Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums

At the core of the National Museum and its exhibitions, is the National Historical Collection, with more than 200,000 objects, which represent Australia's history and cultural heritage. Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.

George Dunford from the Australian National Maritime museum will talk on collection explorer which makes almost half of those items accessible over the web. He will join panel members from 3P Learning, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, CSIRO Data61, the National Gallery of Australia and the State Library of NSW.

Collection Explorer provides digital access to almost half the National Historical Collection – and growing. This includes objects that are on display and many more in storage. New collection records and images are being added continuously and the information on existing records is being enhanced.

The National Museum of Australia is also home to the Museum Robot. A semi-autonomous robot assists a guide to give tours using immersive video.  The robot is directed to points around the museum and finds its own way there. Remote users are part of that journey using a panoramic camera which conversing with the guide using a normal webcam.

George Dunford is Head of Digital and Content Services at the National Museum of Australia. He has previously worked in Digital roles at the National Library of Australia, Lonely Planet, Wheeler Centre and RMIT University.

CSIRO Data61 is excited to be involved in so many leading edge initiatives. Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.

Gavin Walker from CSIRO Data61 will talk on opportunities the latest digital technologies afford to the sector. He will join panel members from 3P Learning, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the State Library of NSW.

CSIRO Data61 is Australia’s digital powerhouse.  It combines compelling scientific work from NICTA and CSIRO Digital Productivity.

Gavin Walker leads Data Integration at CSIRO Data61. Gavin Walker is a Senior Software Engineer at CSIRO.  He has over 25 years experience in developing advanced software systems, working with scientists to transform breakthrough ideas into functional and effective platforms.  He leads research and engineering teams, engaging with stakeholders to understand their needs and capacity to adopt disruptive technologies; extracting value from innovation.

In the past 15 or so years, we now have the ability to exchange information about pacific art with the communities of origin in a way that could not be done before including three dimensional representations. 

Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. Listen to Crispin Howarth talk on the use of the internet and emerging technologies to widen the appreciation of traditional Pacific art.  He will join panel members from 3P Learning, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, CSIRO Data61, the National Museum of Australia and the State Library of NSW.

Use of 3D representations is a field the Museums and Galleries sector is still finding its way into in terms of engaging audiences and utilizing their collections of physical things.

Crispin Howarth is the curator for Pacific Arts at the National Gallery of Australia. Beginning this role in 2007, Howarth is a previous president of the Oceanic Art Society; He has travelled Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and other pacific countries to learn about the arts of these regions.

Howarth has published over fifty articles on the arts of the Pacific and curated four significant exhibitions, the most recent being Myth + Magic: Art of the Sepik River.

Digital excursions with a difference – supporting students in regional NSW to experience the HMB Endeavour, one of Australia’s greatest treasures. Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. Dr Lynda Kelly from the Australian National Maritime museum will talk on the outcomes from the pilot project and speculate on the future of technologies for museum learning. She will join panel members from 3P Learning, the Atlas of Living Australia, CSIRO Data61, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the State Library of NSW.

The Australian National Maritime Museum has been working with CSIRO Data61 to enable students to tour and learn about the HMB Endeavour remotely through the use of “panommersive” technology. Students can explore the ship from their home or classroom using an advanced immersive learning environment. By recreating the HMB Endeavour digitally the museum can offer a rich and real-life learning environment to help children learn about this historically and scientifically significant vessel, with a focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related topics.

Dr Lynda Kelly is Head of Learning at the Australian National Maritime Museum, responsible for all visitor programs, formal education programs, including digital learning, and audience research. Previous to this Lynda was Manager of Online, Editing and Audience Research at the Australian Museum, responsible for developing and evaluating the Museum’s digital content and programs.

Lynda has been working in the research and evaluation fields since 1994 and in the museum industry since 1987, and has extensive knowledge of museum learning, new media and digital technologies. Lynda has published widely on audience research, learning and digital trends in the cultural sector.

Want to learn about collecting social media for posterity?  Brendan Somes, from the State Library of NSW, knows about the why, what and how of collecting social media. Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. There he will join panel members from 3P Learning, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, CSIRO Data61, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Museum of Australia.

The State Library of New South Wales has been working with CSIRO Data61 to collect social media since 2012. A range of publicly available online material from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs as well as websites has been collected. It includes 70,000 posts relating to the Sydney Siege at nearby Martin Place and 500,000 posts relating to the NSW State Election.

Brendan Somes is the Collection Strategy Specialist at the State Library of New South Wales. This involves work in the areas of digital collecting, collecting development policy and planning. He has worked with the Library since 2014. Prior to 2014, Brendan worked at the National Archives of Australia.

From the very small to the very big, all life is full of wonder.  Digital representations makes our understanding of living things more accessible. Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. Dr John LaSalle from the Atlas of Living Australia will talk on digitising specimens, particularly the very small. He will join panel members from 3P Learning, the Australian National Maritime Museum, CSIRO Data61, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the State Library of NSW.

John La Salle is the Director of the Atlas of Living Australia, and a former Director of the Australian National Insect Collection.  His ambition is to bring Australian life into the digital realm to be shared, studied and appreciated, and he is actively exploring emerging technologies to accelerate the process by which we can build image libraries and then extract rich information from those images in a manner that can be stored, shared and re-used.

Amongst a convoluted career Daniel has consistently specialised in making science fun and accessible for young adults. He currently works with 3P Learning's IntoScience helping to produce educational games and interactive content to teach high school students about wondrous stuff in science: from playing basketball on the moon to exploring the world's oldest limestone caves system.

At VividSydney he will be joining the conversation at Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums to discuss IntoScience's Jenolan Caves project, which set out to scan the caves using the CSIRO Data61's patented technology Zebedee scanner and convert it into a 3D environment for students to explore within the IntoScience platform. 

Daniel's work has appeared across a variety of media including ABC TV's Hungry Beast, Radio National's The Science Show and on stage across Australia for National Science Week. He has collaborated with numerous institutions and businesses including the National Maritime Museum, University of New South Wales, Commonwealth Bank and The Royal Society of Chemistry. He like to play games with his academic hat on. 

Join the conversation at VividSydney’s Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Digital Experiences in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. Chris Winter will facilitate the panel discussion including digitisation, robots, immersive telepresence and 3D game experiences. He will assist panel members from 3P Learning, the Atlas of Living Australia, the Australian National Maritime Museum, CSIRO Data61, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the State Library of NSW.

Chris’ principal interests include the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector, the work of New York’s Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) and the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA), and the potential of ICT and fast networks for the development of progressive outcomes in both sectors. Since leaving the ABC he has worked on a study of the GLAM sector in Australia commissioned by the CSIRO which examined the opportunities and challenges for the sector presented by new broadband and digital services. Its report was published in September 2014.

He is a member of ASCA's management committee, a jury member of the ICF, a member of the American Alliance of Museums, Museums Australia, The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA), the Australian Society of Archivists, the Australian Digital Alliance, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS).

Based in Sydney, Chris worked for the ABC until August 2012, most recently for 12 years in the ABC's New Media Innovation Division. He comes from a long background in radio, following up with web and mobile projects, digital and interactive TV and technology marketing. He managed the ABC's first digital only channel ABC2 for its first two and half years, was in 2004 the joint recipient of an Australian Recording Industry Association award for Best Music DVD for his production work on Midnight Oil's Best of Both Worlds and was presented with the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association's 2007 Outstanding Achievement award.

He has been an XMediaLab mentor since they began in 2003, was twice on the board of the NSW screen development body Metro Screen, most recently from 2009 to 2015, a member of the Australian Government's IT Industry Innovation Council from May 2009 until its dissolution in 2013, on the Queensland Government's ICT Ministerial Advisory Group from 2010 until the change of government, and was on the advisory committee of Enterprise Connect's Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) from 2010.