You’ve reached the homepage of Danny Butt, an educator, writer and consultant on culture and technology, based in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is my personal website with links to various projects I’m involved with (at top and right).

I've moved in and out of the academic sector over the last decade, but I really feel that the combination of teaching and research that the academic sector fosters is where I belong. I've recently taken up a role Lecturing in the Critical Studies programme at the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts, in the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries. For a few years before that I primarily worked as a partner at Suma Media Consulting, mostly working on new business developments in the creative sector (design, online video) for a range of clients, and on a number of Asia-Pacific ICT-for-development (ICT4D) projects funded by United Nations agencies. Prior to that was Director of the Creative Industries Research Centre at the Waikato Institute of Technology in Hamilton. I currently sit on both the Broadband Advisory Group and the Creative Industries Advisory Group for Auckland City. I am a Certified Management Consultant and full member of the Institute for Management Consultants New Zealand.

I've worked for a long time in the new media arts sector, with a particular focus on the Asia Pacific region and local knowledge systems. At the end of 2005 a few of us ran the excellent Cultural Futures symposium at Hoani Waititi, a great meeting of indigenous and non-indigenous cultural practitioners which is the project I feel the strongest attachment to from any of my work - read the recap on my website Adventures in Cultural Politics. A great book from the event called PLACE: Local Knowledge and New Media Practice is now out via Cambridge Scholars Publishing. I also work with my friends in the Local Time collective on intercultural and place-specific arts projects, most recently for the Parihaka International Peace Festival in Taranaki.

I hold an MA (Research) in Media from Macquarie University, Sydney, investigating socio-economic inequality in the information economy, and the value of class analysis and cultural theory for understanding these issues. I'm also currently working part time on a PhD at the University of Melbourne's Media and Communications department on the relationship between creative practice and conventional research methods.

I am an Australian by birth, but I've been in Aotearoa for 15 years now and call it home. In previous lives, I have been an interaction designer, arts administrator, community media worker, and musician. Drop me a line at the contact details below.

 

Contact

danny@dannybutt.net

Phone: +64 21 456 379

Fax: +64 21 291 0200

 

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