Urban Futures Symposium February 2023

Atmospheric Futures

The atmosphere is easy to ignore but – as rapid changes to it are reinforcing – fundamental to our wellbeing and survival. Atmospheres or aspects of them feature in research in myriad ways, from an enabling condition to an object of analysis to a generative metaphor attentive to emotions, social connections and information flows. This symposium approaches the question of atmospheric futures and its relevance to research through three different sorts of conversations, all of which will sharpen HDR candidates and others’ critical attention to the systems and situations we are (unknowingly) part of.

The College of Design and Social Context, in collaboration with the Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform, is pleased to present the first Urban Futures Symposium of 2023.

Celebrating HDR candidates from across the College, please join us for their milestone presentations throughout the week. We also welcome multidisciplinary expertise from local and international researchers to consider concepts of atmospheric futures as part of the symposium’s special events program. Featuring an online keynote presentation by Professor Simon Marvin (Universities of Sheffield and Sydney), a panel discussion and an HDR workshop at RMIT’s City Campus, registration is essential for these sessions. 

Keynote

Cultivating Future Urban Atmospheres 

Thursday 16 February, 7.30pm – 9.00pm, online public lecture 

This public, online lecture by Professor Simon Marvin from the Universities of Sheffield and Sydney will explore the emergence of increasingly extended and extreme atmospheric control in the urban context. Drawing on his work across Europe, Australia and Asia, Professor Marvin will examine how atmospheric control is being used to enclose, create and secure specific indoor and outdoor environments for humans, plants and animals and explores what this means for how we use urban space now and into the future.       

The thirty-minute lecture will be introduced with a short talk from Professor Lauren Rickards, Director of the Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform on emerging shifts in the external global atmosphere and related dangerous changes in climate – which is a rapidly evolving situation increasingly being used to justify the radical alteration and extension of our internal atmospheres.  


Panel Discussion

Attending to Atmospheres: Bringing Disciplinary Differences into the Open

Wednesday 15 February, 12pm – 1:30pm

Building 80, Level 11, Room 10, RMIT City Campus

This in-person panel of RMIT academics will explore the ways that different disciplines conceive of and explore the ‘atmospheres’ that we are all part of.

By juxtaposing some of the leading work on atmospheres underway in DSC, COBL and STEM Colleges, the panel will highlight the different aspects, experiences and meanings of atmospheres that different research approaches draw out.

In doing so, it will encourage RMIT HDR candidates and other researchers to reflect on not only the atmospheres they ingest and contribute to, but how their own research shapes their perception and understanding of the world.

Moderated by Prof Lauren Rickards, Director of the Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform, the panel will kick off with a series of short talks.

HDR Workshop

Watch the Vacuum! Interrogating “Knowledge Gaps”

Friday 17 February, 11am – 1pm

Building 80, Level 11, Room 9, RMIT City Campus

The aim of this workshop is to help HDR candidates think critically about a central idea in PhD and other research: the knowledge gap. By using the concept of atmosphere as a metaphor and exemplar area of research, this in-person workshop will draw on the expertise of leading researchers to go beyond the idea of knowledge gaps as areas simply not yet researched, to instead explore more pernicious gaps and their often-neglected causes.

Speakers:
Dr Katherine Clifford (University Colorado Boulder)
Dr Natalya Turkina (RMIT University)
Dr Dana McKay (RMIT University)


HDR Milestones

Throughout the symposium, HDR candidates from across all disciplines in DSC will present their milestones. Session details for HDR presentations are available via the program below. Please note that information for milestone presenters, chairs and referees is available through the RMIT SharePoint site for HDR Milestone Presentations (RMIT login required).


Program and Registration

Monday 13 February

Milestone presentations

Please note that presentations will either be given in person or online only. Refer to the location column for details.

Monday 13 February

Time Candidate Thesis title Location
11.00-12.30 Michael Bourke (CoC) Djandak Wi (Country Fire): Victorian Traditional Owners and Digital Storytelling as Decolonising Practice Teams (online)
12.00-1.30 Jason Foster (2MR) Neither Black nor White – The Postmodern Politic: La Leyenda Negra in Turn of the Millennium Latin American Cinema Hybrid: 09.04.32 or Teams (online)
2.30-4.00 Pippa Bond (CoC) Between a Rock and a Soft Place: An Exploration into the Blurring of Selfhood and Physical Space 09.04.03 (in person)
3.00-4.30 Jiani Yu (CoC) Understanding Female Chinese International Students' Negotiation of Gender and Cultural Norms 08.09.06 (in person)
4.30-6.00 Terans Gunawardhana (2MR) Implications of Advanced Technologies on the Specialised Property Valuation Profession in Australia Teams (online)

Tuesday 14 February

Milestone presentations

Please note that presentations will either be given in person or online only. Refer to the location column for details.

Tuesday 14 February

Time Candidate Thesis title Location
3.30-5.00 Alston Furtado (2MR) Circular Business Model for End-of-Life Electric Vehicle Lithium Batteries in Australia Teams (online)

Wednesday 15 February


Panel Discussion

Attending to Atmospheres: Bringing Disciplinary Differences into the Open

Wednesday 15 February, 12pm – 1:30pm

Building 80, Level 11, Room 10, RMIT City Campus

This in-person panel of RMIT academics will explore the ways that different disciplines conceive of and explore the ‘atmospheres’ that we are all part of.

By juxtaposing some of the leading work on atmospheres underway in DSC, COBL and STEM Colleges, the panel will highlight the different aspects, experiences and meanings of atmospheres that different research approaches draw out.

In doing so, it will encourage RMIT HDR candidates and other researchers to reflect on not only the atmospheres they ingest and contribute to, but how their own research shapes their perception and understanding of the world.

Moderated by Prof Lauren Rickards, Director of the Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform, the panel will kick off with a series of short talks.

Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
  • A/Prof Brett Carter – The science of atmospheres: Atmospheric sensing and the busyness and dynamics of our skies
  • Prof Priya Rajagopalan – Applied research on managing atmospheres: how does air and climate vary between spaces, why, and how can we positively vary it? Insights from building and construction
  • Margareta Windisch – Atmospheres as multiple and unjust: insights from social work research into uneven distribution of atmospheres and associated gendered differences in heat stress
  • Dr David Rousell – Atmospheres as sensed and taught: insights into children’s detection and perceptions of atmospheric phenomena from Education research
  • Dr Julian Waters-Lynch – Affective atmospheres and the way we coexist: insights from Management Studies research on co-working

Milestone presentations

Please note that presentations will either be given in person or online only. Refer to the location column for details.

Wednesday 15 February

Thursday 16 February

Keynote

Cultivating Future Urban Atmospheres 

Thursday 16 February, 7.30pm – 9.00pm, online public lecture. 

This public, online lecture by Professor Simon Marvin from the Universities of Sheffield and Sydney will explore the emergence of increasingly extended and extreme atmospheric control in the urban context. Drawing on his work across Europe, Australia and Asia, Professor Marvin will examine how atmospheric control is being used to enclose, create and secure specific indoor and outdoor environments for humans, plants and animals and explores what this means for how we use urban space now and into the future.       

The thirty-minute lecture will be introduced with a short talk from Professor Lauren Rickards, Director of the Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform on emerging shifts in the external global atmosphere and related dangerous changes in climate – which is a rapidly evolving situation increasingly being used to justify the radical alteration and extension of our internal atmospheres. 


Milestone presentations

Please note that presentations will either be given in person or online only. Refer to the location column for details.

Thursday 16 February

Friday 17 February

HDR Workshop

Watch the Vacuum! Interrogating “Knowledge Gaps”

Friday 17 February, 11am – 1pm

Building 80, Level 11, Room 9, RMIT City Campus

The aim of this workshop is to help HDR candidates think critically about a central idea in PhD and other research: the knowledge gap. By using the concept of atmosphere as a metaphor and exemplar area of research, this in-person workshop will draw on the expertise of leading researchers to go beyond the idea of knowledge gaps as areas simply not yet researched, to instead explore more pernicious gaps and their often-neglected causes:

  1. The systematic knowledge gap: Why are some elements of the physical world unseen and unexamined? Dr Katherine Clifford will draw on her and others’ research to outline how research and environmental sensing systems attend to some aspects of the world but not others
  2. The strategic knowledge gap: Why and how is some information about the world keep out of sight and inaccessible? Dr Natalya Turkina will draw on her research into fossil fuel companies’ obfuscation and strategic ignorance about the environmental and social impacts of their activities, highlighting how important information is kept from researchers.
  3. The sociotechnical knowledge gap: How do our information seeking practices shape what we know and don’t know? Dr Dana McKay is an expert in how people find, interpret and use information and will draw on her studies of browsing behaviour to help us understand how this effects what information gaps we perceive and reflects what knowledge ecologies we are part of.
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Selba-Gondoza Luka
Speakers
  • Dr Katherine (Katie) Clifford is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography at the University Colorado Boulder, from which she has a MA and PhD. Katherine’s research examines the role of knowledge in socioenvironmental controversies.
  • Dr Natalya Turkina is a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at RMIT University and Theme Leader of the Ethical Enterprise theme in the Business and Human Rights Centre of the College of Business and Law. She has a PhD from Melbourne University.
  • Dr Dana McKay is Senior Lecturer in Innovative Interactive Technologies in the School of Computing Technologies, STEM College at RMIT University, where she researches how people find, interpret and use information, including browsing online and in libraries.

Milestone presentations

Please note that presentations will either be given in person or online only. Refer to the location column for details.

Friday 25 November

Close up of crystal globe resting on grass in a forest - environment concept

This symposium is a collaboration between the College of Design and Social Context and the Urban Futures Enabling Impact Platform.

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.