Macquarie University

Resources

Screenshot from the Words in Place website. In the background is a black and white landscape. In the foreground, it reads "Words in Place: A Digital Cartography of Australian Writers and Writing in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra"

Portland Soundtrail and Website

Portland Soundtrail and Website (2022-) a new Creative digital media storytelling work for permanent in situ access via smartphone, using GPS, and a state-of-the-art App, with accompanying online experience.

Co-authors: Virginia Madsen and Hamish Sewell (2022)

Designed using the "Sound Trails" App, this is an immersive and sound rich journey into the past lives and history of the former industrial town of Portland, NSW, for decades known as 'The town that built Sydney'. This locative sound rich work serves to animate the past for the public and community using diverse resources, voices and immersive sound design and storytelling. Walkers interact and will be transformed by the experience of place as the site is newly revealed through this innovative historical 'sounding'. The 90-minute soundtrail/audio or landscape documentary (as sound fields) and website with further documentation is accessible here: https://www.soundtrails.com.au/soundtrails/portland-nsw

Background: This is a creative new media, historical, regional urban and 'locative' research work which is highly interdisciplinary. It involves extensive historical archival research and oral history interviews with former or current town residents and workers. The co-creators worked on site and in the town over many months in order to meet community members, interview them, locate archives, and recover other research data, as well as design the actual walk on site in response to the story content and themes identified by the team. The GPS triggered App allows visitors to then experience these rich montages or audio fields (produced in Macquarie University studios) as the visitor explores the site via the set trail, ideally wearing headphones. Material worked into the sound design for the audio fields includes commissioned music, sound effects, actuality, audio interviews, script, and other archival material such as sections of the diaries of a prominent early feminist, but not well known today Portland resident, Mary Ryan. She was the only woman on the original Australian Housing Commission, a Post War reconstruction initiative of then Federal Minister Ben Chifley in 1943-1944 (before he became Australia's prime minister). While these journals are held in the Jessie Street Library in Sydney as important records of women's contributions to Australian society and early Australian feminism, they have never before been available like this to the public, and through voiced performance they come to life for the listener. Permission for these to be used was obtained from the family with Mary Ryan's son also featuring as interviewee.

This work was commissioned by the Portland organization, 'The Foundations' in the Central West of NSW. The Foundations is engaging with new and innovative cultural industries as part of the significant rejuvenation currently underway of this large heritage site, and the repurposing of the buildings which formerly constituted the Portland cement works (and quarries feeding it) founded in 1902. See https://thefoundations.com.au/

Full Credits:

Produced, written and directed by Virginia Madsen and Hamish SewellInterviews and research by Virginia Madsen and Hamish SewellSound Engineer, Andrei Shabunov; Performers: Jane Phegan; Lloyd Allison-Young. Original music: Lee Hardisty. Supported by the Portland Business Association and The Foundations, Portland. Voices heard are from interviews with former and some current Portland residents. Readings from the diaries of Mary Ryan [1943-45] and recorded memories of Guy Fitzgerald [2000].

Webpages and link to sound fields and App: https://www.soundtrails.com.au/soundtrails/portland-nsw

Official Launch: Saturday 1st April

Time: 3:00pm for a 3:30pm start

Location: The Crystal Theatre, Wolgan Street Portland

For more information and RSVP: Friday 24th March to Kellie on 0429 001 918 or email portlandbusinessassociationinc@gmail.com

Opening of the CMH Conference

Centre for Media History Conference: Directions in Media History was held at Macquarie University on 17 and 18 November 2022. The Opening of the Conference is now available to watch.

Comics and Activism Exhibition: Panels That Transform

Panels That Transform was held at the Macquarie University Art Gallery between 1 July and 25 August 2021. The virtual exhibition is now available to view.

This exhibition was Guest Curated by CMH Members Dr Can Yalcinkaya and Dr Justine Lloyd.

Exhibition Brief:

Comics and Graphic Novels with activist agendas are often creative non-fiction texts which aim to inform and educate the public on issues of social justice in engaging and entertaining ways. The exhibition “Panels that Transform” features old and new original works by three Australian artists/activists – Sam Wallman, Nicky Minus, and Safdar Ahmed, who are internationally recognised through their graphic narratives on issues that demand our attention such as the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers, gender equality, climate justice and the trade union movement. All three artists engage historical media forms, such as banners and posters, pamphlets and newspapers, as well as updating these media objects for circulation in digital and social media. Having been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, SBS, ABC, Overland, the Lifted Brow, as well as in limited edition zines and brochures, their works capture the vibrancy and vitality of activist causes and invite their readers to take part in positive societal transformation.

Exhibition Catalogue:

Yalcinkaya, C. and Lloyd, J. (eds) 2021. Panels that Transform: Comics and Activism Exhibition Catalogue: Safdar Ahmed, Nicky Minus & Sam Wallman, Frances Street Press: Sydney.

Real is Not Real Enough

Real Is Not Real Enough is an audio experience based on Günther Anders’ remarkable 1941 Californian exile diary. Join us as we enter the “Hollywood Costume Palace” and discover the truth of Hollywood and exile through Anders' eyes. Find out more about Anders, "the pioneer of the binaural experience” and subscribe to this haunting adventure.

The diary is performed by Edgar Eckert (Deutsches Theater Berlin), sound design by Jacob Craig (The University of Sydney). Brought to you by Chris Müller (Macquarie University), Benjamin Nickl (University of Sydney) and Helen Wolfenden (Macquarie University)

Words in Place

Words in Place is a digital cartography of Australian writers in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. It was produced by Dr Toby Davidson (CMH Associate Member) and Dr Donna Houston. The first of its kind in Australia, Words in Place provides a useful tool for anyone interested in the intersections between Australian literary heritage and the built environment.

Kaldor Public Art Projects Digital Archive

The Kaldor Public Art Projects Digital Archive was produced as part of the ARC Linkage Grant project ‘Digitising the Kaldor Public Art Projects Archive’, led by CMH Director Professor John Potts. This extensive digital archive, designed as a searchable database, documents 36 public art projects in Australia by the world’s leading artists, beginning with Wrapped Coast by Christo and Jean-Claude in 1969.

KS Inglis Address: Making Australian Media History

Centre for Media History founder Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley's paper 'KS Inglis Address: Making Australian Media History' has just been published online at Media International Australia. Griffen-Foley is grateful to the convenor of the 10th Australian Media Traditions Conference, Dr Collette Snowden, for inviting her to deliver this address earlier this year. Click here for the full paper.

Brian Johns Lectures (2015-2023)

The Brian Johns Lecture was established by the Centre for Media History and the Australian Copyright Agency to honour Brian Johns AO (1936-2016). Brian Johns had a lifelong commitment to Australian literature, broadcasting, digital media and the visual arts. Amongst his many roles, he served as publishing director of Penguin Australia, managing director of the ABC, CEO of SBS, and director of the Copyright Agency.

Presented by figures at the forefront of the Australian Media, the lectures track key moments in our country's media history:

2015: Mark Scott AO, Managing Director of the ABC, on 'The Future of the Australian Story'. Click here to watch the lecture.

2016: Professor Julianne Schultz AM, founding editor of Griffith Review and Chair of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, on 'Cultural Institutions and Ideas of Australia in the Age of Fang'. Click here to listen to the lecture.

2017: Amanda Wilson, journalist, communications professional and the first woman appointed Editor of The Sydney Morning Herald on "How the internet killed my business model: Saving news that matters in a time of information overload". Click here to watch the lecture.

2018: Morry Schwartz AM, esteemed book and journal publisher and founder of Schwartz Media Group, on ‘Slow News: Thinking in Public’. Click here to watch the lecture.

2019: Katrina Sedgwick, Director and CEO of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, ACMI in Melbourne, on 'Breaking Down the Silos - Creativity in the Digital Age'. Click here for the transcript of the lecture.

2022: Stan Grant, journalist and author, on 'Faith in Troubled Times'. Click here to watch the lecture.

2023: Lenore Taylor, Editor of the Guardian Australia, on 'Defending Truth and Facts as the Bedrock of Reporting, From Client Journalism and 'Fake' News to ChatGPT'. Click here to watch the lecture.

CMH YouTube Channel

The Centre for Media History's dedicated YouTube Channel hosts an expanding collection of recordings from its events.

A history of Women's Pages

In the course of researching her entry on 'women's pages' for A Companion to the Australian Media, CMH Associate Member Dr Justine Lloyd has developed a public list in the National Library's Trove searchable database of digitised newspapers, which is archived here with her research notes.

Australian Literary Journalism Database

This database, developed by Associate Member Dr Willa McDonald, has been set up as part of a larger project that is working towards defining Australian Literary Journalism and tracing its history from the time of modern settlement to today. Further information and listings within the database itself can be found on its website here: www.auslitjourn.info.

Australian History Museum

Macquarie University's Australian History Museum houses artefacts, documents and photographs relating to Indigenous Australia, war and society, women, migration, and domestic and working life. The Australian History Museum aims to enhance research teaching and community engagement experiences and outcomes for students and researchers at Macquarie University and beyond. To this end, the Australian History Museum is working to align the existing and future collection to the needs of the Centre for Media History and its affiliated researchers. The museum collection houses a varied selection of publications relevant to the development and interaction of media and history in Australia during the last 150 years.

Relevant publications held in the museum include: Argus (Melbourne), Australian Home Journal, Australian Woman's Mirror, Australian Women's Weekly, Bulletin, Country Life, The Dawn, Decent, The Home, The Idler, Illustrated War News, PIX, Punch, Stead's Review, The Sun (Sydney), Sydney Mail and Woman's Day.

Changing Stations: The Story of Australian Commercial Radio by Bridget Griffen-Foley (Index and Bibliography)

Immediate, intimate, portable and inexpensive, radio is the most pervasive medium in Australia. Changing Stations is the first full-scale, national history of commercial radio in Australia, from the experiments and schemes of the 1920s through to the eve of the introduction of digital radio in 2009.

Click here to download a full index and here to download a full bibliography.