-
‘more than a mere assemblage of moviemaking information’
Thank you Glen for sending me this little treasure which I found in my in-tray this morning – for that you are a prince among men. I’ve also uploaded the first two pages of one of the many fabulous example storyboards that the book includes in glossy colour. It’s called ‘Laura’s Seventh Birthday’, and it’s…
-
folk/art/vernacular border dispute
From Tom Lubbock’s review of last year’s exhibition Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, which discusses the politics of determining which forms of folk culture get to be art (among other things), and actually uses the term ‘vernacular creativity’, this is a great list: I write about things that appear in art galleries,…
-
‘defining’ vernacular creativity
Time to publicly update my working definition of vernacular creativity – for the record. The paragraph below will go in my thesis – either right up front in the abstract or as part of the introduction. It should be read as what we might call a heuristic definition, boiled down as far as possible in…
-
thankyou, spam karma
My life since the last wordpress upgrade, which was only about 6 weeks ago i think: # Total Spam Caught: 9212 (average karma: -969.9) # Total Comments Approved: 77 (average karma: 15.18) # Total Comments Moderated: 130 My life before the upgrade was pretty much like: #Total Spam Caught: 0 (nothing to catch them with…
-
the gendered act of reading
There is much to enjoy at Kristine Steenbergh’s blog Earmarks in Early Modern Culture, but today I especially noticed the gender of reading (lots of great images, too). It draws out in longhand what Jeanette Winterson sketches in breathtaking shorthand for Marylin, reading Ulysses in the sun. But I wonder how this other image of…
-
post-humanism and the phonograph
I won’t even bother to pretend to rehearse the endless determinism vs. agency debate problem, but here is Nicholas Gane on Kittler on technology: Gane, Nicholas. Radical Post-humanism: Friedrich Kittler and the Primacy of Technology, Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 22, No. 3, 25-41 (2005) (citations removed for the sake of nice clean copy) Kittler…
-
monthly MACS tomorrow
Speaking of collaboration: Monthly MACS is a cross-institutional network of early career researchers, postgraduate students, postdocs, RAs and sessional staff working in Media and Cultural Studies across Brisbane. We meet regularly during semester to discuss issues which relate to these roles, debate wider trends in the field and have a few drinks afterwards. You can…
-
(not) like sweeping powder over glass
Some things about typewriters and the corporeality of the mechanical and the sensuality of literacy: Typing means “taking foolish chances with words”: Typing represents to me the work of writing, of striking the physical world, and in so doing, changing it. Writing on a laptop (as I did to write this) is like sweeping powder…
-
spot the difference
Apple’s new ads run a line familiar from my research into 80s advertising (speed, ease of use, corporate vs. ‘everyday’). But this time, the brands are personified. And they’re kinda funny. But just in case you were in any doubt, yes, it’s true. Technologies are made in their creators’ images. And they wear the pants…
-
the politics of ‘participatory’ culture
Anne asks: At what point does collaboration cease to be reciprocal and simply become appropriation? I’ve written many times, here and elsewhere, that I question the kind of reciprocity at work when a small group of people profit from the work of many others. […] In the past I would have considered these things amongst…