SPECIAL GUEST
Marcus Westbury is a Melbourne-based writer, broadcaster and festival director, and founder of DIY urban-culture/creative-enterprise project Renew Newcastle. He is founding director of Newcastle’s This is Not Art festival; a former director of Melbourne’s Next Wave festival; writer-presenter of the award-winning Not Quite Art series for ABCTV (2007-08); and a pioneer of online media. A regular guest on Radio National and Triple J, Westbury has hosted many shows for ABC radio in Newcastle, Melbourne and Sydney. He is a weekly columnist for The Age, and his writing on the arts, media, culture and politics appears across countless websites; his work has also appeared in Meanjin, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and several anthologies. Westbury has worked with The ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation and is a fellow of The Centre for Policy Development. Among many current projects, he is an active member of Renew Australia, a not-for-profit company dedicated to urban creativity. /// homepage /// twitter
PANELISTS
Tom Apperley is a member of the Research Unit in Public Culture at the University of Melbourne and writes on digital media technologies. He is co-editor of online journal Digital Culture & Education and author of Gaming Rhythms: Play and Counter-Play from the Situated to the Global (2012).
Robert Briggs is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University and general editor (with Niall Lucy) of Ctrl-Z: New Media Philosophy. His work appears in Social Semiotics, Textual Practice, Critique, Angelaki, Environmental Ethics and other international journals of cultural theory. /// academia
Lisa Gye is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology and founding member of the editorial board of Fibreculture. She is co-editor (with Darren Tofts) of Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix (2007) and collaborates with Darren Tofts on the art projects, Secret Gestural Prehistory of Mobile Devices and Classical Gas: Today’s Hits for the Now People! /// homepage
John Hartley is Distinguished Professor of Cultural Science and Director of the Centre for Culture & Technology (CCAT) at Curtin University. He is a former ARC Federation Fellow and former Research Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation. Hartley was Foundation Dean of the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT, and has been visiting professor at Peking University, MIT and NYU. His recent books include Digital Futures for Cultural and Media Studies (2012), Popular Reality: Journalism and Popular Culture (2009), The Uses of Digital Literacy (Creative Economy and Innovation Culture) (2010) and (co-edited with Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns) A Companion to New Media Dynamics (2013).
Eugenia Lim is a Melbourne-based artist working across video, performance and installation. Lim is co-director of the inaugural CHANNELS festival of video art (Melbourne, September 2013) and editor of online journal Assemble Papers. Her work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern, GOMA, ACMI, HUN Gallery NY, FACT Liverpool, the 5th Experimenta Biennale of Media Art and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. She is taking her Stay Home Sakoku: The Hikikomori Project to Alice Springs in August 2013. /// homepage
Niall Lucy is Professor of Critical Theory at Curtin University and general editor (with Robert Briggs) of Ctrl-Z: New Media Philosophy. His books include A Derrida Dictionary (2004), Pomo Oz: Fear and Loathing Downunder (2010) and (with John Kinsella) The Ballad of Moondyne Joe (2012). Lucy is currently writing A Dictionary of Postmodernism (forthcoming, Wiley-Blackwell). /// homepage /// twitter
Scott McQuire is Associate Professor in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. His books include The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space (2008), Visions of Modernity: Representation, Memory, Time and Space in the Age of the Camera (1998) and (co-edited with Nikos Papastergiadis) Empire, Ruins + Networks: The Transcultural Agenda in Art (2005).
Norie Neumark is a sound/media artist and theorist and Professor of Media Studies at La Trobe University. She collaborates with Maria Miranda as Out-of-Sync and is co-editor with Annemarie Chandler of At a Distance: Precursors to Internet Art and Activism (2005) and with Ross Gibson and Theo van Leeuwen of Voice: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Art and Media (2010). Neumark is Director of the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) at La Trobe University.
Nikos Papastergiadis is Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. His books include Cosmopolitanism and Culture (2012), The Complex Entanglement: Art, Globalisation and Cultural Difference (2003), Spatial Aesthetics: Art, Place and the Everyday (2006) and Turbulence of Migration: Globalisation, Deterritorialisation and Hybridity (2000).
Karen Pickering hosts Cherchez la Femme, a monthly digest of popular culture and current affairs at the Gasometer Hotel in Collingwood, and is a key organizer of Melbourne’s annual SlutWalk. Pickering edited the Emerging Writers’ Fest publication, The Reader (2012), and writes for The Drum. /// twitter
David Pledger is a Melbourne writer, theatre director, filmmaker and choreographer. He has been Visiting Professor at the Korean National University of Arts, Workshop Leader at the International TeaterTreffen of the Berlin Theatre Festival and Artist-in-Residence at the Centre for Media and Art (ZKM) in Germany.
Jason Potts is an ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT. His books include Creative Industries and Economic Evolution (2011) and the co-edited three-volume series Evolutionary Microeconomics, Evolutionary Mesoeconomics and Evolutionary Macroeconomics (forthcoming, Edward Elgar).
Bec Reid is a community-based arts practitioner who has worked with the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Tracks, Back to Back Theatre, The Business, Die Roten Punkte, Barry Morgan and his World of Organs, NICA and the Australian Youth Dance Festival. She was Associate Producer on the 2006 and 2008 Next Wave festivals and Artistic Director of acclaimed dance company Stompin (2001-06), and has produced for Dancehouse. Reid is a board member of Ausdance Victoria and Lucy Guerin Inc, and is currently Associate Director of 100% Melbourne and a key creative in Tristran Meecham’s Fun Run. /// homepage
Stuart Ringholt lives in Melbourne and works across a range of media including video and sculpture. Recent solo exhibitions include New Works, Milani Gallery (2012), Starring William Shatner as Curator, TCB (Melbourne 2011) and Video Works, Club Laundromat (New York 2009). His group participations include Documenta 13 Kassel (2012), Singapore Biennale (2011) and the Sydney Biennale (2008). He is the author of Hashish Psychosis: What it’s Like to be Mentally Ill and Recover (2006).
Angelina Russo is a designer working across the fields of interior/exhibition and media design, and Associate Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT. She is former Head of Communication Design at QUT and led the research project New Literacies, New Audiences at the ARC Centre for Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation. Russo is co-author (with Lynda Kelly) of Museums, Social Inclusion, and Online Networks (2013).
Tony Thwaites is Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland. His books include Reading Freud: Psychoanalysis as Cultural Theory (2007), Joycean Temporalities: Debts, Promises and Countersignatures (2001) and (co-edited with Judith Seaboyer) Re-reading Derrida: Perspectives on Mourning and its Hospitalities (forthcoming, Lexington).
Darren Tofts is Professor of Media and Communication and former Head of Media Studies at Swinburne University of Technology. His books include Interzone: Media Arts in Australia (2005), Memory Trade: A Prehistory of Cyberculture (illustrated by Murray McKeich, 1998) and (co-edited with Annemarie Jonson and Alessio Cavallaro) Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History (2004). /// homepage