Papers / presentations – Online Casino Real Money NZ

Dunedin #flatnames Project – slides and text#NDFNZ

flatnames — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:53:05 +0000

Here the video, the slides and text from my lightening talk at NDF.

Many many thanks National Digital Forum (#NDFNZ) for the opportunity to speak, and share the story (so far) of the project. I hope I conveyed the importance of these stories, and Im thrilled so many people enjoyed the talk. They seemed to like it so much it was talked about more on Twitter in NZ than the weather!

What I forgot to express, in the nervous excitement of the day, was my gratitude to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage who have granted me funding through a New Zealand History Trust Award to help write a book about the flat names project. I am working on it.

Video

Dunedin, for those who don’t know, is the site of New Zealands oldest university and has a campus environment like no other in the country where a great part of the surrounding suburb of North Dunedin is rental accommodation. The majority of our students come from out of town and this is their first experience from living away from home. You can imagine this makes the place ripe for lots of liminal activity.

SLIDE 2

The Online Casino Real Money NZ is a collection of names that have been painted, drawn, stencilled, spray painted onto a variety of objects: bits of board, fence palings, beer boxes, ] head boards, surfboards, whiteboards and skateboards.

They are flats with names like: The Cock and Swallow, Libido’s Bar and Grill, Footrot Flats, Hogwartz, The Shrieking Shack, The Changing Rooms, Hyde Street RSA, The Hilton, Bedrock, Sifta Rosa, The Lodge, DSIR (The Department of Student Inebriation Research), The Jolly Rodger, The Brick Shithouse, The Heap, The Manor, The Wardrobe, Bonnie Doon, Beaver Lodge, The Greasy Beaver Lodge, The Muff Inn … and as you can see here, The Beehive.

Take a good look at this sign.

SLIDE 3

Now, notice anything different? The signs change but the names often stay the same.

Named flats are ever present in Dunedin, largely they follow the season of the academic year, but there are some that have taken root, there are several that have been around for quite some time.

This started out as a very analogue project for my MLIS it grew from a collection of photos taken on a Pentax ME Super, to a digital camera, smartphone and Facebook community through which I that started collecting stories and creating a context for this rag tag collection of named flats. It’s also involved researching the collections of libraries and archives, conducting personal interviews, and surveying the Facebook community.

My objective is to create an environment to house the photos, stories and context around these flats, long after they have gone but this has had it’s difficulties. The main challenges have been the ever-changing digital environment and trying to find a thing that meets all these needs. I adopted some tools early on, like Flickr, and Facebook back in 2007, obviously they have changed and this has caused some issues.

SLIDE 4

This slide gives you some idea of the size of the problem. It represents my attempt using Google maps to plot the locations of the named flats over time and link these to images in Flickr and the relevant community in Facebook… but it’s not ideal and the result is messy. I’m still looking for the perfect solution.

So imagine you’re new to Dunedin, you might be a first year student like I was back in 1991, and you move into a flat and name it. It seems like a cool thing to do, you kind of do it subconsciously because it’s in your environment, you walk past these flats every day as you walk through campus down Castle, or Leith, Hyde, Clyde, Dundas and Howe Street, you just don’t know that this has been going on for a long long long time, since before you were born, before your parents and grandparents were born, maybe even your great grandparents …

SLIDE 5

The oldest flat I’ve come across from the 1930s, a bunch of divinities students along with trainee doctors dentists and teachers who didn’t want to live with grumpy landladies and couldn’t afford halls used their entreprennzdial spirit to club together enough money for the rental of a house and a housekeeper.

According to one of the original Bachites, whom I’ve corresponded with, here were only 2 rules at the Bach: you had to be poor, and you had to piss straight.

They created a home – the flat had a name, a name board, a photo album, a trencher for graduation, traditions, and evening prayers. They also had letter head. Naming the flat was a big enough deal to design a coat of arms, create a motto in Greek, and have it printed.

There is evidence of flats having letterhead into the 1970s and of course today some have a Facebook Page.

SLIDE 6

Some also had personalised phone numbers, like Smersh HQ (1960s) which was named after the KGB head quarters in the then popular James Bond novels by Ian Flemming.

SLIDE 7

Similarly, 30 year later, Moes, on Clyde Street took advantage of the new name numbers available through Telecom. Like Smersh HQ before it, Moe’s took it’s name from a popular culture source. In this case, The Simpsons.

SLIDE 8

Moe’s is an example of a flat that has had many sign changes since 1997. No matter how many times it’s removed by landlords or property management, it returns. This latest sign, a personal favourite – reminds me of Bart’s skateboard.

Flats like Beehive and Moes have become legends in Dunedin, they are sought after because students want to live somewhere with a meaning. They want a home, they want an identity and they want to be part of the Dunedin story. And that’s what I think is at the heart of naming flats.

SLIDE 9

To conclude, I want to show you this image. It’s an illustration from the Orientation magazine of 2010. It depicts the intersection of Frederick and Clyde Streets – for those of you that know Dunedin you’ll notice there’s something not quite right about it.

This really sums up for me what naming flats and creating homes is all about.

What’s interesting about this scene is that it’s an imagined landscape, cobbled together from a collection of well-known flats from Clyde St, Dundas Street, and Hyde Street.

I spoke with the designer about this image and she said it was created more for the parents of the students that year than for the students themselves. Perhaps it was to welcome them home.

Thank you.

[View the story What was said about the Online Casino Real Money NZ on Storify]

In an hour I’ll be talking about the#flatname project#NDFNZ

flatnames — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 01:55:03 +0000

Youre very welcome to tweet your stories or share ideas about how to link up all this data.

Hanging out : preserving an ephemeral print culture in Dunedin

flatnames — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 06:14:11 +0000

Here’s my presentation from the LIANZA 2010 conference.

Hanging Out : preserving an ephemeral print culture in Dunedin from Sarah Gallagher

Inaugural Episto Tweet conference#twecon

flatnames — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 06:27:00 +0000

On Friday 3 December 2010, 2 days after delivering the paper in person at LIANZA 2010, I took part in the wonderful inaugural #twecon, organised by @HORansome (Matthew Dentith). He has archived the entire experience on his blog.

All of the papers were interesting, challenging and thought provoking, just as all good conferences are. I was amazed at the quality of information passed on in six short tweets. It was quite an exercise to ensure each tweet was a pure distillation of a concept.

Here’s my contribution:

1 “Hanging out : preserving an ephemeral print culture in Dunedin”. Signs made to mark student habitation http://tinyurl.com/2cgx9ug#twecon

2 In the 1930s flatting was a no-no. Options for ‘digs’ were few: stay home, live in Halls or board. http://tinyurl.com/25etw3w#twecon

3 Liberal divinities students set up the first flat, The Bach, on Leith St. It existed for nearly 10 yrs. http://tinyurl.com/29j35ye#twecon

4 Naming is about creating community in a unique campus environment. Facebook provided a space to connect http://tinyurl.com/26fce88#twecon

5 Creating of a sense of place and identity by naming a flat can have a lasting effect creating an icon http://tinyurl.com/238tazf#twecon

6 Some names endure, some are ephemeral. Hyde Street has a high turnover. They are all worth preserving http://tinyurl.com/24rpnzz#twecon

Hanging Out: preserving an ephemeral print culture in Dunedin

flatnames — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:57:51 +0000

I’m giving a paper at the LIANZA conference in Dunedin this year about the Dunedin Student Flat Names project. Here’s the abstract:

This is a project about keeping, sharing and making stories. It’s about preserving some rather unique ephemeral artefacts but also about creating content through research and story collection to create a context for these artefacts. It’s a project that began when I was a student of MLIS by distance, while based in Dunedin, and I’m continuing with it still. In this paper I’d like to share my methods and experience as a researcher, trained as a librarian, using libraries and web 2.0 to write a book about Scarfie flats with names.

The naming student flats have been happening in the area of Dunedin North, the main residential area for students at the University of Otago, since the 1930s when flatting had its inception. Since then students have created a sense of place and stamped their identity on the frontages of their flats by naming them. The signs they have created, to display where they ‘hang out’, are an example of an ephemeral aspect of student culture in Dunedin.

The signs themselves, constructed of various media – beer boxes, old whiteboards,
head boards from beds and doors – and then decorated, have been captured
photographically over the last 10 years. Over the decades the signs display not only the proclivities or aspirations of students but also give insights into aspects of popular culture of the time.

Using Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, Google Maps, and online survey tools I’ve connected with hundreds of students who have contributed to the collection of photos and stories related to these flats. The collections of Dunedin’s libraries have also provided many treasures to help put these pieces of ephemera into their social context.

You cana register for the conference at LIANZA 10.

Hanging Out: preserving an ephemeral print culture in Dunedin

Community Archive, Winter 2010 newsletter – featuring a few flat photos

flatnames — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 05:31:00 +0000

Moe’s, Yellow Submarine, The Hilton on Clyde, Pink Flat the Door, The Castle, DSIR, Brucie’s Benjammin’ Butchery, The Bach, The Beehive,

Community Archive, Winter 2010 newsletter featuring a few flat photos

Pecha Kucha 5 – Dunedin Public Art Gallery 21/3

flatnames — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:19:11 +0000

PK 5 went really well, heaps of fun with some incredibly interesting and amusing speakers. Lots of laughter and applause, chocolate and Emmerson’s beer it was terrific.

Thankfully I was on before the The Dust Palace, a burlesque group. G-strings and shaving cream would have been a hard act to follow.

A recording should be posted on the International Pecha Kucha site soon.

Pecha Kucha#5 / Dunedin – line up revealed

flatnames — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:37:53 +0000

Pecha Kucha Night Dunedin #5 Topics Unveiled

Sunday March 21 // Dunedin Public Gallery (Moray Place entrance) // no eftpos)

PRESENTER // AREA OF EXPERTISE // TOPIC

Order of presenters:
Full Fucking Moon // artists/musicians // New Age Farming
Marchell J.T. Linzey // Children’s broadcaster// Japanese Influences on a Children’s Radio Show Contrast vs Constant
Joseph Worley // artist // War, Shelter and Origami
Sarah Gallagher // writer/researcher/photographer // Named flats as ephemeral street art
Cathy Helps // artist // Stories of paintings, a faith healer, a farmer and other stuff
Callum Stembridge, Ascia Maybury and Eve Gordon of The Dust Palace an aerial theatre company dedicated to creating from the ideas ‘Magic’ and ‘the Political’ // Burlesque: the struggle to be both sexy and intelligent

CHIT CHAT BREAK // REFRESHMENTS

Ali Bramwell // artist // risk management structures
David Eggleton // poet // How to write a poem
Jay Hutchinson // artist // The Scribble and the Stitch
Christy Flaws // circus performer// Circus and social change
Regan Gentry // artist // Dabbling in Dunedin
Erika Wolf // visual historian // The Post-Socialist Toilet

BACKGROUND

A Pecha Kucha night is like an action-packed slide show. 12 invited presenters show 20 images each, with only 20 seconds to speak to each image (a total of 6.40 minutes per presentation). The magic is the rapid-fire presentation and the diversity of presenters and topics on the night. It is about bringing artists and designers together to share their ideas. Pecha Kucha Nights now take place in over 230 cities around the world.

See the NZ website here: http://www.pechakucha.co.nz/

The world Pecha Kucha site is at: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

My Flat Your Flat Our Place – opens today

flatnames — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 02:36:00 +0000

My Flat Your Flat Our Place presents a selection of photographs of named student flats in the North Dunedin area, taken over the last ten years. The exhibition highlights this ephemeral and unique aspect of print culture in Dunedin. It also makes a connection between the naming of flats by students as an expression of identity, and the creation of a sense of place.

Visit the exhibtion: 10-14 August, The Link (between the Union building and Library on Cumberland St opp. the Museum), University of Otago.

Be part of the project:

I’m writing a book about the named flats here’s how you can be involved:

If you’re visiting the exhibition, a write a comment and your email address on one of the supplied postcards and pop it in the exhibition letterbox
Join the Facebook group (below) and add your own photos and stories
Email me at [email protected]

For further information check out:

Facebook group: Dunedin (NZ) Student Flat Names
A google map of all known named flats
The online exhibition My Flat Your Flat Our Place
A slide show of all of the flats photographed since 2000
Dunedin Student Flat Names Archive on The Community Archive (NRAM)
Reprints and posters are available to purchase

Many grateful thanks to the following people for sponsoring this exhibition:

Frogprints
Lin Klenner, Gilder and Frame Conservation
OUSA
Melanie Opie graphic design

Cheers, Sarah Gallagher