Funding boosts Circus Oz back catalogue

RMIT University academics Dr David Carlin and Dr Jane Mullett are part of a project involving a consortium of 18 universities and leading performing arts industry organisations led by Flinders University which has secured a $650,000 grant.

The Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grant comes from the Australian Research Council (ARC). The RMIT share is $36,000.

The project will adopt an innovative “citizen science” to strengthen its network-accessible research infrastructure for live performance.

This proposal will build new mechanisms on existing infrastructure to harness collective intelligence, visualise the knowledge embedded in the AusStage database by pioneering data visualisation techniques, deliver next-generation tools and services for information analysis, and continue populating the database with comprehensive coverage of live performance in Australia.

AusStage draws on collaborative expertise to enable researchers to chart geographic flows of performance, artistic collaborations and creativity. It also continues to link researchers across universities, government and industry.

Dr Mullett, a Research Fellow with the College of Science, Engineering and Health, and Dr Carlin, who teaches in the School of Media and Communication, will use their share of the funding towards the use of a mobile digitisation machine to digitise the back catalogue of Circus Oz videos of live performances.

Filmed performances offer a rich knowledge source and AusStage seeks to consolidate this invaluable and irreplaceable visual record as a cultural asset for Australia.

For Dr Carlin and Dr Mullett, the LIEF project is hopefully a precursor to an ARC Linkage project led by RMIT which, if successful, will begin this year.

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