Murdoch’s Futurism showcase was an event intended to display the best of the creative disciplines’ student work. It was an event that was open to the public, and allowed students’ friends and family to attend, as well as industry professionals. There were eight disciplines featured in Futurism: graphic design, game art and design, sound, screen, theatre arts, creative writing, photography, and strategic communications. The main form that Futurism took to display student work was a one-night event on the 27th November 2020 that had professional printed displays of work, mobile phones and computers to test out games and apps, an award ceremony, and a printed publication for attendees to take away for free. Also implemented was an installation in the University’s library with student works displayed for the long-term, viewable by those that couldn’t attend on the night of the 27th. This measure was taken due to the Covid-19 pandemic potentially limiting those that wanted to attend but couldn’t. Another measure that was taken to mitigate the circumstances the pandemic had forced on us was utilising the digital world to its full capabilities. We created a website for Futurism that showed off some of the student work that was featured in the showcase, as well as having a link to register for tickets prior to the event. Our most innovative solution was the creation of a game for the showcase. This is downloadable from the website and allows players to walk around a 3D space and view a selection of student work.

Upon the commencing on the project, we first had to discuss what we could expect on completion of the showcase. This involved reflecting on what happened in the 2019 showcase, the good and what could also be improved. We also discussed the potential stakeholders that would be involved with this year’s showcase, and problems we would need to overcome. Covid-19 was certainly the number one issue we faced during this project, as we were not sure for a long time if a physical showcase could actually happen. There was also the issue of getting adequate funds to support the showcase due to stakeholders potentially being more invested in economic solutions for other issues at the University caused by the pandemic. Our response was to sell Cadbury’s chocolate fundraising boxes. To gather more research on the project, each student was assigned to a team that represented one of the eight disciplines. We began interviewing people in relation to those disciplines and that also included talking to staff teaching those disciplines. I was in graphic design and organised an interview with one of the discipline heads of graphic design to get their feedback on what happened at last years showcase and what they expected from this year.

It was over a month into the project that we decided as a group on the theme of “Futurism”. This was in response to the stressful year that 2020 presented, and we wanted to project some hope for the future. We wanted to create our own concept of what the future could be, and this heavily revolved around motifs of environmentalism and technological advancements. This tied into the showcase, with the student work representing that potential of positive change that the world needs. By now the students had been arranged into their main event teams, and I chose to be in the Online Space team. With this new brand identity, the 6 of us began with the large task of building a website and game. It was of utmost importance that we stayed on top of everything as everything could potentially fall back on us if the physical hosting of the event was not approved.

We also created a landing page on Murdoch’s own website with the help of the University’s IT team. This would be advertised to staff and students, and the landing page offered information on the showcase, what attendees could expect, a link to register for tickets, a link to the dedicated website, and also links to the disciplines that Murdoch offers. After this my focus was on promoting the showcase on my personal social media and adding pages to the dedicated website that showed student work. To also help with the game, I created some assets such as textures and 3D models to make it more aesthetically pleasing. The week leading up to the showcase was a frantic rush for everyone to get everything done. We had a lot of student work to get through and put into both the website and game. Every page and the game download link were up and running the day after the showcase due to the Online Space team working together non-stop. Credit for work on the website and game goes to myself and my group members: Nicole Brown, Hayley Collopy, Thanh Doan, Erin Walsh, and Darcy Wilson.