Sites of IMPACT

Biographies

Dr Deborah Lawler-Dormer, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum)

Deborah Lawler-Dormer is Research Manager at Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), Sydney, Australia and an Adjunct Fellow at Institute of Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. At MAAS she has developed a new Research Policy Framework and program that includes research fellowships, Australian Research Council Linkage projects, expert publications, research exhibitions and symposia. She has a deep knowledge of transdisciplinary art, science and technology-based projects accrued through collaborative projects with strong connections to universities, community and industry, including in the field of AI driven technology.

Dr Chris Muller, Macquarie University

Christopher John Müller is a lecturer in Cultural Studies & Media at Macquarie University and a Honorary Research Associate in Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University, UK. His work focuses on the intersection of technological processes and the deceptive “immediacy” of feeling and the way this shapes our sense of agency and responsibility. Chris is the author of Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence, and his articles, translations and reviews have appeared in Parallax, Thesis Eleven, CounterText, TrippleC, Textual Praxis and Modernism/modernity. Chris also co-edits the Genealogy of the Posthuman, an open access online platform on www.criticalposthumanism.net.

Dr Patricia Flanagan, University of New South Wales

Patricia Flanagan is an artist, designer and academic with an international exhibitions portfolio that includes The Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunstraum Bethanien Berlin, and Tournai Contemporary Textiles Biennial. Tricia’s work is founded on a systems-thinking approach and includes, critical and speculative wearables, site-specific sculptural installation – often combining handcrafted art and design practices with digital technologies. Tricia established the first Wearables Lab in Hong Kong in 2009 and is currently co-director, Interactive Media Lab and Lead-Researcher Wearables at the Creative Robotics Lab at the University of New South Wales, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture.

Dr Anna Madeleine Raupach, Australian National University

Anna Madeleine Raupach is a multidisciplinary artist with a PhD in Media Arts from UNSW Art & Design and a Lecturer at ANU School of Art & Design. Her practice-led research explores alternative notions of temporality relevant to climate change. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Montreal and Bandung. She has participated in residencies including at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2018); Bundanon Trust, NSW; Common Room Network Foundation, Indonesia through Asialink Arts; the ANU Medical School; the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California and the MAAS, Sydney.

Dr Tomasz Bednarz, University of New South Wales

Tomasz Bednarz is a Team Leader (Visual Analytics) at CSIRO's Data61, and leads Simulation & Modelling Cross-Cutting Capability and the Director of UNSW's Expanded Perception and Interaction Centre (EPICentre). His current roles reflect his conviction to a holistic approach to the wicked problems facing the collation, analytics, computing and display of big data. His approach encompasses the use of novel technologies (AR, VR, CAVE, Dome, AVIE). Many of his projects use immersive visualisation, human-computer interaction, computational imaging, image analysis and processing, visualisation, simulations, computer graphics, computer games, computational fluid dynamics, cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and multi-sensors assimilation.

Dr Deirdre Feeney, University of South Australia

Deirdre Feeney is a multi-disciplinary artist with research interests in optical image systems as perceptual tools for generating wonder and awareness of technologically mediated experience. Deirdre engages in cross-disciplinary collaboration to explore and realise her ideas. In 2020/21 she undertook a MAAS Research Fellowship and ANAT Synapse Residency. Her background in glass-making and the projected moving image were pivotal to her current practice encompassing material and digital methods to create her optical image systems. Deirdre is a Lecturer of Contemporary Art at the University of South Australia and a member of the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments.

Dr Oliver Bown, University of New South Wales

Oliver Bown is associate professor and co-director of the Interactive Media Lab at the School of Art and Design at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. He is a researcher and maker working with creative technologies, with a highly diverse academic background spanning social anthropology, evolutionary and adaptive systems, music informatics and interaction design, with a parallel career in electronic music and digital art spanning over 15 years. His current active research areas include media multiplicites, musical metacreation, the theories and methodologies of computational creativity, new interfaces for musical expression, and multi-agent models of social creativity.