#BDCH23 SPEAKERS
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KEYNOTES

Melanie Swalwell

Melanie Swalwell

Professor of Digital Media Heritage, Swinburne University, Melbourne

Prof. Melanie Swalwell’s research focuses on the creation, use, preservation, and legacy of complex digital artefacts such as videogames and media artworks. Author of Homebrew Gaming and the Beginnings of Vernacular Digitality (MIT Press, 2021), editor of Game History and the Local (Palgrave, 2021), and co-editor of Fans and Videogames: Histories, Fandom, Archives (Routledge, 2017) and The Pleasures of Computer Gaming: Essays on Cultural History, Theory and Aesthetics (McFarland, 2008), Melanie has curated exhibitions and datasets, authored interactive essays, collected popular memories, and organised the preservation of digital artefacts.
Sean Cubitt

Sean Cubitt

Professor of Screen Studies, University of Melbourne, Melbourne

Prof. Sean Cubitt’s current research is on aesthetic politics, ecocritique, media arts and media technologies. Publications include The Cinema Effect (MIT Press, 2005), Ecomedia (Rodopi, 2005), The Practice of Light (MIT Press, 2014), Finite Media, Anecdotal Evidence and Truth (Duke University Press, 2016). Sean is Series editor for Leonardo Books at MIT Press.
Dragan Espenschied

Dragan Espenschied

Preservation Director, Rhizome

As Preservation Director, Dragan stewards ArtBase, a collection of more than 2200 works of digital art and net art. With a background in net activism, net art, and electronic music, Espenschied’s activities as a conservator are mostly focused on infrastructure and field-wide action concerning web archiving, emulation, and linked open data, rather than singular artworks.

PAPERS

Melanie Barrett

Conservator, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC), Singapore

Melanie Barrett is Conservator at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and at the Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC). She has over ten years’ experience as a Conservator at a range of institutions including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and the National Museum of Australia. She has a BSc. (Hons) Conservation and is a M(Res) Candidate at the University of Canberra.

Rebecca Barnott-Clement

Senior Time-Based Art Conservator,Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW)

Rebecca Barnott-Clement is the Senior Time-Based Art Conservator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) on Gadigal country, where she focuses on the care and conservation of Time-Based Art collections. Taking a break from her normal position, Bec is currently working in a digital preservation analyst capacity to assist with the arrangement and preparation of digital collection objects at AGNSW, in conjunction with the NSW ‘Digital Restart Fund’ project. Prior to her current appointment Bec worked as a contemporary art conservator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) and the 21st Biennale of Sydney, and as an objects conservator at the Australian Museum.

Matthew Burgess

Lead Digital Archivist, State Library of NSW, Sydney

Matthew Burgess is the Lead Digital Archivist at the State Library of NSW, responsible for ensuring the long-term preservation and access of the Library’s born-digital collections. He works closely with colleagues who identify and acquire new digital materials and develops and implements policies and procedures for the long-term preservation of digital collections. He leads the Digital Preservation Network for National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA), represents NSLA on the Digital Preservation Coalition’s Australasian stakeholder group, and is a co-organiser for the Australasia Preserves digital preservation community of practice.

René G. Cepeda

Director, New Media Caucus’ Header/Footer Gallery

Dr René G. Cepeda is a Mexican multidisciplinary designer, artist, and art historian who specializes in new media art. His work focuses on interactive new media art and video games. He is currently the director of the New Media Caucus’ Header/Footer Gallery and collaborates with a variety of institutions, including the Smithsonian, Ville Albertine, SAMA, and Museum Learning Hub. He is the author of the Manual for the Curation and Display of Interactive New Media Art.

Seb Chan

Director and CEO, ACMI, Melbourne

Seb Chan worked on the digital renewal and transformation of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York (2011–15) and the Powerhouse Museum in the 2000s has won awards from American Alliance of Museums, One Club, D&AD, Fast Company and Core77. Seb is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT, and an international advisory board member of Art Science Museum (Singapore), and board of the National Communications Museum (Melbourne), and National President of the Australian Museums and Galleries Association. Seb also leads a parallel life in digital art, writing and music.

Candice Cranmer

Time-based Media Conservator, ACMI, Melbourne

Candice Cranmer is the Time-based Media Conservator at ACMI – the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Having worked in collections access and preservation for the past 10 years she has a keen interest in innovative conservation methodologies. She is a co-convener of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials (AICCM) special interest group Electron and a board member of Melbourne based, artist-run agency Composite.

Avery Dame-Griff

Lecturer, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington.

Dr Avery Dame-Griff is a Lecturer in Women’s and Gender Studies at Gonzaga University. He founded and serves as primary curator of the Queer Digital History Project (queerdigital.com), an independent community history project cataloging and archiving pre-2010 LGBTQ spaces online. His book, The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet (August 2023, NYU Press) tracks how the Internet transformed transgender political organizing from the 1980s to the contemporary moment.

Kirsten Day

Lecturer, University of Melbourne; Director, Norman Day + Associates Architects

Dr Kirsten Day’s publications, workshops, and studios explore themes of future scenarios and the impact of change on the architectural profession and the human condition. She has been an invited speaker and involved with design and futures projects for Melbourne Knowledge Week since 2018. Kirsten is the Chief investigator on ‘New methods of procurement in design and construction: Identifying critical quality and risk factors in novation’, a member of the Education Committee, Co-chair of the Research in Practice Committee with the Australian Institute of Architects (Victoria) and has over 20 years of experience as director of Norman Day + Associates Architects.

Denise De Vries

Research Associate, Swinburne University/

Dr Denise de Vries’ research focuses on developing forensic methods for recovering digital objects from obsolete media and to better capture the requirements for executing obsolete software in emulated environments. She was a CI on the ARCH Linkage grant, Play It Again Creating a Playable History of Australasian Digital Games for Industry, Community and Research Purposes, ARC Linkage, 2012-14 and is currently a CI on Play It Again: Preserving Australian videogame history of the 1990s and Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a method and national collection. Denise is on the technology taskforce of UNESCO PERSIST and was awarded a Digital Preservation Coalition Fellowship Award in 2022.

Taryn Ellis

Digital Preservation Technical Analyst, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide

Taryn Ellis is a technical professional with nearly two decades experience in the GLAM sector. During this time Taryn has worked across multiple state organisations to record, analyse and preserve both physical and digital heritage material. In her current role as Digital Preservation Technical Analyst at the State Library of South Australia, Taryn is focussed on ensuring ongoing access to the unique collections held in trust for the public.

Arda Erdikmen

Lecturer, Bilgi University, Istanbul

Dr Arda Erdikmen is a multi-passionate individual with a love for cinema, digital games, and retrocomputing. He graduated from Beykent University’s Cinema-TV Department (M.A) and holds a Ph.D. in Radio-TV-Cinema from Istanbul University. Arda Erdikmen actively participates in the demoscene and collects old computers and software. He also designs and produces digital games on old and new platforms. He teaches part-time in Bilgi University’s Video Game Design program and contributes to the growth and development of several other game design programs.

Patricia Falcao

Time-based Media Conservator, Tate, London; Collaborative Doctoral Researcher, Tate and Goldsmiths University, London

Patricia Falcao is a collaborative doctoral researcher and time-based media conservator at Tate, where she researches and develops strategies for the preservation of digital components of artworks, with a special interest in software- and web-based artworks. Her doctoral research compares preservation practices in the context of video games and software-based artworks. She has consistently published on the theme of preservation of Time-based media, Digital and Software-based art over the last 8 years, in the Conservation and Digital Preservation Communities.

Joanna Fleming

Digital Preservation Manager, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Joanna Fleming has two decades of experience in the acquisition, curation, and long-term preservation of digital collections, and born digital audio-visual content. Joanna has held positions responsible in these areas at different Australian cultural agencies, including the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, the National Archives of Australia, and the State Library of New South Wales. Joanna has been a strong advocate for born digital collecting, audiovisual archiving, and digital preservation, and is particularly interested in the challenges presented by complex time-based artworks and how to ensure the preservation and future display of these works.

Ivo Furman

Assistant Professor, Faculty of New Media and Communication, Bilgi University, Istanbul

Dr Ivo Furman completed his PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths College in 2015. His research in digital sociology, creative computing histories, computational methodologies and Turkish studies has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, Turkish Science and Technology Foundation (TUBITAK) and Stiftung Mercator. He is co-editor and co-author of Politics of Culture in Contemporary Turkey (Edinburgh University Press in 2021), and also management committee member and grant awarding coordinator for Grassroots of Digital Europe: from Historic to Contemporary Cultures of Creative Computing (GRADE), funded by European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST).

Corinna Gardner

Senior Curator, Design and Digital, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Corinna Gardner is Senior Curator of Design and Digital at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Corinna leads the museum’s Rapid Response Collecting Programme and her research focuses on contemporary product and digital design and the role they play in society. She holds an MA in History of Design from the Royal College of Art and the V&A. Corinna is working towards the development and delivery of a digital design collecting strategy for the V&A.

Liz Giuffre

Senior Lecturer, Communications and Music and Sound Design, UTS, Sydney

Dr Liz Giuffre is Senior Lecturer in Communications and Music and Sound Design at UTS, Sydney. She is also a cultural historian specialising in Australian popular culture, having published widely on local icons like ABC TV’s Rage; the hidden histories of Six O’Clock Rock and Countdown, and most recently co-authored Kylie Minogue’s Kylie (with Adrian Renzo, Bloomsbury). She has also worked as an arts journalist for over 20 years, and still contributes to The Music and The Conversation.

Angela Goddard

Director, Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM)

Angela Goddard is a curator and writer of settler descent. She is Director of the Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM), chair of University Art Museums Australia and a board member of the Sheila Foundation. Recent publications include Richard Bell Reader: TATE Modern, 2023, and Richard Bell Reader: documenta fifteen, 2022 (co-edited with Megan Tamati-Quennell), Gordon Bennett: Selected Writings, 2020 (co-edited with Tim Riley Walsh), and recent exhibitions Round About or Inside co-curated with Wouter Davidts, GUAM, 2021 and Vandenhove, Ghent, 2022, and Rebecca Belmore: Turbulent Water co-curated with Wanda Nanibush, GUAM, 2021 and Buxton Contemporary, 2021-2022.

Kieran Hegarty

PhD Researcher, RMIT University; Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society,

Kieran Hegarty is a librarian and sociologist. He is currently a PhD candidate at RMIT University and a Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. In 2022, he was an inaugural Digital Humanism Junior Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. Kieran’s research examines how public institutions and infrastructures are evolving in an era of digital and social media and is published in a range of media and information studies journals, including Internet Histories and New Media & Society.

Eric Kaltman

Assistant Professor, California State University Channel Islands

Dr Eric Kaltman is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at California State University Channel Islands. He runs the Software History Futures and Technologies (SHFT) Group and investigates the application of computational techniques toward software preservation and critical software histories. He previously managed the US IMLS-funded Game Metadata and Citation Project (GAMECIP), and is currently developing the Game and Interactive Software Scholarship Toolkit (GISST) with funding from the US National Endowment for the Humanities.

Chris Henschke

Artist

Chris Henschke works across digital and analogue media, utilizing and interrogating the technologies and techniques of experimental science. His practice involves cross-disciplinary collaborations and research; he teaches media art at RMIT University; and has undertaken various residencies and collaborations including the National Gallery of Australia, 2004; Asialink, 2007; the Australian Synchrotron, 2007 and 2010; ANAT SYNAPSE at the CSIRO 2018-2019; and CERN, 2013-2018 through the art@CMS collaboration program.

Richard Lewei Huang

PhD Researcher, Information School of the University of Washington, Seattle

Richard Lewei Huang is a PhD student at the Information School of the University of Washington, Seattle. He is interested in histories of Internets, web archiving, and software preservation. He holds an M.A. in Media, Culture, and Communication and a B.S. in Interactive Media Arts and Global China Studies from New York University. https://lewei.me

Patrick Lester

Curatorial and Collections Officer (Access), Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM), Brisbane

Patrick Lester is an artist and photographer based in Meanjin, Brisbane. He is the Curatorial and Collections Officer (Access) at Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM) a custodian of the Griffith University Art Collection. The art collection compromises over 5,300 artworks including the emulated interactive CD-ROMs. Patrick is a project officer for GUAM on the AAMA Linkage project and project manager of Each, Other: Pixy Liao and Lin Zhipeng (aka No.223), GUAM, 26 October 2023 – 3 February 2024.

Lisa Mansfield

Time-based Art Conservator, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

Lisa Mansfield is a time-based art conservator at the Art Gallery NSW, and co-convenor of the AICCM Electron special interest group. She has an MA in Cultural Materials Conservation from The University of Melbourne, and a BA focused on sound and installation art from Western Sydney University. Lisa works, learns and lives on the unceded sovereign land and waters of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, with respect. Connect with her about net art, sound art, and the preservation of software-based art on Twitter

Patrick McIntyre

Chief Executive Officer, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra

Patrick is the CEO of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Over a career in Australian cultural management spanning 30 years, his roles have included Executive Director of Sydney Theatre Company, General Manager of Sydney Film Festival and Associate Executive Director of The Australian Ballet. He has presented at conferences in Australia, the US, Hong Kong and South Africa on audience development, videogame preservation and the articulation of the value of arts and culture.

Katherine Mitchell

PhD Researcher, Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum and Birkbeck College, London

Katherine Mitchell is an AHRC-funded PhD researcher, based between the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum and Birkbeck College, London. Her doctoral research considers collections care and exhibition practices for born digital art and design objects in permanent museum collections through a lens of failure studies, maintenance. and repair. Prior to her PhD, Katherine came from an academic and professional background in architecture, and her broader research interests span media studies, critical heritage studies, architecture and urbanism.

Ania Molenda

Independent architecture researcher, curator, writer, and educator

Ania Molenda is an independent architecture researcher, curator, writer, and educator focusing on the socio-cultural dimension of spatial practices. Since 2017, she has been developing research addressing technical and cultural aspects of dealing with complex born-digital archives. Before starting an independent career, she worked as a researcher and design teacher at TU Delft Faculty of Architecture (The Why Factory) as well as an architect at MVRDV, Powerhouse Company and SVESMI.

Cynde Moya

Postdoctoral Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne

Dr Cynde Moya is leading the training for the ARC LIEF funded project, The Australian Emulation Network: Accessing Born Digital Cultural Collections. This project deploys the shared resource Australian Emulation-as-a-Service Infrastructure. Cynde directs the Digital Heritage Lab in the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. The Lab is a collection of functioning vintage computer hardware, software, and facilities to image obsolete computer media. She is active in the international software preservation community, presenting widely, and currently serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Software Preservation Network.

Norie Neumark

Honorary Professorial Fellow, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne and Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University, Melbourne

Norie Neumark is a sound/media artist and theorist. Her radiophonic works have been commissioned and broadcast in Australia (ABC) and in the US. Her collaborative art practice with Maria Miranda (www.out-of-sync.com) has been commissioned and exhibited nationally and internationally. Her sound studies research is recently focused on voice. Her writing on voice includes Voicetracks: attuning to voice in media and the arts, (MIT Press, 2017) and Voice: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Arts and Media, (MIT Press, 2010), lead editor and contributor. She is the founding editor of Unlikely: Journal for Creative Arts. http://unlikely.net.au

Joseph C. Osborn

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Pomona College, California

Dr Joseph C. Osborn is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Pomona College.  His research spans media studies, artificial intelligence, and software verification in the domain of videogame design and development.  His current research areas include automatically retrofitting accessibility features onto 1980s-1990s videogames and structured knowledge representations for automated playtesting of adventure and role-playing games.  Dr. Osborn is currently developing the Game and Interactive Software Scholarship Toolkit (GISST) with funding from the US National Endowment for the Humanities.

Irene Proebsting & Barry Brown

Artists

Irene Proebsting and Barry Brown are media artists based in Boola Boola in the Latrobe Valley on Gunaikurnai country and have collaborated on numerous experimental (non) fictions. Their media projects utilise a variety of styles and genres ranging from evocative post-verity dramaturgy to absurdist agitprop narratives and include explorations of landscape, the quotidian, and post-industrial milieus. Their works are in the collections of ACMI, Melbourne; Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin; Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale; and Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell.

Fabiola Rocco

Contemporary Art Conservator, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC), Singapore

Fabiola Rocco is a conservator specialized in contemporary art. Currently, she is holding the position of Contemporary Art Conservator at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and at the Heritage Conservation Centre (HCC) both in Singapore. Prior to this appointment, she served as Associate Conservator Variable Media Art at M+ in Hong Kong. Fabiola holds a Master Degree in Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Turin in cooperation with the Centre for Conservation and Restoration “La Venaria Reale”.

Roxi Ruuska

Digital Archives Analyst, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Roxi Ruuska is a Digital Archives Analyst at the State Library of NSW and has over a decade of experience working with heritage collections in libraries and museums. Roxi supports her colleagues in the acquisition and description of unpublished born-digital collections and ensures that this material is safely preserved for future generations.

Constanza Salazar

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cooper Union, New York

Dr Constanza Salazar is a Canadian art historian, writer and educator based in New York City. Constanza has presented papers internationally on the topics of art, new media, and technology. She has published in Momus, and Afterimage, among others, and is currently working on her book project based on her dissertation, Embodied Digital Dissent: Coopting and Transforming Technologies in Art, 1990-present.

Asti Sherring

Manager of Changeable and Digital Collections, National Museum of Australia and Time-based media art consultant, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa.

Asti Sherring is a paper, photographs and time-based media conservator. She has completed a Bachelor of Media Arts (honours) from Sydney University and a Masters of Materials Conservation at Melbourne University. Asti held the position of senior time-based art conservator at The Art Gallery of New South Wales between 2015-2020. She has also worked at institutions such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Asti is currently undertaking doctorate research at Canberra University, which explores contemporary conservation theories and practices of works that are digital, ephemeral, immersive, participatory and technological in nature.

Morgan Stricot

Senior Media and Digital Art Conservator, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany.

Dr Morgan Stricot is a senior media and digital art conservator at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany. She is responsible, within the department Wissen | Collections, Archives & Research, for the acquisition and documentation of media and digital artworks. She holds a PhD in media archaeology from the École Supérieure d’Art et de Design, Orléans, France, and conducted many research projects in conservation of software-based artworks during the last 10 years.

Helen Stuckey

Lecturer, RMIT University, Melbourne

Dr Helen Stuckey was the inaugural Games Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (2004-2009). Helen’s research addresses game history and the curation and collection of videogames. Current research projects include ARC linkages: LP180100104: Play It Again: Preserving Australian videogame history of the 1990s and LP180100307: Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a method and national collection.

Anna Kallen Talley

PhD Researcher, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Anna Kallen Talley is a design historian and researcher. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary material culture, particularly product, digital and communication design. She is currently undertaking her doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh. Anna holds an MA from the V&A/Royal College of Art in Design History and Material Culture and has experience working with cultural heritage institutions in the US and UK.

Matthieu Vlaminck

Senior Media and Digital Art Conservator, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany

Matthieu Vlaminck is a senior media and digital art conservator at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany. He graduated from the École Supérieure d’Art d’Avignon, France, in Visual Arts. He also holds a diploma in programming/network and in music. His research and work, within the department Wissen | Collections, Archives & Research, focus on the preservation and archiving of digital data carriers, software and the restoration of 3D computer-generated models.

Robin Wright

Head Australasia and Asia-Pacific, Digital Preservation Coalition

Robin Wright is Head Australasia and Asia-Pacific for the Digital Preservation Coalition. She was previously Manager, Scholarly Resources at Swinburne University of Technology, Research Fellow at the Centre of Media and Communication Law and has practiced as a solicitor. Robin has managed research projects exploring the use of digital copyright material by cultural and education organisations. She has an LLB(Hons), MA and BMus, is on the Board of the Australian Digital Alliance and is Co-Lead of Creative Commons Australia.