School of Creative and Digital Arts

Kia ora! My name is Ellie - I love pushing the boundaries of interactive technology. I enjoy working on storytelling projects with a central identity/kaupapa of curiosity, knowledge and play, with particular interest in cinematic AR/VR, games, physical and/or digital interactive exhibitions and virtual film production.

My professional background is within film and television, with a special focus on factual/educational media. My academic interests are within the development of 360-degree cinematic virtual reality and non linear storytelling experiences, with my recent research being on interactive portals. In particular, my focus is on 360-degree scene transitions utilising cutting edge, novel techniques for enhancing narrative and spatial coherency in VR spaces.

Dr Kyle Barrett is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa-New Zealand, whose research sits squarely within the human and behavioural sciences, with particular strengths in sociological, cultural, and political‑economic analysis of media, class, and power. His scholarship draws on Marxist theory, critical political economy, and decolonial and neocolonial analysis to examine how cultural and media practices reproduce, negotiate, or resist capitalist and colonial social relations.

Kyle’s research has a sustained focus on class formation, cultural identity, and power, exploring how working‑class, marginalised, and peripheral communities articulate belonging, solidarity, and resistance within constrained political‑economic conditions. His work bridges cultural sociology, media studies, and social theory, contributing to human and behavioural science understandings of how ideology, labour, and cultural production shape everyday social experience.

Empirically, Kyle examines low‑budget and grassroots production cultures, popular media, and vernacular cultural practices as key sites where classed and gendered identities are made visible, contested, and lived. His research treats media not as technological artefacts, but as social spaces embedded in wider structures of inequality, enabling fine‑grained analysis of how cultural practices intersect with labour, precarity, and neocolonial power.

Kyle’s scholarship has been published in leading interdisciplinary journals and edited collections spanning cultural studies, communication, film studies, and social theory, including Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Comedy Studies, South Central Review (Johns Hopkins University Press), European Journal of Communication, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, The Routledge Companion to Transmedia Studies, and Iperstoria: Journal of American Studies. Collectively, this body of work demonstrates sustained engagement with human behaviour, cultural meaning‑making, and the social consequences of media and economic structures.

Alongside his academic research, Kyle is an award‑winning documentary filmmaker whose creative practice informs his ethnographic sensitivity, analytical reflexivity, and engagement with lived experience. His documentaries — including Artefact 93 (2019), Glass Shards (2020), and Dear Alba: A Portrait of Craig McClure (2024) — have screened internationally and focus on working‑class lives, cultural memory, and social marginalisation. This practice strengthens his ability to conduct ethically grounded, participant‑centred qualitative research, particularly with under‑represented communities.

Kyle currently serves on the Editorial Board of New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film and the Advisory Committee for the Journal of Class & Culture. These roles reflect his standing in international scholarly networks concerned with class, culture, inequality, and the social analysis of media.

I have been working in the field of graphic design for the past 20 years, beginning in small production houses, design studios and advertising agencies and now lecturing in graphic design as part of the School of Fine Arts programme at the University of Canterbury. I also have an exhibition practice, with projects presented locally (Scape Biennial, Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch Arts Festival, Jonathan Smart Gallery) and internationally (Wuhan, China; Frankfurt, Germany; Melbourne, Australia). My involvement with the art world and arts administration (The Physics Room Board member 2001–2014, Ilam Campus Gallery Chairperson 2011–2016) give me a unique perspective as an exhibiting artist, professional designer, gallery administrator and educator. Over the past ten years I have won numerous design awards both locally and internationally and have set-up a small arts publishing house (Ilam Press) with my colleague Luke Wood, which has seen us present and launch publications in Melbourne and Mexico City.

Qualification

MFA

Selected Awards

2019 MAPDA (Museums Australia Publication Design Awards ) Best in Show Us v Them – Tony de Lautour Christchurch Art Gallery

2018 PANZ (Publishers Association of New Zealand) Best Book, Best Illustrated Book, Best Cover and People’s Choice Award for New China Eyewitness Canterbury University Press

2018 BEST Awards (Designers Institute New Zealand) Gold Pin for It’s A world Full of Cover Versions Ilam Press

2016 PANZ (Publishers Association of New Zealand) Best Cover Design 101 Works of Art Christchurch Art Gallery

2016 BEST Awards (Designers Institute New Zealand) Finalist Editorial and Books Occasional Rain Ilam Press

2016 BEST Awards Finalist Editorial and Books Everything is Going to be Alright: Christchurch Art Gallery

2015 MAPDA (Museums Australia Publication Design Awards ) Bulletin Christchurch Art Gallery

2014 BEST Awards Finalist Editorial and Books Gavin Hipkins Leisure Valley Ilam Press

2014 MAPDA Invitation design Shane Cotton: The Hanging Sky Christchurch Art Gallery

2013 BEST Awards Finalist Editorial and Books Shane Cotton: The Hanging Sky Christchurch Art Gallery

I am a singer, composer, and audio engineer with a deep commitment to exploring the intersection of technology, creativity, and music performance. Originally from Suffolk, England, I moved to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2005, bringing with me a background in contemporary live music performance and a passion for creating original music and sonic art.

I hold two bachelor degrees in contemporary music and audio production, a postgradute diploma in composition, an LTCL in classical singing and a doctorate in musical arts specialising in studio production and vocal performance. Before joining the University of Canterbury, I led programmes in audio production, music, and digital screen at the Southern Institute of Technology, teaching across composition, acoustics, sound for visual media, and vocal performance.

At UC, I lecture in creative music technology, digital screen and composition, while continuing to expand the boundaries of music technology research. My doctoral research at the University of Otago focused on the autonomous production of choral recordings through advanced vocal modelling, exploring how ensemble interaction and human consciousness shape creativity and music-making in ways that technology cannot fully replicate.  This study lays the foundation for my passion in researching and designing new performative sound technology. My work integrates innovative technological practice with traditional music disciplines, contributing to new frontiers in multidisciplinary music production and education in Aotearoa.

Born in Gore, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 1976, Steve Carr graduated with an MFA from the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 2003. He co-founded the Blue Oyster Gallery and served on the board of Artspace (2002–04), contributing to the ecology of artist-led and institutional practice in Aotearoa.

Across more than two decades, Carr has developed a practice structured around controlled experiments in time, material, and expectation. Working across sculpture, moving image, and photography, he isolates minor events—paint-filled balloons punctured by a needle, bubbles collapsing on cactus spines, surfaces stretched to breaking point—and extends them through slow motion, looping, and durational display. These gestures are deliberately modest. Their scale and simplicity resist spectacle, yet their staging grants them disproportionate attention.

Humour operates here not as anecdote or decoration, but as a structural device. Carr’s works often culminate in moments of release, collapse, or quiet absurdity. These climaxes hover between bathos and revelation. They neither resolve into moral insight nor escalate into drama; instead, they suspend the viewer at the threshold where seriousness threatens to dissolve. In doing so, the work subtly unsettles the cultural assumption that depth must announce itself through gravity, monumentality, or narrative consequence.

Since 2020, Carr has focused on the touring sculptural installation In Bloom, presented across Aotearoa and Australia, including at the Christchurch Art Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and STATION. In this and earlier exhibitions, Carr positions transformation as both event and anti-climax: something that happens, and at the same time refuses to signify beyond itself.

Rather than affirming permanence, his work dwells in contingency. Rather than offering transcendence, it stages interruption. If seriousness signals cultural value through endurance and moral weight, Carr’s practice tests what happens when meaning slips, falters, or laughs quietly at its own construction. The result is not frivolity, but a measured destabilisation of the structures that determine what counts as significant.

Steve Carr lives and works in Christchurch. He is represented by Gow Langsford Gallery and STATION, and has been a Senior Lecturer in Moving Image at Ilam School of Art since 2016.

My research engages with the living world, ecology, landscape, and concepts around nature, wildness, distance and preservation. I am especially interested in that which is unseen, uncertain, overlooked or barely perceptible, especially within everyday urban environments. With the use of various lenses and imaging technologies, I explore how the camera mediates our perception of, and relationship with, the non-human world.

I revisit themes of water, land and mountains in their many forms, scales, and manifestations, more recently focusing in on the endangered Kaikōura tītī (Hutton's shearwater), once an important mahinga kai (customary food source) to our people (Ngāi Tahu – Ngāti Kurī). These ancient, nocturnal creatures are endemic to Kaikōura, and are the only seabirds in the world to nest and breed in an alpine environment. They navigate by stars, scent, magnetic force and instinct, following their noses to find their way, particularly when sight-seeing is not an option. Theirs is a survival story that mirrors my own, and their particular form of being and wayfinding has become a guiding metaphor for my process of knowledge-gathering and art-making.

Recent exhibitions include 'Eau de Plume' at Te Tuhi (2026); 'Slow Burn: Women in Photography' at Te Papa Tongarewa (2026); 'Whāia Te Taniwha' at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū (2025); 'Four Rivers: Politics of Water' at Studiokino & Civic, Basel Academy of Art & Design (2025); 'Site Seeing' at City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi (2025); 'Night Writing' at Two Rooms (2025); 'Paemanu: Awa Toi' at Queensland Art Gallery, Asia Pacific Triennial (2024), 'A Fire that Blackened the Rocks' at Te Atamira, Queenstown – an offsite project between The Physics Room & Blue Oyster (2024); 'Vital Machinery II' at Hastings City Art Gallery (2024); and 'Legacy Issues' at Ashburton Art Gallery (2024). I am represented by Two Rooms (Tāmaki Makaurau), Jonathan Smart Gallery (Ōtautahi), and recently entered into a relationship with PEG Gallery (Te Whanganui-a-tara Wellington).

Although I work mainly with medium-format camera and colour negative film, my interests and skills span fully analogue and digital photographic technologies, as well as moving-image and audio recording. Approaches and methods are determined by the nature of each project, shifting accordingly.

I am actively involved in the community and proud to sit on the following boards/organisations: The Physics Room Charitable Trust as trustee, The Māori Women's Welfare League as a member of the Rāpaki branch, The Hutton's Shearwater Charitable Trust as Deputy Chair, and an active member of Te Haumi o Mangāmāunu Whānau.

GRAMMY-nominated percussionist Justin DeHart is recognised for his versatility across classical, pop, world, and electronic music traditions. Originally from Sacramento, California, he has built an international career that bridges genres and cultures. A member of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet (LAPQ) from 2009 to 2022, his performing credits include the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, LA Phil New Music Group, I.C.E., red fish blue fish, and collaborations with Stewart Copeland and Cheap Trick.

Justin’s musical practice has been profoundly shaped by sustained, practice-led study of Asian percussion traditions. A disciple of North Indian tabla master Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri (Lucknow gharana) since 1999, he has also studied with Pt. Arup Chattopadhyay (Farukkhabad gharana). He travelled to India to study South Indian drumming with T.H. Vikku Vinayakaram and was later awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake nine months of intensive mridangam study with T.H. Subash Chandran in 2001. These experiences continue to inform his approach to rhythm, pedagogy, and collaborative music-making.

His engagement with Balinese music is centred in New Zealand, where he is Director of the Udgita Canda Gamelan Ensemble, the country’s oldest Balinese gamelan. Between 2017 and 2021, Justin revitalised the ensemble in close collaboration with Balinese artist I Made Kartawan, re-establishing its performance, teaching, and community outreach activities. Through concerts, workshops, and interdisciplinary collaborations, the ensemble actively sustains Balinese music and dance practice in New Zealand while fostering meaningful cultural exchange.

Justin appears on over 100 recordings spanning solo, chamber, and contemporary projects on labels including Innova, HatHut, Mode, Sub Pop, and Rattle Records. His debut album Strange Paths was described by Percussive Notes as “mesmerizing” for its “palette of sounds and intricate weaving of lines.” The Complete Early Percussion Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen on MODE Records won the German Critics’ Prize (Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik) for Best New Music Release of 2015. His solo projects Landfall: NZ Percussion Vol. 1 and Towards Midnight: NZ Percussion Vol. 2 were finalists for Te Kaipuoro Inamata Toa | Best Classical Artist at the 2021 and 2025 Aotearoa Music Awards, respectively.

Holding degrees from CSU Sacramento (B.M.), CalArts (M.F.A.), and UC San Diego (D.M.A.), Justin brings extensive performance, research, and teaching experience to his role as Professor of Music at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is a YAMAHA Performing Artist and endorses Black Swamp Percussion, REMO, Sabian, and Innovative Percussion Inc.

I am a Lecturer in Screen Sound at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury. Before joining the University, I worked for over twenty years across film, television, music production and post-production. My professional experience includes production sound recording for film and television, post-production audio, and mastering recordings for internationally recognised artists.

My teaching focuses on production sound, sound design, recording practice, post-production workflows and critical listening. My developing research interests include listening practices and cultures, screen sound education, critical listening, and the relationship between technology, pedagogy and creative practice.

Alex Harmer is a Studio Technician (Sound) in the University of Canterbury’s Digital Screen team, supporting teaching, research, and creative practice across the Screen Sound courses.
He provides specialist technical expertise in sound recording, audio workflows, and studio operations. 

Alex is a nationally and internationally recognised audio engineer, whose years of experience with Radio New Zealand informs his current work with UC. 

As part of this extensive work with RNZ, Alex has recorded orchestras, and engineered broadcasts of both live bands, and political events. He is also a highly experienced podcast engineer. 

Research interests are Early Music (especially 16th- and 17th-century French music and music for lute and related instruments), European folk music, and the philosophy and political economy of music. Performance on lute and theorbo, particularly continuo.  Background includes extended periods in University management as Head of School and Dean and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Arts.

Louise Palmer is a New Zealand artist currently based in Ōtautahi, Christchurch. She exhibits, and has curated exhibitions, in New Zealand and Australia.

Louise's current research practice explores the intersection between sculptural conventions and the personal underpinnings of an artwork. She has drawn on sculptural approaches such as casting and site-specificity which inform the work both materially and conceptually. It is through a reconsideration of tradition that the role of contemporary sculpture is explored; cast and reformed from residues of everyday life, recent research suggests a rethinking of the conventional meanings and values ascribed to objects and places. This interdisciplinary practice is expanded to consider the role of the artist as writer and curator as well as maker.