Cumulus reaches Australia

A twentieth anniversary is a pretty good time for an organization to take stock of itself. Even being able to recall twenty years of continuous growth and building a functioning network is testimony in itself. At this stage in its history Cumulus, previously a European network, is building membership on other continents, in other regions. An antipodean conference probably marks the furthest, formal, embassy to date. And “embassy” – “the person or persons sent as ambassadors or envoys” (http://thinkexist.com/dictionary/meaning/embassy/) is a pretty good descriptor, containing as it does, the concept of exchange between equals.

It was not always thus. Australia is a post-colonial society, early European visitors were as much acquisitive as inquisitive, and the oldest continuously existing human cultures in the world were quickly drawn into the European sphere of influence, subjugated and to a large extent, replaced. Modern Australia is an amalgam of many cultures, languages, customs, and culinary and other arts with a now slightly less dominant but still primary, quasi ‘Englishness’ and (to our great good fortune and relief) a slowly improving understanding and respect for our indigenous past – and future. In one way or another, there has always been an ‘otherness’ to the concept Australians have of themselves. Whatever type of Australian you are, Aboriginal-Aussie, Brit or Euro-Aussie, or Asian-Aussie, ‘otherness’ can be called on as a badge, a shield, or both.

So at 38° South, the hemispheric shift is multi-faceted, whether one arrived a thousand, a hundred, or two years ago or for the first time in November 2009. The theme of the Melbourne conference: hemispheric shifts across learning, teaching and research, was totally apt, but only as part of, not the whole picture. Underlying the influx of European delegates sit a variety of attitudinal shifts but also some pretty well dug-in positions of resistance to shift. The great geographic distance is a strain on human and physical resources and it was ever the fact that people situated close to their understanding of what constitutes the geographic, cultural and spiritual centres of their existence experience fewer imperatives to travel to its edges, than those inhabiting the edges do to go on pilgrimage to the centres.

In the creative industries operating at this latitude, the attitudinal challenge has required its practitioners to develop multi-faceted responses, some of them reflected in the challenges inherent in managing the Cumulus conference – and I’m actually going to suggest, also inherent in the management of Cumulus itself. These multi-faceted responses include, at one end of the spectrum, the long history of either personal pilgrimage to, or in the adoption of political and/or cultural mores from, the Londons, Parises and New Yorks of the world. That New York is as much a destination for, and not only a source of, cultural pilgrimage represents the great hope for new world aspirational cultures such as that of Australia and is the greatest compliment to the USA. Australia has always gone to the world, we Australians have had no other choice, and for much of our modern history it has been part of our primary inclination. We must go to the Barcelonas to work on the Temple Sagrada Familias of the world, not only because our architects and intellectuals, our Mark Burrys may be the best people for the job (and in many cases one can now accept that as proven), but also because we need to know that the rest of the world thinks so. A basic, primary need for acceptance remains at the centre of our national psyche. We are the new neighbours and we would very much like to be invited to your house party.

Of course in a modern global context a simple pragmatism, another of the character traits Australians believe themselves to exhibit, dictates that connectivity is no longer a matter of choice. In the world of international commerce and communications there is little space reserved for the non-joiners. Perhaps Swinburne and RMIT becoming early non-European joiners of Cumulus can be seen in the light of the Brit/Euro-Aussie need to keep at least one foot firmly planted in European culture, even though the other is increasingly, albeit ever so slowly, gaining more solid balance on its South-Eastern and Pacific terrain.

At the other end of the spectrum sits the great desire Australians have for the world also to come to them. We don’t want to be, and frankly we have earned the right not to be, seen as the eternal other with whom congress is discretionary. In the past, great distance enforced self-reliance and promoted the can-do, make-do, aspect of our self-image of which we are also proud. Not a bad foundation by the way, for development in the creative industries, in Australia, design has always been as much about survival as it has been about art. Today however, as a modern, creative nation we need to know that our distant relations from the traditional centres of Western culture not only tolerate us coming to their houses – something which after all, good manners alone would prevent them from denying us (albeit perhaps without bringing out the best china) - but that they also see benefit and pleasure in coming to ours. Yes we can-do, and we can make-do, and yes, we have evolved antipodean extensions of the great international design movement of the twentieth century, and yes, we do want and need that to be recognized. Again, at least in our shared space of tertiary education in art, design and media, the hosting of a Cumulus conference in Melbourne is a manifestation of that need to take a turn at welcoming the world to our house as well as a challenge to make the visit worthwhile.

It is in the centre of that spectrum however that Australians, in this particular case the practitioners and educators in the creative industries, must find the most grounded realization of their potential. As with all nations, Australia strives to come to terms with and, in the best sense of the word, exploit what it is and wants to be, and what it has and wants to have.

The quote "There is no there there" appears in Gertrude Stein’s ‘Everybody’s Autobiography’. Apparently it originally referred to Stein being unable to locate her childhood home in California. Today the quote is taken to be a brilliant concentration of the concept of a lack of raison d'être. Perhaps with the extra urgency of a relatively young western culture, Australians are intent on proving to themselves first, that ‘there is a there there’.

Narrowing the bigger picture down to the specifics of the Cumulus Conference 38° South, the post-conference summary of events notes how some of these familiar challenges and themes manifested in the program:

“The conference was designed to be a global forum where the northern and southern hemispheres could share the cultural expression of design and related media across education, industry and research. It was also an opportunity to build the Cumulus network across Asia, Australia and within Victoria.

Cumulus 38° South was more than a hemispheric shift in location. It set itself the challenge of further exploring the landscape of design and examining how it contributes to the world around us. Current problems and future problems are layered and complex, they make new thinking, new processes, and new knowledge necessary across disciplinary boundaries.

As a field, art, media and design have historically maintained ambiguous discipline boundaries, crossing into fields such as the social sciences, the humanities, computer science, linguistics, and others. The conference explored shifts in the role of art, media and design, the nature of disciplines, and transitions across education, research, and practice.”

Perhaps again, it’s the eternal themes of the continuing pendulum shift between localism and internationalism, the shifting of boundaries between cultures, concepts, ideologies, political boundaries and conceptual boundaries etc. that manifest so often in the conversations held in the Cumulus space and which are for Australian creative practitioners, as they are for their counterparts around the world, the clue to finding the “there”. Perhaps at most, we can hope to identify a manageable foothold between an endlessly shifting array of ‘theres”.

Witness the key conference themes – transcending boundaries, transition, balance, shifts, repositioning, change - and how they overlap some of the challenges facing the world creative community, and in the context of this meeting the Cumulus community, with those facing the larger sense of national communities:

• Transcending disciplinary boundaries - creating new practices, processes and types of knowledge;
• Transitions in art + design education - balancing teaching, learning and research;
• Shifts in art + design practice and technology - defining new ways of working;
• Repositioning Art + Design’s role in society, a catalyst for social change.

At the close of the Melbourne Conference, the Cumulus President, Christian Guellerin, shared a vision of a minimal-interventionist model of an organically expanding Cumulus with delegates:

“Where are we heading? … Cumulus wants to be the most important association of design education, Art and media in the world. Nothing more, nothing less...” What is the strategy to achieve this goal? It is the most simple strategy imaginable. We are based on a very successful economical model, the model of Facebook, the model of Wikipedia, the model of twitter, the model of Internet: the model of contribution. You want to participate, you want to share, you want to learn, you participate, you share, you learn... if you don't want to do it, you don't have to.”

We can’t know absolutely how we will succeed in identifying “a manageable foothold between an endlessly shifting array of ‘theres”, or for that matter even if we will succeed. And there is little doubt that twittering and Facebook communications will, must, evolve with increasing acceleration into newer, faster, but hopefully not even briefer ways for us to negotiate that ‘in-between’ space, to mange some parts of the shifts, hemispheric and otherwise. We could start by trying to look beyond the how at the why. After twenty years of demonstrable success at achieving a significant, if particular, range of objectives, for the longest time on the European continent, it behoves the expanding Cumulus community to develop a cohesive set of objectives and processes for meeting those objectives across an ever increasing array of political, social and cultural groupings.

What will be common to us? What will we want to participate in, to share, to learn about? The spectre of a sort of United Nations of the creative disciplines carries with it not only heart-warming public positioning statements but also the less edifying spectre - more than that, also the often-witnessed examples - of competing national and regional parochialisms.

Will a passive networking model be enough? Will governments and funding bodies around the world wish, or even be able, to cover the budgets this sort of networking will require? How will we deserve to be thus indulged?

Consider, for example, that Cumulus and its member organizations are party to a number of significant covenants and agreements requiring measurable action on attaining sustainability objectives. Much of the conversational and negotiating space that Cumulus represents has been filled with sustainability challenges, and rightly so. How will our carbon footprint be justified in that context, by achieving what? Australia, New Zealand, South America, Southern Africa, etc., all represent the challenge of traversing great distances. All will have the right to expect that neighbours will come to visit them in their homes – there can be no distinction between first-class and second-class neighbourhoods on visiting schedules. As Australians we face the challenge of justifying that sort of effort almost every day of our working lives. We can offer our European neighbours the benefit of our experience in that regard. Networking homilies will not suffice; we are obligated to spell out good reasons, and a considered argument before we set out.

Professor Ken Friedman, Dean of Design, Swinburne University of Technology made some opening remarks at the Cumulus 38° South conference on behalf of his co-Chair, Professor Harriet Edquist, School of Architecture and Design Director, RMIT University and himself. Included in those remarks was an acknowledgement of the constructive relationship that co-hosting the conference had helped Swinburne and RMIT to cement. In an immediate, local, way Cumulus collaboration manifested in our own back yard:

“Our two universities differ in the scope of our education. RMIT offers architecture, urban planning and art along with design. This conference takes place as RMIT inaugurates the landmark building of the Design Hub, a jewel in RMIT’s vibrant city centre campus. Swinburne is unique among Australian design schools in our exclusive focus on design, emphasising sustainability, research and the role of design in the global knowledge economy. The academic staff at both universities maintain active professional practices at the international level and both conduct advanced research around the world.

In the current Australian context, both art and design are framed within the creative industries. There is more to creation than creativity, though. In design, we evaluate creative work to see what works and what doesn’t. In art and design alike, we look beyond industry and economics to greater questions of human value, to the quality of life and to the contribution we make to our fellow human beings through the skills and services we offer the
World”.

At this twenty-year marker, we could extend that to addressing the challenge of maintaining the continuing legitimacy of Cumulus by asking ourselves that question - what skills and services can we offer the world? What will be the legacy of Cumulus in another twenty years? How will we show that we designed our future, and were not satisfied with simply managing the inherited outcomes of our past? Professor Friedman borrowed Shakespeare’s words, we hope that you “carry this island home in your pocket … and, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands”.

We can all be proud of Cumulus and be thankful for the contribution of those key organizational builders who brought it about and nurtured it to this stage. The Australian hosts of the Cumulus 38° South conference were particularly proud that so many of our Cumulus neighbours came to visit us at our house to discuss our joint work. We must now determine to “bring forth more islands”.

10 February 2010

Professor Helmut Lueckenhausen
PVC and CE, Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak
Jalan Simpang Tiga, 93350 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
Tel: + 6082 416353 ext 7888
Mobile: + 6012 877 1588
Fax: + 6082 426353
Email: hlueckenhausen@swinburne.edu.my