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about
a studio for all things is about making spaces for living well. It’s a response to the stress fractures appearing in everyday life...
It sometimes feels like our systems are in decay. We can see this around us: climate events which appear ever more devastating, the whiplash as economies explode and tremble, our communities strained by lack of resources, and, at a very personal level, the feeling that life is inherently stressful, there’s never enough time, and it’s never quite possible to sit still and enjoy life.
I believe that as individuals, communities, and even as a species, we can be resilient and can make positive change. We can do something about the way we live our lives, and the places in which we live them.
I work with social and cultural research, advocacy, and with an ear for individual experience and an eye for design. a studio for all things is a collective space for the work, expertise and experience I dedicate towards making this positive change happen. The studio also has a new little blog - an online palette for the ideas which capture the places, people, spaces and projects inspiring this project.I hope you enjoy the studio, and that it flickers a thought, some inspiration or even a smile. And if it does, feel free to get in touch.
Cheers,
Talia
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bio
By trade, I’m a social researcher, creative thinker and advocate with an eye - and ear - for design. I specialise in understanding what people are thinking, and how they are thinking about it. This means I observe, listen to and talk with people to help create better spaces for living well.
I believe that innovation happens at the edges, and often jump between sectors, disciplines and projects, aiming to advocate the role of critically-informed design, and to find a common language so that we can all design for positive change.
I have a PhD in museum design and ethnography from the University of Melbourne, where I currently maintain an Honorary Research Fellowship in the School of Culture and Communications. I also hold an Adjunct Research Fellowship in the Faculty of Life and Social Sciences at Swinburne University of Technology. My thinking and work span anthropology, art and design, policy and politics.
I lecture and teach about theories of consumption and urban culture, new media trends, and media and cultural policy. I also write about the role that our civic cornerstones - like public spaces, public media, museums and libraries – play in everyday life. As a social researcher I also work with policy, consulting to government about behaviour change, communications strategy and agenda-setting.
My pro bono time is dedicated to not-for-profits in community-oriented design and social innovation. During creative playtime I make and curate projects in interactive media, art installation and visual design.
And then, in blissful moments when laptop-free, I’m usually hunting the sunshine, meandering on my bike, and planning my next glass-blowing adventure.
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projects
ETHNOGRAPHY/USER-EXPERIENCE
2010-2011 Social research. Hall & Partners | Open Mind, Melbourne. Work on range of qualitative studies for public sector projects (Federal and State government), using a variety of ethnographic techniques (group discussions, depth interviews, video and online ethnography) in policy areas such as climate change, immigration and refugee experience, gambling and economic reform. Research output has included audience segmentation, developmental and baselines studies, and recommendations for communications and product strategy.
2009 Australians’ Attitudes Towards Animal Farming. School of Design & Social Context, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. A qualitative, nation-wide social science study which used photo-elicitation techniques to identify factors that influence perceptions of animal rights. Coordinated empirical research activities, led focus groups, produced media catalogue for project library and reports for key stakeholders. Grant subsequently awarded to develop evaluation matrix for sustainable factory farming practices.
2007-08 Public Screens & the Transformation of Public Space, School of Culture & Communication, Melbourne University. A study into the impact of large public screens, based in Federation Square, Melbourne. Co-ordinated ethnographic research (recruitment, interviews and observation), visual documentation of empirical site, preliminary qualitative analysis of research data and production of research reports summarising early findings. Study subsequently expanded into a pioneering project linking public screens in Seoul and Melbourne for media events testing the transformation of public space.
2004-08 Moving Images, the Museum and a Politics of Movement: A Study of the Museum Visitor. School of Culture & Communication; School of Historical Studies, Melbourne University. PhD dissertation employing ethnography, social theory and cultural policy analysis to appraise visitor experience in Screen Gallery of The Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne. Contributed to larger Australian Research Council-funded investigation, The Spatial Impact of Digital Technology on Contemporary Art and New Art Institutions (2004-07). Findings used for comparative field investigation between ACMI and similar international institutions, and for scholarly assessment of curatorial and institutional practices, as well as the gallery’s public value.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT THROUGH ART & DESIGN
2011 [co]design studio, pro bono research role at multi-disciplinary design studio working with communities to plan and build sustainable built environments, through projects and design education
2010-2011 Art Ukraine, Ukrainian-English translator for premier Kyiv-based art journal, distributed throughout Europe and US.
2010 Project Happy, photography project with Ukrainian orphans, Kyiv, Ukraine, curator
2010, EIDOS Art Development Foundation, Kyiv, Ukraine, Communications Coordinator (pro bono)
2008-11, Project Australia, research director (pro bono) at not-for-profit organisation providing online incubator for social innovation.
2009, Penthouse Mouse Art and fashion event for L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Artist curator
2008-09, Genealogies of Digital Light Web developer for photography research project, School of Culture & Communication, Melbourne University.
2003, 100 Years of Melbourne University Theatre, web & graphic designer for commemorative database and website, Melbourne University
2006, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, pro bono researcher to support fundraising activities, Melbourne.
2002 Small Giants Television Web/visual designer for youth not-for-profit, Melbourne, 2002; 2001 Silver Bullet website/online game for stage production ‘Catch-22’, Melbourne Fringe FestivalMEDIA RESEARCH
2011 Q&A and Twitter: integrating public media platforms A fieldwork study of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q&A live panel, current affairs program, examining the political potential of public broadcasting in light of its recent integration with Twitter.
2009 Submarine Cabling; Digital Television Recorder Formats. Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University, Melbourne. A baseline review of submarine cabling literature to support Australian Research Council grant proposal; review of TV recorder format literature in preparation for launch of premier digital television journal.
2005 Comparative Analysis of Journalism Policy. School of Culture & Communication, Melbourne University. Overview of key databases and literature to recommend key research areas for further investigation.
2004-05 International Television News Services. Media & Communications Program, Melbourne University. Coding and media content analysis of television news services for international research investigation.
TEACHING/LECTURING
2009 Tutor Lifestyle & Consumer Culture, School of Culture & Communication, University of Melbourne
2008 Subject Coordinator City Cultures–Urban Stories, School of Culture & Communication, University of Melbourne
2008 & 2006 Subject Co-ordinator, Media Futures & New Technologies, Media & Communications Program, University of Melbourne
2005-04 Guest lecturer & tutor Media Futures & New Technologies, Media & Communications Program, University of MelbourneEDUCATION
PhD, 2008, School of Culture & Communication; School of Historical Studies, Melbourne University.
Postgraduate Diploma in Media & Communications, 2003, University of Melbourne
Diploma Modern Languages (German), 2002 University of Melbourne
Bachelor of Creative Arts (Media Major), 2001, The Victorian College of the Arts/The University of Melbourne
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public words
Books
Maclurcan, D. & Radywyl, N. (2012) Nanotechnology and Global Sustainability, Taylor and Francis, CRC Press
Book chapters
Radywyl, N., Douglas, A., Papstergiadis, N. & McQuire, S. (forthcoming 2011) ‘Ambient Aesthetics: Altered Subjectivities in the New Museum in Museum Theory: An Expanded Field (eds. Andrea Witcomb and Kylie Message), Blackwells, UK
Radywyl, N.(2006) ‘The Australian Centre for the Moving Image’ in South Pacific Museums: Experiments in Culture, Clayton, Vic: Monash University ePress, pp. 22-23
Articles
Given, J. & Radywyl, N. (forthcoming 2012) ‘Questions & Answers & Tweets’, First Monday
McQuire, S. & Radywyl, N. (2010) ‘From object to platform: Art, Digital Technology and Time’ Time & Society, March 19:1, 5-27
Radywyl, N. (2010) ‘A Little Bit More Mysterious’: Ambience and Art in the Dark’, M/C Journal [Ambient], 13:2
Radywyl, N. (2009) ‘A Moment’s Daydreaming’ M/C Journal, 12:1
Radywyl, N. (2008) ‘Moving Images, the Museum and a Politics of Movement’, PhD Thesis, The University of Melbourne
Radywyl, N. (2007) Conference presentation, All Your Base Are Belong to Us, University of Melbourne
Radywyl, N. (2007) Conference presentation, Digital Incubator Symposium, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne
Radywyl, N. (2006) ‘The Promise of Little-Arty Microfish’ in Engage: Interaction Art and Audience Experience, Sydney:UTS, pp. 50-58
Radywyl, N. (2006) ‘Coming of Age: Theorising the Development of Communications Technologies’ [Review of Holmes, D. (2005) Communication Theory: Media, Technology and Society] in Southern Review, 39:2 pp.40-65
Radywyl, N. (2006) Conference presentation, Flux, University of Melbourne Radywyl, N. (2005) Conference presentation, FILE Symposium: FILE International Media Arts Festival, São Paulo, Brazil
Radywyl, N. (2005) Conference presentation, Critical Cultures, University of Melbourne
Nolan, D. & Radywyl, N. (2004) 'Pluralising Identities, Mainstreaming Identities: SBS as a technology of citizenship’ Southern Review: Communication, Politics and Culture 37:2, pp. 40-65.
Radywyl, N. (2003) ‘Robert Breer: master of the 4 inch X 6 inch’, online content for Masters of Animation Series, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne
Radywyl, N. (2003) ‘going indie: plympton and making animation’, online content for Masters of Animation Series, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne
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contact
- if a studio for all things has tweaked a little something, drop me a line...
e: natalia@astudioforallthings.com
m: (001) 347 659 8173
tw: @studio4allthngs
bl: www.astudioforallthings.blogspot.com
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Posts
- May 06, 12
- Apr 23, 12
- Apr 23, 12
- Mar 30, 12
- Mar 30, 12
- Mar 30, 12
- Apr 23, 12
These two images appeared virtually side by side in my morning's net-news digest. Pro-democracy protests in Cairo, and the flooding hoards of Black Friday in the US. The comparison of metaphors seems clumsily obvious - burning and desperate political will versus, well, burning and desperate bargain hunting. Somehow a call for democracy appears more authentic, more compelling - and certainly less grotesque.
But if we look at these images within a continuum, and instead consider causalities and commonalities, we get the opportunity to recognise some important relationships between the two events. When I revisit the Egyptian image with Black Friday in mind, a cautionary tale begins to speak to me: 'don't let a hard fought battle fall cheaply'. I hope the opportunity is given to craft a new democracy carefully, mindfully, lest it lead to something unwieldy and unsustaining, as we now see across the North Atlantic. And when I re-examine those hopeful, Black Friday shopping faces from the vantage of the Egyptian protests, I see a common human thirst for change, groping for a better life - or even a better few moments. It might seem a stretch at first to link the theme of betterment with this gross expression of consumerism, yet I imagine there would be many among those hoards in America who see the Black Friday sales as the only way to put dinner on the table, to have presents for the holiday season, and thereby to resurrect their own self-worth as defined by that elusive late-capitalist American dream.
So, collectively, these images show myth-making in action. These are the myths which give our systems coherency, and which we perpetuate as we strive to fulfill common prophecies of entitlement, be they steps towards autonomous representation within a fledgling democratic system, or a virile practicing of one's purchasing power.
I write this from a quiet room in my friend's Berlin apartment, a city that's certainly weathered its own fair share of systemic integration and change, and a great deal of self-conscious contemporary myth-making. I feel like I'm on a peculiar political island as I watch old systems rupturing around me - southwards with the first growth spurts of the Arab Spring, whist around me in Europe and over west in the US cancerous economic growth has left broad systemic decay in its wake.
From my little German island it would be easy to simply see the world for its faults, resign myself to lifelong despair and bemoan our politicians and sharp-suited leaders for the mess my generation is inheriting. And yes, as that grey wintery cloud once again arranges itself over the city it's somewhat of a tempting option. Yet, when looking at the images above I find cause for optimism, as what also speaks strongly to me, above anything else, is evidence of a dynamic of change. Stagnancy suffocates opportunity, and, at least in ecological terms, something new will always be borne of decline and rupture. And sometimes we don't even quite know what it will be. So, I'm an optimist, but I don't think a blind one, as I keep my watchful studio for all things eye on the ebb and flow of politics, and plot a semblance of forward-movement through this very interesting time. - Apr 23, 12One day in the Lower East Side I caught a glimpse of this. I like to think it's Guerilla Poetry, penned late at night by some Marauding Rooftop Literary Warrior... While it may very well be an advertisement for Jennifer Aniston's latest something-or-other, I think I'll indulge my tale of spontaneous poetry. I like to think there's a wall-scaling vigilante on a mission to soften New York's urban edges with his/her lust for words.
- Sep 20, 11
- Sep 20, 11I spent the first weeks in Manhattan residing in Washington Heights between 187th and 188th streets. "But it's so far uptown!" came the cry from my NY-savvy hometown friends. However I was charmed by the idea of sandwiching myself between its Dominican and Hassidic residents - and settled in, conspicuous and content in my very white, mostly non-Spanish speaking, gentile Australianness.Whilst I've now moved downtown, taking up a kind and fabulous offer to camp out in a Greenwich Village loft, I look back on my brief residential excursion uptown with fondness. Mortan Williams' 24 Hour around the corner simply lacks the moments of geopolitical spunk I grew accustomed to - Yeshiva university students scrutinising the contents of Goya frijoles negros; shrunken abuelas hobbling to the counter, supersized jar of kosher pickles in one arthritic hand, plantains in the other.Anyhow, aside from the neighbourhood's aisle-side performances, I was also taken by some of the elegant art deco facades in Washington Heights and Inwood. Maintaining their dignity despite the impolite roar of Broadway below, they were erected in the 1930's when the A train was extended to 207th street. I feel they also mark a gateway to a beautiful part of Manhattan that many New Yorkers will - unfortunately - never venture to see, such as Fort Tyron and Inwood Hill parks, The Cloisters. The most elevated part of Manhattan seems a forgotten bystander to the hum of investment downtown. But then again, perhaps it's a thing of good fortune that the winds of gentrification have been slow to blow northwards.......and well, this next one isn't art deco, but I love this defiant little row of thatch and weatherboard on 187th
- Sep 15, 11New Yorkers seem to live and breathe their streets.
Decades of dense apartment living has stretched the membrane between public and private life. Tense with the threat of rupture, the streets have been rendered front yards, thoroughfares, places for eating, fighting, exhibitionism, consumerism and play. And it's not a bad thing. Their unbridled internal logic rapidly becomes your own, your pulse finds their hum, and you come to realise that the streets are in fact New York's neural pathways, steadily firing, electric, and the currents by which the city becomes a cohesive form - expressive, dancing and ultimately flirtatious.
I like Serendipitous Street Experiences. It's like being treated to a Theatre of Chance, with an Audience of One. I came across this on Prince Street (I think) recently. Arborous social networking. I think it could take off. - Sep 15, 11As I've roamed NYC, I've been somewhat overwhelmed by the sad, sad bikes shackled to street-signs, scaffolding and bike spots all over town. I've been mourning these picked carcasses, at first assuming they were victims of careless abandonment. But now, as proud owner of Blue, and having thwarted Attempted Blue-Theft #1 after just the third streetside lock-up (must acknowledge Slightly-Too-Cool Bikeshop Man here. Your intimidating urbanness pardoned for solid bike-locking advice and products), I see that bike theft is A Big Deal here. Opportunistic. Heartless. Endemic. Even an old cranky bike like this one warrants industrial chainage.
I grow hopelessly attached to my bikes - their sticking gears, wearied brake-pads and glass-abused tyres are terms of endearment. The thought of an assaulted bike upsets me greatly, so, in honour of bikes ridden, bikes violated and bikes now clinging and forgotten to vertical structures all over NYC, I kick off a series entitled 'In Memoriam: Sad Bikes'.
Many more to come. From Cycling Street Cemeteries all over NYC.Ludlow StEast Houston StEast Village somewhere1st ave and Houston (I think)Near Houston - and the day after the hurricane... How??...still don't understand...
