Professor Anna Munster
PhD, UNSW, 2002
BA, Class 1 Hons (University Medal) University of Sydney, 1984
Professor
Anna Munster has been at UNSW Art and Design since 2001 on a full-time tenured basis. She is an active researcher with two sole published books: An Aesthesia of Networks (MIT Press, 2013), and Materializing New Media(Dartmouth College Press 2006). She also edited and ( OHP Press 2019). Her current research interests are: statistical visuality and radical empiricism, the politics and aesthetics of machine learning, more-than-human perception, new pragmatist approaches to media and art,new media art environments and ecologies; time, movement and sonicity.
Anna regularly collaborates artistically with Michele Barker. Barker and Munster have been working in multi-channel audiovisual environments exploring the relations between perception, movement and media.Their most recent work was the solo show,2019 forIdeas Platform, Artspace, Sydney. In 2017, they were commissioned for amultichannel audiovisual environment, pull, for , 2017–2020. They have been awarded New Work Grants, in 2012 and 2010 from the Australia Council for the Arts to realise their work. Other projects include:(2014),(2011). Duchenne’s smile (2-channel DV installation, 2009), Struck (3-channel DV installation, 2007).
Anna is the lead CI and partnered with Adrian Mackenzie (Australian National University) on a 3-year ARC Discovery Project: ''. She is also currently a CI on the ARCDP 'The Geopolitics of Automation'. led by Ned Rossiter out of Western Sydney University. She is also a CI on the ARC Discovery Project "The Geopolitics of Automation" (2020–23) with Professor Ned Rossiter, Western Sydney University.
She was a partner in a large international project,,hosted by Concordia University, Montreal and funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Canada. She has held two ARC Discovery research grants in new media and art: 'The Body-Machine Interface in New Media Art from 1984 to the Present, 2003–5' and 'Dynamic Media: Innovative social and artistic uses of dynamic media in Australia, Britain, Canada and Scandinavia since 1990'.She was also an investigator on an ARC Linkage project, 'Australian Media Arts Database', which resulted in the national media arts database
She is a founding member of the online peer-reviewed journal and has co-edited two special issues on and . and on the editorial advisory board ofInflexions,Convergence,Scan and Screen Bodies, and Computational Culture.
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, ‘The Geopolitics of Automation’, Australian Research Council Discovery Project). Chief Investigators: Prof. Ned Rossiter, Prof. Brett Neilson, Prof. Anna Munster, Dr Liam Magee. ($464k)
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, ‘Re-Imaging the Empirical: Statistical Visualisation in Art and Science’, 2017–2020. Lead CI. ($177k)
Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Canada, 2013–2019, co-applicant, Australian leader,Immediations Partnership Grant (Concordia University), Grant leader: Prof. E. Manning, 2013–2019 ($CA2.9million
Australian Research Council Linkage Project, ‘Reconsidering Australian Media Art History in an International Context’, 2011–2015, CI ($232,000)
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, team leader and lead C1, ‘Dynamic Media: innovative social and artistic developments in new media in Australia, Britain, Canada and Scandinavia since 1990’, 2007–2010
Australian Research Council Discovery Project, ‘The body-computer relation in new media art from 1984 to the present’, Lead CI, 2003-2005 ($90,000)
ARC, UNSW Student Council Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Supervision, 2017
Dean’s Award, Excellence in Postgraduate Supervision, 2015, Faculty of Art and Design, University of New South Wales, Australia
‘Highly commended’ for Materializing New Media in the Media Art Research award, Prix Ars Electronica Linz, Austria, 2008
Winner (with M. Barker) of National Digital Art Awards, “The Harries”, dynamic category, 2006. Acquisitive prize
Winner of University Press of New England Publishing Award ‘Best manuscript submitted for Interface Series’, 2005.
My Research Supervision
- Monica Monin (PhD, practice-based) Coding Materialities (commenced 2014)
- Alia Parker (Scientia PhD, practice-based) Critical Bio-Textiles: Reconceptualising human-centred design through collaboration with mycellium (commenced 2020)
- Troy Rainbow, Schizophrenia and XR Technological representations (commenced 2019)
- Natasha Dubler, 'Sound, Resonance and Affect' (commenced 2021)
- Eva Nolan, 'Sight and Sightings: Affective Drawing' (commenced 2021)