Friday 25 September 2009 Moores Building Contemporary Art Gallery
46 Henry Street Fremantle
Schedule
10.30 Suzette Worden: Welcome to the Symposium
10.40 Anne Farren outlines her industry experiences
Session 1 Perception and art: in and out of control?
11:10 Darryn Ansted Post Op: Logic and Sensation in the Paintings of Cathy Blanchflower
11.30 Julian Goddard The Aesthetics of Chance
11:50 Morning Tea
Session 2 Negotiating networks: virtual, real and ‘object’ systems
12.10 Julian Stadon Mixed Reality Data Transfer For the Creation of Virtual Studio Spaces
12.30 Suzette Worden Academic networks and discipline boundaries: the emergence of design
history and cultural studies in Australia
12:50 Bruce Slatter The Subjective Object: Personal, Local and Global
1:10
Lunch with SODA slide show
Session 3 Location and mobility: place-based research
2.10
2:30
2:50
Nicole Slatter Picturing narrative in the urban landscape
Susanna Castleden Art, Mapping and Collecting: Tracking the Grey Nomads
Christopher Kueh Navigation and accessibility problems in large-scale shopping malls for
the ageing population in Western Australia
3:10 Discussion over afternoon tea of SODA and CRASH research potentials and linkages
Panel Discussion of preceding sessions
3:40
TBA, Darryn Ansted and Perdita Phillips
Research Futures
4:10
4:30
Paul Thomas: CRASH
Ann Schilo: Humanities research opportunities and beyond
4:50
Finish
Morning and afternoon tea and coffee provided. Lunch available from Moore and Moore café or Fremantle
café strip. We recommend that you consider bus and train options, as street parking is limited.
Darryn Ansted
Post Op: Logic and Sensation in the Paintings of Cathy Blanchflower
The French-Romanian artist Viktor Vasarely said of Op Art in 1970 ‘a suitable metaphysical framework would
eventually be found for these new ideas’. This paper argues that the metaphysical framework, in which we
can now situate Op Art, has, indeed, come around. However, it also argues that such a framework demands
more than Op Art could provide, and that the artwork of Cathy Blanchflower, might be understood by the
radical framework established by Rosalind Krauss, in her discussion of the theory of Georges Bataille.
Darryn Ansted lectures in Painting in the Department of Art.
Julian Goddard
The Aesthetics of Chance
This paper examines the history of chance in contemporary art and its effects on aesthetic theory especially
within the context of recent practices such as relational aesthetics and the resocialisation of art.
Julian Goddard is the Head of the Department of Art, a position he has held since 2006. He is also the
director of Goddard de Fiddes Gallery and a founding member of the Bureau of Ideas.
Julian Stadon
Mixed Reality Data Transfer For the Creation of Virtual Studio Spaces
The presentation will address social online engagement in 3D environments, particularly Second Life through
the SLARiPS (Second Life Augmented Reality in Physical Space) Project.
The research aims to explore ideologies of post human existence, particularly notions of identity and the
authorship of created content in 3D online platforms and how such processes deterritorialise the body
through transforming screens into hypersurfaces. The research aims to develop a body of work that explores
the boundaries of mixed reality interaction and through direct participatory action based research analyse the
cultural significance of the outcomes. The presentation will also explore visual data transfer in relation to
networked creative production in virtual studio spaces.
Julian Stadon is a PhD student who completed a BA. (Art) at Curtin in 2005, followed by an M.E.A
(Electronic Art) in 2007. Julian’s research has included residencies with the Interface Cultures program in
Linz; Salford University, Manchester; Human Interface Technologies Lab, New Zealand (HITLabNZ), and at
The Fogscreen Research Centre, Finland. Julian is a member of the Centre for Research in Arts Science
and Humanity (CRASH) and in December 2008 he received the Curtin Research Scholarship (CRS) and the
Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) for his PhD studies.
Professionally, Julian lectures first year electronic art, is the Web Developer for the BA (Art) Online degree
run through Curtin, a research assistant for the National organization of New media Arts Database
(NOMAD), and the director of Dorkbot Perth.
Suzette Worden
Academic networks and discipline boundaries: the emergence of design history
and cultural studies in Australia
Current discussions of the creative industries presuppose synergies and connections across art, design,
media, cultural studies, music and popular culture. We might attribute some of these synergies to the
convergence of technologies and the potential to be creative across media. But it is also relevant to consider
how academic networks contribute to convergence, shared aims and achievements. This presentation will
look at the development of design history and cultural studies and their relative contributions to an Australian
view of the creative industries. How academics have reflected on the production and consumption of cultural
artefacts has been configured differently for their selected audiences with varying degrees of international
acclaim and connections. We need to ask ourselves how this affects our own perceptions of various
disciplines and their usefulness for academic engagement.
Suzette Worden was appointed Professor of Design in 2002. She currently supervises postgraduate
students and coordinates Design (Honours) and the Master of Design (Coursework). She also contributes
lectures to undergraduate units. She has previously taught courses on design history, craft history and digital
arts at Brighton University and the University of West of England, Bristol (UWE), UK as well as at Curtin
University of Technology.
She is developing collaborative research projects related to Western Australian resources. The 'Wool and
Comfort' project is in collaboration with researchers at the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia
(DAFWA). The 'Virtual Pit' is being developed with John Reed and Dave Carson alongside a ' 3diaspora'
Cornish mining project.
Bruce Slatter
The Subjective Object: Personal, Local and Global
This paper responds to the historical, cultural, social, functional and personal information embedded within
commonplace objects. Ideas of expectation, potential, resourcefulness, common usage and familiar and
shared experience are investigated through the adaption and construction of new sculptural objects.
Bruce Slatter is a Lecturer and Coordinator of Sculpture in the Department of Art. Bruce completed his BA
(Fine Art) in 1992, Bachelor of Arts (Art) (Honours) in 2000 and a Master of Arts (Art) in 2003. Bruce was
awarded the Curtin University Galerie Düsseldorf Post Graduate Scholarship in 2003 and since that time has
held two solo exhibitions has participated in many group exhibitions. His work is included the collections of
the Art Gallery of Western Australia, ArtBank, Woollahra City Council, Sydney, the Horn Collection and
numerous Private Collections. Bruce is currently enrolled in a PhD at RMIT.
Nicole Slatter
Picturing narrative in the urban landscape
In this paper I will discuss the use of painterly surface to explore the idea of space as an echo of time and
memory. Urban spaces that are unpopulated, yet are defined by how they have been and will be, utilised and
populated will be of particular focus. The paper intends to show how painting techniques and pictorial
devices can be used to translate information about a place and derive a physical and psychological
understanding of an urban landscape in an audience.
Nicole Slatter is a Lecturer and Co-ordinator of First Year in the Department of Art at Curtin University.
Nicole completed her Bachelor of Education in 1995, her Bachelor of Arts (Art) (Honours- First Class) in
1996 and a Master of Creative Arts (Research) in 2001.Currently Nicole is pursuing a PhD in painting at
RMIT and is an exhibiting artist.
Susanna Castleden
Art, Mapping and Collecting: Tracking the Grey Nomads
In this paper I outline the research I am undertaking which draws from tracks and maps of travellers and I
expand on the ways in which these maps can be re-translated in a variety of ways. The travel data I gather
comes from ‘grey nomads’ - usually over 55’s who choose to spend extended periods of time caravanning,
camping and travelling around Australia without any necessarily fixed itineraries or attachments. Despite
(from an outsiders point of view) a desire for freedom and non-fixity, it is apparent that there is a strong
desire in many grey nomads to map, blog and plot their travels via the Internet. It is apparent that the sense
of community that the grey nomads share expands from a physical space, into a virtual world too.
Using materials, mediums and objects of travel I aim to re-imbue the grey nomads blogs, GPS tracks and
digital maps with a materiality and tactility that may allude to some of the physical aspects of the places and
terrains they visit. My ‘second generation’ translation of the map - re-mapping the grey nomads map – comes
about by vicariously living through the grey nomads travels and in turn bringing my own material reality to the
map.
Susanna Castleden is a Lecturer and Coordinator of Printmedia in the Department of Art at Curtin
University. Susanna completed her BA (Art) in 1989, Honours in 2002 and a Master of Arts (Art) shortly after.
Susanna was awarded the Curtin University Galerie Düsseldorf Post Graduate Scholarship in 2003 and
since that time has participated in many national exhibitions and has held two solo exhibitions. Her work is
included in many collections including ArtBank, BankWest, Royal Perth Hospital, Cruthers Collection, Kerry
Stokes Collection and the City of Fremantle. She is currently enrolled in a PhD at RMIT. With a background
in Printmedia, Susanna is interested in developing experimental processes associated with image
transference and reproduction. Her art practice utilises large photographic screen prints, hand processed
techniques and employs processes of erasure and deletion.
Christopher Kueh
Navigation and accessibility problems in large-scale shopping malls for the
ageing population in Western Australia
This paper reports on a scoping research that addresses the problems of elderly navigating in large-scale
shopping malls. The findings show contradiction between design of shopping mall that is mainly wide
monotonous spaces with main anchor stores located at far ends, and the needs of elderly shoppers that
require easy access and navigation. This problem is particularly significant because the ageing population is
in rapid rise but the current design of shopping malls is not suitable for this targeted group.
The paper presents and discusses two sets of networks: practical networks between visual elements and
built-environments, and research networks between Design and Urban Planning. Both networks emphasise
cross- and inter-disciplinary framework to expand the boundary and contribution of Design.
Christopher Kueh is a practicing information and graphic designer since 2001. He has consulted museums,
city council, library, and university on wayfinding design in Australia and Malaysia. He is continually active in
advancing the boundaries of cross-disciplinary design research and practice.
With interest in user-design interaction, he went on to obtain a PhD in Design titled A user-centred approach
to effective wayfinding map design: Integrating theory, practice and user participation (2006). He developed
a framework that emphasised human-map-space interaction in tourist map design. Christopher's research
and design, since then, have crossed over the disciplines of graphic/information design, architecture, urban
planning, and recently into Health Science.