Researcher, Michael Falk explores the impact of next generation networks
Next generation networks are set to change the face of innovation, community life and creativity in Australia.
Firms across industries are today highly networked and coordinating strategy to reach and build new communities, workforces and markets. In the new innovation ecosystem, leading businesses are those that harness collective creativity and inspire consumers to share, absorb and co-create value.
Leading businesses today rely on interactive media to help build, manage and inspire communities. In 2002, the Synapse program was launched to stimulate this emerging field.
Synapse is a joint initiative of the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Network for Art and Technology, and the Australian Research Council (ARC).
The central aim is to foster enduring collaborations between creative artists and researchers in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM). Since 2003, seven projects have progressed through the Synapse model to achieve funding under the ARC’s Linkage program.
Here we present five case studies of successful collaborations. Each showcases a unique microcosm for invention, a hybrid space in Australia’s research culture where speculative futures are already happening; (to borrow the words of William Gibson) it’s just that these futures aren’t well distributed yet.
Together these cases highlight why creatives are increasingly vital to innovation: Creatives act as pathfinders across communities, integrating knowledge, interests and practices to assemble new audiences. They think laterally, critiquing technological solutions, integrating new and old media and driving changing consumption patterns. Creatives develop the expressive content that frames interactive experiences and engages the end-user. In all these capacities, they can anticipate demand in the marketplace and shape how we use technologies to forge individual and collective pathways forward.
Download the full case studies (under the Related Downloads link) to discover how creatives can help you at the juncture to critical future pathways.
The main outcomes from the case studies are summarised below.
Foster Social Connectivity
Next-generation networks and technologies are set to transform the world of objects into a pervasive intelligent system, with smart roads and electricity grids. Environmental sensors and ‘the internet of things’ will bring opportunity for new business models and commodity chains.
But opening social arenas for these technologies requires greater understanding of the relationships between humans and machines.
At the Centre for Social Robotics, Dr Mari Velonaki and Dr David Rye are exploring the emotional language between humans and robots. This discovery opens the possibility for better design and socially intelligent systems.
Nurture Personal Abilities
The internet is evolving from an information superhighway into a ‘global brain’ – a universal network of interactions, intelligence and data flows. For the billions of users ‘plugged in’, new media is fast reshaping the ways we think and move in our daily lives.
At RMIT University, psychologist Professor Peter Wilson and new media artist Jonathon Duckworth have developed a virtual platform for movement therapy that helps rehabilitate neurological function lost through brain injury. By incorporating health science into new media research, the team offers an innovative basis for ethical design.
Build Productive Communities
Economies are no longer constrained by geographic or cultural borders. Products and services are increasingly personalized, with differential qualities and prices. At the same time, next-generation business models are designed to stimulate productivity within new and existing communities.
Sound artist Dr Nigel Helyer and the Audio Nomad team are innovating in the field of audio and locative technologies. Audio Nomad’s tools enable artists to respond to users’ unique daily pathfinding. Audio Nomad’s ‘mapped’ sound exhibits weave together audio materials that relate to the history and culture of place, refocusing users’ private listening worlds back into the public realm.
Enhance Innovation Value
Our innovation system is now connecting industries, sectors and creative disciplines to create hybrid spaces for invention. Increasingly, there is no distinction between innovation and diffusion – the value of an innovation may increase with the scale of its application.
At the Centre for Intelligent Systems Research, Professor Saeid Nahavandi and artist Paul Brown are combining innovation in haptics with research in neuroscience, colour, visual art and online navigation to give the visually impaired touch-based access to visual screens. The outcome is a new medium that may change the way we live.
Generate Knowledge Outcomes
The world feels like it’s shrinking as our access to information grows. The internet is altering how we produce, share and absorb information and this raises new challenges for society and business.
The 'iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research' demonstrates through world-first ‘virtual’ cinema that new media can be a powerful tool for training and enhancing memory and task functions. With applications ranging from mine simulations to 360º immersive browsers, iCinema presents new models for industry-based training and learning.
Based in Melbourne, Michael Falk writes, edits and consults for professionals and small enterprises across the Creative and Innovation industries. Michael’s current research examines the convergences between publishing, technology, design research and new enterprise models.