People
Our Digital Heritage involves researchers, practitioners and industry leaders contirbuting their multidisciplinary approaches and expertise to adress the challenges of preserving the history of, and providing access to, born-digital cultures through a series of projects, led by a core team of researchers in partnership with investigators from research institutions and the GLAM sector.
Core Research Team
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.
Chief Investigator: Play It Again: Creating a Playable History of Australasian Digital Games for Industry, Community and Research Purposes; Play It Again: Preserving Australian Videogame History of the 1990s; Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection.
Denise is on the technology taskforce of UNESCO PERSIST and received a Digital Preservation Coalition Fellowship Award in 2022.
Melanie Swalwell
Professor of Digital Media Heritage, Swinburne University
Prof. Melanie Swalwell’s research focuses on the creation, use, preservation, and legacy of complex digital artefacts such as videogames and media artworks.
Chief Investigator: Play It Again: Creating a Playable History of Australasian Digital Games for Industry, Community and Research Purposes; Play It Again: Preserving Australian Videogame History of the 1990s; Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection.
Project Leader: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
ARC Future Fellowship 2014-18, Creative Micro-computing in Australia, 1976-92.
Melanie has curated exhibitions and datasets, authored interactive essays, collected popular memories, and organised the preservation of digital artefacts.
Helen Stuckey
Senior Lecturer, RMIT University
Dr Helen Stuckey’s research addresses game history and the curation and collection of videogames.
Chief Investigator: Play It Again: Preserving Australian Videogame History of the 1990s; Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection.
Helen was the inaugural Games Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (2004-2009)
Angela Ndalianis
Research Associate, Swinburne University
Prof. Angela Ndalianis researches entertainment culture (films, video games, television, comic books and theme parks) focusing on the historical context and interconnectedness of media technologies with a particular passion for science-fiction, superhero and horror genres.
Chief Investigator: Play It Again: Creating a Playable History of Australasian Digital Games for Industry, Community and Research Purposes;Play It Again: Preserving Australian Videogame History of the 1990s.
Angela was founding Director of the Centre for Transformative Technologies, Trustee on the board of the National Gallery of Victoria (2005-14), H.C.Andersen Institute/University of Southern Denmark Visiting Professor (2015-18) and Visiting Professor at the University of Venice IUAV (March-June 2018).
Adam Bell
Manager, Cultural Outreach, AARNet
Adam Bell enables cultural organisations to utilise AARNet’s national network, collaboration services and research technologies with a focus on Platform-as-a-Service.
AARNET collaborator: Play It Again: Creating a Playable History of Australasian Digital Games for Industry, Community and Research Purposes; Play It Again: Preserving Australian Videogame History of the 1990s.
Partner Investigator: Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection; and The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Adam is a practising artist with a background in web development and fine art printmaking.
Cynde Moya
Director, Digital Heritage Lab, Swinburne University
Dr Cynde Moya is an expert in the preservation of born-digital media and software developing workflows for the imaging and emulation of artworks, implementing training and presenting research findings, and establishing a community of practice for the AusEaaSI network.
Expert Preservationist: Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection (ARC Linkage); and The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Cynde is active in the international software preservation community, and currently serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Software Preservation Network.
Investigatory Network
Simon Biggs
Adjunct Research Professor, University of South Australia
Prof. Simon Biggs is a visual artist, writer and curator working with new media. He creates interactive immersive environments, electronic literature, machine-learning augmented performance environments, internet-based art and computer animation.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Simon has collborated with creative practitioners in dance and music, and experts in software engineering, physical sciences and social sciences on a number of reearch projects.
Artist’s website: http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
Seb Chan
Director and CEO, ACMI, Melbourne
Seb Chan has deep experience working in the intersection between digital and physical spaces, cultivating innovation and experimentation in teams, and helping organisations deal with a rapidly changing world.
Chief Investigator: Play It Again: Preserving Australian Videogame History of the 1990s.
Seb also leads a parallel life in digital art, writing and music.
Candice Cranmer
Time-Based Conservator, ACMI, Melbourne
With extensive expertise in collections access and preservation, Candice has a keen interest in innovative conservation methodologies.
Chief Investigator: Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection.
Candice 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.
Sean Cubitt
Professor of Screen Studies, University of 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).
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Sean is Series editor for Leonardo Books at MIT Press.
Kirsten Day
Lecturer, University of Melbourne
Dr Kirsten Day researches the ‘contingent’ nature of the professional practice of architecture and is committed to creating spaces that embrace neurodiversity and prioritise accessibility.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Kirsten is principal architect at Norman Day + Associates. kirstenmday.com
Roger Dean
Professor, Western Sydney University
Prof. Roger Dean’s research focuses on cognition of music and its computational modelling and generation, in relation to pitch, timbre, rhythm, intensity and affect. Roger is an accomplished musician and former biochemist who since 2007 has focused solely on musicology and music cognition.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Roger was founder, and acts a co-editor, of the online sound intermedia journal Soundsrite
Harriet Edquist
Professor, RMIT University
Prof. Harriet Edquist is an academic and historian with extensive experience in researching Australian, particularly Victorian, Architecture, Art and Design.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access, ARC LIEF).
Harriet has acted as founder and director of the RMIT Design Archives, founding editor of the RMIT Design Archives Journal, and as inaugural President of Automotive Historians Australia.
Taryn Ellis
Digital Preservation Technical Analyst, SLSA
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, with a focus on ensuring ongoing access to these unique collections
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Angela Goddard
Director, Griffith University Art Museum (GUAM
Angela Goddard is a curator and writer of settler descent who has published on artists such as Richard Bell and Gordon Bennett; and co-curated a number of recent exhibitions for GUAM.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Angela is Shair of University Art Museums Australia and a board member of the Sheila Foundation.
Barbara Lemon
Executive Director, National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA)
Dr Barbara Lemon has worked with major research libraries in Australia and New Zealand since 2011, managing collaborative projects and contributing to the development of strategic and stakeholder engagement plans for the National Library of New Zealand.
Partner Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access
Barbara’s interest in the communication of academic research to a general audience and the promotion of public access to heritage materials is demonstrated in publications, online exhibitions and several documentary programs produced for ABC radio.
Anna Munster
Professor Art & Design, UNSW, Sydney
Prof. Anna Munster’s current research interests are: statistical visuality and radical empiricism, the politics and aesthetics of machine learning, more-than-human perception, new pragmatist approaches to media and art, new media art environments and ecologies; time, movement and sonicity.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Carolyn Murphy
Head of Conservation, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Carolyn Murphy’s research interests include investigating the ways in which museum and conservation practices impact artists and their works held in museum collections, with a particular interest in installation, performance, and time-based artworks.
Chief Investigator: Archiving Australian Media Arts: Towards a Method and National Collection
Carolyn is also a partner investigator on Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum and Archiving Australian Media Arts (ARC Linkage Grant).
Norie Neumark
Professor, The University of Melbourne
Prof. Norie Neumark is a sound/media artist and theorist whose sound studies research is recently focused on voice.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
Norie collaborates with Maria Miranda to explore human-animal relations and environmental politics and practices through sound, video and installation work (www.out-of-sync.com).
Peter Raisbeck
Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne
Associate Prof. Peter Raisbeck’s research broadly spans the architectural profession, its history and future prospects with a particular interest in understanding the architectural profession’s present condition through its histories, theories and current dilemmas.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access, ARC LIEF).
Peter maintains strong ties to industry and is currently the research director of the Architects Consulting Association.
Sarah Teasley
Professor of Design, RMIT University
Prof. Sarah Teasley researches across cross history, design research and social practice, with particular interests in the lived experience of old new biomaterials and biotechnologies in global circulation, and in how human and non-human power relations shape experience, within and as the result of design projects.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access, ARC LIEF).
Kim Vincs
Senior Principal Research Fellow, Swinburne University
Professor Kim Vincs is a dancer, choreographer and interactive media artist whose research integrates scientific and artistic approaches across dance, biomechanics, mathematics and cognitive psychology.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access.
As Director of Deakin Motion.Lab and the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies, Kim has developed new and ground-breaking creative arts research models and built the innovative, motivated and successful academic teams needed to deliver on these initiatives.
Ionat Zurr
Associate Professor, The University of Western Australia
Associate Prof. Ionat Zurr is an artist researcher who is considered to be a pioneer and a leader in the field of Biological Arts (or bioart). I critically explores the aesthetic, ethical and cultural implications of using life as a technology and its effects on bodies and ecologies.
Chief Investigator: The Australian Emulation Network: Born Digital Cultural Collections Access, ARC LIEF).
Ionat is academic coordinator of SymbioticA and formed, together with Oron Catts, the Tissue Culture and Art Project.