Archive for April, 2005
A New Pluralism: Photography’s Future (Conference announcement)
Apr 29th
This looks pretty interesting:
Society for Photographic Education 43nd National Conference
A New Pluralism: Photography’s Future
March 23-26, 2006 in Chicago, IllinoisFor fifty years we have been living in a world inundated and defined by photographic imagery while photography has been taught in relative isolation in academia. SPE members recognize the necessity to address the cultural context of our medium, moving beyond academic boundaries. A New Pluralism: Photography’s Future seeks to explore the current cultural and conceptual evolution of the photographic image and the influence new technologies are having on our understanding of what it means to make photographs both in and out of our departments.
[...]
Lecturers, panelists and imagemakers are invited to submit proposals that address and debate a wide range of issues regarding photography’s future including: assessing the academic consequences, new constituencies, partnerships and pluralism created by digital technologies; works based on a dialectic between photography as art and other uses of the medium: science, reportage and cultural language, anthropology, entertainment, mass media, fashion; taking a look at both the surface and beneath the surface of the image in virtual and malleable picture spaces; and new media forms that cross traditional academic boundaries.
For the call for papers and more info, see the conference website.
stupid internet explorer
Apr 27th
So apparently, this template is all wonky in Explorer on Windows, with text disappearing into the margins etc, even though it looks fine in every other f***king browser. I only discovered this when viewing it from a PC on campus.
So, dear readers, can you leave a comment if it looks wrong from where you are, and leave your specs (browser, OS, screen res if you want). I’ll try to work out how to fix the css when I get a chance.
hopefulness
Apr 27th
I hope one day I get Anne as a panel chair/moderator, because in her role as moderator of the final session at Floating Points 2 (on networked art in public spaces) she’s going to ask the panel members this most wonderful question:
Isabelle Stengers has described the creative enterprise as an “adventure of hope” – inherently political processes in which we resist the probable and fully engage the possible. And Chantal Mouffe has pointed to other “social imaginaries” crucial in revitalising an everyday politics of hope. What kind of hope do you see in networked public space? How do you see hope acting in your work? What possibilities and imaginaries drive you?
on having something to say
Apr 27th
While working as a trainer in digital storytelling workshops has been rewarding, I’ve been anxious to see if any of the participants will continue using the techniques they learned in the workshops, and how far the stories they have already made travel among their peers. I’ll see what happens to the stories made in the Youth Internet Radio Network workshops when ’sticky’, the web manifestation of the network, launches soon, which will be interesting.
One of the participants in the KGUV Sharing Stories workshop, Leila Wu, who is also a master’s student here, has taken digital storytelling and run with it, making 3 more stories – two for and about the church she is a member of here in Brisbane, and one in collaboration with a photojournalist friend of hers, about the continuing threat of landmines to everyday life in Cambodia. Download or watch it here (mp4, 6MB).
To my mind, this particular story is a very strong proof of concept – it’s powerful, simple, and elegant, and emerges naturally from a combination of learned skills, accessible technologies, and an existing friendship. Most interestingly, this story came into being as a result of these two friends sharing the belief that they have something to say (rather than having to say something), and that the digital story format was the best way to say it. And based on a chat I had with her last week, Leila is very passionate about the potential of digital storytelling for new media in China – she’s going back there on quite a mission it seems! I’m very proud of her and looking forward to hearing about what happens next.
on having nothing to say
Apr 25th
I’ve been in one of my quiet moods lately – plenty to think about and contemplate, but nothing pressing to say. But if you have a blog (and a million emails to answer) it is hard not to feel pressure from the imagined audience or potential respondent to say something, just to mark presence (kind of what I’m doing now, using my favourite cure for writers’ block – writing about why writing seems difficult).
Which got me thinking again, if not talking, about the idea of ‘presence‘ or of ‘becoming real’ as a key element of social communication. Offline, some of the greatest communicators are great not because of their verbosity, but because of the sheer energy and warmth of their presence: online, the only way to mark presence in both the temporal and [meta]physical sense is to talk…and talk, and talk, and talk. For the last few weeks, my students have had to engage in a class discussion via a chatroom, which seemed to encourage the reticent to speak, but by the students’ own admission led to a whole lot of talking without a lot of listening – participation for participation’s sake. Which in turn reminds me of an ongoing worry I have about where and how and for whom the read-and-write (as opposed to read-only or write-only) literacies are going to emerge in new media. Where ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ are not to be taken literally [pardon the pun] but are metaphors for catching and leaving traces of all kinds.
virtuous game geekery
Apr 22nd
In the world according to Ultima, apparently the Virtue with which I am most aligned is compassion. Thanks to Ben for leading me on the quest to yet another Internet quiz.
Announcing…BlogHer
Apr 18th
Dana Boyd is getting behind BlogHer – “a network for women bloggers to draw on for exposure, education, and community.” As well as organising a day-long conference on July 30, 2005, through establishing an online hub, BlogHer is “initiating an opportunity for greater visibility, learning and success for individual women bloggers and for the community of bloggers as a whole.” An interesting idea, and the excitement around it is totally infectious. Here’s the announcement:
Where are the women bloggers? We’re right here. . . www.blogher.org
BlogHer Conference ‘05 to be held July 30, 2005, TechMart Meeting Center, Santa Clara, CA
This flagship event is open to all bloggers�including men and beginners�interested in enhancing their online exposure, learning the latest best practices in blogging, networking with other bloggers, and specifically cultivating the female blogging community.
BlogHer Conference ‘05 will provide an open, inclusive forum to:
1. Discuss the role of women within the larger blog community
2. Examine the developing (and debatable) code of blogging ethics
3. Discover how blogging is shrinking the world and amplifying the voices of women worldwideIn addition, educational tracks will be available focusing on:
1. Best technology practices, newbie to advanced: how to use technology and tools to achieve text, photo, audio and video blogging goals
2. Best industry-specific practices: Why are journalists, marketers, lawyers, academics, technologists and many more blogging? And how do you find the ones you’re interested in?
3. The rights and the responsibilities of the bloggerBlogHer Conference ‘05 will be the first of its kind, an opportunity for the female blogging community to meet in person. It will set the agenda for future BlogHer networking and enhance women’s influence in the blog community.
The event will include onsite mixers and informal meet-ups for attendees seeking to network in their areas of interest. BlogHer will even set aside a “Room of Your Own” to enable attendees to form impromptu sessions. A pre-event mixer will be held in close proximity to the conference site the evening before. Also, BlogHer will designate space for vendor demonstrations, where bloggers can explore which solutions work best for their needs.
For more information on BlogHer Conference ‘05, including lodging options and registration information, visit BlogHer online: www.blogher.org
…and more good academic obituaries
Apr 15th
Anne kindly forwarded me this piece posted by Pam Sykes to nettime:
Much of what Andrea Dworkin had to say made me profoundly uncomfortable. For that, and for her courage in continuing to say it, she has my gratitude and my respect. She also had a deep understanding of and respect for the power of words — still and always our primary medium of intellectual exchange, most especially in this space. The currency of words is so profoundly debased in political life & in much of the media that it’s especially important to rememember that:
“…words matter. Words can be used to educate, to clarify, to inform, to illuminate. Words can also be used to intimidate, to threaten, to insult, to coerce, to incite hatred, to encourage ignorance. Words can make us better or worse people, more compassionate or more prejudiced, more generous or more cruel. Words matter because words significantly determine what we know and what we do. Words change us or keep us the same. Women, deprived of words, are deprived of life. Women, deprived of a forum for words, are deprived of the power necessary to ensure both survival and well-being.”
–
“The Power of Words, 1978″
Good to see something useful coming off a mailing list…thanks Anne.
More Bad Academic Obituaries
Apr 12th
I just heard that Andrea Dworkin has died. Having had a bit to do with both the academic study of pornography and feminism, I’m not a big fan [of her books, that is]. But I think it’s pretty obvious that we can expect a rash of highly suspect obituaries about her, as we saw with poor old Derrida last year. Despite the obvious attempt at giving her a fair go in this one from the Guardian, note the uneven passion in the alternate descriptions:
For her admirers, Ms Dworkin was a visionary. For her critics (mostly male) she was a tiresome scold, a man-hater and an undisguised advocate of censorship.
Update: this is better (the Guardian again); Susie Bright, who actually knows what she’s talking about, remembers Dworkin and discusses her contribution to feminism with warmth and elegance at her own journal.
The Work of Stories
Apr 12th
In a sudden twist of good fortune, I’m presenting in place of my supervisor John Hartley at MIT4: The Work of Stories in May – this is the fourth of MIT’s Media in Transition conferences, which I’ve wanted to go to all along. The line-up looks great, should be an enriching few days for me, and a good chance to hook up with researchers and practitioners working in digital storytelling as well. John and I are working up the ideas together – here’s the abstract:
Digital Storytelling: New Literacy, New AudiencesDigital storytelling fills a gap between everyday cultural practice and (professional) popular media that was never adequately bridged during the broadcast era. Digital stories are simple but disciplined, like a sonnet or haiku, and anyone can learn how to make them. They reconfigure the producer/consumer relationship and show how creative work by non-professional users adds value to contemporary culture. The paper examines what is needed to bring out their potential, discusses some of the emerging initiatives that aim to increase their reach, and includes examples.
