The ACM Hypertext conference, 2009, is in Torino (aka Turin for us anglophone). June 29 to April 1, and I like:
The Web, the Semantic Web, the Web 2.0, and Social Networks are all manifestations of the success of the link. The Hypertext Conference provides the forum for all research concerning links: their semantics, their presentation, the applications they have been put to, the knowledge that can be derived from their analysis, and their effect on society.
Today I’m participating in the second Affective Atlas Symposium. I’m talking about affect, vectors, intensity and the actual and the virtual. How Bergson’s idea of the interval and Deleuze’s use of affect (from the cinema books) can be used to think about web 2 systems and their architectures. Not sure that it has much to do with an affective atlas, but it builds on the discussion of the virtual and actual I made for softvideo,and the conference slides about web 2.0 and affect engines. Meanwhile, Barbara Piatti is talking about her Literary Atlas of Europe project, really interesting work. On screen are some maps from the atlas and Zug has made an appearance. Long live Zug.
“Digital Cinema: Issues and Opportunities” is a commercial research report, so if you’ve got a spare thousand euro to spend on industry research, this might be what you’re after. (It’s about the high end of town, ie how to keep making money the old way as our technologies change.)
From their site (where there’s also a two page pdf sampler):
This report visits each step of the Digital Cinema value chain. The processes, technologies, products, issues and opportunities are explained. It includes an expanded section on the topic of stereoscopic 3D movies, an area that is surprising a lot of companies.
This is an extensive report covering a large number of topics and it includes 127 illustrations and 34 tables. Digital Cinema is shifting gears and changing the entire value chain. In the process it is expanding the definition of ‘Digital Cinema’ – creating new issues and challenges that lead to new opportunities. Digital Cinema is also affecting some adjacent industries in sometimes surprising ways.
This year in the honours program I am insisting, as much as I can, that all project students produce highly polished finished media artefacts. This applies not just to the key production component of their projects but to the exegesis as well. We have two student designers working with us developing a variety of publication templates, and the work will be sent to print and is expected to be bound with a decent cover and binding.
I do this for several reasons. The first is that it reflects well on the program I run if we have work that is finished and presented to this standard. It separates us out from many other honours programs where the completed written work is A4 double spaced Times New Roman with a 2.5 cm margin, spiral bound. The second is that it really adds value for the experience for each of the students. Their work looks, well, like real work, and it means they have something physical that is worth hanging onto, showing, and owning. Thirdly they begin to see that working with a designer adds value to what they do, and that they really are not designers themselves. This is quite an important one for me, probably because I tend to collaborate with designers regularly, but too many students think that they can design because they can layout something in Word or inDesign. The difference between what they can do, and the simple templates that are provided, is an eye opener for them. This also matters as my students, in the future, will be media workers and I think they should learn how to work with designers all through their media practice, and recognise that design is a skill set that complements their own. Finally, and this I think is the most important reason, it means their objects will be touched.
Imagine you’re in an interview and want to show what you did in honours as part of this interview. You have a spiral bound A4 single sided Times New Roman 12 point double spaced document. To the interviewer it looks (and remind them) of all the other assignments they have done, and all the cheap do-it-yourself office reports they get to read. Now imagine something with a decent binding. Full colour cover with a graphic. You pick it up because it invites interest and as you open it you see full page spreads with decent typography. You might not read it, since you don’t have time in the interview, but because it is well designed you want to touch it and see what it is. It invites. This is one role of design, and it means for the students that their work becomes something that invites others to look at it, ask about it, and not glance at it and then set it politely to one side.
The anthology of essays collected from the first two Video Vortex conferences is now available. These conferences have come out of the Masters of New Media program that Geert Lovink runs in Amsterdam. The book is “Video Vortex: Responses to YouTube” and is available via pdf to boot. From the site is the list of contributors:
Contributors: Tilman Baumgärtel, Jean Burgess, Dominick Chen, Sarah Cook, Sean Cubitt, Stefaan Decostere, Thomas Elsaesser, David Garcia, Alexandra Juhasz, Nelli Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, Minke Kampman, Seth Keen, Sarah Késenne, Marsha Kinder, Patricia Lange, Elizabeth Losh, Geert Lovink, Andrew Lowenthal, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Matthew Mitchem, Sabine Niederer, Ana Peraica, Birgit Richard, Keith Sanborn, Florian Schneider, Tom Sherman, Jan Simons, Thomas Thiel, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Peter Westenberg
A must read.
Still sick. Not nearly as bad but a cough that just sits high on the chest. I should photograph the phlegm and put it on flickr. Might get used by any of those various forensic-pathology-read-the-tea-leaves crime dramas doing the rounds. But it has meant I’m more behind than usual so in a particularly misanthropic frame as I try to bite the bullet on those deadlines that are approaching crisis point. (It’s sad and remains a major issue of my practice – the closer to a deadline I get the harder it is for me to do anything. If I’ve made a start it is not an issue. Bit tragic really. I start way too much stuff way too much of the time. Yet if something is urgent to start it takes what feels like Superman like effort.)
Eira Joy Aringay is doing honours and her project is exploring how blogs can be used in documentary practice. She is creating a blog based video docuemntary – “Our Father: A Blog Based Documentary” and a second blog called “Docuscope” where the project and process is documented. Early days but a lot will happen quickly.
The two year old has been crook. Some fever, deep body racking phlegm cough, snot all over the place. Then I got it. Some night sweats. Headache, hangs on pretty tight too. After nearly a week I’m back at work, but have had to come prepared. I would have spent another day in bed but there are urgent meetings, and with the same two year old being bolshie at home I can probably have an easier day sitting on top of my heater hiding in my office.
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