RMIT partnership with Mobile Innovation Network Australasia (MINA)

The Mobile Innovation Network Australasia is an international network that promotes cultural and research activities to expand the emerging possibilities of mobile media.

In its fifth edition MINA will present a public screening of smartphone, mobile and pocket films at RMIT University and on Fed TV at Federation Square, Melbourne in November.

Staff in the School of Media and Communication have been working with MINA since its conception in regards to mobile video work contributions towards the international screening and papers for the symposium as well as contributions towards an edited book last year.

Dr Marsha Berry, Program Manager of the Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) said that RMIT’s involvement with MINA began initially through her collaboration with Max Schleser (one of the founders of MINA) editing a collection of essays about mobile media for a Palgrave publication: Mobile Media Making in an Age of Smartphones.

“My role on the organising committee has involved numerous conference calls with the team in New Zealand, reviewing abstracts for the Symposium and peer reviewing the short films for the screening.”   

“This partnership will enhance RMIT's reputation as a leader in creative practice research,” said Berry”.

The annual International Mobile Innovation Screening and the Mobile Creativity and Mobile Innovation Symposiums have become widely recognised for the debates within and beyond the fields of media, art and design. 

During the last years MINA hosted a number of screenings in Aotearoa and internationally, lead workshops in mobile filmmaking and social media distribution and produced mobile-mentaries (mobile documentaries) and smartphone video projects. 

The 2015 screening program at RMIT has been coordinated and curated by Dr Seth Keen, a new media lecturer in the RMIT Media program and Dr Max Schleser (Massey University). Keen has developed an association with MINA over the last three years and has used his research and teaching to contribute to discourse on mobile filmmaking.

“I have seen mobile filmmaking shift towards practices that draw from fiction, nonfiction and experimental modes of filmmaking, with new media technologies and practices mixed in to create hybrid outcomes.”

Keen who teaches the Masters of Media coursePost-industrial Media, Mobile Videography studio that is aligned to the MINA international screening, said there has been an increase in RMIT student involvement. 

“In 2014 one student work was peer-reviewed and accepted, this year there are four peer-reviewed masters student works in the selection from the screening program forward,” said Keen.

“The MINA network also grew in terms of film submissions. The program is more international than ever before and we are excited to present the program at RMIT University and at Federation Square.” 

Staging MINA at RMIT would not have been possible without the collective team input from Dr Smiljana Glisovic and Dr Patrick Kelly from RMIT University and Laurent Antonczak from Colab, Auckland University of Technology.  

The MINA screenings will be held on November 19th and 20th at RMIT University and Federation Square. Papers from the symposium will be published in a special edition journal.

Story: Wendy Little