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.

Events

As always, where I refer to an event that’s advertised on Facebook, please do the organisers the courtesy of rsvp-ing there should you wish to attend. You can follow the links in the post for event details.

Music – and art and festivals and film

One of the fruits of the Q150 celebrations has been the commissioning of some new classical music from some young Brisbane composers. St John’s Cathedral plays host on Sunday night to a performance by the TQO String Quartet and The Brisbane Chamber Choir of specially commissioned works for choir and string quartet by emerging local composers, Joseph Twist and Paul-Antoni Bonetti. Of significance also is the presence of Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Messe on the bill. This is the second time (I think!) one of Pärt’s compositions has been played in Brisbane this year – the first being in March at the Old Museum by Adam Cadell and friends. It’s great to see the boundaries of the classical repertoire in this town being stretched to include an (arguably) postmodern composer like Pärt in conjunction with the cultivation of an audience for original works by young Brisbane composers.

In that vein, next week at the Con, the SOUNDING OUT Composers’ Collective presents THE NEW CHAMBER CONCERT. On Thursday August 6 at 6pm – I’m looking forward very much to checking out “a fresh approach to chamber ensemble fusing electronic and acoustic sounds.”

And don’t forget the third KiLN Classics performance at Paddo’s KiLN gallery next Sunday evening – this time, the Brisbane Chamber Collective goes brassy! You can appreciate Jan Jorgensen’s exhibition and enjoy an artist talk along with nibblies, wine and fabulous music – what could be a better way to spend a Sunday evening?

While we’re on the subject of music, it shouldn’t have escaped anyone’s attention that we’re in the midst of the Queensland Music Festival. Programme details are available here. (And there’s extra festivally goodness, of course, from BIFF, which begins on Thursday.) But, wait there’s more; to follow up on what I was saying last time about the new Friday night Residents sessions at the Powerhouse organised under the banner of our friends at Brispop (among others), it’s well worth exploring the expanded music programme in the Turbine Room – lots of fab stuff, including some excellent jazz and some QUT bands!

Theatre

Another followup on last month’s newsletter: we were very chuffed to sponsor a fundraiser for two emerging indie theatre companies. One of the said companies – The Good Room – is presenting Holy Guacamole at Metro Arts from Tuesday:

In the depths of suburbia, lives Eustace – a half-boy/ half-avocado hybrid of human outcast and exotic fruit. It’s not easy being green when you live on the fringes of good taste and monstrous ‘normality’. In this black-green comic fairy tale, backyard magic and suburban angst collide with mouth-watering results.

Fashion design

Whether or not avocado green is currently a fashionable shade in the realm of streetwear I have no idea (and I’m sure many of us remember 1996 as the year of orange and green jeans… you had to be there, I think) but aspiring fashionistas might want to know about Follow the Fashion:

Aspiring fashion designers around the country are being given the career break of lifetime – the opportunity to win their own boutique in Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall rent free for six months, including utilities, shop fit out and marketing support. A budding designer’s dream prize!

Entering is easy – simply upload your creations to a virtual shopfront via www.followthefashion.com.au and get the public to vote for you. The deadline for designers to upload their wares is 5.00pm on Monday 3 August with the public vote closing on Friday 7 August. The competition is open nationally.

Over 30 designers have entered so far, with two weeks still to go. So get sewing!

Here’s a link to a video we shot when we launched the comp – we placed a clear, perspex cube in the middle of the mall fitted out like a designer’s studio and had a live fashion designer working away inside.

Cultural Policy (and Craft! and Disused spaces!)

Speaking of sewing, Marcus Westbury, one of the speakers at our Creative Brisbane event, penned a column for The Age last week about the confluence of digital culture and craft. I’d wholeheartedly agree that the DIY craft networks on the intertubes are an incredibly promising development in the fields of both creativity and small scale economies. Incidentally, over at West End, the lovely folk at Avid Reader are hosting their regular Little Market on Friday night, selling the handmade wares of all manner of local arty and crafty folk.

If you’re interested in a bit of a good spirited debate about cultural policy, you might also like to have a squizzy at one between me and Marcus (and a few others!) on a comments thread at Terry Flew’s blog. On the table is the thorny distinction between the Arts and Creative Industries, and some vigorous discussion about how we take the cultural policy agenda to the next stage. The 2009 summit by blog comment, perhaps…

Marcus’ Renew Newcastle project is well known for reinvigorating place through the utilisation of empty space. I’d like to draw attention to a similar, if necessarily more dispersed, initiative in inner Brissie – Independent Exhibitions:

IE exhibits new work by emerging Brisbane artists in vacant urban spaces in Fortitude Valley, the CBD and Brisbane’s inner suburbs. We offer funding and support to local artists and provide short term exhibition spaces in highly exposed urban areas.

You can join their Facebook group here.

It would be great to see similar initiatives in the burbs.

Visual Arts, roadtrips and Social Enterprise

And that leads me to an obvious segue – discussion about arts work and an exhibition of visual artists’ work in one place, which certainly isn’t inner city Brisneyland: at 19KAREN Contemporary Artspace at Mermaid Beach. Tales from the Cold Ghost III features “26 new emerging Qld artists and over 90 supadupa artworks + MORE”. Among their number is Brisbane’s own Ms Mandy Beaumont! There’s an opening on Saturday, should you be in the mood for a road trip, an afterparty after, and then there is a range of associated events and discussions co-produced by tinygold and Artworkers Alliance.

Back in town, if you’re wanting to start your weekend off in similar mode, Friday night sees the opening of Hearts of Gold II at Bleeding Heart Gallery in Ann Street. Bleeding Heart is a “profit with purpose” social enterprise, and in this case the profits from the exhibition’s opening night go to ADAWS (Adolescent Drug & Alcohol Withdrawal Service) at South Brisbane.

Social enterprise itself is getting a good talking about in Brisbane these days. I’ll be teaching this semester in Griffith Uni’s social enterprise programme (the new core of the Bachelor of Arts). I’m looking forward to that, and also to sharing some insights from my reading, related events and indeed class discussions.

So, happy BrisCulturating, one and all!

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. The Red Chair Project in the CBD (on which I’ll be writing later as it develops further) seeks to revitalise town as a cultural place, and as a place for play, through selecting and paying emerging artists to stage multi-form performances in a range of locales. Much of the work that has enabled this project to get off the ground is the fairly unglamorous but necessary suite of tasks which underpin an ambitious aim – negotiating with retailers and building owners, working with Council and other local governance groups, and so on.

The hope is that the project will be a catalyst for something rich, enduring and growing; among other things, fostering a different notion of public art and the cultivation of audiences and the creation of shared cultures. The concept is not too dissimilar to Fête de la Musique Brisbane, but rather than being a festival, and rather than being devoted to one creative genre, it’s an ongoing and somewhat virtual project – a series of happenings across the CBD and the traces they leave in cyberspace and shifting attitudes. It’s a nice example of government working to facilitate grass roots activity, and through a process of snowballing and including, foster something which is a multiple of its individual components.

Incidentally, there are some great photos of Fête de la Musique Brisbane by Jo Bell of Brispop here.

One of our aims in BrisCulture, as I outlined at Creative Brisbane, is to foster a decentralised process of cultural policy making from the ground up. So I’d be really interested in suggestions which correspond to Marcus’ crowdsourcing call which are particular to Brisbane. Look forward to hearing what folks think, and I’d encourage people to leave comments here, as well as on Marcus’ blog should you wish to feed into his column composition!

Events

Click on the links for event details.

If the link takes you to a Facebook events page, and you’re on Facebook, please do the organisers the courtesy of rsvp-ing there.

Somaspace

First up, the folks at Somaspace continue to showcase collaborative practice from Brisbane’s emerging artists tomorrow night. Drinks, tapas, live visual art, artwork from unrepresented artists, and more at Barsoma from 5pm tomorrow, Wednesday 1 July. A few of us popped along a little while back to check it out (as part of the State of Origin avoidance project: not that there’s anything wrong, etc) and it’s a really creative and neat use of the space – a fine contribution to the Valley’s night time creative ecology well worth supporting.

TTYN: Talk To You Never

The BURN Writers’ Collective take over the State Library of Queensland on Thursday night from 6.30pm. The Queensland Terrace on Level 2 will host TTYN: Talk To You Never:

Brisbane-based BURN Writers Collective presents a night of readings, spoken word performances and multimedia, exploring what it means to be a writer today. In an age where the mouthpieces outrank the mouths, join the BURN Writers Collective as they descend from their mythical garrets and take centre stage at State Library of Queensland, debunking the idea that writers should remain read and never seen or heard. In collaboration with digital artists, film makers and designers, writers from the BURN Collective revolt against enduring notions of the writer and revel in a series of multimedia enhanced self-portraits which explore the writer at work, the writer at play, and the writer in life. The night will also feature special guests from the Australian Poetry Slam and the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award.

I’m really looking forward to this one, and to seeing (among others) some of our writing students from Griffith in a fabulous context which seeks to push the boundaries of the ‘literary reading’.

Friday night!

Unsurprisingly, there’s tons of stuff happening on Friday night. BrisCulture itself is supporting The Price Is Tight! – an off the wall trivia night at the TLC Building on Peel Street, South Brisbane, kicking off at 7.30pm. It’s a fundraiser for two emerging Brissie independent theatre companies: AS Theatre and The Good Room. My powers of summary are humbled by the plethora of good things that will be going on, so I’d suggest you follow the link and read the blurb!

If you feel like some preliminary Friday night drinks, there are some options over and above the City suit swill hour. The lovely folks at the Bleeding Heart Cafe and Gallery – whose launch a few weeks ago was lots of fun, and who hosted our Creative Brisbane event in May – welcome everyone for drinks with a purpose from 4pm. In keeping with their ‘profit for purpose’ vision, you’ll be drinking for a good cause. Yes, it’s a Goat Drive:

Enjoy a beer or wine after work on the lovely heritage, Queenslander-style veranda at Bleeding Heart. Everyone is welcome! This time, we’re donating all profits to the Oxfam Unwrapped Program. That’s right, we’re BUYING GOATS for communities in Africa. Our goal is to raise enough money to buy 15 of the little guys. Or 14 goats and a duck. Either way, you’re drinking for a good cause!

Alternatively, or better, additionally, you could make your way to the Turbine Platform at the Powerhouse at 6pm where our friends at Brispop (and their friends) inaugurate a new Friday night event – The Residents – to showcase some of the best indie bands who’ve been performing at Live Spark. The Sunburys will be first up, with an album launch.

No doubt there’s lots of other stuff going on, and if you know of any stuff we should be endorsing, please feel free to leave a comment! As part of the plans we have for the website, we’d also be interested in any event or gig reviews – we need a critical review culture for the Brisbane scene! My contact details are here.

Cultural policy discussions and BrisCulture

To start with, just a reminder that Arts Queensland has released its draft Sector Development Plan for 2010-2012. My previous post, with all the links you need, can be found here. It’s important that this initiative, which will contribute to shaping the funding environment and policy space for Queensland creatives for the next few years, attracts the broadest possible input from and discussion by those actually working in arts, creativity and culture.

Secondly, on the theme of sustainable creative practice, my blogging colleague at Larvatus Prodeo, Anna Winter, discusses a disturbing phenomenon now being facilitated by the federal government’s Government 2.0 Taskforce – sourcing creative input (in this case from designers) for free, in the guise of ‘crowdsourcing’. There are, obviously, broader implications, and it’s well worth joining in the discussion.

Lastly, and I’ve only just finished marking first semester essays, so I haven’t had a chance for a good look, the Australia Council has released its strategy for the arts and artists in the digital era. Again, I think it’s worth emphasising that we need to break the top down policy making lock, and actively engage in shaping and reshaping what emanates from the culture policy machine.

Speaking of only just having finished marking first semester essays, some of the BrisCulture planning process has been ongoing even in the madness that afflicts us at this time of year. But now that we’re temporarily free of teaching related commitments, I expect that there’ll be something of a whirlwind of activity over the next little while in progressing some of the ideas that have already emerged. So, please watch this space, and as always, don’t hesitate to be in touch!

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!

Well, a week ago as I write, there was a stimulating discussion taking place in the Bleeding Heart Gallery between the ‘Creative Brisbane’ panelists, academics, artists and arts workers, and all manner of folk involved in creating and co-creating our collective civic culture. We’ve had some great feedback from the event, and I think it’s clear that we made a real start in facilitating a conversation about how we can progress our aims of fostering emergent and sustainable cultural practice in this lovely town of ours.

I write tonight to update everyone on some of the fruits of the event, and to outline the next steps forward for the BrisCulture project.

But before doing so, I’d like to reiterate the thanks I’ve already offered to everyone who made Creative Brisbane such a success, and particularly to the attendees and all others from diverse fields who’ve shown enormous enthusiasm for the project. It’s really heartening! As I said in my opening remarks at the session, anyone who’s been involved in any form of community action and cultural work knows that some ideas have social value because of the response that they receive. And the response to BrisCulture has been just fantastic.

Creative Brisbane: The ongoing discussion

We’re hoping to facilitate further discussion of the themes we raised and chatted about in a number of ways.

First, progressively over the next couple of weeks, the video footage of the event will be uploaded to the web and linked to from the BrisCulture website. The first segments can be viewed via this post.

Panelists will also be invited to write a short summary of the key points they made, and those who raised questions or made comments in the public discussion are also most welcome to get in touch if they’d like to expand their thoughts for our blog. In this way, those who attended, and everyone else interested, can take the conversation further. So we welcome and encourage debate on the blog.

Incidentally, if you haven’t had a squizzy, event photos have been uploaded here… and my own snaps are viewable at Facebook.

Secondly, I will be investigating funding sources for a publication memorialising and expanding on the event. Again, I think it would be neat if this is something of an open source work, so please contact me if you’re interested in writing something for us. That need not be limited to the questions we raised, or the cultural policy issues canvassed. It could be a reflection on the Creative Brisbane themes, or for that matter, a reflection on any aspect of sustainable arts and cultural practice in Brisbane.

Thirdly, one of our two next events will take the form of a face to face workshop where we can chat about Creative Brisbane in an even more interactive way, and continue to refine and create some ideas about where to go from here. We will be spending some time in the next little while on the planning and fundraising needed to take BrisCulture further, so I envisage that taking place in July.

BrisCulture: The future

Our second planned event will be a launch party! One of our themes, after all, is the need for places where we can come together and talk, and enjoy some live art, music and other good things. The probable date for this event is also some time in July.

We want to do all this – and more – collaboratively with your input!

BrisCulture: The website

In that context, I’d like to signal a couple of plans we have for the website.

In a few months, we intend to relaunch our website with social networking features enabling individuals and organisations to collaborate and co-create, and to match people and projects up with others and with places. We believe there is a social need for a local hub for conversations, for joining up people, and for developing audiences and cultures across all the myriad of fields of creative practice we all relish.

As outlined at Creative Brisbane, we believe in fostering a critical culture of appreciation and reviewing, and that will be part of the website too. I’m interested, also, in soliciting some contributions on the cultural history of Brisbane and its particular forms and patterns of urban culture. One of the themes that emerged was that innovation must go with the grain of what already works, and I believe that there is much to be learnt from what is already distinctive about this town.

Before we go live with the new website, I’d like to keep the momentum going. So if anyone has an event to discuss, wants to write about any aspect of BrisCulture, is in a reviewing mood, or has any other contribution suitable for the blog, please do feel free to be in touch! We’ll continue to be on the lookout for events which cohere with our vision and themes to promote – such as the Cheryl Kernot talk tomorrow night presented by the State Library of Queensland and Griffith REVIEW which we’re endorsing.

BrisCulture: Connectivity and staying in touch

We’re well aware that a lot of folk receive many messages daily, so we won’t be deluging you with messages from us! We will stay in touch via the Facebook group, but aim to restrict messages to the membership generally to one a week. If you aren’t signed up, please consider doing so. If you’d prefer to receive information via email, please let us know. To facilitate planning for particular events, we’ll message invitees separately either via Facebook events or through email lists generated through rsvps. So if there is an event you’re interested in, please sign up for that particular function or performance – messages specific to events won’t be distributed to the BrisCulture group as a whole (except perhaps an initial heads up!)…

We’d like to start fostering conversations here at the blog, so if you use a feed reader, it might be a neat idea to add our feed.

I’m also hoping to touch base with some individuals who’ve indicated an interest in collaboration over the next few weeks – after the madness of university marking settles down a bit! I’m always happy to hear from people via email – at mbahnisch at gmail dot com. If your comment or contribution is more general, you might consider leaving a blog comment on an appropriate thread, so others can also benefit from your insight. Or, as I mentioned earlier, you may wish to consider writing and submitting a piece for the BrisCulture website!

Part of our vision is that we can achieve great things through leveraging the connections we each individually have into a collective whole that’s bigger than the sum of its parts, so we’d be delighted if you are able to spread the word about BrisCulture to friends, colleagues, and contacts!

Finally: The tips jar

We will be seeking sources of funding for establishing BrisCulture as a social enterprise, and endeavouring to generate income and attract sponsorship through and for specific events and projects. I’d also be delighted to discuss speaking and consultancy opportunities.

We’re not aiming to make a profit, and we are aiming to minimise the costs of anything we do to participants. But we do also want to live what we believe about sustainable creative careers!

So, since we did incur some expense in the organisation of ‘Creative Brisbane’, and after the decision was taken not to proceed at this stage with a complementary paid event (which we had initially envisaged would cover our costs), we’d be very grateful indeed for donations. A donation can be made via PayPal – if you’re able to spare some cash, please do so by following the instructions at this link.

‘Creative Brisbane’ cost $1420 to stage, exclusive of voluntary labour from all of us and in kind contributions from partners such as Eidos and the Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival, for which we’re very grateful! We received about $30 in donations on the night, and all money raised at the bar, as we announced, went entirely to support the work of the Bleeding Heart Cafe and Gallery in its outreach to Indigenous artists and communities.

I’m firmly of the belief that transparency is vital for any social enterprise, and I am most happy to supply a breakdown of our costs on request. All the expenses to date have been paid for by me.

So, we really would be exceptionally grateful for any support you can give!

Thanks!

I’m really looking forward to our future collective endeavours together, and thanks once again to everyone for their hard work, enthusiasm, ideas, and well, creativity! Have a great night!

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.

In her post-political career, Cheryl Kernot has been actively working in these fields, and analysing them within academia. The latest edition of Griffith REVIEW, Participation Society, addresses many of these questions, and Kernot will be talking at the State Library of Queensland on Wednesday night at 6.30pm on ‘A Participation Society’, riffing off some of the themes of her GR essay. Details of how to book tix and rsvp are on BrisCulture’s Facebook group.

Cross-posted at Larvatus Prodeo.

I think the general consensus was that the ‘Creative Brisbane’ event was both a really lovely and incredibly stimulating and interesting conversation and a very enjoyable night! It’s perhaps for others to judge, but I really felt that we began as we intended to go on – by creating a space where we could connect to each other and leverage the incredible creativity that exists in this town, and begin to talk to each other about how we can achieve our collaborative – if diverse goals – by co-creating, recreating and cultivating the wellsprings of creativity that we all draw strength from every day.

It was significant, I think, that we met in a space that was once a place of translating working women and men’s desires, through a wonderful collective pedagogy, into social action. Those recollections, I think, resonated, as did the beautiful surroundings of the Bleeding Heart Gallery, whose so valuable work towards empowering Indigenous folk and their arts practice and capabilities, inspired all of us and reminded us of the sacred Indigenous spaces we – all – continue – to navigate and respect.

We’ll be opening up a space on the blog section of the BrisCulture website over the next few days to reflect we co-created at Creative Brisbane, and to share those insights and collaborate with those who were ‘absent friends’ as it were.

The entire event was filmed, and in due course, and again furthering our objective of curating and cultivating a continuing conversation, that vision will be available to one and all via our website, and will be opened up for comment and chat.

I myself was so heartened and encouraged by the vitality and the commitment on display! I know that BrisCulture can do good work in the world – as a project of cherishing, and co-creating a living culture between all of us!

Both Tony Robertson and Jonathon Rodgers were kind enough to act as event photographers, and once their superb images are processed, we’ll make them available. In the meantime, my and Michael Carden’s amateur – in the true and good sense of the word! – shots can be seen here.

It remains for me to make some more acknowledgements – to Cate Gilpin for her amazing organisational efforts, to Bruce Muirhead and Tim London and Eidos Institute for their fervent belief and expert facilitation of the concept, to Rochelle Els and many others in Council and the Brisbane CitySmart Innovation Festival for their encouragement and support, to Miriam Lyons and the CPD for their enthusiasm, to Pete Collins and the lovely folk @ Bleeding Heart for the space and the hospitality, to Linda Carroli, Jaz Choi and Marcus Westbury as wonderful co-panellists, to Greg Jenkins and Ken Lyons at the QUT end for spreading the word, and most of all, to everyone who came along, and everyone whose well wishes and willingness to collaborate in the future has been an incredible source of validation and faith for our vision!

I’d also like to acknowledge Danielle Bentley, who unfortunately was prevented by adverse and unavoidable circumstances from appearing on the panel, for her inspiration, hard work, ideas and spirit. Truly, the event would not have been possible without her involvement.

I think we started something last night! And I look forward so much to working with all of you to a most fruitful and indefinite journey down the road towards creating a sustainable future for a truly Creative Brisbane!

Update: Tony Robertson has posted his photos on Picasa.