Daniele Rugo is currently based at the Centre for Ideas while undertaking field research for his PhD at Goldsmiths College, London.  Email: expo01dr at gold.ac.uk 

BODYsms. Representations of the body in contemporary art
Taking the work by Australian artist Patricia Piccinini as starting point, my research will attempt a reading of the representations of the body in contemporary art, focusing specifically on the link body-technology.
In the light of Jean Luc Nancy’s thought  - engaging in particular an analysis of his notions of the body as place of existence and of the prosthetic contingency at the very hearth of the body - I will attempt to bring new knowledge on the emerging visual cultures of the body. The second step will then be devoted to a study on the relation between Nancy’s concept of techne and the question concerning technology as posed by Heidegger. These former and broader analyses should then be conveyed towards a closer examination of two pervasive discourses affecting today representations’ of the body - human genetic and digital media, with the aim of showing man’s ambiguous relation to technology and the abjection we encounter when confronted with representations of the body extremely open to technology as Piccinini’s one.

Bio
Daniele Rugo is currently working as Research Assistant for the project Networked Cultures, which investigates the transformative potential of art, architectural and urban practices in Europe, as they team up to challenge traditional models of spatial planning, co-habitation and land use. The project is funded by FP6, Marie Curies Actions Programme.
http://www.networkedcultures.org/
Daniele Rugo has received his MA Digital Art in London after studies in literature, music and drama in Milan. He has been exhibiting interactive installations based on sensors and digital interfaces in galleries and clubs both in Italy and Uk. His last work has been exhibited in Venice in may 2006.
www.siteinsightproject.org
He is now engaged as a PhD student at Goldsmiths College - University of London in a research on the new visual cultures of the body.
http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/visual-cultures/student-research.php
Daniele will be visiting student at CFI – VCA for the months of July and August 2006.

Large-scale Internet Collaboration
Mark Elliott was recently awarded an MRS scholarship to carry out a PhD at the Centre for Ideas researching collaboration and developing large-scale collaborative systems and methods. As part of his PhD, Mark has recently designed, created and implemented an online collaborative network designed to facilitate and augment the collaborative opportunities of the 200 + students enrolled in the Centre's third year course, Collaborative Contract. Mark is also a project creator, coordinator and the site designer of the Australian Bill of Rights Initiative (ABRI).

In partnership with the Centre for Ideas and the Castan Center for Human Rights Law (Monash University) ABRI will be providing an online site for the collaborative creation of an Australia bill of rights and the promotion of human rights. Prior to the commencement of his PhD, Mark completed a Master of Music (2000) on full scholarship majoring in composition at the Conservatorium, University of Melbourne and graduated with first class honors. As a result of his masters work, in 2002 & 2003, Mark was awarded $39,000 from Arts Victoria and the City of Melbourne for the composition and performance of an orchestral concerto to take place early next year. Mark also teaches many diverse subjects on music, technology and art at the University of Melbourne , the VCA and an inner city high school.

Carmela Baranowska is the recipient of the prestigious University of Melbourne Fay Marles Scholarship for Human Rights Research

In the last decade I have been working in South-East Asia, covering human rights and war zones. In 1993-4 I traveled to the Thai-Burma border where I lived with the Karen, an ethnic minority group in Burma who have been fighting the world's longest running civil war. As a twenty-four year old the year I spent living with the Karen in their refugee camps and in their "liberated" area made a great impression on me.

I have made documentaries, often acting as a single person camera operator. I have worked in Indonesia, East Timor and Afghanistan and have lived closely alongside communities directly affected by human rights abuses. Often I have documented human rights abuses as they were unfolding before my eyes. In East Timor in 1999 I documented the growth of militia violence, the UN referendum and the eventual looting and burning of Dili and the evacuation of the UN. This film was broadcast on SBS TV, at international film festivals and is on a number of university courses. The film has been used as evidence by the UN Serious Crimes Unit. Last year I traveled to Afghanistan. I was embedded with US Marines in one of the most remote and dangerous parts.

My PhD research explores a number of inter-related themes. Firstly, how can those in Indonesia, East Timor and Afghanistan who have experienced human rights abuses in conflict areas use film as a form of peace-building? Secondly, how have three specific communities within these countries introduced their own indigenous responses?

In Afghanistan, AINA supports the emergence of civil society through independent media and culture projects. This thesis will investigate AINA's projects made with and often by women, whose basic rights in Afghani society have often been suppressed and ignored. AINA's women's project has seen women in both the cities and countryside making documentaries about their situation. Their response in the teaching and production of film is both sophisticated and innovative. My research will interrogate other contexts in which this methodology could act as a starting point for other societies and countries.

In East Timor the focus will be on TVTL (Televisaun Timor Lorosae), in both production and broadcast. TVTL is East Timor's only national broadcaster. It broadcasts in three languages - Tetum, Indonesian and Portuguese and many of its journalists were themselves eyewitnesses and even survivors of human rights abuses (indeed, its director is a former political prisoner). East Timor is the poorest country in South East Asia and TVTL survives through a combination of dedicated Timorese media workers and international donors. The focus of this thesis will be on how TVTL staff have made programs dealing with Justice, Trauma and Reconciliation in the independent nation.

In Indonesia, the focus will be the island of Biak in West Papua. I will explore how traditional music, art and dance has been used as a form of healing by Biak's inhabitants in order to deal with the loss of identity and human rights abuses under Indonesian military rule.

Adam Broinowski is a researcher, writer, performer and director based in Melbourne.  Currently a PhD candidate at University of Melbourne/VCA he graduated from Monash University (BA, 1992), Shizuoka University (Hons., 1993) and University of Melbourne (MA, Theatre of Body in Japan: Ankoku Butoh-Gekidan Kaitaisha, 2003).
Since 1994 he has performed, written and directed both solo and group performances with many Australian theatre companies, touring to many international festivals in South America, Europe, UK, US, Singapore and around Australia.

With Tetrapod he made the award-winning documentary Hell Bento! (SBSiTV, 1995), was Asialink Performing Arts Resident in Malaysia (2000), Japan Foundation Fellow (2001), Monbukagakusho research fellow at University of Tokyo (2003-2005), and has been a core member of Gekidan Kaitaisha (Theatre of Deconstruction, since 2001), working on several international productions as performer/translator/co-director.

He presented Vivisection Vision: animal reflections, a solo performance in Tokyo (2004) and Sydney (P-Space, 2006) in an on-going series of solo and collaborative, intercultural and multidisciplinary performances.
In analyzing the representations of poverty, oppression and protest in Murayama Tomoyoshi’s dada and proletarian theatre in the 1920s-30s, the post-war after-shock performances of occupied otherness by Hijikata Tasumi in the 1950s-60s, and the intercultural collaborations and alienated, war-scarred bodies of Gekidan Kaitaisha (Theatre of Deconstruction) in the 1990s-00s, I plan to make ways to approach the ‘un-representable’ of war and trauma through art and performance.

Working between practice and theory, I will present a series of performances in response to this theoretical research, exploring the body as a source of memory and the site of power and violence, as part of a broader critical, philosophical and artistic appraisal of the body in war.

The Art of Facial Reconstruction
Susan is a Doctoral student researching the intersections of art, anatomy and recognition in facial reconstruction, under the co-supervision of Dr Elizabeth Presa (CFI) and Dr Jan Meyer from the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia.

Susan's training in the techniques for approximating a face from the skull has been with the generous support of Ronn Taylor, Forensic Sculptor to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, and with research advice from Professor John Clement, Head of the Centre for Human Identification. In 2006 Susan will be working in the UK with Dr Caroline Wilkinson, an international authority on facial reconstruction techniques, at the University of Dundee.

Prior to joining the VCA, Susan completed an MFA (Sculpture) at Monash, and her first degree was a BA (Hons) from Murdoch. As well as teaching in the first year program at the VCA, Susan was the co-convenor of the very popular Masterclass in Facial Reconstruction with Ronn Taylor, which was offered through The Centre for Ideas in 2004 - 2005.

"I am conducting an investigation into John Cassavetes' approach to cinematic art with due consideration to his improvisational techniques. The critical focus here is on Cassavetes as actor-director: an actor's sensibilities are kinaesthetic rather than visual and as a result, Cassavetes films evolve a temporal, non visual-symbolist approach, rendering this unique filmmaker the 'Spiritual Father of the Independent Feature.

The essential problem for myself as filmmaker is that, in searching for poignant, efficient drama, we must question the nature of 'Truth' as both construction and reality.

In so doing, I will look at alternative forms of filmmaking, integrating models such as Cassavetes to challenge the dominant paradigm of the 'well made film'."

Ian is the recipient of an MRS scholarship for the completion of his PHD and is co-enrolled with the CFI and the VCA School of Film and Television. 

The Black GST
http://www.blackgst.com/
"I have been a student at the VCA for seven and a half years in which time I achieved my BFA, MVA and PG DVA. I am currently two years into my PhD. My PhD involves setting up and maintaining a visible high profile presence for indigenous people in Australia, hence the title THE BLACK GST. Genocide to stop, Sovereignity restored and Treaty to be made."

The Aberrant Everyday
http://www1.wooloo.org/sharonthorne/
Sharon is a sculptor who is investigating the creative uses made of waste by the marginalised and displaced urban poor during the Great Depression in Australia . Her doctoral research focuses on the area of Dudley Flats in West Melbourne , and the mechanisms adopted for everyday survival by the women camping on this site. These practices are the evocative sparks which illuminate Sharon 's current creative work. Sharon has been exhibiting regularly since 1995, with shows at Linden , 69 Smith Street , George Paton, Spencer Street and VCA Galleries. Her most recent exhibitions include From Mali to Melbourne (24SEVEN) and Otherwise & Elsewhere (Bohême). During this period Sharon 's experience includes curating, an international art exchange program, publications and commissions. Graduating with First Class Honours from VCA School of Art in 2001, she completed her Master Fine Arts in 2003. In 2002 she was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award to assist with her research. Currently Sharon is working on her ëPrayer Mat' series, a body of work constructed from hessian and plastic bags. Her first work in this series Endangered Species ñ Hearth Rug will be exhibited at Central Queensland University , Bundaberg later this year together with the publication of her latest paper 'Ley Lines'.

The Centre for Ideas offers a PhD degree through The University of Melbourne. Students undertake research in a range of areas, with the final thesis comprising a combination of written and creative work. Prospective PhD students should contact Dr Elizabeth Presa in The Centre for Ideas for more information.

Phone:  + 61 3 9685 9343
Email:  e.presa [at] vca.unimelb.edu.au