Dr Melinda Rackham
Dr Melinda Rackham is a multi award-winning Network Artist, a widely published writer and Adjunct Professor at the RMIT School of Media and Communications. She has been instrumental in the exhibition of, and dialogue surrounding, networked and distributed art practices in Australia and beyond.
Melinda has extensive experience in producing critically focused and publicly accessible exhibitions, forums, conferences and publications. In 2002, as part of her PhD on Virtual Environments, she instigated, and for many years acted as chief editor of, –empyre- forum. Unlike many of its contemporaries -empyre- continues to flourish, is often referred to as the most important global forum on media arts, and was included in Documenta XII in 2008.
In 2003 Melinda was invited to be the first Curator of Networked Media at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) where she advised on the acquisition and archiving of net art, and curated the major survey exhibition, Networked, in 2004: Australian Culture Now. As Director of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) from 2005-2009 Dr Rackham’s mission was to increase the accessibility of newly emerging Art, Science and Technology practices – building new audiences both within the Arts sector and the general public.
Dr Rackham’s current focus is on curating and writing on the emerging art and cultures manifest across networked, responsive, biological and wearable practices and distributed and public environments, and their impact on our everyday lives. Her most recent projects include Coded Cloth ‐ Electronic Textiles at the Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, 2008, and the major international urban screen exhibition DreamWorlds: Australian Moving Image, 2010, which reached an audience of 2.3 million in China.
Melinda is delighted to be working with the enthusiastic and experienced staff at RiAus to produce creative, cross-artform projects which operate on many levels – simultaneously challenging and educating; entertaining and inspiring.
