Sketch-notes - Swing is the Soul of the Groove

Dick Rijken keynote
ALIA Information Online 2013

Dick Rijken's keynote Swing is the Soul of the Groove was one that I arranged, so again, maybe I am biased here, but I loved it. It seemed to me at least that the whole week flowed into his final keynote and he nicely wrapped up many of the main themes. He stressed culture over the vogue words: creativity and innovation. He illustrated his points with visual and musical storytelling and I was in two minds as to whether I should just watch of try to record some thoughts and reminders.

It was fantastic to hear someone of his standing reminding us of the importance of things like ambiguity, not knowing or understanding, romanticism, aestheticism, experimentation and trusting our intuition. All are hard to tie down, to justify or to measure quantitatively, but in the end are they not some of the things that distinguish us from robots or automatons? And certainly I think they are critical to our sector. For too long I think we've been obsessed with making things more efficient, more specialised, less connected and easily measured. We need to rediscover the underlying meaning in what we do. As Dick said, an artistic mentality can be very helpful to us in finding that meaning and in truly understanding what we are supposed to be doing.

I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with Dick last week and to present a workshop with him last Friday. Not only did I learn a great deal from him, I was stimulated and energised by the many discussions we had.

Unlikely Avian Taxonomies

For those of you who are obsessed with taxonomic strictures and ontological classification:

This image will take you to a set on Flickr that showcases the recent research interests of Zoë Sadokierski and Kate Sweetapple in DAB LAB. See also cargocollective.com/

Shelf Life slideshow

These images relate to the exhibition Shelf Life that I posted about here: http://www.frommelbin.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/shelf-life-usefulness-of-useless.html

Book Spotter's Guide to Avian Titled Literature

An installation by Zoë Sadokierski and Kate Sweetapple in UTS Library. See also cargocollective.com/

Shelf Life & The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge

I've reblogged this from a post I did here: http://informationonline2013.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/shelf-life-the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge/ 

I'm on the program committee for Information ONLINE 2013. Kate Davis dobbed me in. Currently we are still trying to tie down keynotes so we can tell you who they are. One thing I am allowed to say is that they'll be different.

We've all been asked to keep this blog alive on a regular basis, so this is my first post. I think my theme will be posts about being a bit different. Then again, I reserve the right to change my mind at any stage.

Anywho, on with the post, so here we go, mind the step. I saw this on Zite over the last weekend and loved it: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/27/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge/

I think it very nicely encapsulates a lot of our recent initiatives to deepen the impact of the Library within our community (at UTS). In many ways, if we are successful at this we build a more relevant institution for the future that helps to distinguish this University from the providers of online course materials. It is useful to look at some of the ideas raised by Abraham Flexner and why I think they are even more relevant in today's fast-paced and really dynamic online world. Here are a few quotes from the article that I found really inspiring, (but please try to read the full post):

... this dangerous tendency to forgo pure curiosity in favor of pragmatism ...

Now I sometimes wonder whether that current has not become too strong and whether there would be sufficient opportunity for a full life if the world were emptied of some of the useless things that give it spiritual significance; in other words, whether our conception of what is useful may not have become too narrow to be adequate to the roaming and capricious possibilities of the human spirit.

... the really great discoveries which had ultimately proved to be beneficial to mankind had been made by men and women who were driven not by the desire to be useful but merely the desire to satisfy their curiosity.

Institutions of learning should be devoted to the cultivation of curiosity ...

Out of this useless activity there come discoveries which may well prove of infinitely more importance to the human mind and to the human spirit than the accomplishment of the useful ends for which the schools were founded.

Justification of spiritual freedom goes, however, much farther than originality whether in the realm of science or humanism, for it implies tolerance throughout the range of human dissimilarities.

On 1 August 2012 our first Artist-in-Residence, Chris Gaul, opened his Shelf Life exhibition in the DAB LAB Research Gallery. I think Abraham and Chris would get on swimmingly. Chris has helped us to understand beyond what we know, he has given us fresh new perspectives on our challenges and presented us with stimulating original ideas to encourage the curiosity of our clients.


Shelf Life displays a few concepts for very different methods of discovery as we prepare to store up to 80% of our physical collection in an underground automated retrieval system that will be adjacent to a new and relocated library on Broadway, in the middle of our redeveloped campus. Chris recognises that in this brave new environment the nature of online interfaces for exploring the collection and browsing books becomes even more relevant. Rather than being sterile and uninspiring, these interfaces can be creative, unexpected tools that encourage playful exploration and serendipitous discovery. As Chris writes:

What if you could wear a pair of headphones and wander library shelves listening to the babble of books reading themselves aloud? What if you could tune into different frequencies of books, or use their Dewey call numbers to call them on the telephone?

That's all!

P.S. I went back and bolded the quote I used at the launch of Shelf Life. It really is amazing stuff, so if you're in Sydney come and have a look. If not, we agreed to document the three concepts by video so everyone can se how they work when used. MMB

The mad square: modernity in German art 1910-1937

I saw this exhibition yesterday at the Art Gallery of NSW and was blown away. It is a wonderful example curatorial excellence (by Dr Jacqueline Strecker) at the highest level. The works illustrate a very creative and influential period of both art and design in Germany between two world wars. They are drawn from cultural institutions and collections across Europe, the US and Australia.

I don’t think such an exhibition could easily be mounted in Germany. It is so beautifully selected and the text is superb. I cannot write highly enough about this exhibition.

Sculpture by the Sea, Bronte-Bondi, 2010

I wandered around with a friend just after dawn on a week day to get a better view of some of these amazing installations. And recently I've been going through all of the images and adding the titles and artists' names. I'm nearly finished.

Animal Kingdom

Sydney sometimes feels like that to me. A bit of a race or a competition. Survival of the fittest, or those with a parking fairy.

Today I spent wandering around the 17th Biennale of Sydney with three of my best friends. Frankly, most of the contemporary visual art that we saw (mostly at MCA) was pretty lame, especially the junk masquerading as "video art". Apart from Bill Viola's work at the MCA, it really is self-indulgent, second or third rate rubbish in my opinion. What we saw at MCA is from all over the place and not just Australian, so in saying that it is mostly rubbish I guess the problem stems from poor curatorial selection because it isn't indicative of the state of Australian contemporary art practice. I have better contemporary art hanging on my walls at home. The Biennale selections just don't rate for me, nor did they compare with the quality of work still on display at the State Library of NSW in their One Hundred exhibition. In that exhibition there is something for everyone from Banks' HMB Endeavour journal to a really beautiful illustrated letter from Brett Whiteley to his mother. I'm so glad that I didn't miss this great exhibition.

Later on we went to see the brilliant Australian film Animal Kingdom (see image & link to the film website). It deserves all of the rave reviews it is getting and Jackie Weaver deserves some big acting award for her portrayal of the convincingly disturbing crime matriarch, Janine "Smurf" Cody. She is seriously creepy. It is a big leap above the recent spate of TV crime dramas that are based on real events in both Melbourne and Sydney. It is more relaxed in the way it portrays the story and it looks so much better. The acting is better, the direction and writing is superb and the film just works so well.

It is easily the best Australian film I can remember seeing for a long time. The violence in the film is both direct or inferred and you never quite know when it is going to happen, or not. There is a lot in its title and they manage to stay true to that right up to the final scene. I also liked the way they frankly portrayed the lives destroyed by crime and the fact that at some stage most criminals make a big mistake or come undone. They are not all brain surgeons or lucky for their entire lifetime. Don't miss it and see it in a cinema, not on DVD.

Salt Lake City Public Library slide show from Flickr

Wow! Even those of you who are hard to impress will be amazed by this library.

Salt Lake City has a very impressive public library design by Moshe Safdie. It is a good looking and striking building, but the internal spaces are what makes it function so well. It was a real pleasure to visit and so easy to explore. I found myself constantly surprised by what else it had to offer.
Nothing is over the top or just for show and all features seem to have a genuine purpose.
It cleverly makes the best of the sweeping views of the ranges that the position has to offer. I enjoyed: the small "boutiques" on ground level, the lifts and the stairs that take you out into the atrium, the roof top garden, the furnishings, the study "galleries" looking over the atrium, the water feature outside, the amphitheatre and the sweeping semi-circular stairway leading down from the roof-top. Fantastic!

Denver Art Museum slideshow in Flickr