Superheroes: Creative Force, Cultural Zeitgeist and Transmedia Phenomenon

Superheroes: Creative Force, Cultural Zeitgeist and Transmedia Phenomenon

The project explores the historic, creative and artistic development of the superhero across multiple media.

Partners

ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) 

 

This research is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Linkage program (LP150100394)

Investigators

Angela Ndalianis
Liam Burke  
Ian Gordon (National University of Singapore)
Elizabeth McFarlane (University of Melbourne)
Wendy Haslem (University of Melbourne)

The figure of the superhero has loomed in the popular imagination for generations, providing a common language for understanding the diversity of lived human experience. This research project is an Australian Research Council funded Linkage project that focuses on the phenomenon of the superhero figure from its beginnings up to its contemporary manifestation. The project explores the historic, creative and artistic development of the superhero across multiple media.

Outcomes: 3 anthologies, edited journal, public events and 2 international conferences, a VR experience at ACMI – Superheroes: Realities Collide – at ACMI, and Cleverman: the Exhibition at ACMI in December 2018.

Traditional and non-traditional research outcomes have included the Cleverman: The Exhibition at ACMI; the Superheroes: Realities Collide VR experience at ACMI Screen Worlds, created by Visitor Vision; two major conferences Superhero Identities and Superheroes Beyond; the Senses of Cinema dossier on Australian Superheroes and the ground-breaking television series, Cleverman; and the edited collections The Superhero Symbol: Media, Culture, and Politics (Rutgers University Press, 2019) and Superheroes Beyond: Wider critical perspectives on a transcendent archetype (University of Texas Press, in press 2020)

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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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