BrisCulture

I’m speaking on the 11th of August at an event organised by the Queensland Writers Centre:

Books in the Digital Age:The Future of Writing

With the rapid changes in Australia’s writing and publishing industry, where will books fit in the digital future and how will this affect how we read and write?

As part of QWC’s Wordpool series of three lectures for 2009, we’re looking at the the future of… books, writing and journalism.

Digital publishing invites writers and readers to think differently about the dynamic relationship between content and the container in which it’s consumed and shared.

Join Mark Bahnisch in a discussion as to what this means for Australia writers and readers, as he attempts to answer… what is the future of writing?

When: Tuesday 11 August, 6:30pm

Where: Room KG-B-304, Queensland University of Technology,

Kelvin Grove Campus

Cost: Free for QUT students, or $15. Bookings required

Bookings: Phone QWC on 07 3839 1243, or via www.qwc.asn.au

Cross-posted at Larvatus Prodeo.

One of the speakers at our Creative Brisbane event, Marcus Westbury, has recently begun writing a regular culture and cultural policy column for The Age. In a post on his blog this week, Marcus calls for crowdsourced ideas on:

non cash/funding related things that governments could do to help artists. Or even just areas where they should get out of the way?

Marcus writes that he has some in mind derived from his own experience with the Renew Newcastle project. [Incidentally, for those interested in the project's progress, the recent segment on the ABC's Sunday Arts can be viewed here.]

One of our themes at Creative Brisbane was the specificity of place and the need for policy and practice to be sensitive to particular local traditions, environments and cultural ecologies. It’s not difficult to think of examples where low cost initiatives – largely grass roots driven – made a huge difference to Brisbane’s creative scene. But what has worked in the past as an incubator doesn’t necessarily work to continue to facilitate sustainable culture making. I’m thinking here of the Valley music scene, but no doubt other instances could be cited.

There are some neat things happening in our town at the moment which exemplify the dynamic Marcus is talking about. Continue reading ‘Crowdsourcing cultural policy’

Flloyd Kennedy has kindly alerted us to the fact that Arts Queensland has released its Sector Development Plan for public comment. We have til 31 July. I haven’t had a chance yet to read the draft plan comprehensively, but I’ll be doing so and putting in a submission in due course.

Flloyd’s message is here on the BrisCulture FB discussion board, should anyone wish to have a chat.

She’s also pointed to an excellent post by Katherine Lyall-Watson on the Ourbrisbane performing arts blog analysing and critiquing the plan.

Recommended reading!

Courtesy of the very kind labours of Tim London of Eidos, we’re in the process of uploading video of last Tuesday night’s ‘Creative Brisbane’ event to the internet. It’s something of a work in progress, as the various segments are edited and the sound quality improved, and this post will be updated as more vision becomes available.

But in the meantime, if you weren’t able to make it along, or if you’d like to refresh your memory of the conversation, some snippets are available for your delectation, and we hope, for the purpose of stimulating some discussion at this blog.

So far available: BrisCulture administrator Cate Gilpin’s and Professor Bruce Muirhead’s introductory remarks and my answer to Bruce’s question – “what are you most proud of?” (the short answer being BrisCulture itself!) and my opening comments on the themes of BrisCulture.

Please follow the links to access the video footage.

Images of the event courtesy of Tony Robertson. The full hi-res set can be seen at Picasa. Thanks, Tony!

Continue reading ‘‘Creative Brisbane’ event photos’