Creative Media
Research

Staff Research Profile

Larissa Hjorth

Larissa Hjorth is a Lecturer in Digital Art in the Games Program at RMIT University.  She holds a Master of Arts by Research (Cultural Studies) from the University of Melbourne, and is currently undertaking a PhD in Cultural Studies at the same institution.  She also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from RMIT, a Bachelor Degree in Visual Arts (Photography and Printmaking) from the University of South Australia, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Women's Studies from the University of Adelaide.

She is an artist, researcher and lecturer and has been researching gendered mobile phone customisation in the Asia-Pacific region for the last five years. As an interdisciplinary artist utilising smell, sound and video, she has been practicing for twelve years and has had over ten solo exhibitions (EAF, CCP) and one hundred group exhibitions (including 2001 Yokohama Triennale with the Candy Factory and Command N’s Sukima). In 2002, she co-curated an Australia/Japanese magazine project entitled gloss.  She has been the recipient of the Australian Council Tokyo studio, The Akiyoshidai International Art Village residency (Japan) and Asialink visual art residency at SSamzie space, Seoul.

She has lived in Seoul (South Korea) and Tokyo (Japan) and has conducted many cross-cultural projects including the Australian/ Japanese magazine/ exhibition project gloss (2002). She has been the recipient of the Australia Council Tokyo studio residency, the Akiyoshidai International Art Village residency and the Asialink Seoul studio residency and has exhibited widely including solo exhibitions at CCP (Contemporary Centre for Photography) and EAF (Experimental Art Foundation) as well as participating with the Internet collaborative group Candy Factory in the 2001 Yokohama Triennial.

Key publications include ‘Kawaii@keitai’ in Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland (eds) Japanese Cybercultures (New York, Routledge, 2003: 50-59); ‘“Pop” and “Ma”: The Landscape of Japanese Commodity Characters and Subjectivity’ in Fran Martin, Audrey Yue and Chris Berry (eds) Mobile Cultures (Durham, Duke Uni Press, 2003: 158-179); ‘Postal Presence: a case study of mobile customisation and gender in Melbourne’, in Peter Glotz and Stefan Bertschi (eds.) Thumb culture: Social trends and mobile phone use. (Germany, Bielefeld, 2005). Referred journal publications on mobile media include ‘Fast-forwarding present: the rise of personalization and customization in mobile technologies in Japan’, Southern Review (mobile histories issue co-edited by Gerard Goggin and Julian Thomas, 2006); ‘Odours of mobility’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Feb-May 2005; ‘Being There and Being Here: Gendered customising of mobile 3G practices through a case study in Seoul’, co-authored with Heewon Kim Convergence journal (summer issue, 2005).

Current Projects

Over the last five years, I have been researching and publishing on gendered customizing of mobile telephony in the Asia-Pacific; specifically focusing upon the idea of the user as producer (rather than consumer). I have also researched convergent mobile gaming (specifically pervasive gaming) and have a sound knowledge of the games industry in Australia, Japan and Korea. I am particularly interested in networked communities and the relationship between the virtual and actual and have conducted ethnographic research on communities such as Cyworld’s mini-hompy (with Heewon Kim).

Recent Work

Exhibitions

Asialink recipient of the Korean residency at SSamzie in 2005. This residency is highly competitive and the actual residency itself was pivotal for my art practice resulting in four projects, 2 exhibitions and one bilingual catalogue.

2005
Asialink Seoul art residency studio at Ssamzie art space (2005)

2004
Co-curating a Japanese/ Australian exhibition/ magazine bilingual and cross-cultural collaboration project, entitled gloss. The project went for over one year and toured both in Australia and Japan (funded by Arts Victoria, Australia Council new media fund, Asialink-Japan Foundation, Pola Art Foundation, Noruma Cultural Foundation).

Recipient of the Australia Council Tokyo Studio in 2000 which then affording the time to co-curate an Australian/ Japanese magazine/ exhibition project (gloss) that went over one year (2002) and resulted in 3 exhibitions and magazine. This project explored the culturally specific nature of relationships between the hard copy and the digital. The project was funded by Arts Victoria, Australia Council, Pola Foundation, Norima Foundation, Japan/ Australia Foundation.

Refereed journals

2006
‘Gendered mobility’ chapter in Korean Women’s Association for Communication Studies anthology (published in Korean)

‘Fast-forwarding present: the rise of personalization and customization in mobile technologies in Japan’, Southern Review (mobile histories issue co-edited by Gerard Goggin and Julian Thomas, 2006)

Chapter on Korean virtual communities for Routledge anthology edited by Gerard Goggin and Mark McLelland

2005
Co-editing with Andrew Murphie (Eds) special issue of the referred fibreculture journal focusing on mobility and new technologies (forthcoming)

Hjorth, Larissa ‘Postal Presence: a case study of mobile customisation and gender in Melbourne ‘, Peter Glotz and Stefan Bertschi (Eds) Thumb culture: Social trends and mobile phone use. Bielefeld, 2005 forthcoming.

Hjorth, Larissa (2003) ‘Kawaii@keitai’ in Japanese Cybercultures (Eds) Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland, New York, Routledge, pp. 50-59, 0-415-27919-4

Hjorth, Larissa (2003) ‘Pop and Ma’ in Mobile Cultures (Eds) Fran Martin, Audrey Yue and Chris Berry, Durham, Duke Uni Press, pp. 158-179, 0-8223-3087-3

‘“Pop” and “Ma”: The Landscape of Japanese Commodity Characters and Subjectivity’ in Fran Martin, Audrey Yue and Chris Berry (eds) Mobile Cultures (Durham, Duke Uni Press, 2003: 158-179). This chapter has been cited by key theorists such as David Morley (2003) and Mini Ito (2005).

‘Being There and Being Here: Gendered customising of mobile 3G practices through a case study in Seoul’, co-authored with Heewon Kim Convergence journal (summer issue, 2005); also presented at 2004 Mobile communication and Social Change, ‘Being here and being there’, organised by Shin Dong Kim and SK communication, October, Seoul, South Korea. This paper as both a publication and conference paper was one of the first academic papers on the growing phenomenon of virtual community, Cyworld mini-hompy.

Conferences

Key conferences/ workshops for 2006: dLux Cross-media forum, presenting case study of Korea and DMB technology, 21st April, Sydney Opera house; Cultural Space and the public sphere in Asia, presenting ‘Snapshots’, hosted by Asia’s Futures Initiative, March 15-16, Seoul; Toby Miller games workshop hosted by QUT, 12 May, Brisbane; Cultural Typhoon conference, presenting paper on camera phone practices, July 1-2, Tokyo; AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers) workshop, presenting case study on mini-hompy, September, Brisbane.

Keynote speaker at the Girl’s Mobile Cultures conference, presenting ‘Gendered mobility’, organised by the Korean Women's Association of Communication Studies at the Korean Press Foundation in Seoul, November 2005; this paper will be published in an anthology (in Korean). This was very important because not only did it demonstrate the relevance of my research in Korean academic circles but also acknowledgement of my work as important in the area.

Key mobile media conferences/ workshops for 2005 include: ‘mobile media in Asia-Pacific’ discussion as part of MELL at University of Tokyo, December, Tokyo; ‘mobile media’ presented to Global Telecommunications Institute at Waseda University, December, Tokyo; Girl’s Mobile Cultures conference, presenting ‘Gendered mobility’, organised by the Korean Women's Association of Communication Studies at the Korean Press Foundation in Seoul, November 2005; Mobile communication and Asian modernity II, presenting ‘Palm reading: mobile TV’ with Shin Dong Kim, October, Beijing, 2005; Vital Signs conference, presenting ‘locating the mobile’ as well as chairing online/offline panel on mobile media, September, ACMI, Melbourne, 2005; Women’s world conference, presenting ‘Femme phoneur’ as well as chairing gender and mobile media panel, June, Seoul, South Korea, 2005; Freeplay (independent games conference), presenting ‘the cult of kawaii and mobile games’, ACMI, July, 2005; Mobile communication and Asian modernity, presenting ‘Locating the mobile: Customisation and gender in Asia-Pacific region’, HK City University, June, Hong Kong, 2005.

2005
Mobile Communication and Asian Modernity, “Locating the mobile”, organised by Hong Kong City University, Hong Kong.

2004/05
Invitation to present in fully funded conferences on Asian modernity and art/ culture: 2005 Mobile Communication and Asian Modernity, “Locating the mobile”, organised by Hong Kong City University, Hong Kong (2005); International Conference on Our Modernities: Positioning Asian Art Now presented ‘Glossing Over’, February, organised by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2004).

2004
Mobile communication and Social Change, presenting “Being here and being there” (in collaboration with Heewon Kim), organised by Shin Dong Kim and SK communication, October, Seoul, South Korea.

2004
Life of Mobile data conference, presented “Gap filling and space invaders: Japanese mobile telephony and customisation”, April, University of Surrey.