Research
Research
Through our research labs and focus areas, Monash Art, Design and Architecture researchers work together to undertake vibrant, innovative, creative research that addresses the social, economic and human issues facing Australia and the world. Explore our latest research below, and download R:ADAR - Review: Art, Design and Architecture Research to learn more.
- Reimagining Cities
- Health and Human Experience
- Expansive Visions and Technologies
- Additional research
- Graduate research
Our research transforms cities, in all of their complexity.
Creative and critical research empower us to reimagine the needs, challenges and aspirations that enliven cities. Working with diverse communities and cultures, and across constructed and ecological environments, our research helps to propel us all towards greater sustainability, understanding and equity.
20-minute neighbourhoods post-Covid: Impacts of ‘Remote working’ in Sunshine West
Exploring how an increased work from home population changes the impacts, needs, and opportunities for 20-Minute Neighbourhoods.
20-Minute Neighbourhoods: Living Locally Research Project
Creating 20-minute resilient neighbourhoods and building community connectedness in Melbourne’s outersuburban growth areas.
A Design Guide for Older Women’s Housing
Considering older women’s housing needs through an architectural perspective.
Adaptable Housing for People with Disability
Demonstrating how dwellings can be creatively designed and modified to adapt to people’s changing needs and circumstances.
Advancing a Design Approach to Enriching Public Mobility
A collection of design related research projects from around the world.
AIC Urban Water Cluster
Developing leapfrogging pathways towards water sensitive cities in Indonesia.
Asian Art Publics
Understanding new art and museum participation in Asia.
Atmosphere, authenticity, vibrancy
Investigating how the distinctive ‘feel’ - or atmosphere - of the Queen Victoria Markets is linked to its design and built environment.
Australia’s new cities: past, present and future
Examining the history, current state, and future prospects of purpose-built and strategically planned new cities in Australia.
Benchmarking data for housing research
Sourcing a new ‘big dataset’ to identify, visualise, and monitor informal housing practices in Australia.
Building 4.0 CRC
Better buildings, new efficiencies through technology and collaboration.
Characterising Bicycle Types: Towards a taxonomy
This study proposes to differentiate bicycles to provide a clear language for further research. It introduces differentiation by wheel count as a distinguishing variable.
Co-designing future smart urban mobility systems
Establishing new ways of developing modern vehicles and smart cities for a sustainable social environment.
CoDev Townhouse Model
Enhancing the quality and viability of townhouse redevelopment on small lots.
Commemoration reframed
Investigating how people make sense of and perceive national commemorative events and what meanings are ascribed to them.
Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space
Unique interdisciplinary approaches to understanding gendered spatial equity in the urban environment.
CRC-P LCA of Mass Timber Construction
Quantifying the embodied emissions and carbon sequestration potential of mass timber construction materials in Australia.
Drawing on Architecture: The Object of Lines, 1970-1990
How architectural drawings emerged as aesthetic objects, promoted by a network of galleries, collectors, and institutions, and how this changed the understanding of architecture.
E-Scooter docking stations
Research that responds to the problem of providing re-charge docks for e-scooters when left outside stations and transportation hubs.
Evaluating Neighbourhood Sentiment during Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdowns
Assessing Melbournian’s neighbourhood sentiment through social media and the influence of the built environment on this satisfaction during Melbourne’s Covid-19 lockdowns.
Evaluation and learning in public housing urban renewal
Analysing how evaluation and learning from public housing urban renewal informs current policy and delivery.
Exploring community participation with the Melbourne digital city model
Investigating how a dynamic visualisation platform can help to better inform and enable our community to participate in city planning.
From mixed tenure development to mixed tenure neighbourhoods
Demonstrating how mixed tenure dwelling design can enhance outcomes for individuals, neighbours and the community more broadly.
Future Cities
Helping City of Melbourne policymakers understand how residents perceive, value, and use emerging technologies in the urban environment.
Gentle House
Co-designing with people on the autism spectrum to develop richer, more inclusive spaces.
Global Buildings Performance Network (GBPN)
Monash partnering to develop policy strategies for decarbonising the buildings sector in India and Southeast Asia.
Greater Cities Commission: Women’s Safety Charter Workshop
The Commission engaged the Monash University XYX Lab to deliver an impact workshop as part of the June 2022 Community of Practice.
Hobart Smarter Bus Stop and Shelter Competition
Design for a modular bus stop and shelter that promotes connection, reducing waiting anxiety and enhancing the overall travel experience.
HyperSext City
Drawing attention to the experiences of women, girls and LGBTQI+ communities by presenting data and intersectional narratives of gender.
HyperSext City 2
Re-designed to amplify the experiences of women*, girls and LGBTQI+ communities through new mediums revealing existing data sources globally and locally to spectacular effect both inside the gallery and on the streets of Fremantle.
Industrial Revolution
An evidence-based framework for capturing the tacit + future values of Melbourne’s ‘National Employment and Innovation Clusters’.
Infill Design
Promoting better quality apartment living in the middle suburbs
Infrastructure Governance Incubator: From Strategic Planning to Project Delivery
Developing a governance model to build connections between infrastructure planning and strategic urban planning.
JIBE: Joining Impact models of transport with spatial measures of the Built Environment
Reducing non-communicable diseases and health inequities for English city regions and Melbourne.
Keep Running
Keep Running is a call to action for communities to develop an understanding of safety and risk in our city and an opportunity for audiences to consider their own lived experience and/or to develop understanding and empathy.
Lighting Cities: Creating Safer Spaces for Women and Girls
Deferring to more lights and brighter cities does not create safer spaces for women and girls. Lighting design is vital for gender-sensitive cities.
Live, Drive, Ride like a local
Improving road sharing in the Alpine Shire through human stories.
Measuring the benefits of reuse in the circular economy
Developing insights relating to reuse commodity chains, their societal benefits and contributions to nurture a more future-forward inclusive, circular economy.
Merri Creek, Coburg Safety Audit
Women’s Safety Audits: A transformative approach to safety in the city.
Navigating Economic Uncertainty in Post-Covid Cities
Assisting policymakers in assessing the risk of employment vulnerability as the impacts of Covid-19 evolve.
Net zero precincts: An interdisciplinary approach to decarbonising cities
Helping cities and urban regions reach net zero emissions by taking the precinct as an optimal scale for urban transition.
Net zero precincts: Citizen data commons and technological sovereignty
Engaging users of Net Zero Precincts to have a say on the privacy of their data.
OPEN SPACE!
A contemporary installation situated in Curtin Place, a public laneway adjacent to Harry Seidler’s iconic Australia Square in Sydney’s central business district.
Painted Light
A major installation activating the eastern façade of the Geelong Arts Centre.
Parked bicycles in Australia
Understanding the bikes people park, and how they park them.
Peninsula Pearls
A dynamic sculpture to be sited along the Peninsula Link freeway in Melbourne’s South East.
Predictive Personalisation in Chile
Harnessing informal construction to improve the environmental performance of mass housing.
Rail passenger boarding, alighting and dispersal experiments
Investigating how rail carriage interior design influences passenger boarding and alighting times using agent-based modelling techniques.
Reformulating the Movement and Place framework
Making the urban environment safer and more liveable.
Remaking post-industrial plans: urban industrial zoning past and future
Examining the complex, changing functions and roles of urban industrial land
Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE)
Improving sanitation, mitigating flooding, and improving dwelling and open space provision for informal settlements.
Safer Cities
Highlighting alarming levels of harassment and abuse of girls and young women in cities.
Solar Bike Project
Designing the world’s fastest solar bicycle – running purely on sunshine.
Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research
A new book providing the first comprehensive account, and theorization, of oral history as a method in architectural research.
Study: the new bicycles
Field work in the Mobility Design Lab has revealed that there are bicycle types not represented in AS2890.3. This document provides information about these new vehicles.
Sydney After Dark
Creating a city for women living and working in Sydney.
The long-term effects of autonomous cars on land use, access and travel
Modelling autonomous vehicle-induced urban growth and inform land use based policy measures to minimise their effects on transportation.
The Rightsize Service
Increasing housing density and diversity through DIY development activity.
The Wheelie
Easier bike parking means easier bike transport.
TramLab Toolkits
Improving the safety of women and girls on public transport.
Triabunna Tomorrow
An ongoing post-industrial urban revitalisation project on Tasmania’s east coast.
Unlocking Shared Mobility
Assessing the potential, opportunities and challenges facing cities in regard to shared mobility, in particular free-floating car sharing (FFCS) and its related parking issues.
Urban Mobility Design
A comprehensive review of cutting-edge design work addressing key contemporary themes in mobility.
Urban Policy and Cultural Production
International research around the changing dynamics among the creative industries and urban manufacturing.
Vanuatu Pathway to Ownership
Creating a pathway to home ownership in Port Vila, Vanuatu.
Volgren EV roof design
A new look for Australia’s transition to electric route buses.
Warracknabeal Creative Circuit
Creating a makerspace for regional Victoria that fuses low-cost technology and craft.
Washington Monument
Winning competition entry for the Embassy of Australia, Washington USA.
Water Sensitive Cities: Integrated Urban and Water Planning
Exploring how urban development can achieve water sensitive outcomes through planning at a range of scales.
Water sensitive outcomes for infill developments
Developing a tested catalogue of typologies for new infill development.
WAYOUT: Codesign in Kandos
Contemporary art practices into architectural design.
YourGround
Making recreational areas safe for women, girls and gender-diverse people.
Past projects
18 Innovation Walk
A new entryway for 18 Innovation Walk, on the Clayton campus of Monash University.
An Autonomous Driverless Public Transport
A wide study on the advent of an intelligently connected driverless public transport system.
Built Upon By Design Symposium
A three-day intensive symposium to engage with issues of gendered spatial equity in the urban environment.
CRC for Rail Innovation: Station Design
Guidelines and principles for the design and configuration of urban passenger rail stations.
CRC-P Capstone Prototype
Showcasing the potential of industrialised construction through innovative full-scale prototypes.
CRC-P Future Living System
Creating a real-scale prototype apartment from a range of prefabricated and modular elements.
CRC-P Innovation in Advanced Multi-Storey Housing Manufacture
Transforming the housing construction industry towards an innovative, advanced manufacturing future.
Designing Affordable, Sustainable Housing (DASH)
High-quality, innovative architecture and urban design provides great living places.
Free to Be: Design Thinking Workshop
Prioritising thinking through concepts that could have real world impacts for women and girls.
Furniture, Structure, Infrastructure: Making and Using the Urban Environment
A collection of urban research and architectural projects.
Gender Equality Map
Providing a new picture of gender equality in Victoria to inform policy and urban design changes.
Gender Equity in Landscape Architecture
The participation of women in Australian landscape architecture, mapping and strategies.
Girl Walk: Identity, Crowd-mapping and Safety in the City for Women and Girls
Creating a culturally vibrant city that is inclusive for women and girls.
Habitat 21: Adaptable House
Flexible design as home owners’ needs change.
Immigration Place
A nationally significant commemorative place in the Parliamentary Zone in Canberra.
Improved Passenger Dispersal on Commuter Trains
Quicker and safer trains for all.
Infill Opportunities
Improving small-scale residential infill development in Melbourne's middle suburbs.
Intensifying Places: Transit-Oriented Urban Design for Resilient Cities
Investigating how design research approaches can contribute to guiding the intensification of Australian cities.
Japanese Architecture & Urbanism
Projects built on experiences working and researching in Japan.
Just So F***ing Beautiful
Telling a story of female harassment in a public space – a new work for the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale: European Cultural Centre.
Liveable Compact Cities Project
Principles for designing sustainable medium density infill housing for subtropical South-East Queensland.
Moreland City Council Workshop
Using gender-sensitive design thinking to support of Moreland City’s future growth.
Optimus
Improving Volgren’s route bus manufacturing, performance and user experience using holistic design.
Passenger Boarding and Alighting Simulations
Exploring new techniques in agent based modelling.
Perceptions of Safety – pilot project
Another approach for improving safety for women and girls.
Preventing Sexual Harassment in Australian Public Transport Spaces
Uncovering how the safety of women and girls is challenged in public transport spaces.
Processes for Developing Affordable and Sustainable Medium-density Housing Models for Greyfield Precincts
Sustainable regeneration for Melbourne’s middle suburbs.
PTUX – Public Transport User Experience
Creating a practical working knowledge of the user experience in public transport.
Redcliffe Connect and Urban Renewal
Testing a diversity of low- and medium-rise dwelling models for precinct-scaled infill redevelopment.
Rethinking Design’s Contribution to Assisted Living Environments
Stage One: Best Practice Discussion Paper
Revitalising Central Dandenong
Exploring the kinds of mixed-buildings that might work in Central Dandenong.
River Derwent Heavy Metals Project
Tackling the problem of heavy metals pollution in the River Derwent.
Safe Access to Reproductive Health Care in Australia
Formulating proposals for changes in law and policy at both the federal level and State level to remove barriers to access.
Stawell Steps
A site-specific piece of flood mitigation infrastructure.
The numbers in a nutshell: Women in Architecture, Australia
A data analysis of the shape of the profession and the participation of women within it.
The SHEcity Exhibition
Bringing together experts to reimagine and redesign how our city could be more inclusive for women and girls.
The Victorian Pride Centre
Celebrating, bolstering and protecting equality, diversity and inclusion.
Towards a New Development Model for Housing Regeneration in Greyfield Regeneration Precincts
Improving the effectiveness of infill development.
Urban Intensification & Green Infrastructure: Towards a Water Sensitive City
Striving for the highest sustainability standards makes sense environmentally and economically.
uTecture Industry Test Group Report
Single dwelling design tools for improved customer outcomes.
Yours. Mine. Ours - Melbourne Art Tram 2019
“Yours, mine, ours” is a design that celebrates the ambitions for diversity and inclusion within the city of Melbourne.
Our research helps to create safer, healthier communities and transform the way medical treatment is experienced.
Creative practice research involves investigating how health practices and environments affect people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and asking how things might be done differently. Taking an integrated approach to human health, we work closely with stakeholders to create safer, more efficient and more comfortable environments and health systems.
Architectural Work Cultures
Addressing the question of how workplace cultures and professional identity affect subjective wellbeing in architecture.
Asthma nebuliser / PALM
Breathing new life into asthma treatment using the PALM of their hand.
Benchmarking data for housing research
Sourcing a new ‘big dataset’ to identify, visualise, and monitor informal housing practices in Australia.
Child protection and social distancing
Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ways social workers help families and keep children safe.
Co-design for Healthy Ageing
Inspired by Singapore, a cross-cultural, cross-generational student project.
Cochlear Battery Charger
Improving the usability and user experience of cochlear implant devices.
Designs for Palliative Care
Portable designs to temporarily convert subacute hospital rooms into palliative care rooms.
Emergency Waiting Rooms
A co-design investigation into Emergency Department waiting rooms.
Fire to Flourish
An agenda for change: community-led disaster resilience.
Future Healthcare
This Monash-led interdisciplinary initiative is at the intersection of university, healthcare, community, government and industry.
Future Hospital GRIP
Bringing together an interdisciplinary team to investigate what Future Hospital means in a time of innovation, change and disruption.
Gennaris Bionic Eye
Creating prototype headgear designs for MVG’s Gennaris bionic vision system.
Goal Management Training: A treatment for methamphetamine addiction
Addiction treatment through collaborative design.
Hand Hygiene Compliance
Positive behaviour change through design.
Hospital Discharge
Designing an improved hospital discharge experience.
Intelligent Footware
Creating an intelligent shoe to monitor the symptoms of people with diabetes.
Intelligent home solutions for independent living
Trialling ‘smart’ home technologies with older participants who are living at home to greater understand their accessibility and utility.
Lifeblood
Improving blood donor retention through design.
Mobile Stroke Imager
A lightweight mobile stroke imager designed to fit into standard ambulances and provide faster stroke diagnosis at the point of care.
Mobility and Accessibility for Children and Adults (MACA)
Understanding the transport needs for children with disabilities to assist in their support of safe transport.
More accessible railway stations
Examining how design can help public transport companies address disability access compliance for a more equitable and accessible rail network.
On My Life
Providing respect, engagement, and intergenerational understanding.
Project GLOOK
Exploring the feasibility and acceptance of a wearable device that monitors blood glucose in patients with diabetes and the effectiveness of real time physician feedback in modifying health behaviour.
Qlicksmart
Developing commercial opportunities in the areas of endotracheal tube holders and sharps removal and containment.
Repairing Memory & Place
An Indigenous-led approach to urban water design.
Repose
Aircraft cabin design research to improve the in-flight sleep of long haul economy passengers.
RetroFit Kit
This project aims to increase the volume and supply of dignified and inclusive homes for people with disability through design-enabled strategies.
Spasim Pikinini: Marie Stopes Reaches Out in PNG
Family planning in Papua New Guinea.
The Body is a Big Place
Bio-art explores organ transplantation and the gift of life.
The Citarum Program
Creating clean, healthy and productive rivers and communities.
The Living Lab: Designing the future of aged care
Improving the lived experience of residents, families, and staff in the Aged Care sector.
Therapeutic Brain Stimulation
Improving brain stimulation devices for use in the home.
Venous Access
Improving the efficacy and experience of Venous Access.
Visualising Queer Indie Games
Queer representation in the media is vital for promoting a respectful and knowledgable society.
Past projects
Rethinking Design’s Contribution to Assisted Living Environments
Stage One: Best Practice Discussion Paper
Safe Access to Reproductive Health Care in Australia
Formulating proposals for changes in law and policy at both the federal level and State level to remove barriers to access.
We create visionary and speculative research that considers not only what technologies can do, but what they make possible.
We go beyond predictive statements about how new technologies will impact society and individuals. Our experimental research explores how people will use technologies in our future cities, cultural practices, work, and homes, and advances a more equitable, responsible and sustainable future.
Building 4.0 CRC
Better buildings, new efficiencies through technology and collaboration.
Co-designing future smart urban mobility systems
Establishing new ways of developing modern vehicles and smart cities for a sustainable social environment.
Cochlear Battery Charger
Improving the usability and user experience of cochlear implant devices.
CRC-P LCA of Mass Timber Construction
Quantifying the embodied emissions and carbon sequestration potential of mass timber construction materials in Australia.
Digital Energy futures
Understanding and forecasting changing digital lifestyle trends and their impact on future household electricity demand, including at peak times.
E-waste Futures
Transforming current e-waste problems into opportunities to design and research best practices for waste reduction toward a sustainable future.
Gennaris Bionic Eye
Creating prototype headgear designs for MVG’s Gennaris bionic vision system.
Geographies of Commemoration in a Digital World
A significant, accessible, and interdisciplinary resource for researchers interested in the geographies of memory, nostalgia, and identity.
Hand Hygiene Compliance
Positive behaviour change through design.
iHUB
A smart urban research-synthesis-engagement platform for decision making.
Intelligent Footware
Creating an intelligent shoe to monitor the symptoms of people with diabetes.
Let’s Go Outside: Art in Public
An examination of creative practices in the public realm.
Re-humanising automated decision making
Bringing together academic colleagues from around the globe to discuss how we re-humanise automated decision making to the benefit of society and everyday lives.
Safer Cities
Highlighting alarming levels of harassment and abuse of girls and young women in cities.
Sydney After Dark
Creating a city for women living and working in Sydney.
Therapeutic Brain Stimulation
Improving brain stimulation devices for use in the home.
Warracknabeal Creative Circuit
Creating a makerspace for regional Victoria that fuses low-cost technology and craft.
Past projects
An Autonomous Driverless Public Transport
A wide study on the advent of an intelligently connected driverless public transport system.
CRC-P Future Living System
Creating a real-scale prototype apartment from a range of prefabricated and modular elements.
Motorcycle Evolution
Investigating a range of issues addressing the motorcycle, from safety to new forms of manufacture.
Robots in Public Space
Improving how we understand the impact that robots have on the atmosphere of public space.
Termite Economies: Neural Nodes and Root Causes
Drawing on neural and biological systems to raise questions about labour, consumption, capitalism and its rifts.
Bold, ambitious and creative research comes in many forms, and unconventional thinking is critical to anticipate as yet unimagined futures. Creativity and coherence accordingly form a mutually supportive partnership at Monash Art, Design and Architecture, helping us to realise truly change-making, excellent research.
E-Hub vehicle re-charge stations
This research project sought to speculate on how different types of mobility from bicycles to cars could share a re-charge station.

More than a guulany (tree): Aboriginal knowledge systems
An Indigenous-led study of the significance of trees in southeast Australian Aboriginal cultures.

Take Hold of the Clouds
Catalysing a citywide conversation about the future of architecture, landscape and urban design.
Past projects
Candidates undertaking Monash University’s Graduate research degrees are challenged to apply new thinking to interpret – and solve – complex questions. Here are some of the projects they’re currently investigating.

Mariyam Kareen Adam
Adjusting the gaze: using art to “re-represent” notions of tourist Island destinations.

Jacqui Alexander
Exploring the architectural and urban implications of the sharing economy.

Enira Arvanda
Breastfeeding mothers in public space: Interiority and spatial tactics

Jason Baerg
Activating community partnerships, conversations and actions to develop reciprocal space and ecologies of exchange.

Suzanne Barker
What influences resident’s attitudes to infill housing proposals?

Moorina Bonini
Realigning Western Structures through centering Indigenous Epistemology.

Gabi Briggs
If the virtual realm is land-based, can it return us back to country?
Can we transcend the limits of all physical experience and knowledge to seek sovereignty within the virtual?

Tyson Campbell
Understanding the legal rights of the ancestor Te Awa Tupua.

Wendy Christie
Future Housing in Vanuatu: A design framework for contextually appropriate urban housing in Vanuatu

Andrew Copolov
Understanding and catering to the social and spatial needs of food delivery riders.

Xiongfeng Deng
Investigating how design can improve public trust and comfort in shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs).

Corey Ferguson
Understanding the role of Citizens and Community within the transition towards a Circular Society

Ilianna Ginnis
Creating design systems for non-verbal communicators and cognitive diversity

Mohaimeen Islam
Integrating Computational Design and Digital Fabrication Strategies in Mass Timber Construction (MTC) for Mass Customization in the House Building Industry.

Mathew Jones
Snugglepot & Cuddlepie are Gay! A meditation on queer temporality.

Mitali Kedia
Introducing urban design qualities to improve the physical and functional dimension of cycling infrastructure.

Jiyoon Lee
Enhancing user experience of mobility as a service ecosystem.

Yvonne Meng
How a suburb undergoing rapid change is altered by a precinct-wide masterplan and series of architectural proposals.

Kimberley Moulton
Curatorial modes and the intersection of Contemporary First Nations arts practice and the historical archive.

Nnenna Okore
Exploring concepts related to waste, bioplastic and ecology as a means of generating learning, artistic experience and sustainable living.

Julian O’Shea
Adventures with sustainable vehicles for positive social change.

Sanket Pai
Design interventions in farm equipment for Indian small farmers

Fernando Pavez
Digital project delivery: towards a regenerative design and construction approach

Jennifer Rivera-Gonzalez
Harnessing the co-benefits: how safe mobility can support liveable cities.

Jahkarli Felicitas Romanis
Exploring ways in which visual systems of cartography omit Indigenous knowledges of place, sustaining colonial narratives within Australia and the myth of ‘Terra Nullius’.

Grace Slonim
Investigating the reality of the Australian funding model for the arts.

Mehdi Taheri
Architectural Diplomacy: The Case of Iran's 1971 Imperial Celebration

Kimba Thompson
Creating an independent gallery for First Nations Artists and World Indigenous Cultures.

Hilary Thurlow
Exploring the life and work of the Cuban artist and political activist, Tania Bruguera.

Wani Toaishara
Re-imagining the African experience as pertaining to Indigeneity, Antiblackness and Afrophobia.

Nícolas Guerra Tão
Fostering city life through planning for social diversity and urban space complexity.

Abhinav Vidyarthi
Supporting the creation of ‘smart’ roads and pavements and their interface with road users.

Amelia Wallin
Examining the operations of artists within institutions and the potential for care under capitalism.

Kirrakee Teea Watson
Providing a critical Indigenous perspective of the disposition of global Eurocentric architectures - products of colonial regimes alongside Indigenous architectures.

Bradley Webb
Examining and investigating how racism determines colonial frameworks (corpus) which then influences both government and media in the continued oppression of the Aboriginal narrative.

Hoa Yang
Meet me at the Intersection: Defining the role of light on perceptions of safety in cities through marginalised and intersectional urban experiences

Darcy Zelenko
An advanced architecture will be proposed that operates on timber housing systems utilising computational design and manufactured with digital fabrication technologies.
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Banner artwork: Callum Morton, Silverscreen, 2010