Technohistory.net

Fair use talk on Inside Higher Ed

sanderson — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:07:13 +0000

My talk on fair use for Educause Live! last month was picked up by Rodney Murray for his monthly podcast at Inside Higher Ed, “The Pulse.” Murray nicely excerpted and highlighted parts of the talk pertaining to obstacles and solutions for educators using copyrighted media (even though he left out the more self-serving parts of the presentation that focused on Critical Commons as an alternative to proprietary learning management systems!). So if you only have 20 minutes to spend thinking about fair use instead of 60, you can get the audio from Inside Higher Ed while exploring the contents of Critical Commons.

JFK reenactments from Technologies of History

sanderson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:04:49 +0000

I just got back from SCMS 2011 in New Orleans, where I presented a talk on reenactments of the JFK assassination drawn from Technologies of History as part of a panel titled Cultural Logics of Replay. Although these slides don’t include the video clips used in the presentation, the JFK montage is included in the media survey I cut together for the book. The panel generated some very engaged responses and was followed by a book signing hosted by Mark Williams and Dartmouth College Press. Thanks to everyone who joined us for the panel and the signing!

Scalar

sanderson — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 23:13:37 +0000

We are looking forward to the beta launch of Scalar, a scholarly electronic publishing platform designed to facilitate work that includes media, images, sound and text in a robust, database-driven authoring environment. Easily accommodating any publication length, from a single essay to a book-length or multi-author work, Scalar was built to mobilize the potentials of scholarly work that provides direct access to primary media and archival materials. Developed with support from the Mellon Foundation under the auspices of the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, we are currently working with partner archives including the Shoah Foundation, the Internet Archive, the Hemispheric Institute and Critical Commons. Partner presses currently include MIT Press, Duke University Press and the University of California Press. Development of the project is guided in part by the input from scholars who have participated in the series of month-long, NEH-funded “Broadening the Digital Humanities” seminars held at USC for the past two years, with our third seminar scheduled for June 2011.

Critical Commons on Educause Live!

sanderson — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:31:14 +0000

The webcast recording of my presentation to Educause Live! on February 25, 2011 just went online. Although the title of the talk, “The Future of Fair Use” may have been a bit oversold, it was an amazing opportunity to speak on behalf of fair use to hundreds of higher ed professionals nationwide. For those who don’t have an hour to spare, the basic message is that non-specialists (educators, librarians, media makers) can and should contribute directly to the shaping of an assertive, ethical future for fair use. Citing the groundbreaking work done by the Center for Social Media’s best practices guides, the presentation also highlights Critical Commons as a case study of a fair use-enabled platform for promoting digital scholarship, teaching and research. The presentation sparked a lively discussion among the Educause community and a huge spike in traffic to Critical Commons. Thanks to Steve Worona of Educause for giving us this opportunity!

Technologies of History

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:00:04 +0000

My book Technologies of History: Visual Media, and the Eccentricity of the Past has just been published by Dartmouth Press and is due for release in March 2011. The book examines alternative forms of visual history as constructed through film, television and digital media over the past 30 years. Integrating theory, historical research and textual criticism, I explore issues of cultural memory, textuality and the impact of digital technologies on our understanding of the past, focusing on works that challenge the conventions and forms of traditional historiography. My goal is to broadly reconsider the range of practices that should be regarded as visual history, drawing special attention to voices and forms of practice that have been left out of mainstream historical discourse. Overall, I argue that the primary aspirations of visual history need not be limited to the production of illusionist narratives but may include the creation of new critical contexts in which viewers simultaneously interrogate the past and rethink the entangled relations of history, memory and media. As an intervention in prevailing discourses of media and history, my aim is to rethink our fundamental relationship to history in response to a diverse and rapidly evolving media landscape that includes online video, science fiction, games and digital networks.

In conjunction with the book, I have also created a rich-media interactive history project of the same title that expands upon a single case study drawn from the book. This project allows for an in-depth exploration of the extraordinary diverse ways the John F. Kennedy assassination has been mediated and reinterpreted, ranging from the Zapruder footage to machinima videos captured from the game JFK Reloaded. For me, these two projects represents an ideal conjunction of scholarly modes, with the book allowing for the in-depth development of a more or less conventional academic argument in linear form. However, the project examines a genuinely diverse range of media texts, so that no reader could reasonably be expected to be familiar with all of the objects under examination. By creating a digital companion to the written text, I was able to perform a different kind of textual analysis, not simply through illustration of examples but by juxtaposing different threads of the argument with related media clips. The experience of navigating this database of critical and mediated works allows the user to experience the argument from multiple perspectives and in varying degrees of specificity.

Conferences and Invited Presentations

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:07:44 +0000

Respondent, The Cultural Logics of Replay, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Spring 2011

Invited Presenter, DATABASE | NARRATIVE | ARCHIVE: An International Symposium on Nonlinear Digital Storytelling, Spring 2011

Moderator and Presenter, “Realizing Scalar Capacities to Transform Media Archive Scholarship” at Reimagining the Archive, Fall 2010

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

Paper Presentation, “Fair Use and the Future of Media Studies: the Case for Critical Commons,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Summer 2009

Respondent, Installation, Energy Monitor Project: Visualizing Energy Consumption, Mobilities and Metadata Flows, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 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

Past Indiscretions: Digital Archives and Recombinant History

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:00:20 +0000

This chapter examines the impact of digital technologies on the writing of history, arguing that the narrative logics of the database and search engine have resulted in two divergent movements – one that seeks to articulate a “total” history that is encyclopedic in scope and rooted in relatively stable conceptions of historical epistemology; another that exploits digital technology’s potential for randomization and recombination in order to accommodate increasingly volatile visions of the past. At the opposing ends of this spectrum are the Shoah Foundation’s Survivors Project, a randomly accessible archive of over 100,000 hours of video testimonies by Holocaust survivors, and the Recombinant History Project’s Terminal Time, an artificial intelligence apparatus that constructs infinitely variable historical documentaries based on audience biases and beliefs. Although these two projects represent competing conceptions of historiography, both are enabled by the proliferation of digital information systems.

This book chapter is forthcoming in Interactive Frictions, edited by Marsha Kinder and Tara McPherson (University of California Press).

Download “Past Indiscretions: Digital Archives and Recombinant History”

Regeneration: Multimedia Genres and Emerging Scholarship

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:00:09 +0000

This article presents an initial taxonomy of generic strategies and conventions that have emerged from the past ten years of practice-based research in multimedia pedagogy at USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy. These genres emerged organically across a wide variety of courses and disciplines at IML and have subsequently been incorporated into the curriculum of the undergraduate Honors in Multimedia Scholarship program. The taxonomy begins with a more detailed description of the five genres that have been deployed most frequently in the IML’s programs, followed by brief outlines of additional genres and their potential for deployment across a range of disciplinary contexts.

This article appeared in Pre/Text: A Journal of Rhetorical Theory Vol. 20, Fall 2010.

Download “Regeneration: Multimedia Genres and Emerging Scholarship”

Aporias of the Digital Avant-Garde

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:00:01 +0000

Abstract:
This article maps two divergent trajectories within a narrowly defined sphere of short-form, time-based digital media created between 1995 and 2005. These works are considered in relation to the historical avant-garde – particularly the Structural film movement of the 1960s and 70s – and analyzed as responses to a range of cultural concerns specific to the digital age. The analysis identifies movement toward two terminal points: first, a mode of remix-based montage inspired by open source programming communities and peer-to-peer networks; and second, the emergence of a mode of imaging termed the “digital analogue”, which foregrounds the material basis of digital production.

Published in Digital Humanities Quarterly vol 1, no 2 Summer 2007
Download “Aporias of the Digital Avant-Garde”

A Pedagogy for Original Synners

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:00:36 +0000

What will the class of 2020 expect when we (the teachers) meet them for the first time? What should we expect of them? This chapter uses the science fictional device of a time-traveling machine to frame these questions. The aim is to provide a context for examining currently under-recognized styles of learning emerging from contemporary game and remix cultures. We will examine a range of educational practices and suggest three key elements that support learning as a process of critical and creative synthesis: 1) open source scholarship, 2) social networking and 3) youth as cultural mediators.

Written with Anne Balsamo.

Published in Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected edited by Tara McPherson for the MacArthur Foundation series on Digital Learning (MIT Press 2007)

Download “A Pedagogy for Original Synners”

The Past in Ruins: Postmodern Politics and the Fake History Film

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 14:00:39 +0000

It is a truism of postmodern culture that the difference between truth and fiction is not what it used to be. But in Jesse Lerner’s Ruins, this is more than an empty slogan, it’s a point of departure. Ruins is a self-proclaimed “fake documentary” that exposes the persistence of colonialist ideology in pre-hispanic histories of Mexico and calls into question the processes by which the disciplines of archaeology and art history are constituted. In Ruins, Lerner is as much concerned with historiography – the processes of writing history – as with history itself. The film mobilizes a multiplicity of historiographical and documentary strategies, ranging from archival footage compilation and hidden camera interviews to cutout animation and fictional recreation. Ruins puts forward a scathing revelation of the racist and colonialist underpinnings of ancient Mesoamerican history and offers in its place an enlightened critique and alternate vision of the region’s past.

Published in F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing, edited by Alex Juhasz and Jesse Lerner (University of Minnesota Press 2006)

Download “The Past In Ruins: Postmodern Politics and the Fake History Film”

History TV and Popular Memory

sanderson — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:00:02 +0000

“A remarkable and misguided consensus exists among both historians and media critics regarding television’s unsuitability for the construction of history. Notwithstanding The History Channel’s promise to provide access to “All of History – All in One Place,” television viewers are often characterized as victims in an epidemic of cultural amnesia for which television is both disease and carrier. TV, so the argument goes, can produce no lasting sense of history; at worst, it actually impedes viewers’ ability to receive, process, or remember information about the past.”

This essay examines an array of television shows, ranging from Star Trek and Quantum Leap to Meeting of Minds and You Are There, to argue against prevailing assumptions about TV and history and the culture of amnesia that television is supposed to produce.

Download “History TV and Popular_Memory”