Professor Mitchell Whitelaw
Areas of expertise
- Digital And Interaction Design 120304
- Interactive Media 190205
- Data Visualisation And Computational (Incl. Parametric And Generative) Design 330301
Research interests
My research spans practice and theory in the fields of digital design and culture; I work with data and computation as core materials in a creative research practice. I work with partners and collaborators on applied, practice-led research with public outcomes. My theoretical work draws on and contextualises this practice, as well as investigating emerging concepts and forms in digital art and design. Current themes in my research are:
Redesigning Biodiversity Data
The living world is increasingly recorded and represented as data. Citizen science, smartphone apps and web platforms mean that broad publics are increasingly creating and exploring biodiversity data, and using it as a way to engage with the living environment. I am interested in how biodiversity data is visualised and represented, and how our interactions with it are designed. Through collaborations with partners such as the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office, I am exploring richer forms of visualisation, exploration, engagement and storytelling with biodiversity data.
Design for Digital Heritage and Humanities
The digitisation of cultural heritage is creating vast masses of valuable content, but traditional search-based interfaces do a poor job of representing this richness. Working with institutional partners, academic collaborators and students, I develop “generous interfaces”, working with cultural data to create inviting, explorable websites for cultural collections. I also develop speculative and poetic applications for digital heritage, reimagining and reanimating these archives for a contemporary context. Since 2010 this work has been funded by partners including the Asia Art Archive, Canberra Museum and Gallery, the State Library of Queensland, the State Library of New South Wales, the State Library of Victoria, the National Archives of Australia, and the National Gallery of Australia.
Researcher's projects
Funded Research Projects
“Murrumbidgee Wetlands Audio Visualisation Pilot.” Contracted reserarch for Charles Sturt University / Commonwealth Environmental Water office, 2021. M. Whitelaw, A. Mackenzie. Value $19420. Outcome: https://flow-mer.org.au/napnap “Unreal Engine and site-specific augmented reality using natural markers.” Epic Games Mega Grant, 2020. B. Pailthorpe, M. Whitelaw, A. Raupach, G. Hinchcliffe. Value $50,000 USD. “Transforming the early modern archive: the Emmerson Collection at SLV.” ARC Linkage project LP180100704. Whitelaw is CI 4. Value $247,000 “MyClimate 2050.” Contracted research for Australian Conservation Foundation, 2019. With Geoff Hinchcliffe. Value $43,000. See https://myclimate.acf.org.au “Corley Explorer.” Contracted research for State Library of Queensland, 2018. With Geoff Hinchcliffe. Value $60,000. See https://explorer.corley.slq.qld.gov.au/ “Heritage of the Air: How aviation transformed Australia.” ARC Linkage project LP160101232, commencing 2018. Administered by University of Canberra; Whitelaw is CI 7. Value $440,000.
"Visualising a Bibliography of Indian Art." Contracted research for Asia Art Archive, 2015. Value $9,000. See http://aaabibliography.org/explore
“Tangible Data Representation for the Power of One Exhibition.” Contracted research for Museum of Australian Democracy, 2014. Value $10,000.
“Discover the Queenslander.” Contracted research for State Library of Queensland, 2013. Value $20,000. See http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/showcase/discover-the-queenslander
Available student projects
I am seeking Honours, Resarch Masters and PhD students to work on practice-led projects across all my areas of research interest. Students may come from backgrounds including art, design, digital media, computer science, information technology, information science and cultural heritage.
Publications
- Whitelaw, M & Smaill, B 2021, 'Biodiversity data as public environmental media: Citizen science projects, national databases and data visualizations', Journal of Environmental Media, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 79-99.
- Whitelaw, M 2020, 'Succession: A Generative Approach to Digital Collections', in H Lewi, W Smith, D vom Lehn, & S Cooke (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of New Digital Practices in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums and Heritage Sites, Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 389-396.
- Beaven, L, Grant, K & Whitelaw, M 2018, 'Digital cartographies of the Roman Campagna', in Jennifer E. Boyle and Helen J. Burgess (ed.), The Routledge Research Companion to Digital Medieval Literature, Routledge, Oxford, UK, pp. 212-226.
- Whitelaw, M 2018, 'Mashups and Matters of Concern: Generative Approaches to Digital Collections', Open Library of the Humanities, vol. 4, no. 1. https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.291/
- Schofield, T, Whitelaw, M & Kirk, D 2017, 'Research through design and digital humanities in practice: What, how and who in an archive research project', Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. i103-i120.
- Whitelaw, M 2017, 'Pings: Matter, Environment and Technology in the work of HC Gilje', in HC Gilge (ed.), Conversations with Spaces, Uten Tittel, Oslo.
- Hinchcliffe, G & Whitelaw, M 2016, 'Digital, Material, Engaged & Undisciplined: Introducing a Bachelor of Design at the Australian National University', ACUADS Conference 2016: Adaptation, ed. Charles Robb, Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS), Queensland University of Technology.
- Whitelaw, M 2016, Drifter. Available: http://mtchl.net/drifter
- Whitelaw, M 2016, Exploring the Asia Art Archive India Bibliography. Available: http://aaabibliography.org/explore
- Whitelaw, M 2015, 'Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural Collections', Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 1.
- Whitelaw, M 2015, 'Accretor: Generative Materiality in the work of Driessens and Verstappen', Artificial Life, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 307-312.
- Whitelaw, M 2015, 'Representing Digital Collections', in David Carlin and Laurene Vaughan (ed.), Performing Digital: Multiple Perspectives on a Living Archive, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT, USA, pp. 77-96.
- Schofield, T, Kirk, D, Amaral, T et al 2015, 'Archival Liveness: Designing with Collections Before and During Cataloguing and Digitization', Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 3.
- Baecker, R & Whitelaw, M 2015, 'Epistemological machines and protocomputing', in Theresa Schubert and Andrew Adamatzky (ed.), Experiencing the Unconventional: Science in Art, World Scientific, Singapore.
- Hinchcliffe, G & Whitelaw, M 2015, 'Colouring digital collections: Challenges and opportunities for the use of colour metadata in cultural collections', 4th Museums and the Web Asia, MWA2015, Museums and the Web Asia 2015, Melbourne, Australia. Available: http://mwa2015.museumsandtheweb.com/proposal/colouring-digital-collections-challenges-and-opportunities-for-the-use-of-colour-metadata-in-digital-collections/
- Whitelaw, M 2015, Succession. Available: http://mtchl.net/succession
- McCormack, J, Bown, O, Dorin, A et al 2014, 'Ten Questions Concerning Generative Computer Art', Leonardo: Art Science and Technology, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 135-141.
- Nualart-Vilaplana, J, Perez-Montoro, M & Whitelaw, M 2014, 'How we draw texts: a review of approaches to text visualization and exploration', El profesional de la informacion (The Information Professional), vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 221-235.
- Whitelaw, M & Post, R 2014, 'Nolan Explorer'.
- Whitelaw, M & Hinchcliffe, G 2014, 'Discover the Queenslander'.
- Whitelaw, M & Andrew, M 2013, 'The Institutional Harvest'.
- Whitelaw, M & Ennis-Butler, B 2013, 'Exploring Australian Prints and Printmaking'.
- Whitelaw, M 2013, 'Transmateriality: Presence Aesthetics and the Media Arts', in Ulrik Ekman (ed.), Throughout: Art and Culture Emerging with Ubiquitous Computing, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 223-236.
- Whitelaw, M 2013, 'Sheer Hardware: Material Computing in the Work of Martin Howse and Ralf Baecker', Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture, vol. 10, no. 2.
- Whitelaw, M 2013, Measuring Cup (Brisbane 1887-2010).
- Whitelaw, M 2012, Manly Images.
- Dorin, A, McCabe, J, McCormack, J et al 2012, 'A framework for understanding generative art', Digital Creativity, vol. 23, no. 3-4, pp. 239-259.
- Whitelaw, M 2012, 'TroveMosaic'.
- Whitelaw, M 2011, Local Colour.
- Whitelaw, M 2011, Local Colour Bowl Prototypes I - IV.
- Butler, B, Hinton, S & Whitelaw, M 2011, 'Playing with Complexity: An Approach to Exploratory Data Visualisation', Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools Conference, ACUADS 2011, ed. Mr. Gordon Bull, Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS), Canberra, Australia, pp. 12pp.
- Whitelaw, M 2011, 'Local Colour and Networked Specificity', 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA 2011, ed. Lanfranco Aceti, Ozden Sahin , ISEA2011 Istanbul, Istanbul, pp. 3pp.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Murrumbidgee Wetlands Audio Visualisation Pilot (Primary Investigator)
- SLQ Community Contribution Tool (Secondary Investigator)
- Transforming the early modern archive: the Emmerson Collection at SLV (Secondary Investigator)
- Frank Corley Collection - Online Community Collection Tool (Primary Investigator)
- Australian Conversation Foundation - Climate Risks Consultancy (Secondary Investigator)
- Heritage of the Air: how aviation transformed Australia - Externally-led by University of Canberra (Secondary Investigator)