Research

My Research Interests:

  • digital media;
  • podcasts;
  • blogs;
  • copyright (in particular the Creative Commons and other alternative copyright arrangements)
  • cultural studies;
  • cybercultures;
  • participatory culture;
  • citizen media;
  • citizen journalism;
  • embodiment;
  • film studies;
  • science fiction;
  • eLearning;
  • flexible delivery;
  • social software (including Facebook, Twitter and MySpace);
  • teaching & learning in higher education.

I currently have three research projects underway in various states of activity:-

[I] Symbiotic Relationships between Human Subjects and Digital TechnologiesIn 2006 I completed my doctoral thesis, written at the University of Western Australia in the discipline of English, Communication and Cultural Studies under the supervision of Associate Professor Jane Long. The thesis is entitled ‘Artificialities: From Artificial Intelligence to Artificial Culture - Subjectivity, Embodiment and Technology in Contemporary Speculative Texts’ and in it I investigated how different instances and articulations of ‘the artificial’ are remediated through popular culture, focusing on issues of identity and embodiment, mainly via critical interrogation of speculative texts (where texts means any cultural product: books, films, websites, other new media and so forth). The thesis abstract:

This thesis is an examination of the articulation, construction and representation of ‘the artificial’ in contemporary speculative texts in relation to notions of identity, subjectivity and embodiment. Conventionally defined, the artificial marks objects and spaces which are outside of the natural order and thus also beyond the realm of subjectivity, and yet they are simultaneously produced and constructed by human ideas, labor and often technologies. Artificialities thus act as a boundary point against which subjectivity is often measured, even though that border is clearly drawn and re-drawn by human hands. Paradoxically, the artificial is, at times, also deployed to mark a realm where minds and bodies are separable, ostensibly devaluing the importance of embodiment. Speculative texts, which include science fiction and similar genres across a number of different media, frequently and provocatively deploy ideas of the artificial to interrogate subjectivity, embodiment, spatiality and culture more broadly. In the past two decades the figures of the cyborg and later the posthuman have been the key concepts guiding critical and comparative literary and theoretical studies of speculative texts in terms of the relation between subjects, bodies, technologies and spaces. This thesis builds on these rich foundations in order to situate the artificial in similar terms, but from a nevertheless distinctly different viewpoint. After examining ideas of the artificial as deployed in film, novels and other digital contexts, this thesis concludes that contemporary artificialities act as a matrix which, rather than separating or demarcating minds and bodies or humanity and the digital, reinforce the symbiotic connection between subjects, bodies and technologies.

The thesis structure is five chapters, each focusing on a specific formation of the artificial. The first examines the most recognised trope of artificiality, Artificial Intelligence (AI), as deployed in contemporary science fiction cinema starting with 2001: A Space Odyssey through to the Terminator trilogy. The second chapter focuses on the more recent notion of Artificial Life through a close reading of Greg Egan’s novels Permutation City and Diaspora. The third chapter then takes a more speculative turn, proposing the category of Artificial Space, building on William Gibson’s second trilogy–Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow’s Parties–mapping an updated concept of cyberspace more clearly connected with living bodies. The fourth chapter similarly proposes the notion of Artificial People, drawing on two parallel discourses: the development of subject-centred digital special effects technology, such as that used in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy; and the unexpected rearticulation of everyday lives and bodies presented in the Matrix trilogy. The final chapter, Artificial Culture, is a case study examining artificialities in the post-September 11th Western cultural climate, focusing on the first two Spider-Man films. The thesis concludes by reinforcing the symbiotic character of artificialities and suggesting future utility of the concept for critical literary and cultural studies projects. By examining the way artificialities are articulated in speculative texts, the thesis ultimately argues that the artificial destabilises rather than defending conceptual boundaries. The artificial points to the inextricable interlinking of subjects, bodies and technologies while simultaneously questioning each of those categories.

My PhD thesis was passed in 2006, and I am currently working to convert the thesis into a manuscript form for publication. From the thesis I have previosuly published three papers: ‘Iatrogenic Permutations: From Digital Genesis to the Artificial Other’, Comparative Literature Studies, 41, 3, 2004, pp. 424-435; ‘The Infinite Plasticity of the Digital’: Posthuman Possibilities, Embodiment and Technology in William Gibson’s Interstitial Trilogy‘ ,Reconstruction, 4, 3, 2004; and ‘Interstitial Spaces and Multiple Histories in William Gibson’s Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow’s Parties’, Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, 9, 2003, pp. 118-130.

I also have a chapter in the edited collection Cylons in America: Critical Studies of Battlestar Galactica entitled “Battlestar Galactica & ‘Humanity’s Children’: Constructing and Confronting the Cylons” (abstract here).

[II] Participatory Pedagogies

I am exploring emerging trends in participatory culture, social software and citizen media (especially blogs, podcasts, video blogs and wikis) both as platforms for public identity creation and their pedagogical utility. I am particularly interested in the tools which facilitate a more socially-driven world wide web (often dubbed ‘Web 2.0′), and the way those social trends almost organically lead to modes of interaction which are extremely useful in encouraging and facilitating active learning and, indeed, life-long learning and critical thinking. In a nutshell, I’m exploring where participatory culture meets constructivist pedagogy.  The role of organisations and alternative copyright approaches such as the Creative Commons is of particular interest in this project.

From this project thus far you can hear audio recordings (with PowerPoint slides) of two presentations: ‘iPodium: Student Podcasting and Participatory Pedagogies‘ and ‘iTeach, iLearn: Student Podcasting’; there is also one published paper thus far, ‘The Blogging of Everyday Life’ which appeared in the journal Reconstruction in 2006.

[III] Digital Media/Digital Culture

This project is in its formative stages, and will examine the role of digital technologies and media in a broad culture context.  The first article to appear from this project is entitled “We’re sorry, but the clip you selected isn’t available from your location:” Watching Battlestar Galactica in Australia and the Tyranny of Digital Distance and will appear in the journal Media International Australia, in a themed edition on ‘Beyond Broadcasting: TV for the Twenty-first Century’.  I presented a talk based on the paper in September 2007 at ‘Thinking Society, Thinking Culture’ symposium.