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2. BACKGROUND of DESIGN LAB COLLABORATION with NMC urban realities & augmented play ATTRACT::RELATE::SUSTAIN ghost[s] and the[ir] machine[s]

3. NEW OPPORTUNITY for COLLABORATION with THE ROCKS POP UP CHALLENGES: • not a traditional gallery space – based on the pop-up ethos • not on or close to campus – a more ‘real-life’ exhibition experience rather than a student show • unstaffed – we’ll need to work out a volunteer roster • flexibility – just like our schedules and the production/exhibition of prototype work requires faith and flexibility, so too does the pop-up ethos PROs: • site-specific – a wonderfully engaging and actively artistic community atmosphere with a rich cultural history • audience-arrific – some 70,000 people came to the pilot of the Rocks PopUp during its first 6 months • festival atmosphere – the Design Lab is looking for alternatives to the static showcase, and the Rocks PopUp and it’s collaborators are attractive alternatives [ie/ the Weekend and Friday Night Markets] teaming with engagement and evaluation opportunities • encourages use of mobile technologies due to distributed spaces available within a single location • allows for a great juxta-position of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ • supportive governance who are interested in the way we creatively use technology

4. THE POP UP as a PLATFORM in AUSTRALIA “An ever-changing mix of creative minds in unconventional places and intimate spaces.” The Rocks Pop-up is an initiative for activating temporarily vacant buildings by providing creative workers with access to affordable spaces to produce and showcase original work, and host unique events while a long term tenant is secured. This on-going program evolved out of The Rocks Pop-up Project, a six-month pilot initiative, which began with just four buildings in May 2011. The initiative was designed to promote the short-term reuse of vacant spaces as part of a business incubator program for local and emerging creative businesses. The program was implemented by Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority in partnership with Arts NSW. In its first year, The Rocks Pop-up participants hosted more than 200 events and attracted more than 70,000 visitors to an array of creative activations. Currently in its second year, The Rocks Pop-up supports emerging creative individuals and organisations who wish to collaborate and exhibit work. The Rocks Pop-up supports and hosts creative organisations and individuals in the areas of performance, arts, crafts, digital media and design. Like many other Pop-Up initiatives, The SHFA drew inspiration from Renew Newcastle launched by Marcus Westbury (now in charge of ISEA) where community-based groups or artists take over empty commercial properties for short-term use to incubate their projects. It’s mission: “…to catalyse community renewal, economic development, the arts and creative industries across Australia…” This was such an effective model (incidentally also happening in London and New York), that initiatives such as Renew Adelaide, Renew Townsville, Made in Geelong and Pop-Up Paramatta now exist for creative communities.

5. STUDENTS INTERESTED IN EXHIBITING • Screen Studio & Time Based Media Lab – Dr. Onoclov - The aim of this unit of study is to explore and experiment with interaction and time-based media.Students will produce video and/or video art, which include interactive elements. These works will be informed by theories drawn from film theory and user-experience design. The technical aspects of working with time-based media including digital video production, editing, post-production, special effects, real-time video processing, and end-user interaction will be developed in the associated lab. The objectives include the development of a deeper understanding of the complex interactions between modern technology and visual art and electronic art forms, and the conceptualization and formulization of the issues arising from these interactions in the creative design process. • Multiplicitous Media | Cacophonous Content – Dr. Oliver Bown - Surrounded by screens and speakers, with unhindered access to billions of videos and sounds, supported by search APIs, metadata, content analysis, and creative coding frameworks, the world of rich media engagement has truly arrived. How will you turn the TV of yesteryear into a multiscreen, multispeaker, interactive rich media experience? How can the concept of mashup be expanded across ad-hoc networks of devices through realtime generativity? How can such artworks involve both user-created content and professional work? How will this alter the performing arts, clubs, public gatherings (protests), the cinema, high-streets and shopping malls, advertising? How can principles of decentralised control and self-organisation be applied to the creation of multiplicitous media experiences? • Consider all of this in the context of a city's historic emergence, its distributedness and interconnectedness. What stories can be told through the weaving together of threads and what ideas can be conveyed through the mixing of new combinations? • Independent Researchers – Dr. Martin Tomitsch and Dr. Lian Loke - each focusing on their own independent projects

6. PROSPOSED THEME The Design Lab aims to foster design as a means of knowledge production in its own right…design is a study of the world the way it could be through the creation and interrogation of the "designed" world. If we were assigned a piece of the cityscape, how would we interrogate and create a space for ourselves? We might ask: who was here before me, what did it look like, how did it sound, how did people communicate, what did they do for fun? We might ponder: now that I’m here, what should it look like, how should it sound, how do we organise communications, how should we present ourselves? With multiplicitous screens, cacophonous sounds, increasingly mobile technologies, and deeply personal narratives assailing us constantly, how can we make sense of our surrounds in a creative way? New Media Curation and the staff at the Design Lab Sydney have answered the call for content at the Rocks PopUp spaces for their annual End of Year Exhibition. This call stands for a need to re-enliven, rework and rejuvenate historical spaces with contemporary artwork. At this time, The Rocks sits adjacent to one of the most famous harbours in the world and is managed by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. It is a lively commercial, tourist, and artistic destination for visitors to and residents of Australia. It has been able to maintain this reputation based on an ever-evolving sense of community, of multiple identities clustered around change, growth and renewal. Now that we have carved out a space for ourselves in the Sydney-scape, I propose we utilise contrast to contextualise the concept of community, and articulate that idea through the metaphor of distributed nodes and networks. Our tools utilise these frameworks, our physical site mirrors this idea in that it offers one central space with the opportunity to infiltrate or infringe on other spaces, and I’d also like to propose that we exhibit some of the works of the studio masters in the central space, with the works of the students distributed throughout The Rocks PopUp sites. This layered metaphor mirrors the history of The Rocks itself and will be communicated through a series of experimental designs for the public to engage with and enjoy.

7. HELPFUL WEBSITES http://therockspopup.tumblr.com http://renewnewcastle.org http://emptyspaces.culturemap.org www.newmediacuration.com/ars www.newmediacuration.com/gatm

8. ANY QUESTIONS? deborah@newmediacuration.com