Dr Susanne Julia Thurow | UNSW Research

Fields of Research (FoR)

Screen and digital media

SEO tags

The Performing Arts (incl. Theatre and Dance)

Expanding Knowledge through Studies of the Creative Arts and Writing

Biography

Dr Thurow is an ARC Laureate Postdoctoral Research Fellow at iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, as well as its Associate Director Research, and Research Program Leader in Climate Aesthetics. Her interdisciplinary research encompasses the fields of Performing Arts, Digital Media, Literary-, Cultural-, as well as Indigenous Australian Studies, with a primary focus on contemporary theatre and interactive aesthetics. Her research...view more

She has been a named Investigator on the ARC Linkage Projects LP170100471 (2018-21), LP180100126 (2019-23) and LP190100563 (2021-25), exploring the capability of advanced interactive visualisation and AI to improve design processes in the performing arts and museum sector, with Sydney Theatre Company, NIDA, MAAS and Opera Australia as collaboration partners.

Her current work builds on her post-graduate studies exploring representations of contemporary Indigenous Australian identity in two acclaimed theatre productions, contextualising the plays in their culturally specific production contexts and evaluating the aesthetic configuration of Indigenous and Western theatrical languages in regards to their decolonising capabilities. The project was supervised by Prof Peter Eckersall (CUNY, New York, USA) and Em/Prof A.-M. Horatschek (CAU Kiel, Germany) and subsequently published as a monograph by Routledge (2020) that won two awards.

In addition to her academic work at iCinema (since 2014), Dr Thurow also worked for UNSW’s Nura Gili Indigenous Programs Unit, the University of Melbourne’s Indigenous Studies Program and Christian-Albrecht-Universität's English Department, as well as having conducted research into Indigenous petitions to the Government for the University of Sydney. Moreover, she supported the arts and social change company Big hART Inc. as Associated Arts Manager on their ‘Namatjira’ and ‘Yijala Yala’ projects from 2011 to 2013, with her professional background further consolidated by work in education, print media, public broadcasting and marketing, for –among others- the ABC, Goethe Institut and Hamburg-based Thalia Theater, where she assisted in the company’s 2009 rebranding and supported the curation of the 2017 Theater der Welt festival.

My Grants

iModel: Transforming rehearsal design using an interactive spatial aesthetic

Dennis Del Favero, Maurice Pagnucco, Michael Scott-Mitchell, Tomasz Bednarz, Susanne Thurow, Andrew Yip, Lyndon Terracini, Georgia Rivers

ARC Linkage Project LP190100563

2021

Total: $562,000

The Project aims to investigate an interactive spatial aesthetic that facilitates modelling of operatic rehearsal design. It will do this through application of an experimental artistic system that reshapes concepts of spatial design through collaborative interaction between creative teams and digital systems. It demonstrates how creatives can immersively design a rehearsal in real time at up to 1:1 scale, assisted by an evolving database. It transforms our understanding of rehearsal design and the way it can be aesthetically explored, with outcomes that optimise and streamline design processes in the performing arts industry.

Exploring the capabilities of digital aesthetics for archiving installation, media, performance and sculpture artworks in dynamically accessible form

Dennis Del Favero, Ursula Frohne, Susanne Thurow, Andrew Yip

Universities Australia: Australia – Germany Joint Research Co-Operation Scheme 57511643
2020
Total: $12,220

The Project aims to prototype an aesthetic framework that can address the problem in Contemporary Art and Creative Industries of archiving ephemeral artworks, such as temporary installation, media, performance and sculpture art, in experientially dynamic forms. While conventional documentary methods capture static and fragmentary aspects of such artworks, we will explore artificially intelligent (AI) digital methodologies applied to the collection of the contemporary art festival Skulptur Projekte. These can animate the artworks as 3D cinematic-scale simulations that embody their full range of spatial and temporal qualities, networked to 3D screens and VR head-mounted displays.

iDesign: Reformulating set design aesthetics via a dialogical model of interactivity

Dennis Del Favero, Maurice Pagnucco, Caroline Wake, Susanne Thurow, Lawrence Wallen, Kip Williams, Michael Scott-Mitchell, Benjamin Schostakowski

ARC Linkage Project LP170100471

2018

Total: $542,916

The Project investigates the emergence of novel forms of interactive aesthetics in contemporary performance design. It does this through experimental application of an artistic system that reshapes concepts of set design by integrating developments that usher in new types of collaborative interaction. It demonstrates how users can immersively model sets in real-time using their body at a 1:1 scale assisted by responsive databases.By doing so, it transforms understanding of modelling and the way it can be aesthetically explored, with outcomes that impact the scope and scale of design processes in the performing and creative arts.

netARCHIVE: Redefining museum experience as an immersive networked narrative.

Dennis Del Favero, Claude Sammut, Fabri Blacklock, Carol Oliver, Susanne Thurow, Matthew Connell, Arul Baskaran

ARC Linkage Project LP180100126

2019

Total: $463,634

The Project aims to investigate the contemporary emergence of novel forms of immersive and networked narrative in museum settings. It expects to reformulate our understanding and experience of a multi-located collection and the ways in which it can be aesthetically explored. To do so, it will experimentally apply an artistic system that transforms the display, engagement and organisation of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences' collection across its venues. Anticipated is a demonstration of how users can explore this distributed collection in concert with a database system, with benefits that impact the aesthetic scope and scale of museum experiences.

My Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy (English Philology) - Feb 2017, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Germany)

First State Examination in the Career of Teachers at the Secondary School (English + German) - Jun 2009, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Germany)