Keynotes

Music 2.0: a framework to examine next-generation digital arts environments

Chair: Prof Paul Draper, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University

Contributors:
Prof Bill Duckworth, Bucknell University USA
Ms Nora Farrell, Virtual Instruments USA
Mr Paul Davidson, Grfffith Film School

In the last decade, the Internet has served to to enable the explosion of social networking and new forms of creative practice. 'Web 2.0' has come to describe an online participatory culture which continues to transform value systems, undermine notions of authority and power, while simultaneously creating new pathways for autonomous creativity and innovation. In this keynote, Paul Draper discusses these phenomena through the lens of 'Music 2.0' as a vehicle to examine digital arts practice in action: from a brief historical overview of industrial and collaborative shifts since the dot-com boom & bust, through to more recent e-learning and e-research projects which profile 21st century artistry.

The keynote will feature a recent case study in the Fullbright-funded iOrpheus (iPod Opera) project, held on the South Bank Parklands in August 2007. This involved the work of US Internet music pioneers Bill Duckworth and Nora Farrell, as well as students and staff from the Queensland Conservatorium and the Griffith Film School. The session will cross live to New York to iChat with Bill and Nora, followed by the screening of a 10 minute iOrpheus documentary on state-of-the-art projection and 5.1 DTS surround sound playback systems. Film producer and director, Paul Davidson will speak about the documentary process as research, submitted as part of his Master of Arts (Honours) thesis requirements at the Griffith Film School.

Apple in the Creative Arts

Stephen Atherton and Stuart Harris, Apple

Stephen Atherton will look at Apple’s role in the Creative Arts and focus on case studies that illustrate the tools in action. Stuart Harris will drill down on speeds and feeds of some of Apple’s powerful software tools.

Art Schools as a new cultural economy in the information age

Su Baker, Victorian College of Art, University of Melbourne

What is the art school in the 21st Century. Does it generate cultural, intellectual, and creative capital? A good art school offers a form of agency, a means for linking talent and opportunity through intensive studio-based experience?

A good art school creates a milieu, an atmosphere, a critical context, an occasion for these explorations and opportunities, and in many cases creating a new markets for products and events.

An art school campus is a place for students to mix it with others, to learn, produce, reflect and to be launching pad for cultural experiments. In a pluralist culture increasing circulation of artistic forms and ideas provides the dynamism in contemporary art, an exchange between artists and within art works, like one big cultural think tank.

If so, what is the infrastructure for such a place and what tools, pedagogy and organisation systems do we set up to support it? How do we shift from a model of teaching a pre-existing body of knowledge to facilitating the discovery of knowledge not yet formed?

Creative Commons Australia: Music Industry Forum & APRA

The digital environment presents new opportunities for musicians and new business models for the distribution of music. Creative Commons licensing in particular has gained considerable favour with content
producers world-wide. However the legalities and practicalities of releasing music under these new models can be complicated, particularly when you wish to combine them with more traditional collective licensing options. For more information click here http://creativecommons.org.au/ccmusicforum