Constellation Creativity

Tradition has it that RMIT's Graduate Research Conferences (GRCs) commence with a public lecture by a visitor who is new or relatively new to the GRC. I feel very honoured to have been invited to deliver this key-note address at this very occasion when I am indeed 'external' to RMIT but have already been given generous opportunities to observe some of its forums, platforms and scenarios; some of its perspectives, strategies and lenses. So, in the following lecture, faithful to a certain thymotic intellectual character and tradition, I intend to fight 'close to the bull': for even if you are holding a very provocative cape [the muleta], all the matador’s grace and elegance in the world will not be good enough, if the bull is fifty metres away from you. It is more of an art, and certainly a sense of specific mastery is involved, if you can exhibit grace and total control when the bull is running towards you or grazing your shoulder.