Aporias of the Digital Avant-Garde

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
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Johanna Drucker on design in the digital humanities

The NEH-Vectors seminar “Broadening the Digital Humanities” just wrapped up at USC’s Institute for Multimedia Literacy last week. One of the highlights for me was Johanna Drucker’s talk on the role of design in the digital humanities. Drucker has been an inspiration to me for many years via her work with SpecLab at the University of Virginia and their work with computational literature that goes far beyond conventional text encoding to imagine literary game spaces (e.g., the Ivanhoe project). This video presents Drucker’s setup to a much longer talk about the potentials of creating an online research and publication space that would take advantage of all the affordances of networked scholarship.

Review of Soft Cinema

A review of the recombinant narrative engine, Soft Cinema, by Lev Manovich and Andreas Kratky

Abstract:
Much has been written about the transformative impact of digital technology on contemporary cinema. But while digital imaging – from the large-scale visual effects spectacles of the studio blockbuster to low-end vector-based animation – may be comfortably positioned on a continuum with other “revolutionary” imaging technologies of the previous century (Technicolor, 3D, high definition video, etc.), the Soft Cinema media-processing engine created by media theorist Lev Manovich and designer Andreas Kratky proposes a somewhat more radical intervention into the evolution of cinema as a storytelling apparatus. Indeed, as Manovich notes in his introduction to the recently released DVD Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database, conventional cinema is anachronistically rooted in the logic of the industrial revolution and its assembly-line mentality for delivering sequential narratives. By contrast, Soft Cinema emerges more or less organically from the logic of the computer database and the revised patterns of production/consumption that characterize the digital age.

Published in The Moving Image 2006

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New Ecology of Things at ZML Friday 4/25 1:00PM

The New Ecology of Things comes to ZML this Friday April 25 1:00-2:30PM!
The New Ecology of Things (NET) is a research initiative to explore emerging forms of interactive communication brought about by pervasive networked technologies. The project began as a studio class run by Art Center’s Graduate Media Design Program (MDP) and has evolved into a conceptual model, a forum for discussion, an ongoing series of projects, technological inventions, and new issues for design pedagogy. The NET website, which is part of a transmedia publication that includes a book, a poster, and video content for mobile devices, just launched in March 2008.
Join us for a panel discussion with three of key designers of the NET project from Art Center College of Design, Phil van Allen, Anne Burdick and Nik Hafermaas, who will discuss the project and its multiple approaches to issues of design, technology and theory. This event is part of the iMAP/Adobe Design | Technology | Theory series and will be simulcast live via Adobe Connect. To attend virtually, please register here.

Webfest Awards featuring designer Peter Cho

Wednesday, April 2, 4:00 – 5:30
Zemeckis Media Lab (RZC 201)
Throughout the Web’s short history, creative people have wielded code to make interactive experiences that are delightful, innovative, and fun. This talk, presented in conjunction with USC’s Web design contest Webfest, will give a subjective history of the Web and computational design, starting with early hypertext experiments from the mid-1990s to recent media-rich works.
Peter Cho is a Los Angeles-based media artist and designer. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the UCLA Design | Media Arts department, where his work dealt with issues of language, writing, and meaning and a Master of Science degree from the MIT Media Lab, where his design research explored custom models for typography in time-based and reactive media. He has received honors for his work from Ars Electronica, Tokyo Type Directors Club, New York Art Directors Club, ID Magazine, and Print Magazine. His work has been shown at the Telic Gallery, Ginza Graphic Gallery, Ars Electronica, Art Sonje, Seoul Arts Center, the Art Directors Club, and Cooper Union. His interests include issues of electronic textuality, narrative, and mapping.

Design | Technology | Theory Monday 11/19 10:00AM

Join Erik Loyer of Song New Creative, Dmitri Siegel, art director for Urban Outfitters, and Peter Lunenfeld, Art Center College of Design for the first in a series of panel discussions exploring aspects of contemporary design, media and culture. The panel is taking place in the Zemeckis Media Lab (RZC 201) at 10:00AM on Monday November 19th. The discussion, titled “Designing for Convergence” is also being simulcast as an interactive online forum via Adobe Connect. Free and open to the public; follow this link to register online for remote participation. Sponsored by Adobe and iMAP

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