New Media, Ageing, and Migration

New Media, Ageing, and Migration

This research project explores an often overlooked aspect of new media and migration. Working with Melbourne’s older Irish community the project explores how older people who migrated before the availability of new media make use of digital communications technologies.  

FPartners

Centre for Transformative Media Technologies

Investigators

Liam Burke

Modern Irish history has been marked by emigration, with the Global Financial Crisis prompting another mass departure. Yet, the Irish media was quick to suggest that modern expatriates will not be ‘lost’, when they can so easily be tagged, tweeted, and skyped. Liam directed the documentary short film @HOME as part of the New Media, Ageing, and Migration research team, which he leads. The film was screened in competition at a number of international film festivals and was broadcast on Irish television. 

This documentary short film focuses on those Irish people who moved to Australia before the availability of new media. Stretching back to the 1940s @HOME provides a loving portrait of those brave emigrants who moved to the other side of the world when contact with Ireland was limited to occasional letters and a phone call once a year. 

Featuring groups such as Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, Cumann Gaeilge na hAstraile, and the Irish Australian Athletic Association, this documentary follows these older migrants as they engage with new media and the web as a means to narrow the distance between Ireland and Australia. From these unique stories and experiences a picture of Melbourne’s Irish community emerges, yet across each account there is a desire to connect a community whose stories have all too often gone untold.

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Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a method and national collection

Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a method and national collection

The early years of Australian digital media arts heritage are at risk. Working with key cultural institutions, this project will conserve key media art case studies from the archives of media arts organisations, and develop a best practice method for the preservation of our digital media arts heritage.

Partners

Australian Centre for the Moving Image; 

The Trustee for Art Gallery of NSW; State Library of South Australia; 

Experimental Media Arts.  

Australian Network for Art and Technology; 

dLux Media Arts Incorporated; 

UNESCO PERSIST; 

Rhizome

Griffith University  Art Museum

Investigators

Melanie Swalwell

Denise de Vries

Helen Stuckey (RMIT)

Nick Richardson (ACMI)

Carolyn Murphy (AGNSW)

Andrew Piper (SLSA)

Angela Goddard (Griffith)

Jonathan Parsons (Experimenta)

This research is funded by the Australian Government though the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Program (LP180100307)

The early years of Australian digital media arts heritage are at risk. Australians were significant contributors to the development of media arts internationally, as well as making and exhibiting work nationally, yet only a tiny portion of the digital artwork by Australian artists has made it into institutional collections. 

 

Deteriorating disks and reliance on obsolete hardware and software mean that innovative digital preservation and access solutions are needed if these artworks are to be saved. Working with key cultural institutions, this project will conserve key media art case studies from the archives of media arts organisations, and develop a best practice method for the preservation of our digital media arts heritage.

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Play It Again: Preserving Australian videogame history of the 1990s

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Play It Again: Preserving Australian video game history of the 1990s

This project documents, preserves, and exhibits digital cultural heritage by recovering the history of Australian made videogames of the 1990s, preserving significant local digital game artefacts currently at risk, and investigating how these can be exhibited as playable software using the newest emulation techniques.

Partners

ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image)
AARNet
UNESCO PERSIST
OpenSLX 
GmbH

This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council Linkage Program.

Investigators

Melanie Swalwell (TMT)
Angela Ndalianis (TMT)
Helen Stuckey (RMIT)
Denise de Vries (Flinders University)

Play It Again: Preserving Australian videogame history of the 1990s is a project funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (2019-21) and led by Melanie Swalwell. The other chief investigators include Angela Ndalianis (TMT), Helen Stuckey (RMIT) and Denise de Vries (Flinders University).

Play It Again documents, preserves, and exhibits digital cultural heritage, focusing on Australian videogames of the 1990s. The challenge of preserving and accessing complex digital cultural heritage such as software is one that collecting institutions worldwide are facing.

Partnering with the Australian Centre for the Image, AARNet, UNESCO PERSIST and OpenSLX GmbH, this project addresses the challenge of digital heritage by recovering the history of Australian made videogames of the 1990s, preserving significant local digital game artefacts currently at risk, and investigating how these can be exhibited as playable software using the newest emulation techniques. 

The project will generate new knowledge needed by government, museums and industry to inform future strategy and infrastructure investment aimed at making a range of digital cultural heritage available to the public.

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Experiencing space: sensory encounters from Baroque Rome to neo-baroque Las Vegas

Experiencing space: sensory encounters from Baroque Rome to neo-baroque Las Vegas

The project examines how Las Vegas is emblematic of the return of baroque aesthetics that have been nurtured by consumer culture, multi-media conglomeration and digital technology. 

Partners

This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts Discovery program.

Investigators

Angela Ndalianis (TMT)
Lisa Beaven (La Trobe University)

Experiencing space: sensory encounters from Baroque Rome to neo-baroque Las Vegas examines how Las Vegas is emblematic of the return of a baroque aesthetics that has been nurtured by consumer culture, multi-media conglomeration and digital technology. The project develops a new methodology for the study of baroque and neo-baroque cultures grounded in sensory and spatial approaches.

It examines how the metropolis as represented in the extreme by Las Vegas in the C21st gives new expression to the structural and formal qualities of the historical baroque, as represented by C17th Rome. The research has been funded by the ARC Discovery Projects Scheme, and Angela Ndalianis and Lisa Beaven (La Trobe University) are co-investigators. Outcomes have included article and book publications, presentations, and symposia.

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