Administration: program design and direction
During the past six years, I have participated in the creation and administration of two academic programs at USC that are devoted to merging theory and practice through the use of media and technology. I was the principle architect and for three years (2004-07) served as Director of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy’s Honors in Multimedia Scholarship program, a four-year undergraduate program that seeks to develop innovative, media-rich modes of academic production across multiple disciplines. In 2008, the program graduated its first cohort of 31 students from disciplines as diverse as Biophysics, Engineering, Theater, Music, Cinematic Arts, Classics, East Asian Literature, Linguistics, Broadcast Journalism, International Relations and Business, each of whom had created a media-rich project based on research in his/her major; the program currently enrolls more than 150 students from across the university.
In my current position as Director of the interdivisional Media Arts & Practice Ph.D. program, which I helped design and found in 2007, I have had a rare opportunity to create a graduate program that responds to rapidly shifting practices in media and technology-enhanced scholarship. As we welcome our third cohort of students to the program in fall 2009, I believe iMAP has the potential to set an international standard among universities seeking to recognize emerging forms of scholarship at the intersection of theory and practice.
I believe USC’s establishment of these programs signals the importance of research that responds to changing paradigms of scholarship in the 21st century. Indeed, the university’s visionary strategic “Plan for Increasing Academic Excellence” (2004) cites the need for USC to continue its commitment to scholarly work that links fundamental research with applied research as a key element of its future success. I am proud to be associated with several of this university’s most provocative efforts in this direction, from the reshaping of undergraduate and graduate education through media and technology to the redefining of scholarly research and publication at the faculty level.
New to the School of Cinematic Arts in 2007, the interdivisional program in Media Arts and Practice (iMAP) situates technology and creative production alongside the historical and theoretical contexts of critical media studies. This practice-oriented Ph.D. program provides students with both practical experience and theoretical knowledge as they work to define new modes of research and production in the 21st century.
Media Arts and Practice was inspired by recent developments in media and technology that have altered the landscape of media production, analysis, distribution and display. Our goal is to support a new generation of scholar-practitioners who are able to combine historical and theoretical knowledge with creative and critical design skills. Students who complete a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Practice will be uniquely prepared to shape the future of media and scholarship, and to actively engage in the emerging cultural, technological and political dynamics of a global media ecology.
Honors in Multimedia Scholarship is an innovative four-year program for undergraduate students from across the USC campus who are interested in exploring new forms of scholarship and research. Working closely with leading USC faculty, students develop critical and creative abilities in the use of images, video, sound, text and interactivity, crafting media-rich forms of scholarship.
Conferences and Invited Presentations
Panel Chair: Visible Evidence XVI, Emerging Modes of Documentary: Mobile, Computational, Distributed, Summer 2009
Workshop: The Korsakow System: A Database Documentary Workshop, Visible Evidence XVI, Summer 2009
Invited Presentation: Open Video Conference, “Fair Use and Critical Commons,” Summer 2009
Paper Presentation: Games For Change: Documentary Games: The Case for Computational Documentary, Spring 2009
Invited presentation: “Interface Epistemologies: Designing New Paradigms of Knowledge” at American Comparative Literature Association conference, Spring 2008
Invited presentation: Respondent to Tracy Fullerton, “The Potential of Play: Digital Game Innovation” at Getty Research Center Works in Progress Lecture Series, Spring 2008
Panel Chair: State of the Art at 24/7: A DIY Video Summit with Henry Jenkins, Alex Juhasz, Juan Devis, Sam Gregory and Thenmozhi Soundararajan, February 2008
Workshop leader: Designing Interactive Narratives at 24/7: A DIY Video Summit, February 2008
Invited presentation: “Scholarship at the Interface” at Harvard Digital Humanities Center, November 2007
Invited presentation: “Multimedia Literacy in Higher Education” WASC Annual Conference, San Jose March 2007
Panel Chair: “The Roots and Future of Remix” at TransFormations I: Remixing the Archive, November 2006
Workshop: “San Jose Remixed: An Open Source Interactive Narrative Workshop” at ISEA (Inter-Society for Electronic Arts) San Jose, Summer 2006
Panel Chair: “The Future of Digital Education” Panel discussion held in Second Life, November 2006
Paper presentation: “Coming to Terms with the Digital Avant-Garde” Inter-Society for Electronic Arts, San Jose 2006
Poster session: “Re-Imagining the Electronic Journal” at Inter-Society for Electronic Arts, San Jose 2006
Workshop: “Designing Interactive Documentaries” SIGGRAPH Guerilla Studio, Boston 2006
Workshop: “Experiments in Interactive Panoramic Cinema” Electronic Imaging Science and Technology Symposium, San Jose 2006
Invited presentation: “Open Source Scholarship” Massive Multimedia Database, Annenberg Center for Communication, 2006
Invited presentation: “From Paper Prints to Fast Film: Techno-Syncretism and Digital Materiality” Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral lecture, Swarthmore College 2003
Paper presentation: “Steal This Archive: The Demise of Intellectual Property in the Digital Millennium” Society for Cinema Studies, Denver 2002
Paper presentation: “Past Indiscretions: Interactive Media and Recombinant History” Visible Evidence IX, Brisbane, Australia 2001
Paper presentation: “Where History Lies: Fact, Fiction and the Margins of History” Society for Cinema Studies, Chicago 2000
Panel chair: Spatializing History and Memory Interactive Frictions, USC 1999
Paper presentation: “Landscape Historicide: Textualizing the Past in James Benning’s Southwest Trilogy” Visible Evidence VII, UCLA 1999
Panel chair: Hollywood Cinema/Visionary Film Society for Cinema Studies, San Diego 1998
Paper presentation: “Dis(re)membering the Past: Experimental Film and Narrative History” Society for Cinema Studies, San Diego 1998
Paper presentation: “Politicizing the Past: The Materialist History Films of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniéle Huillet” Making/Unmaking History, USC 1998
Paper presentation: “Appropriated Images: Home Movies and Autobiographical Film” Visible Evidence V, Northwestern University 1997
Paper presentation: “Creative Remembering: The Significance of Anti-Realist History on Film and Television” International Association of Media and History Salisbury State University 1997
Curating
Curating constitutes a significant part of my service to the university as well as being a means of giving visibility to alternative media practices. As co-Chair of 24/7: A DIY Video Summit, I helped curate more than twelve hours of genre-based screening programs as part of a three-day festival at USC in February 2008; and in 2007, I curated the USC Arts & Humanities Initiative Visions & Voices event Remixing the Archive, which included workshops, screenings, performances and panels devoted to an in-depth investigation of remix culture. The previous year, I curated two programs for the Annenberg Center’s Networked Publics media festival: The Digital Handmade and Political Remix. And in 2002, I co-curated with Holly Willis the Digital Media Salon for the Race in Digital Space 2.0 conference, which featured performances, sound art, interactive installations, a net art exhibit and multiple video programs. For more than a decade I served on the Board of Directors of Filmforum, Los Angeles’ oldest venue for experimental media, and for the past eight years I have co-curated with Holly Willis the screening series Blur + Sharpen at USC, which showcases new work by digital artists in the fields of design, motion graphics, animation, video and interactive media. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of contemporary digital media, these curatorial efforts allow me to remain current with often ephemeral work by cutting edge designers, artists and amateurs, while also allowing me to serve as an advocate for work that is particularly innovative, challenging or provocative. For me, curating also serves to enrich the creative and intellectual culture in Los Angeles and provides inspiration for my own scholarly and creative work.
Blur + Sharpen
Co-curator with Holly Willis
A screening series at USC for recent digital media
2001-present
24/7: A DIY Video Summit
Co-chair (with Mimi Ito)
Three-day international conference and festival at USC
Spring 2008
The Digital Handmade
Curator, screening program; moderator of panel discussion for artists
Networked Publics Conference and Media Festival
Annenberg Center for Communication
Spring 2006
Political Remix
Co-curator, screening program and interactive display
Networked Publics Conference and Media Festival
Annenberg Center for Communication
Spring 2006
Race in Digital Space 2.0 Digital Salon
An evening of performances, screenings and interactive artwork for the Race in Digital Space 2.0 conference
Fall 2002
Los Angeles Filmforum
Member of Board of Directors
LA’s oldest screening venue for experimental film and video
Spring 1999-09
Committees
Chair, Media Arts & Practice Steering Committee, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 2007-Present
Chair, Media Arts & Practice Admissions Committee, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 2007-Present
Member of Interactive Media Job Search Committee, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 2009
Member of Interactive Media Graduate Admissions Committee, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 2009
Member of Curriculum Committee, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 2007-Present
Member of E-learning Committee, USC School of Cinematic Arts, 2006-8
Steve Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Director of the Ph.D. program in Media Arts & Practice in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He co-Edits the interdisciplinary online journal Vectors and is the creator of the fair use advocacy site Critical Commons. As a scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of media, culture and technology, his research interests include historiography, the theory and history of emerging technologies, documentary and experimental film and video, and interactive media design.