“Cultivating digital music making in regional Australia” (Bennett, Brown, Ferguson, Strong, Green) is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project that commenced in April 2024 (ARCDP240100682, total project value: $434,752). The project aims to examine effective methods of aligning local infrastructure and online resources to support digital music creators and their communities in regional Australia. It will promote digital creative industries and augment existing investments in regional art institutions and digital fabrication infrastructure. The project collaborates with regional digital artists to share their skills and expertise, with the goal of improving coordination of resources and infrastructure for the growth of regional digital creatives and engagement with their communities. Knowledge outcomes will assist governments in optimising the delivery of creative services and resources in regional Australia.

https://experts.griffith.edu.au/8530-john-ferguson/grants

Developing digital creative practices in regional Australia is important for driving innovation and community wellbeing in the 21st century. Yet these vital outcomes rely on the effective utilisation of regional infrastructure and online networks which currently are not well utilised by digital artists. This project will produce new knowledge about how material and social resources in regional areas are best coordinated to develop and diversify technology-based creative arts practices, in particular digital music makers who bridge creative arts and digital technologies. The project fills gaps in our understanding about productive connections between physical and online infrastructure for supporting digital workers in the creative industries. The project will provide the evidence base needed to build the capacities of policy makers and citizens about ways creative pursuits can be expanded through better utilisation of available resources. This knowledge will be useful for practitioners, local councils, regional development bodies, and regional arts funders as they develop policies and support strategies to be more responsive to emerging digital arts practices. Two strategies will be used to facilitate this: first, the project findings will be collated on a project website designed to read a wider public; second, the project findings will be distilled into an accessible toolkit document containing guidelines to assist development and sustainability of regional creative scenes.

This project builds on an earlier pilot study that is reported on in: Brown, A. R., Bennett, A., Ferguson, J., & Strong, C. (2024). Diverse Sound Practices: An exploration of experimental electronic music in regional Australia. Organised Sound, 28(3), 362–371. doi:10.1017/S1355771823000638

What do I contribute?

My role in this project revolves around my experience as a practitioner of electronic music and sound art. There has been a huge growth in DIY and Maker communities since the 1990s. Music activities have been part of this growth and include electronic musicians building modular synthesizers and sound artists constructing devices from open-source hardware and software tools. The sound artists and electronic musicians identified in our case study sites are makers and musicians, we will be sharing resources and working with them to develop local and online projects, this will help us better understand how knowledge is developed and transferred through iterative praxis. In collaboration with CI Brown I have developed a variety of hardware electronic instrument devices alongside a wealth of bespoke music software and digital fabrication templates in various open and free to use/accessible formats. The bespoke music software is created by building upon existing free and accessible platforms such as Pure data, Arduino, VCV Rack, while KiCAD (open-source circuit design software) is utilized to manufacture hardware synthesizers, drum machines, and sound recorders. We will initially share software digital resources online and post physical kits to participants. However, we intend to co-design instruments and activities with participants, so our overall approach will incorporate instrument making, composition, and performance as a form of transdisciplinary musicianship. This practical element of the project emphasizes the integration of technical tools and cultural expression, framing sound artists and electronic musicians as creative innovators with fluid skillsets capable of immense technological and aesthetic accomplishments, and valued actors in regional community contexts.