UNSW Sitewide

A collection of posts from across the UNSW Blogosphere!

UNSW Sitewide random header image

Global Aesthetics: Intersecting Culture, Theory, Practice

Posted by on October 10th, 2010 · related topics

lobal Aesthetics: Intersecting Culture, Theory, Practice

Organized by Timothy Murray

October 15-16, 2010

A. D. White House, Cornell University

Leading international artists, curators, and scholars will gather at the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University, to discuss transformations of aesthetics and interdisciplinary practice in our age of networked connection.  Of particular interest to this discussion will be reflection on global approaches to aesthetics and intermedial artistic practice that have been articulated in dialogue with or in contention with the Occidental tradition of aesthetics.

How does the aesthetic function in Latin American, Asian, African, South Asian, Australian, Middle Eastern, and global indigenous contexts?  And how might procedures of creative practice and curatorial engagement combine with academic practices of criticism and translation to enable or enhance cross-cultural expressions of aesthetic difference?  The conference will feature two days of presentations and discussion by leading international figures in the related fields of art, music, media, aesthetics, and critical theory.

FRIDAY October 15

Guerlac Room, A. D. White House

9:00 a.m. Opening Remarks

Timothy Murray, Director, Society for the Humanities

Durba Ghosh, Chair, Humanities Council, College of Arts and Sciences

Welcome, Heron Clan, Seneca Nation of Indians

Peter Jemison, Artist and Manager, Ganondagan Historic Site, Seneca Nation

9:30-10:45 a.m. Moderator: An-Yi Pan, History of Art and Visual Studies

Iftikhar Dadi, Art, History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell

“Art Between Global Media and the Urban Subaltern”

Yao Jui-Chung, Fine Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts and National Taiwan Normal University

“Mirage- discussed public property in Taiwan”

10:45-11:45 a.m. FEATURED SPEAKER

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Artistic Director, Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany

“Entanglement: Notes Towards dOCUMENTA (13)”

Lunch 11:45 a.m. -1:00 p.m.

1:00-2:15 p.m. Moderator: Renate Ferro, Art

Grace Quintanilla, Director, Pedro Meyer Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico

“Familiar/Memorable”

Jolene Rickard, Society for the Humanities/ Art, History of Art and Visual Studies, American Indian Program, Cornell

“Performing Indigeneity at the Venice and Sydney Biennale: Rebecca Belmore, James Luna and Skeena Reece”

2:15-3:30 p.m. Moderator: Lisa Patti, Theatre, Film, and Dance/School of Criticism & Theory

Kay Dickinson, Society for the Humanities/Media and Communications,

Goldsmiths College, University of London

“Red and Green Stars in Broad Daylight: Syrian-Soviet Journeys Through Cinema”

Sharon Willis, Art History/ Visual and Cultural Studies, University of Rochester

“Lost Objects: The Museum of Cinema”

3:45-5:00 p.m. Moderator: Viranjini Munasinghe, Anthropology and Asian American Studies

Andrew McGraw, Society for the Humanities/Music, University of Richmond

“Quasi-Collaboration and the Poetics of Pedophilia in Bang on A Can’s ‘House in Bali’ (2010)”

Salah Hassan, Art History and Africana Studies, Cornell

“Contemporary “Islamic” Art: Western Curatorial Politics of Representation in Post 9/11¾

5:15-6:45 p.m. Lewis Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall

PLENARY SPEAKER: Bruno Bosteels, Society for the Humanities/Romance Studies,Cornell

“Global Aesthetics and Its Discontents”

6:45 p.m. Reception, A. D. White House

SATURDAY, October 16

Guerlac Room, A. D. White House

8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Breakfast

9:00-10:15 a.m. Moderator: Elvira Dyangani, History of Art and Visual Studies

Akinwumi Adesokan, Comparative Literature, Indiana University

“Ousmane Sembene: Disalienating Modernity”

Jennifer Bajorek, Society for the Humanities/ Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths

College, University of London

“Photography of the Governed: Photo-Graphic Reason and the Theory of the African State”

11:00 a.m. -12:30 p.m. Moderator: Haiping Yan, Theatre, Film and Dance

Shin-Yi Yang, Curator, Beautiful Asset Management, Beijing, China

“Why Chinese Art Still Needs Realism”

Sui Jianguo, Sculpture, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China,

“A Chinese Sculptor’s Story”

12:30-2:00 p.m. Lunch

2:00-3:15 p.m. Moderator: Elizabeth Anker, Society for the Humanities/ English

Brenda L Croft, Indigenous Art Culture & Design, University of South Australia

“Sight/site lines: seeing beyond the surface”

Tejumola Olaniyan, Louis Durham Mead Professor of English, University of Wisonsin, Madison

“On Postcolonial Urban Garrison Architecture”

3:15-4:30 p.m. Moderator: Tracey Heatherington, Society for the Humanities/ Anthropology, University of Wisconson at Milwaukee

Gregg Lambert, Director, Mellon Central New York Humanities Corridor, Syracuse University

“The Baroque Tsunami: an incident-analysis of Neo-Baroque Form”

Yukiko Shikata, Director, Media Art Consortium, Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs, Tokyo, Japan

“Invisible Dynamics: World as Interaction Process”

4:45-6:00 p.m. Moderator: Timothy Murray

ROUNDTABLE:

Naoki Sakai, Asian Studies and Comparative Literature

Karen Pinkus, Romance Studies and Comparative Literature

Patricia Zimmermann, Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival/Cinema, Photography, and Media Arts, Ithaca College

Free and Open to the Public

So What is IT Portfolio Management?

Posted by on October 8th, 2010 · Finance, General, Learning & teaching, Operations Services, Research, Student & Academic Services, Uncategorized

IT portfolio management entails the business management of an organisation’s key business information systems & infrastructures from strategic planning through to the disposal of that system. In the case of enterprise class systems and infrastructure, the useful life of these assets might be 10 to 15years, whilst a non-enterprise class asset life might only be a few years.

Common portfolio practices include strategic planning, managed procurement, change management, operational support, risk minimisation, asset redeployment and disposal management. A key component is ensuring continuity exists between the business owners of information assets and service providers charged with the development, management, support and disposal across the life of the asset.

Portfolio management at UNSW works equally with the business owners of key enterprise class assets and IT at UNSW to assure that these assets support the needs of the University community by providing information services for strategic, tactical, operational and learning and teaching requirements requirements.

To find out more about IT Portfolio Management or to meet with a Portfolio Manager, please contact those people listed as PMs below on this blog page.

Drilling Engineering Design from June 27 – July 15, 2011.

Posted by on October 7th, 2010 · Uncategorized

Leoben is offering a summer program Drilling Engineering Design from June 27 – July 15, 2011. The course is designed for engineering undergraduates (e.g. mechanical or drilling engineering or similar) who have an understanding of engineering fundamentals, ideally entry level lectures in mechanical and electrical engineering, and automation, basic understanding of drilling engineering. The course also targets graduate students, who are interested in applied engineering problems.

If you would like to apply if you will need to complete the “UNSW Short course application” and we will collate the applications before forwarding them to Leoben.

Further information can be obtained from Michelle Kofod m.kofod@unsw.edu.au .

New courses offered at the University of Nottingham in China and Malaysia

Posted by on October 7th, 2010 · Short courses

The University of Nottingham has campuses in both China and Malaysia and in 2011 we are proud to be launching our new International Summer School courses for students from around the world. These two week programmes will provide a fantastic opportunity for students to be introduced to either China or Malaysia and will include a full social and cultural programme.

 2 week courses offered in China from Saturday 25 June – Saturday 9 July 2011:

 2 week courses offered in Malaysia from Saturday 9 July – Saturday 23 July 2011:

We are happy to receive applications from individuals or groups and to arrange additional options for groups from partner institutions. If you would like to talk about any of these options please contact my colleague Helen Foster on Helen.Foster@nottingham.ac.uk or +44 (0) 115 846 7145.

For further details about the courses and the application procedure go to http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/InternationalOffice/prospective-students/international-summer-schools/index.aspx

Scholarships for FUBiS term I available

Posted by on October 7th, 2010 · Uncategorized

In collaboration with the DAAD, FUBiS has the pleasure to award STIBET partial-tuition scholarships of 650 € each to qualified international candidates for the participation in FUBiS term I (January 15 – February 12, 2011). Scholarship applications and related materials are due by October 15, 2010 (date of receipt). Awards are based on the applicant’s academic achievements and financial needs.
Please click here for further information and the application form.

the fascinating world of schema design

Posted by on October 6th, 2010 · Uncategorized

Lately, the team’s collective mind has been really focussed on schema design. We have working through the LIEF’s brief which requires that our database have more information on exhibitions, roles ( like curators, clients, gallery directors and secondary roles, like teacher, administrator etc) to help with generating more profound research queries. We have of course also been thinking a lot about “design”  as a content category and what particular data do we need in order to be able to describe in metadata fields the life of a designer.

From initial discussions with design researchers, it would seem that schematically- the life of designer has much in common with the life of an artist. Works (in the broadest sense of the term) are produced, often in collaboration with others. Careers are supported by others who collect, curate, commission works. This is great news as it means our definition of ‘a life’ as it is represented in our database is fundamentally robust enough to incorporate a designer. However there are of course some fascinating and fundamental differences that  also emerge the more one thinks about design.

One of my favorite new fields that I am keen to workshop with people is ‘place of manufacture’. This field emerges as an interesting area in a globalising world of flows in which the client maybe in New York, the designer in Melbourne and the manufacture in korea. It is a classic Manuel Castells, ‘Rise of the Information society’ moment and a database that could capture that information would produce some valuable research ( and the most amazing visualisations!….).

Jo, our Data Manager, is well into her analysis of the metadata schema and I am refocussing my energies back on design this week in preparation for the Design workshop later this month. We were discussing our process and Jo helpfully used the word ‘triangulation’ to describe the analytical process. Jo and I share a passion for diagrams and so of course she has whipped one up which deftly represents a synopsis of the process, we are undertaking at present.

So basically Jo is working on that HUGE bottom part of the pyramid. I am working the top part  ( and a bit of the left side) of the pyramid with various consultants, researchers and you.

I’ve also been looking at some of our existing content on designers. This on Hera Roberts is rather exemplary http://www.daao.org.au/main/read/5391 but if we scroll down what more information would we want in the details?  How to build a database that speaks meaningfully to the history of design as well as its present.

Word the the week: SERENDIPITY. It seems to be happening all the time in the is project. Just as Olivia and I are thinking ‘wish we had something on artist run initiatives’ Amy Griffith and her database appear ( via Joanna Mendelsohn) Today just as i was thinking, I need to chat to a design researcher, I find myself on the phone with Juliette Peers from RMIT who has helpfully provided me some extremely useful grid references for measures of esteem, historical challenges, exemplary designers and some pointed case studies ( like ARUP or 3Deep) to explore edges of what we need to capture.

Charles has left the building

Posted by on October 6th, 2010 · General

Since my last update on the new R1 data centre, Charles Nolan has unfortunately left UNSW for greener pastures. Fortunately, Charles did leave me with a copy of his presentation on the data centre that I have posted for your viewing pleasure. Download a copy here but be warned, it is large! (17MB)

Assignment 3 – Grouping list

Posted by on October 5th, 2010 · assignments

The grouping has been done for Assignment 3 and you can check it at

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1400/10s2/groups_assn3.html

PLEASE make sure your grouping is exactly as you had asked.

REPORT any possible mistake to your tutor before Tuesday 12 October 2010.

The grouping is finalized on Tuesday 12 October 2010 and no change will be possible.

Tut 11 – Source debugger

Posted by on October 5th, 2010 · Lab

I have arranged for Unity 3 to be installed on the CHI Lab Macs. It includes the debugger that I demonstrated in the lecture. We’ll use it to step through some code.

  • Download the GrowFlowers.js script from the lecture.
  • Create a project to run it in. Remember to save the scene.
  • Set Preferences to use MonoDevelop as your editor (instructions)
  • Sync your project.
  • Read the debugger instructions.
  • Open GrowFlowers.js in MonoDevelop.
  • Set breakpoints on the line 9 and 23.
  • Start the debugger with Run > Debug
  • In the new Unity window, open the saved scene and press play.
  • The debugger should return showing line 9 highlighted.
  • Use the Step Over button to step through the code.
  • When you get to the end of the Start method, press the Continue button.
  • The debugger will run for a while and then stop at line 23.
  • Use the Step Over button to step through the code.
  • Watch the values change in the Locals window.
  • When you get to the end of the Update method, press the Continue button.

Try this out with different initial values in the heights array to see what happens.

Change the code to make the flowers shrink, starting with the tallest flower. Try running your code in the debugger to see what it does.

meet the team

Posted by on October 5th, 2010 · Uncategorized

The DAAO has finally got a Data Manager! Not a moment too soon. At this critical point of data design, we needed data management specialist to guide this phase of the project.  The arrival of Jo Croucher completes our core team and the impact of her expertise on metadata schema organisation has been immediate.  We now have one person totally dedicated to ensuring the viability  and quality of our data.  Not only does this enable us to make good critical technical and design decisions as we move into finalising design and preliminary testing of the project, but it also frees Olivia up to focus on organising our growing army of data miners and editor.

Our first full ‘core’  team meeting.

Jo, Olivia and Alice in the DAAO Office. (Who would have thought metadata standards could be so much fun!).