AustLit

'This is the edited transcript of Session 2 of the Symposium on Creative Collaborations in Intercultural and Intermedial Spaces, convened by Creative Arts and English, La Trobe University, 7-9 July 2020.' (Introduction)

'This is the edited transcript of Sessions 3 and 4 of the Symposium on Creative Collaborations in Intercultural and Intermedial Spaces, convened by Creative Arts and English, La Trobe University, 7-9 July 2020.' (Publication abstract)

'This is the edited transcript of Session 5 of the Symposium on Creative Collaborations in Intercultural and Intermedial Spaces, convened by Creative Arts and English, La Trobe University, 7-9 July 2020. This session, chaired by Hester Joyce, began with an online screening of the documentary film, Homeland story. The screening was followed by a Q&A on Zoom with filmmaker, Glenda Hambly, and anthropologist, Neville White. This edited transcript of the post-screening discussion concludes with an afterword by Glenda Hambly: At the end came the script.' (Publication abstract)

'This is the edited transcript of Session 1 of the Symposium on Creative Collaborations in Intercultural and Intermedial Spaces, convened by Creative Arts and English, La Trobe University, 7-9 July 2020. The three-day symposium opened with Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine in conversation about their award-winning collaboration on the high-octane, pub-gig, rock-musical, road-trip, stage-show Barbara and the camp dogs, winner of four Helpmann awards in 2019 and four Green Room awards in 2020.' (Publication abstract)

'Here’s my iteration of the Laocoön – shall we say? – meme. Does it begin with the sculpture described by Pliny the Elder and literally unearthed in a Roman vineyard in 1506? Or with the second book of Virgil’s Aeneid? An eighteenth and nineteenth century touchstone for art/scholarship: I copy (do I copy?) Blake’s engraving – image and text – as he had copied (no, not copied) a London-bound copy of the Rome-based “original”. Poem > sculpture > painting > art theory > reproduction > iPad Pro Procreate remediation.'  (Publication abstract)

'The 2020 March-November coronavirus lockdown period in Melbourne (Australia) led to the suspension of many arts/entertainment programs, but it also provided an opportunity to launch innovative online projects. An informal partnership between Montsalvat artists’ colony and La Trobe University in Victoria, allowed the short story winners of La Trobe’s 2019 Young Writers’ Award to be read for film by professional stage and television actors: Anisha Senarate, Emily Taheny, Cal Wilson and Maude Davey. Initially proposed to Montsalvat as an online alternative to its community arts schedule during intermittent lockdown months, the Young Writers project was complete and uploaded in March 2021. The filmed stories, shot on the grounds and in the unique gothic styled buildings of Montsalvat, demonstrate the intermedial possibilities available to contemporary literary and performance-based pedagogy and practice. This article elaborates on the nature and value of this approach to storytelling and references the historical and contemporary nature of performed readings that informed the development of this project.' (Publication abstract)

'Cinematic virtual reality (CVR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies are emerging as storytelling media that enable practitioners to move from traditional 2D filmmaking to explore narratives within a frameless screen. This article describes the challenges of writing an interactive extended reality (XR) documentary for a site-specific location. It focuses on the award-winning, practice-led research project, A Miscarriage of Justice XR, produced at Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison heritage precinct in 2020. It claims that the screenwriter is the principal designer of augmented and virtual reality documentaries and that conceiving and composing XR experiences requires taking an “experience design” (XD) approach, exploiting the “user’s experience” (UX).' (Publication abstract)

'Place is alive. Exploring my relationship with the land I live on pushes me to articulate a vision for place beyond the Cartesian perspective of object/subject. Instead of asking, what is this place I am in relationship with, I ask, who is this place I am in relationship with? I shift the western cultural narrative through recognising agency to the assemblage of non-humans that entangle to create life. I bring myself into a relationship with an entity rather than in space. Written expression shapes onto-epistemologies, which then shape how we interact, make laws, and care for the world. Our western institutional approach to structure and grammar are complicit in the written word being a world maker. This, coupled with an imperialism of the English language, makes for a powerful combination in shaping cultural narratives. Once the written word becomes embedded within concepts, both the conventional placement and the very definition of what is noun or verb, we begin to make meaning based on these placements and rhythms of ideas. All too often, the placement of object/subject within the sentence shapes our relationships with/to, and so often reiterates the hierarchical thinking embedded within Cartesian dualism. The process of exploring the written world as world maker encourages me to question decisions based on categorisation and orders of concepts when establishing a narrative for my work. The value of writing as part of my practice asks me to use a vigilant and ongoing re-framing of conventional language towards alternate perspectives of ecological thought.' (Publication abstract)

'This article explores how Covid-19 has produced new, highly constricted sites for performance, giving rise to a new vocabulary for site-specific screendance. It begins with online screendance collaborations created in response to the constrictions of Covid-19 lockdowns in Melbourne. It then describes how external and internal constraints impacted on the author’s own site-specific, practice-led research project, with reference to Rudolf Laban’s movement analysis. It draws on the Japanese space-time concept ma (間) to examine the importance of interval and pause when developing site-specific screendance works while restricted to sites at home, including the couch, the shower, the bed and the car.' (Publication abstract)

'The screen idea is a scholarly term used to describe the collective idea for a narrative screen project that exists in the minds of the collaborators as their concept for the work is evolving. The term has mostly been related to the script development phase of a project to elucidate the liminal form and function of the screenplay during that period. The screen idea can also be related to subsequent phases of conventional commercial screen production, such as the intensive planning period known as pre-production. One of the central activities during pre- production is the process undertaken by key heads of department – director, production designer and director of photography (DOP) – in conceiving a visual style with which to tell the story. This group is sometimes referred to as the visual triumvirate. The visual concept developed by the triumvirate sets out a plan for how the formal qualities of the work, such as colour, contrast, camera movement and lens choice, will be used to drive and enhance the expression of the narrative. During this phase, the imagery inferred through the words of the script begins to find tangible form, thereby contributing to the evolution of the screen idea as it progresses beyond the script development phase. Through examples taken from creative practice in recent Australian film and television, alongside the author’s own industry experience, this article examines factors influencing the process of negotiation between the triumvirate as they develop a visual style for their screen projects.' (Publication abstract)

'This article considers the place of screenwriting practice in relation to comedic television projects created during an extended lockdown period in Australia and internationally. During times of global disruption, society has repeatedly relied on the literary and performing arts to entertain and inform. I will use the television series Retrograde (2020) as a case study to consider screenwriters’ resilience during times of turbulence and unrest and how they were able to create television in isolation to deliver comic relief to an online audience. Retrograde was written and produced entirely online in direct response to the restriction of movement and face- to-face interactions imposed due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The comedic television show was written for a multiscreen performance and features a predominantly female writing team and cast. It is set in the online video conferencing space, which many have become accustomed to using for educational, professional, and social encounters during lockdown. Retrograde’s characters depict the intersection of cultures of disability, sexuality, gender, race, and class, with the shared experience of being stuck at home, alone together. The Retrograde project proves intercultural representations can flourish within screenwriting practice when given the opportunity, and intermedial collaboration is possible despite the imposed hindrance of isolation.' (Publication abstract)