Tag Archive for 'references'

open book example

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seth.keen
on March 27, 2008
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Lisa Gye posted this open book example ‘The Googlization of Everything’ by Siva Vaidhyanathanto to the fc list. The author Siva Vaidhyanathan uses the open book process (Institute for the Future of the Book) to critique Google. The book is a “book blog” and Vaidhyanathanto lays out some major research questions in the summary:

This blog, the result of a collaboration between myself and the Institute for the Future of the Book, is dedicated to exploring the process of writing a critical interpretation of the actions and intentions behind the cultural behemoth that is Google, Inc. The book will answer three key questions: What does the world look like through the lens of Google?; How is Google’s ubiquity affecting the production and dissemination of knowledge?; and how has the corporation altered the rules and practices that govern other companies, institutions, and states?

Vaidhyanathanto’s other books - Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity (New York University Press, 2001) and The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System (Basic Books, 2004). The about on the Institute for the Future of the Book:

We’re a small think-and-do tank investigating the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts from printed pages to networked screens.

Preliminary Notes on Web-hosted Cinema

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seth.keen
on February 14, 2008
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Alejandro Adams, Preliminary Notes on Web-hosted Cinema, http://www.braintrustdv.com/essays/web-hosted.html

There is nothing unique about returning to early film theory in an attempt to delimit the creative uses of digital video technology. Comparing the infancy of the first manifestation of cinema with the infancy of its successor is as natural as it is profitable. Invoking, as I will, the elaborate investigations of early theorists such as Béla Balázs and Rudolf Arnheim is a way to clarify my own observations concerning digital cinema in general and Web-hosted cinema in particular.

I got his reference from AM’s blog who posted a few notes on the article.

Video: The Reflexive Medium

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seth.keen
on February 14, 2008
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I picked up this 2008 published book Video: The Reflexive Medium by Yvonne Spielmann in Amsterdam at the beautiful Athenaeum Boekhandel.

video_reflex.jpg

From book description:

Video is an electronic medium, dependent on the transfer of electronic signals. Video signals are in constant movement, circulating between camera and monitor. This process of simultaneous production and reproduction makes video the most reflexive of media, distinct from both photography and film (in which the image or a sequence of images is central). Because it is processual and not bound to recording and the appearance of a “frame,” video shares properties with the computer. In this book, Yvonne Spielmann argues that video is not merely an intermediate stage between analog and digital but a medium in its own right. Video has metamorphosed from technology to medium, with a set of aesthetic languages that are specific to it, and current critical debates on new media still need to recognize this.

Full reference: Yvonne Spielmann, Video, The Reflexive Medium, MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, (2008) First published in German (2005)

vidgets

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seth.keen
on December 21, 2007
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David Wolf has made his MA exegesis available online as a pdf download. It is titled Vidgets: The Development and Use of Interactive, Network Based Video Works.

video histories project

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seth.keen
on October 10, 2007
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Off the back of Scott’s lecture I have been revisiting the historical development of video. The ‘Video History Project’ turned up as part of that research. Form the about:

The Experimental Television Center’s Video History Project is an on-going research initiative which documents video art and community television, as it evolved in rural and urban New York State, and across the US. Begun in 1994, the Project has several initiatives including research, conferences and the website. Project Goals

* to provide a dynamic vehicle for the creation and dissemination of an inclusive media history, encouraging participation by a wide range of people including early practitioners as well as those presently shaping this history
* to identify, locate, and make accessible media history resources - tapes, artists’ instruments, writings and ephemera.
* to underscore the importance of intellectual access to information and to position independent media arts activities within a broader cultural context by cultivating research and public programming of these materials by those in the arts, humanities and sciences
* to increase public awareness of and appreciation for media and to create new audiences for the work by suggesting contexts in which the work can be appreciated.
* to encourage alliances among collecting institutions and those with educational and curatorial programs to assist the preservation of the works

The project goals provide a valuable perspective for working out the objectives of a research project both in terms of clarity for the researchers as well as users.

myspace video and notes

Published
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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
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Notes from the article, ‘The man who put teenagers lives online’, by Owen Gibson, Technology News, Guardian Weekly.

Firstly, for my own research specifically the move to video and the number of uploads per day is phenomenal. Quote:

MySpace can have a similar democratising effect in the world of short film with amateur film-makers building up a MySpace fanbase before being snapped up by a big studio or broadcaster - 50,000 to 60,000 new videos are already being uploaded per day.

Reading through this article on MySpace, I was intrigued by the way the original creators looked around at what they describe as “the best social features” of other social networking entities. It would be interesting to define these features in terms of a research inquiry. The sites Craigslist, Evite and MP3.com where key references for the creators. The community site craiglist is intersting from a community media perspective, about:

Local community classifieds and forums - a place to find jobs, housing, goods & services, social activities, a girlfriend or boyfriend, advice, community information, and just about anything else — all for free, and in a relatively non-commercial environment.

The design of the site states Chris DeWolfe was not driven by a technical imperative i.e. lots of bells and whistles. The objective instead simplicity, with a focus on activities that young people engage in everyday, like for example locating tracks on an mp3 player.

Other associated links intermix media; friendster; geocities; tripod; Then there are copies facebook; bebo.

The Wealth of Networks

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
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I located this book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. by Yochai Benkler via a podcast from Berkman. The text is available in a wiki. Our library has one on the way. More later as I read.

knowledge - Dave Weinberger

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
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From Sean, a video presentation by Dave Weinberger at the Library of Congress, 2004, captured on CSPAN. Weinberger is the author of the book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined: a unified theory of the web, Cambridge MA,Perseus Publishing, 2003.

It is not film it is video

Published
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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in cinema and references
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I enjoyed Tom Sherman’s (Spring 2005) articles on video in the Canadian Art Magazine. His frustration with the video being called film brought a smile. In the article ‘Video No Film’, he states:

Fuck film. The dead ideas of film are being heaped onto video, Cinematic history is like a ball and chain. Video, as an inclusive soluble medium, is having difficulty defending itself from the weight of this affliction. It has become fashionable to declare, I “filmed this or that with my digital camcorder.” In this ahistorical time, it has become common to use the nomenclature of film, the predominant medium of the 20th century, to declare one’s existence in the 21st. Everyone is going retro. p. 5 of 6

His outspoken views prompted more discussion on the list nettime, by Alan Sondheim. And more here by Sherman, Is the new video ‘film,’ video or film? More on Tom’s video work here.

GRC - what is it about?

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in PhD and references
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Again the book Design Research sums up what is expected at the Graduate Research Conference (GRC):

Normally candidates draw attention to the most significant pieces aspects of their work at their presentation and endeavour to shape the manner in which the panel views their work. Discussion and debate between candidates and examiners require candidates to to find a set of languages to enable communications about designing. We might see these languages as visual, physical and word-based. Exams involve showing and telling. Candidates whether presenting for criticism or examination all tell similarly structured stories about what they did and why they did it. They tell about what was successful and sometimes why a path was not pursued. They say and show and tell what they found through their inquiries.

Peter Downton, ‘Reflections on reflective practices’, Design Research, RMIT University Press, 2003. p.128