Showing papers by "Edith Cowan University published in 1969"

Science, principles and forest management: a response to Abbott and Christensen

Abstract: As scientists engaged in research and teaching on the biota and ecosystems of Western Australia, we have been stimulated to respond to a recent paper by Abbott and Christensen 'Application of ecological and evolutionary principles to forest management in Western Australia' (Australian Forestry 57 (3), 109-122). In the light of the considerable emotion and rhetoric generated at present in the debate over management of native forests, Abbott and Christensen's paper had the potential to provide a rational basis for this important issue and to set the tone for reasoned and informed debate in all venues. Regrettably, this paper appears to contain fundamental flaws in logic, as well as in its choice and discussion of principles, and fails to live up to the promise of its title. Our concerns about the paper are substantial, making concise rebuttal difficult, and are presented under five broad headings. 1. Building a straw man. 2. Logical inconsistencies and misrepresentations. 3. Principles of platitudes. 4. Alternative interpretations. 5. Indicators of ecologically good condition of jarrah and karri forest.

Only the Envelope: An Artistic Exercise in Data Retention

Abstract: Only the Envelope (OTE) combines research methodologies to investigate the ways we share personal information in the public sphere, and document our practices as scholartists. In a live art installation, a “scientist” invited visitors to be involved in an “experiment”: viewing a film while wearing a wireless eye-tracking device. This surveillance technology generated data about viewing behaviour, but of more interest, the work staged encounters that dramatize the act of looking. Engaging in OTE as performance research led to unanticipated findings and the creation of new audiovisual documents when the eye-tracking device was redeployed as a head-mounted camera to reenact the visitor’s experience. These documents extend the work’s artistic outcomes, but are they “the work” or “records” of the work? OTE engages with the traditional debate in performance studies about the supposed ephemerality of performance by illustrating Schneider’s position that the live is a vehicle for recurrence such that a distinction between record and performance collapses, and that photography can mix theatricality and documentality (2011). OTE refused to keep still to submit to its documentation, just as personal data in the public sphere is endlessly generated, captured and recycled in unstable recursion. My acknowledgements are due to research assistant and performer Rachelle Rechichi; technology consultant Neil Ferguson; to all partici¬pants, consenting and otherwise; to eResearch Coordinator Heather Boyd, who reached out to me as a creative arts researcher; to Edith Cowan University’s eResearch Technology Funding Scheme, and School of Arts and Humanities, for their financial support.