OPERA – Free from Violence

OPERA - Free from Violence

The Preventing Elder Abuse project develops and evaluates a community-based digital intervention into ageism as one of the primary drivers of elder abuse.

Partners

Department of Health and Human Services

Investigators

Max Schleser 
Diana Bossio
Anthony McCosker
Hilary Davis

The Preventing Elder Abuse project develops and evaluates a community-based digital intervention into ageism as one of the primary drivers of elder abuse. The digital intervention will be informed by a direct participation consultation process, which will contribute to the development of experiences of ageism as an evidence base around elder abuse. The evidence base will be used by Swinburne University researchers to produce a digital intervention, developed through a co-design model working with older people in the Eastern regions of Melbourne. 

The outcome of the digital intervention will be to contribute to and enhance the existing community education packages delivered by ECLC on elder abuse.  In addition to this, the co-created digital intervention will be shared more broadly across the sector to assist in building capacity of the Eastern Region workforce to better understand the links between the drivers of elder abuse and elder abuse.

Swinburne researchers will also lead an evaluation of the project to ensure sustainability and scalability of the project for future funding opportunities, and potential expansion of phase two to included targeted messages for specific cohorts across the community.

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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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Imagining the Impossible: The Fantastic as Media Entertainment and Play

Imagining the Impossible: The Fantastic as Media Entertainment and Play

This is a Danish funded network of researchers (Danish, UK, US, Australia) working with media fictions. The network asks why the fantastic has exploded in contemporary entertainment, how we create, design, and engage with the fantastic, and why the fantastic is important for human existence.

Partners

Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond

The Danish Independent Research Fund

Investigators

Angela Ndalianis 

Rikke Schubart (University of Southern Denmark)

Amanda Howell (Griffith University) 

Anita Nell Bech Albertsen (University of Southern Denmark)

Jakob Ion Wille (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts)

Jesper Juul (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts)

Cristina Bacchilega (University of Hawaii), Marc Malmdorf Andersen (Aarhus University)

 Margrethe Bruun Vaage (University of Kent)

Mathias Clasen (Aarhus University) 

Sara Mosberg Iversen (University of Southern Denmark)

Stephen Joyce (Aarhus University)

Stephanie Green (Griffith University)

 

Led by Associate Rikke Schubart (University of Southern Denmark) Imagining the Impossible This is a Danish funded network of researchers (Danish, UK, US, Australia) working with media fictions and production design in television, film, video games, and literature.

Investigators adopt an interdisciplinary approach and apply theories and methods from tradition media/film/TV/VR fields while also engaging in audience observation and biometric measuring (e.g. heart rate, eye-tracking), and theories of embodiment, particularly as applied to engagement with the experience of the fantastic in VR.

Today, the fantastic reigns supreme in entertainment. However, we lack research in why it appeals to a broad audience, why the genre exploded after the turn of the millennium, and – our key question – why and how the fantastic invites us into play.  

We ask why and how the fantastic appeals and if the fantastic is especially suited to ask questions about human existence, pressing questions in times of ecological crisis. Our aim is to establish an interdisciplinary task force that can create a shared theoretical platform for a study of the fantastic. 

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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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