Communication and Media Studies Research Seminar Series

Picturing Light

Sean Cubitt (University of Melbourne)

Just as street lighting does more than replace moonlight, light technologies of the digital era do more than remediate light techniques form the past. This seminar presents some preliminary findings from a research project on the affordances and genealogies of digital light. The centre of the presentation will be the depiction of light in a variety of different media in relation to how it is represented in both digital artefacts and software interfaces. A critical question: are light techniques and technologies becoming normative in the 21st century, and do such norms operate differently to their operation in previous epochs?

English Library (Clayton Campus, Menzies Building, W710), 3 to 4.30 pm

The Aesthetics of the Image in Visual Digital Art: Embodiment, Immersion and Interactivity

John Lechte (Macquarie University)

The paper will give an outline of the current state of play regarding approaches to the aesthetics of digital art. It will point out that immersive, interactive digital art is often seen as the finale of the subject-object relation in art, but, the paper will suggest, this is because the majority of commentators have been seduced by the technical aspect of digitization at the expense of aesthetics. As a result, the time may well be ripe for developing a new theory/philosophy of aesthetics, one that might rework the classical notion of aesthetics as aisthesis, as this pays homage to the body.

Caulfield Campus, Building H, Room HB40, 2 to 3.30 pm

The protection of traditional cultural expression and the limits of moral arguments from culture and religion

Elizabeth Coleman (Monash University, CMS)

This paper explore a problem in moral philosophy concerning the rights of religious and cultural groups. In theory, religion and culture are often blurred. Religion may be defined as culture, and, when discussing indigenous cultures, culture may be defined in terms of religion. This creates problems when we are considering the rights of indigenous people, as within political philosophy the limits of rights of freedom of religion are different to the limits of the rights to culture. The paper will use the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s draft protcols for the protection of Traditional Cultural Expression as a means of exploring the practical implications of this problem.

Berwick Campus, Room 901/231, 2 to 3.30 pm

Paradox and Indirect Communication

A Symposium with Peter Murphy, Markus Locker, Justin Clemens and Dimitris Vardoulakis.

Paradox is a potent form of communication—allowing us the capacity to talk about things that otherwise are practically impossible to talk about, things that otherwise would reduce us to withering silence. This seminar explores the nature of paradox as a form of meta-communication, and the role that it plays at the core of human culture—enabling human beings to pose religious, philosophical, artistic and other central questions of existence that otherwise could not be postulated or even conceived. The paper givers will consider the role of paradox in dramaturgical acts, in the religion-science dialogue, in decision-making, and in artistic representation—and will consider the kinds of strange truths and powerful cultural enigmas that can only be represented in, through and by paradoxical forms of communicative action.

Full details here.

Caulfield Campus, Building H, Room H225, 12.30 to 5.00 pm

The Lands St George Forgot: Visions of the North

Kevin Foster (Monash University)

This paper will examine how, in a range of travel, literary and historical texts from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, shifting ideas about England’s ‘essential identity’ shaped responses to and representations of its industrial regions. It will explore how the North has been employed (and unemployed) to validate a range of contentions about what constitutes authentic national identity and, in the light of these postulates, in what senses it can be considered a part of England.

Berwick Campus, Room G87, 2 to 3.30 pm

The History of Charisma

John Potts (Macquarie University)

The term ‘charisma’ emerged in the early Christian church of the first century; it lay submerged for many centuries, with intermittent appearances; charisma was re-invented in Max Weber’s sociology in the early twentieth century; the word is widely used in contemporary western culture, in media, academic scholarship, and popular discourse. The analysis of the history of this term its invention, eclipse, re-appearance and transformation explores its shifting cultural role over two millennia.

English Library (Clayton Campus, Menzies Building, W710), 2 to 3.30 pm

Ageing rockers and die hard punks: When youth culture meets middle age

Andy Bennett (Griffith University)

In the study of popular music reception, ageing audiences have never been a major focus of attention. Occasional references to ageing audiences that do appear, both in academic and popular texts, often tend to cast such audiences in a negative light - as cultural misfits or overgrown teenagers. It could, however, be argued that such representations of ageing popular audiences are increasingly out of step with a world in which definitions of ageing and generational boundaries are radically shifting. Indeed, within this context popular music may be argued to take on a critical new significance as a form of cultural authority; just as music functions as a cultural beacon for youth, so, it could be argued it is used by ageing individuals in the framing of their identities and lifestyles. As such, ageing popular music audiences can be situated in the context of a late modern cultural territory where issues of age, identity and lifestyle are becoming increasingly complex.

English Library (Clayton Campus, Menzies Building, W710), 3 to 4.30 pm