2016 in review

I am quite a bit slower with my year in review post, unlike last’s year post which I managed to publish before the end of 2015.

If 2015 was a big year then 2016 was quite overwhelming – to the extent that I have been very low-key so far this year – with the exception of heading to Darwin for a friend’s 50th and escaping to Bali for a week.

So what happened in 2016?

• January was a great start to the year with:
  • the release of Locating Emerging Media  (Edited by Ben Aslinger and Germaine Halegoua).
  • I also headed back to my much-loved Taranaki to take part in Water, Power Peace, Intercreate, New Plymouth NZ
• February saw me back at University of Canberra working with Mitchell Whitelaw on the Cross Media Production unit.
• March was about presentations and Augmented Reality:
  • Curating a discussion for Water Works on Water-Wheel. Focus on data, the importance of rivers and cultural connections
  • Using Data to Empower Community and Build Culture (Prezi), Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Australasia, University of Canberra
  • The Yakoa Dhungala Augmented Reality Interpretive Walk was launched in Echuca
• April was also focused on papers, where Lee Joachim and I presented papers about Way of the Turtle:
  • Way of the Turtle (Prezi), Land Dialogues, Wagga Wagga
  • Balance Unbalance 2016: Data Science and Eco Action, Manizales, Colombia
• May was a good time for marking and catching my breath while also managing a trip to Echuca to check out the Yakoa Dhungala Augmented Reality Interpretive Walk
• June was about Nordic adventures by sea – as a participant of the Faroe Islands Expedition  with The Clipperton Project where I focused on my Waters of the Past project
• July was a wonderful time – still exploring the Nordic lands with a SIM artist residency in Iceland and doing some family research in Drammen, Norway
• In August was all about launching TransArts Alliance and setting up stuff for 2017
• September was a lot of fun as I learnt about eco-dying and worked with local coding whiz Paul Murray to create work for the Living Green Festival. Our work area also moved back to Environment which was welcomed by many of us in the Energy area.
• In October, I participated in a couple of events remotely and locally with:
  • presenting an installation for the Living Green Festival, Canberra, October 2016
  • a video presentation for the Open Fields Conference, RIXC Center for New Media, Tallinn, Estonia
• November was then really busy with a number of events including:
  • Inclusion of my short film The Mountains Remain at Belco Flicks
  • Presenting a seminar on “Words for Water” at the Institute of Applied Ecology
  • World Usability Day (APS) – presentation on Living Greener and behaviour change
  • Part of a panel at the ASLEC-ANZ/SEI Global Ecologies­–Local Impacts Conference in Sydney, where I caught up with lots of great people!
  • The first stage of my collaboration with Icelandic based artist Aishling Muller came to fruition with a video titled The Spirit of Man
• In December:
  •  Aishling and I released the second iteration of our video collaboration – The Oceans Meet
  • I was also a part of an augmented reality exhibition curated by Dlux Media Arts at Gold Coast City Gallery – UnseenGC.

Whoa – I am tired just looking at this list!

So what is the plan for 2017?

Well, there are a few things on the horizon – residencies in New Zealand and Norway to build on the Waters of the Past project, convening the Cross Media Production unit at University of Canberra, managing a Canberra SCANZ event and undertaking a Masters in Science at University of Canberra. My research will focus on sustainability behaviour change and diverse knowledge systems. Updates will be published on the Forthcoming projects page.

Thank yous – cos youse are amazing!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many wonderful people who I worked with this year. Thank you Intercreate community, my colleagues at the Department of the Environment and Energy especially my managers Bron Pollock and Joann Wilkie, Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SÍM), all the The Clipperton Project (TCP) peeps, Ethos Global Foundation and the Institute of Applied Ecology at University of Canberra where I have an adjunct role 🙂  A special thanks to Tommy Dick for your support and collaboration on TransArts Alliance – hope we can build on a brilliant start. It was also really great to spend time with friends – old and new. Lastly – I would like to thank my family  – Marty, Lukas and Oscar – thanks for being amazing and giving me the freedom to explore ❤