2020 Dissertation Award. States and Territories: Reimagining the University Through the Environmental Arts and Posthumanities

• In Event: AERA Division D Invited Session for 2019 and 2020 Awardees

Abstract

The States and Territories project (2013-2017) explored how university learning environments might be imagined, conceptualised, designed, composed, operated, and inhabited differently in an age of climate change, mass extinction, and the ubiquitous technical mediation of life processes. As a work of research-creation, States and Territories involved the permanent installation of a network of interactive artworks across the diverse learning environments of Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia. Taking the form of twelve glass cubes that interact with their surrounding environments, this constellation of relational objects was linked to a series of digital interfaces for collectively developing new concepts and practices of education that build on the process philosophies of Whitehead, Deleuze, and Guattari. Geo-located digital archives were assembled through a series of pedagogical experiments with over 200 students and academics working in different disciplines, including the visual arts, media studies, cultural studies, environmental science, education, legal studies and engineering. As a permanent fixture of the university campus, this network continues to introduce posthumanist strands of research and pedagogy across the university’s learning environments, while also enabling public audiences to engage with the network through a series of multi-sensory walks and environmental learning experiences.

David Rousell is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Education at RMIT University, where he is a core member of the Creative Agency Lab and the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC). He is also Visiting Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Adjunct Research Fellow at Southern Cross University. David’s research is transdisciplinary, combining innovations in posthumanist theory, affect studies, and research-creation with his work as an environmental and socially-engaged artist. His recent projects have focused on immersive re-imaginings of educational spaces and institutions in response to the onset of climate change, mass extinction, and ubiquitous digital mediation at planetary scale. Through intensive collaborations with children and young people as co-artists and co-researchers, David’s research has led to significant exhibitions and installations in universities, galleries, museums, libraries, and community art spaces. His forthcoming books include Immersive Cartography and Post-Qualitative Inquiry (Routledge) and Climate Change Imaginaries (Springer, co-authored with Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles). 

Author

• David Rousell, RMIT University