re-enacts a seminal British expanded cinema work, Guy Sherwin’s Man With Mirror (1976). When we first made this re-enactment, we produced a user’s manual. We recently tested the manual with Australian artist Laura Hindmarsh. 

Laura’s experience shows that the ‘item’ Man With Mirror is an example of heritage that can’t be comprehensively recorded and transferred textually or diagrammatically.   It includes a batch of ‘embodied data’ that needs  body-to-body transmission, passing on in person from one user to the next. For Laura to carry out her own re-enactment, despite the diligent instructions in the manual, she relied upon information conveyed in-person in real time from my colleague Lucas and I, as indeed, before her, Lucas and I had relied upon information from Guy Sherwin to make our re-enactment.  What this means is that we need to keep the things, and the wisdom that goes with them.

Louise is a researcher in the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra, until very recently, an archivist in the Australian Government and an artist who specialises in obsolete technology. Louise trained in film, later in live arts and archives. Both live arts and archives continue to run parallel in her career. Currently finalising her PhD at the University of Canberra, Louise’s research draws together art and archives, exploring how we keep things we can’t digitise. The data set for this research takes the form of performance art re-enactments from the 1970s.

As an archivist, Louise works for the Australian Government, setting policy and curating future archives. As a consultant archivist Louise has conducted significance assessments on several seminal small arts collections. In live art, Louise performs with obsolete media such as 16mm and super 8mm film. She collaborates with luminaries in Australian contemporary, classical and jazz music, in key venues and festivals in Australia and internationally. Louise’s films are in the collections of the region’s film archives. 

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CV

Education PhD, Centre for Creative & Cultural Research, Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra (2014–) Graduate Diploma Information Science (Archives & Records) Edith Cowan University 2010 Graduate Certificate Audiovisual Archiving, Charles Sturt University, 2005 Master of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, Sydney 2004 Bachelor Film & Television, VCA School of Film & Television, Melbourne 1993

Solo exhibitions A Film of One’s Own [Archive Fever], PhotoAccess, Canberra, November 2015 A Film of One’s Own [Fugue Solos], Performance Space 2005, NZ Film Archive Media Gallery Wellington 2006, Te Manawa ART Palmerston North, NZ 2006 Floodgate (2006) College Gallery, QUT in the OtherFilm Festival, 2006 Moving Still Life Blackwood Gallery Melbourne 1999, UNSW Hutchison Gallery 2002, Kudos Gallery Sydney 2004 Herbaceous, NZ Film Archive Auckland, 2003

Selected group exhibitions The Stand-in Lab with Lynn Loo, PhotoAccess Canberra 2019 Encyclopedia of Forgotten Things, Faculty Arts & Design Group Show, Belconnen Arts Centre, May 2016 Slowing Down Time, Belconnen Arts Centre 2015, Articulate Project Space, Sydney Mar 2014 & FCA Gallery, Wollongong Aug, 2014 Still Life | Moving Fragments, Belconnen Arts Centre; Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney 2012 Propositions and Game Plans, Melbourne International Arts Festival, 2007

Selected re-enactment events Teaching & Learning Cinema expanded cinema re-enactment projects inc. Horror Film 1, CCAS June 2014; Hollow in the Paper, CAST, Hobart 2013; Unconscious Archives Salon, London 2013; The Parlour in 13 Rooms, Sydney April 2013; Imprint, Artspace Sydney, 2009; Performance Space, Sydney 2007.

As curator & convenor Stand-in Lab events program in the Stand-in Lab exhibition, PhotoAccess Canberra 2019 Poetry Film screening in Poetry on the Move symposium, University of Canberra, Sep 2016 Teaching & Learning Cinema events 2006 ongoing. Highlights include Photochemical Games and 16mm from the ‘70s the films of artist Malcolm Le Grice at Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra 2013.

Selected performances Yokohama Flowers with Erik Griswold, Brisbane 2019 In a Bone Way with Debra Di Centa, Dance on the Edge, Belconnen Arts Centre, 2018 Tracer film performance for prepared screen and haiku in You Are Here Festival, Canberra, April 2016 Room 40's Open Frame with Chris Abrahams, Carriageworks Sydney, July 2015 The Film Remains the Same film performance in You Are Here Festival, Canberra 2014 Unconsious Archives at Café Oto, London, June 2013 SoundOut Festival, Canberra 2013, 2014 Melbourne International Arts Festival, Soak, with the Australian Art Orchestra, 2010 Jazz Visions Festival, Sound Lounge, Sydney, 2010 NZ International Film Festival, Frames Per Second A Film of One's Own, Auckland, 2009 Waiting to Turn into Puzzles at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 2008 Val Camonica Pieces, Victorian Arts Centre, 2007 OtherFilm annual festival, Brisbane 2006-8; NowNow annual exploratory music festival, Sydney, 2006-9

Residencies Bundanon 2012; University of Wollongong artist-in-residence 2008; BankART 1929 Artists-in-studios residency Yokohama Japan 2007; Performance Space 2007; UNSW union artist-in-residence 2002

Filmography Dance films: Knee Deep in Thin Air 1992; Fugue in Pursuit of Flight 1994; Slipped 1997;Doona Grrl, Transparent 2000 Other films: Johnny & Irenie 1993;The Princess & The Pea 2000; Tenho Saudades (with Peter Humble) 2004; Conimbla 2009

[pixelsniper]

QUT Creative Lab Art & Science Scholarships

QUT Creative Lab Art & Science Scholarships

Just released!! QUT Creative Lab now has 5 exciting Art & Science Scholarships available for applications throughout September! Do you want to be paid to research & create works that span the science lab/field science environment and QUT’s Creative Research centre? If so, please consider applying ASAP for a doctoral scholarship to work with our committed ecological scientists, robotic scientists…

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[dpgold]

My journey continues….

(Page 2014)

This blog is a continuation of a series. See here (Page 2016a) for the previous blog.

Year 2016: 5th Observation Part c

Whilst I was making headway with the development of my music praxis – significant headway in my opinion – , my actual production plan still did not have the degree of clarity I had hoped for after four (4) weeks. I therefore decided to go through each step of my Praxis v5a in terms of my production process, deliberately and systematically.

Figure I – Praxis v5a (Page 2016b)

In following this process I made my 5th Observation.

Figure II – 5th Observation (Page 2017)

Practice

Of the five (5) stages of practice, I was in the first stage of creative practice: the creative stage.

Creative Stage

Pre-production Stage

Production Stage

Post-Production Stage

Distribution Stage

 In the creative stage, I brainstormed a number of Project 1 creative ideas based on my project brief. The five (5) track EP was to be representative of some aspect of my life: past, present or future envisioning.

Site

The next element listed in my Praxis 5a was site.

“Listening to the making of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ (with Alan Parsons as engineer), I ponder…. Unlike so many US bands of the time whose core attraction was the live performance, Pink Floyd and other British bands I was predominantly listening to and influenced by, effectively used the studio as their stage” (Page 2016c; Gallagher 2012; Price 2015; Ryan & Kehew 2006)

For me, I had always been a performer. In the tradition of US bands, my core expression was on stage in a live performance. I had recorded specific music styles that I knew could translate easily to the live sound context – the stage in a venue. However, the musical style I was focussing on here – psychedelic rock – clearly had demands for different types of technology required.

The music style I was pursuing was inspired by British-based psychedelic rock artists of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The site of these performances were in the studio, and therefore each of these creations were done with the aid of studio-based technologies.

Technologies

In order for me as an artist/performer to be able replicate and reproduce the range of studio-created music and sonic tones, I was going to need access to these devices. I pondered: how was this to be done in the production process effectively and efficiently?

I had at this time access to an elaborate range of virtual technologies third (3rd) party plug-in instruments and processors. These included replications of many analogue devices of the particular production era I was focussed on – late 1960’s and early 1970’s – , including instruments such as synthesisers; and audio processors in the three categories of spectral, dynamic and time-domain.

Figure III – 3rd Party Plug-Ins by Manufacturer (Page 2016d)

Whilst I had access to some of the more notable manufacturers such as Eventide, Lexicon and SSL; along with access to a broad range of more recent notable manufacturers such as AIR Music Technology, Antares Audio Technologies, Avid, East West, IK Multimedia, Massey Plugins Inc, Native Instruments, PSP Audioware, Sonixvox, Sonnox, SoundToys, XILS-Labs and iZotope; I wondered  whether the virtual technology replications were going to allow me the dense layering of the textures required for the psychedelic music style. Analogue processing devices were well regarded for their warmth of tone and range of sonics, with music recorded with such equipment often characterised with aesthetically pleasing device-induced distortion, hum and other noise associated with imperfect analogue devices [1].

Technology – Stage versus Studio

Of the technology I could readily access – contemporary equipment of analogue, digital or digital virtual devices – either within my studio, at either the SAE Institute studios (as a full-time Senior Lecturer), or at the QUT studios (as a post-graduate research student) what was going to assist me in this process? My mind wandered considering many options.

My performance live rig was quite elaborate for its function to reproduce typical guitar-based rock music. With other floor-based – analogue and digital – devices, and a broad range of analogue guitar amplifiers, my live rig setup was flexible. With a range of – mostly digital – dynamic, spectral and time-based processors, I could reproduce and sculpt just about any music and sonic tone to reproduce just about any contemporary organic rock-type sound in a performance situation, on stage. In addition, I also have a range of guitar emulators – such as the Fractal Axe-FXII – that allowed me to bypass the use of any guitar amplifiers, and go directly into a venue’s PA system, exponentially expanding the music and sonic palette I could access.

Figure IV – Live rig (Page 2016e)

However, psychedelic rock music was more complex, with multiple textures and layers that occurred often simultaneously. Was my rig in its current form going to be sufficient? Whats more, if I did create psychedelic-based music in my studio – with multiple textures and layers – using my wide range of digital virtual devices complex, how could I effectively and efficiently reproduce these in a live performance context? Perhaps I needed to develop my current studio technology, expanding my current quite limited studio rig of outboard processors.

Figure V – Studio rig (Page 2016f)

I needed to research and consider pieces of equipment that will complement what I currently have, and what I need to fuse my performance and recording of my craft, avoiding a valley or void between the two very important aspects of my music-making practice…..  two aspects that have not met before: stage and studio equipment. I decided that what I didn’t want to do was, was create a studio album that I could not then easily replicate in a live performance. I had always been a performer, and to be able to perform congruently to my recording was a major motivator for me as an artist.

I was clearly invested in this pre-production stage of the music-making process. I needed to consider how I was going to approach the production and what equipment I would use for best effect. It was obvious to me how necessary it was for me to continue to immerse my self in two ways: the sourcing of more textural artifacts discussing the recording techniques in that era (books – The Beatles, Pink Floyd, articles on Molly Meldrum, etc); and also researching a range of equipment that I acquire, that would supplement the equipment I already had, that could more effectively replicate the sounds of psychedelic rock, that I could add to my performance rig. Yes, I desired a rig that I could effectively roll from my studio, onto a stage; and once that performance was complete, to then roll the same rig from the stage, back into the studio. It was my goal to be able to replicate all aspects of my musical and sonic creations in any of my performance locations – on stage, or in a studio.

Footnotes

[1] There are countless testimonies heralding the desired qualities and characteristics of analogue devices across decades of music and sound equipment, and cultural production reviews. However, three more recent acclaimed cultural productions detailing the historical significance of such devices and production workflows are: Ryan & Kehew’s 2006 book “Recording the Beatles: the studio equipment and techniques used to create their classic albums”; Guggenheim’s 2009 “It Might Get Loud” starring Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and The White Stripes’ Jack White; and Grohl, Monroe and Young’s 2013 documentary “Sound City” about a Los Angeles studio during the 1970’s and 1980’s where a number of East Coast artists had hits with records recorded and produced at the facility. These artists included Buckingham and Nicks, Rick Springfield, Fleetwood Mac, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

This blog series is planned to continue next month with Doctoral Pilot Study Part 3a (Page 2016g). It is intended for this blog series to continue on a regular basis as I progress through my doctoral research project.

References

Gallagher, Mitch. 2012. “Studio legends: Alan Parsons on “Dark Side of the Moon”. Accessed 4th February, 2016. http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Studio_Legends_Alan_Parsons_on_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon.

Grohl, Dave, Mark Monroe and Neil Young. 2013. Sound city. Sony Music Entertainment. DVD.

Guggenheim, Davis. 2009. It might get loud. Sony Pictures Classics. DVD.

Onion image courtesy of: Onion Layers Accessed 15th December, 2014

Page, David L. 2017. Figure II – 5th Observation image courtesy of David L Page Created 10th June, 2017

Page, David L. 2016g. Doctoral Pilot Study – Part 3a Accessed 5th March, 2016

Page, David L. 2016e. Figure V – Studio rig image courtesy of David L Page. Accessed 29th February, 2016

Page, David L. 2016e. Figure IV – Live rig image courtesy of David L Page. Accessed 29th February, 2016

Page, David L. 2016d. Figure III – 3rd Party Plug-Ins by Manufacturer image courtesy of David L Page. Created 29th February, 2016

Page, David L. 2016c. Doctoral Pilot Study iNotes Accessed 29th February, 2016

Page, David L. 2016b. Figure I – Praxis v5a image courtesy of David L Page. Created 31st January, 2016

Page, David L. 2016a. Doctoral Pilot Study – Part 2b Accessed 17th February, 2016

Page, David L. 2014 image courtesy of David L Page Created 15th December, 2014

Practice image courtesy of David L Page Accessed 4th February, 2016

Price, Andy. 2015. “The Making of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.” Article. Accessed Feb 4 2016. http://www.musictech.net/2015/06/landmark-productions-pink-floyd-the-dark-side-of-the-moon.

Psychedelic Rock image courtesy of Ultimate Guitar.com  Accessed 5th February 2016

Ryan, Kevin and Brian Kehew. 2006. Recording the Beatles: the studio equipment and techniques used to create their classic albums. London: Curvebender.

– @David L Page 29/02/2016

– updated @David L Page 05/03/2016

– updated @David L Page 10/06/2017

Copyright: No aspect of the content of this blog or blog site is to be reprinted or used within any practice without strict permission directly from David L Page.

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Doctoral Pilot Study – Part 2c My journey continues…. (Page 2014) This blog is a continuation of a series. See here (Page 2016a) for the previous blog.

[djgblogger-blog]

ANYbotics wins ICRA 2018 Robot Launch competition!

http://bit.ly/2yXbHlX

The four-legged design of ANYmal allows the robot to conquer difficult terrain such as gravel, sand, and snow. Photo credit: ETH Zurich / Andreas Eggenberger.

ANYbotics led the way in the ICRA 2018 Robot Launch Startup Competition on May 22, 2018 at the Brisbane Conference Center in Australia. Although ANYbotics pitched last out of the 10 startups presenting, they clearly won over the judges and audience. As competition winners, ANYbotics received a $3,000 prize from QUT bluebox, Australia’s robotics accelerator (currently taking applications for 2018!), plus Silicon Valley Robotics membership and mentoring from The Robotics Hub.

ANYbotics is a Swiss startup creating fabulous four legged robots like ANYmal and the core component, the ANYdrive highly integrated modular robotic joint actuator. Founded in 2016 by a group of ETH Zurich engineers, ANYbotics is a spin-off company of the Robotic Systems Lab (RSL), ETH Zurich.

ANYmal moves and operates autonomously in challenging terrain and interacts safely with the environment. As a multi-purpose robot platform, it is applicable on industrial indoor or outdoor sites for inspection and manipulation tasks, in natural terrain or debris areas for search and rescue tasks, or on stage for animation and entertainment. Its four legs allow the robot to crawl, walk, run, dance, jump, climb, carry — whatever the task requires.

ANYdrive is a highly integrated modular robotic joint actuator that guarantees

very precise, low-impedance torque control,

high impact robustness,

safe interaction,

intermittent energy storage and peak power amplification

Motor, gear, titanium spring, sensors, and motor electronics are incorporated in a compact and sealed (IP67) unit and connected by a EtherCAT and power bus. With ANYdrive joint actuators, any kinematic structure such as a robot arm or leg can be built without additional bearings, encoders or power electronics.

ANYdrive’s innovative design allows for highly dynamic movements and collision maneuvers without damage from impulsive contact forces, and at the same time for highly sensitive force controlled interaction with the environment. This is of special interest for robots that should interact with humans, such as collaborative and mobile robots.

ICRA 2018 finalists and judges; Roland Siegwart from ETH Zurich, Juliana Lim from SGInnovate, Yotam Rosenbaum from QUT bluebox, Martin Duursma from Main Sequence Ventures and Chris Moehle from The Robotics Hub Fund.

The ICRA 2018 Robot Launch Startup Competition was judged by experienced roboticists, investors and entrepreneurs. Roland Siegwart is a Professor at ETH Zurich’s Autonomous Systems Lab and cofounder of many successful robotics spinouts. Juliana Lim is Head of Talent from SGInnovate, a Singapore venture capital arm specializing in pre-seed, seed, startup, early-stage, and Series A investments in deep technologies, starting with artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.

Yotam Rosenbaum is the ICT Entrepreneur in Residence at QUT bluebox, building on successful exits from global startups. Martin Duursma is a venture partner in Main Sequence Ventures, Australia’s new innovation fund specializing in AI, robotics and deep tech like biotech, quantum computing and the space industry. Chris Moehle is the managing partner at The Robotics Hub Fund, who may invest up to $250,000 in the overall winner of the Robot Launch Startup Competition 2018.

Organized by Silicon Valley Robotics, the Robot Launch competition is in it’s 5th year and has seen hundreds of startups from more than 20 countries around the globe. The MC for the evening, Silicon Valley Robotics Director Andra Keay, said “Some of the best robotics startups come from places like Switzerland or Australia, but to get funding and to grow fast, they usually need to spend some time in Silicon Valley.”

“The Robot Launch competition allows us to reach startups from all over the world and get them in front of top investors. Many of these startups have gone on to win major events and awards like TechCrunch Battlefield and CES Innovation Awards. So we know that robotics is also coming of age.”

As well as ANYbotics, the other 9 startups gave great pitches. In order of appearance they were:

Purple Robotics

Micromelon Robotics

EXGwear

HEBI Robotics

Abyss Solutions

EyeSyght

Niska Retail Robotics

Aubot

Sevensense

Purple Robotics creates drones for work, which fly for 3x longer than, or carry 3x the payload of existing commercial drones, due to their innovative design. They are not standard quadrocopters but they use the same battery technology. Purple Robotics drones are also gust resistant, providing maximum stability in the air and enabling them to fly closer to structures.

Micromelon creates a seamless integration between visual and text coding, with the ability to translate between the two languages in real time. Students and teachers are able to quickly begin programming the wireless robots. The teacher dashboard and software are designed to work together to assist teachers who may have minimal experience in coding, to instruct a class of students through the transition. Students are able to backtrack to blocks, see how the program looks as text or view both views at once students are able to be supported throughout the entire journey.

EXGwear is currently developing a “hands-free”, intuitive interaction method, in the form of a portable wearable device that is extremely compact, non-obtrusive, and comfortable to wear long hours to help disabled people solve their daily interaction problems with the environment. Our first product, EXGbuds, a customizable earbud-like device is based on patent-pending biosensing technology and machine learning-enabled App. It can measure eye movement and facial expression physiological signals at extremely high accuracy to generate user-specific actionable commands for seamless interaction with the smart IoTs and robotic devices.

HEBI Robotics produces Lego-like robotic building blocks. Our platform consists of hardware and software that make it easy to design, build and program world class robotics quickly. Our hardware platform is robust, flexible, and safe. Our cross-platform software development tools take care of the difficult math that’s required to develop a robot so that the roboticist can focus on the creative aspects of robot design.

Abyss Solutions delivers key innovations in Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) and sensor technology to collect high fidelity, multi-modal data comprehensively across underwater inspections. By pushing the state-of-the-art in machine learning and data analytics, accurate and efficient condition assessments can be conducted and used to build an asset database. The database is able to grow over repeat inspection and the objectivity of the analytics enables automated change tracking. The output is a comprehensive asset representation that can enable efficient risk management for critical infrastructure.

EyeSyght is TV for your fingers. As humans we use our senses to gather and collect information to analyse the environment around us and create a mental picture of our surroundings. But what about touch? When we operate our smartphones, tablets and computers we interact with a flat piece of glass. Now through the use of Haptic Feedback, Electrical Impulses, Ultra Sound, EyeSyght will enable any surface to render Shapes, Textures, Depth, and much much more.

Niska Retail Robotics is reimagining retail, starting with icecream. “Customer demands are shifting away from products and towards services and experiences.” (CSIRO, 2017) Niska creates wonderful customer experiences with robot servers scooping out delicious gourmet icecream for you, 24/7.

Aubot (‘au’ is to meet in Japanese – pronounced “our-bot”) is focused on building robots that help us in our everyday lives. The company was founded in April 2013 by Marita Cheng, Young Australian of the Year 2012. Our first product, Teleport, is a telepresence robot. Teleport will reduce people’s need to travel while allowing them greater freedom to explore new surroundings. In the future, aubot aims to combine Jeva and Teleport to create a telepresence robot with an arm attached.

Sevensense (still based at ETH Zurich Autonomous Systems Lab) provide a visual localization system tailored to the needs of professional service robots. The use of cameras instead of laser rangefinders enables our product to perform more reliably, particularly in dynamic and geometrically ambiguous environments, and allows for a cost advantage. In addition, we offer market specific application modules along with the engineering services to successfully apply our product on the customer’s machinery.

We thank all the startups for sharing their pitches with us – the main hall at ICRA was packed and we look forward to hearing from more startups in the next rounds of Robot Launch 2018.

[euan-boyd]

Unfortunately QUT has amazing equipment but the Creative industries equipment loans hire at Z block does not have the correct WACOM stylus pens required to be used with the WACOM tablets in the Zblock computer labs. This item is only available through the tutor who were absent due to the study break. Because of this i wasn't able to free hand draw over this animation as intended and had to use the mouse to draw onto the animation. This animation shows my working out of where light source would hit the surface of the sphere and the size of the shadows that it would cast.

[ricardopeach]

Re-Future Rapid Response Australian Scholarship Opportunity!

Applications Due: 28 February 2017

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is calling for qualified candidates to apply for a targeted PHD paid Scholarship.  The candidate will potentially work between Brisbane, Australia and Bloemfontein, South Africa on the project, Re-Future (http://embodiedmedia.com/homeartworks/re-future) developed by Dr Keith Armstrong (Associate Director of the QUT Creative Lab Research Centre).  The Re-Future project coalesces with the aims of the Social and Ecological Practices Research Group at QUT which seek to understand, and demonstrate how transdisciplinary creative actions can best engage and affect the conditions of our contemporary world, with a specific focus upon people and species most affected by conditions of rapid change, conflict, racial tension, discrimination and environmental distress.  Re-Future is a partnership between Dr Armstrong, the QUT Creative Lab Research Centre, the University of the Free State (South Africa), the Vrystaat Art Festival and Qala Pelang Tala (Start Living Green) social change initiative.  

Is this for you?

Are you an artist-activist, a laterally thinking community development implementer, a transdisciplinary creative, a digital media artist focussed upon change-making practices, or some other kind of a passionate social, architecture, engineering or ecological change maker who would like to be paid to do a creatively driven PhD, working between South Africa and Australia?

Are you interested in applying your creative thinking (from any or several disciplines) and experimental practices to investigate new kinds of sustaining and regenerative futures?

How can social justice structures be influenced through creative ecological practices to enable marginalised individuals to influence their own livelihood future

Are you prepared to work in some of the least resourced communities in South Africa, in collaboration with leading NGOs, artists, academics, students and the township communities that this project serves?

Whilst we cover all doctoral fees and provide a reasonably living allowance for three years, (potentially extendable to 3.5). You will need to fund your own travel.

So who would you be working with?

The Creative Lab Research Centre, QUT Creative Industries, Brisbane Australia. https://www.qut.edu.au/creative-industries/about/news/news?news-id=111917

The Re-Future Project.  http://embodiedmedia.com/homeartworks/re-future

The Qala Phelang Tala (Start Living Green), Bloemfontein, South Africa. https://www.facebook.com/Qala1Tala/

The University of the Free State. Centre for Development Support  http://www.ufs.ac.za/cds

The Programme for Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD). https://www.facebook.com/PikoPiad-1435158293383474/?fref=ts

Vrystaat Kunstefees/Arts Festival/Tsa-Botjhaba. http://www.vrystaatkunstefees.co.za

Ok, but are you eligible?

Full applications due by 28 February 2017 – to be worked up with qualified supervisors, we will provide

Must meet English language requirements by the application closing date.

Must be able to start at latest by July 2017

Applicants can be currently situated anywhere globally but need to be able to travel to do extensive field work in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and also spend time in Brisbane, Australia at the state of the art new QUT Creative Lab Research Centre.

Full details here:  https://www.qut.edu.au/study/fees-and-scholarships/scholarships-and-prizes/qut-postgraduate-research-award-qutpra

Need more context?

We are having a devastating effect on the planet. Climate change has moved from theoretical concept to pressing reality, with truly global affects. Climate scientists agree we have triggered a new era called the age of the Anthropocene where humans have become the main drivers behind planetary changes. The negative impacts on communities worldwide, and especially communities in developing countries such as South Africa are significant. In South Africa, climate challenges are compounded by historical contexts of apartheid, unemployment, poverty, crime, disability and widespread dependency on government interventions in marginalised communities.  Many marginalised communities are still deprived of access to water, electricity, housing, education and basic health care. This begs the question, what innovative solutions can bridge the realities of climate change while maintaining the concept of human rights embedded in South Africa’s progressive constitution. A combination of transdisciplinary approaches will be needed to solve some of these problems that the country faces, which may require stepping outside the existing comfort zones and testing unconventional creative possibilities for making a difference at the grassroots levels. Crucially we need innovative solutions that envision a world beyond sustainability, focussing on regenerative livelihoods that are resilient to climate change. A regenerative approach describes processes that renew, restore, and revitalize communities. Regenerative systems aim to create positive, united living heritages for our future generations and ourselves.

What is Re-Futuring?

Most simply, Re-futuring is the act of ‘giving time back to the future’. If we think of time left (for ours and other species now and into the future) as being a medium we can manipulate, then any concerted actions that help increase that time left are considered potential acts of re-futuring - as opposed to those that reduce possibilities for those who come after us – i.e. acts of De-Futuring.

What will you therefore be contributing towards?

The aim of this experimental research program is to understand how transdisciplinary creative action that tests new paradigms, ideas & options might assist in inventing viable ‘break-through’ methods that aid regenerative capacity – both in South Africa and more generally globally.

And who would you be working with?

Keith Armstrong: Associate Director of the QUT Creative Lab Research Centre and member of the Social and Ecological Practices Group, media artist, researcher and director of Embodiedmedia Dr. Keith Armstrong from Brisbane Australia. www.embodiedmedia.com

Anita Venter who leads the Qala Phelang Tala (Start Living Green!) social change initiative supported by her role as a researcher at the University of the Free State, Centre for Development Support.  http://www.ufs.ac.za/econ/departments-and-divisions/centre-for-development-support-home/general/staff?pid=j13AcR333js%3d

The Program For Innovation in Artform Development (PIAD) led by Senior Curator of the  Johannes Stegman Art Gallery, Angela De Jesus and Director of the Vrystaat Kunstefees/Arts Festival/Tsa-Botjhaba, Dr. Ricardo Peach.

Are you the right artist-researcher for this significant challenge?

If so contact Dr. Keith Armstrong immediately – with overview of your background and thoughts, interests and enthusiasms at [email protected]

#vrystaat kunstefees #vrystaat arts festival #vrystaat tsa-botjhaba #Queensland University of Technology #university of the free state #Program for Innovation in Artform Development #south africa #australia #Qala Phelang Tala #andrew w mellon foundation