Digital is enhancing and amplifying practice in unexpected ways.
Explore the stories behind the story. This selection of case studies explore how cultural practitioners use digital platforms and approaches to make innovative new work and build connections with audiences.
In the engine room of Australia’s newest virtual band
Welcome to the dusty bubblegum world of Big Sand, a band that doesn’t exist.
The new virtual science fiction band was co-created by musician and radio host Sally Coleman, with a bevy of musical, visual and technical collaborators.
The art of digital literacy: Studio A and Meeum
Sydney-based Studio A supports professional development pathways for artists living with intellectual disability. And with the help consultants Meeum, Studio A has transformed it works.
Making Mushroom: Moulding a new kind of digital practice
A technical departure from her illustration and education work, April developed Being Mushroom in collaboration with interactive 3D media artists Jordan East and Pat Younis of Origin collective.
The Art of Listening: How sound practices are giving voice to an environment in crisis
Learning to listen has been at the core of Leah Barclay’s practice for more than a decade, sharing sounds hidden deep in river systems through performances and installations.
Designed to share: How an Australian 3D software start-up is transforming collaboration across the world
When Sophia Kurianski was working on a university assignment to design and build a robot, she noticed a problem – it was nearly impossible to share working files among her team. Her solution kicked off a new software start-up that is transforming how 3D and 2D files are shared across the world.
Creating a puppetry revolution in a digital world
When puppetry company Terrapin was invited to pitch a work for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, it was presented with quite a conundrum.
How would they make a work that brings together their core medium of puppetry with sport, whilst remaining sensitive to the inherent colonialism and nationalism that underpins such a spectacle?
Old ways new tools
How the pandemic set DAAF’s digital future
When Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair went online in 2020, it had no idea it would change their business model forever, driving record sales and sector-wide digital transformation.
In March 2020, the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair (DAAF), one of the country’s most anticipated art events, realised it had a problem.
A new vision: how a critical tech lab is pushing the limits of VR
Josh Harle on his collaborative reimagining of VR
At the time, Australian new media artist and academic Josh Harle had just returned from a residency in Austria, and decided to head along to the local VR and augmented reality (AR) meet-ups in Sydney. But for Harle, although the meeting was well attended, something felt a bit off.
Navigating a digital world
New strategies to building digital experiences for the future
It’s not often a designer gets a gig for a major organisation that wants to leave the brief open just to see where the designer will take it. But that’s what happened to Melbourne-based creative coder, designer and developer Mel Huang, when she began working with the Australia Council to present its new Digital Culture Strategy. “It’s super rare that someone says, ‘What do you want to build?’,” Mel said.
Queensland Music Festival
Enable discoverability: Reaching to the choir
Queensland Music Festival spent 2020 building a 3000-strong online choir. What happened next changed their digital strategy forever. For an organisation that holds mass choir events as part of its annual program, the pandemic was a sickening kick in the guts.
Laura (Amara) Osweiler
Digital environments are accessible, inclusive and safe: ‘Welcome to my world’: the home as a stage
How an online dance practice is building new experiences for audiences at home.
Flume x Jonathan Zawada
Amplify digital practice: Beyond the bubble
The weird world of NFTs: a bright future or ecological nightmare?