Podcast Program of Create World 2008

Listen to the Episode: Digital Roadmap for e-Research

Paul Turnbull (Griffith University) is a key member of the expert working group that advises the Australian government on the e-research needs of the Humanities & Social Sciences (HASS). Over the period 2005-2011 there is some $542 million being invested in research infrastructure generally, via the NCRIS initiative of the former government, so Paul’s group is keen to ensure that an appropriate slice of that pie is allocated to the needs of the HASS sector. But how does the Creative Arts fit in here? What are its research infrastructure needs, and are these needs yet on the radar of government? And if indeed there is a digital roadmap for research infrastructure, can the Creative Arts fraternity find its car keys?

Find out more about NCRIS and the 2008 roadmap at: http://ncris.innovation.gov.au
And you might also be interested in downloading Our Cultural Commonwealth, the key US report on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities & Social Sciences, from:
www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/OurCulturalCommonwealth.pdf

Listen to the Episode: Research on Trial

Universities, it seems, want to have their cake and eat it. They like the kudos of having great creative artists on staff. But, some claim, they also want the work of these artists to be measured by the same criteria applied to assess the productivity and impact of researchers more broadly across the university. Does this make sense?

In what ways is creative practice equivalent to research, and how can it be evaluated? And what initiatives are around that may bring creative arts practice and creative arts scholarship together with different fields of university enquiry to create new research paradigms?

Mark McMahon (ECU) led a provocative panel discussion on these sorts of questions at Create World 2008, and gave us his thoughts afterwards in this podcast episode.

Participants comments
Listen to the commentary:
Comments on Creative Arts Research

Steve Dillon (QUT) himself conducts some interesting creative arts research projects, and provided us with his own reflection on the issues canvassed at the panel session.

Stuart Medley (Edith Cowan University) seeks to understand the importance of the human visual system and its implications for represenation and graphic design. And he says that there is a paradox involved, in that we are able to communicate more accurately through less accurately rendered images.

In this podcast Stuart follows on from his Create World presentation and discusses ways to measure creative content in design that will fit in with University research metrics. How do we measure creativity in something that is functional as well as aesthetic?

You can find more about Stuart’s projects at Figures Magazine

Participants’ Comments

Listen to the commentary: On Graphic Design

Sian Carlyon and Tony Skinner were in the audience for Stuart Medley’s presentation and got quite a buzz out of it. Both Sian and Tony are from USQ, and both have a strong background in graphic design (unlike your out-of-his-depth interviewer!). We chatted to them afterwards, as the rain filtered in through the bougainvillea, about directions in graphic design and the impact of digital technologies.