idc_events

Anna Munster

Web Authoring

    * Introduction:

    * About Anna Munster:

Anna Munster is a digital artist and theorist of digital media. She is a Lecturer in Digital Media Theory, School of Art History and Theory, College of Fine Arts, UNSW. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Tokyo, Sydney and online. She was recently a winner of Digital2000 (ASCI, New York), has exhibited at Artspace, The Australian Centre for Photography, The Melbourne Festival and has just completed a website, http://wundernet.cofa.unsw.edu.au. She is working on a CD-ROM titled Wunderkammer, funded by the Australian Film Commission. She has published in ctheory, Photofile, M/C, Australian Feminist Studies among others and is currently co-editing a book on embodiment with Elspeth Probyn.

Richard Barbrook

16 Beaver Group, NYC
April 25, 6:30pm
http://www.16beavergroup.org/events/archives/001471.php

Dr. Richard Barbrook is coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Institute / University of Westminster and researcher-in-residence at the Institute for Distributed Creativity.

Abstract:

'Imaginary Futures.'

In the modern world, our understanding of the present is often shaped by sci-fi fantasies about what is to come.

Ironically, the most influential of these visions of the future are already decades old. We are already living in the times when they were supposed to have come true. In his presentations, Richard Barbrook will analyze the
origins and evolution of three imaginary futures: artificial intelligence; the information society; and the gift culture. By showing that the future is what it used to be, he will argue that it is time for us to invent new futures…

Dr. Richard Barbrook was educated at Cambridge, Essex and Kent universities. During the early-1980s, he was involved in pirate and community radio broadcasting. He helped to set up Spectrum Radio, a multi-lingual station operating in London, and published extensively on radio issues. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, Richard worked for a research institute at the University of Westminster on media regulation within the EU. Some of this research was later published in 'Media Freedom: the contradictions of communications in the age of modernity' (Pluto Press, London 1995).

Since the mid-1990s, Richard has been coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster and is course leader of its MA in Hypermedia Studies. In collaboration with Andy Cameron, he wrote 'The Californian Ideology' which was a pioneering critique of the neo-liberal politics of 'Wired'magazine. In the last few years, Richard has written a series of articles exploring the impact of the sharing of information over the Net, including ‘The Hi-Tech Gift Economy’ and ‘Cyber-communism’. He is presently working on a book - ‘Imaginary Futures’ – which is about how ideas from the 1960s and 1970s shape our contemporary conception of the information society. A selection of Richard’s writings are available on the Hypermedia Research Centre's website.

Warren Sack

New Tools and Theories for Understanding ELearning on the Internet

* Introduction:

In this presentation we will briefly review the history of computers in learning and education from circa 1970 to the present. We describe how the growth of the Internet has created the possibility for the design of new learning environments and new forms of learning and education. It will be argued that many of these new, Internet-based learning environments are strongly dependent upon the exchange of email between teachers and learners. We will demonstrate a prototype system for visualizing and summarizing large volumes of email, the Conversation Map system, and consider its possible use in the evaluation of these new learning environments. We further explore how new work environments for networked, collaborative production -- like the tools used by the Open Source Software (OSS) communities -- can also be conceptualized as learning environments akin to pre-industrial, "workshops" where "apprentices" learn by assisting more experienced "craftsmen" (where "craftsmen" in this context are programmers and software designers). Automatically generated isualizations of these work-environments-as-learning environments will illustrate the final portion of the presentation.

* About Warren Sack:

Warren Sack is a software designer and media theorist whose work explores theories and designs for online public space and public discussion. http://people.ucsc.edu/~wsack

as part of newmediaeducation.org

McKenzie Wark and Trebor Scholz in conversation with Richard Barbrook

Monday, April 18, 6pm
Room 316 Graduate Faculty
New School University
65 5th Ave
(between 13th & 14th Sts)

'Imaginary Futures'
In the modern world, our understanding of the present is often shaped by sci-fi fantasies about what is to come. Ironically, the most influential of these visions of the future are already decades old. We are already living in the times when they were supposed to have come true. In his presentations, Richard Barbrook will analyse the origins and evolution of three imaginary futures: artificial intelligence; the information society; and the gift culture. By showing that the future is what it used to be, he will argue that it is time for us to invent new futures.

Richard Barbrook is one of the most radical critics of the neo-liberal cyber-elite. In contrast, Barbrook thinks that the importance of the latest wave of technological innovation lies precisely in its ability to challenge the ideologies of the self-proclaimed opinion leaders. The Net allows for the emergence of spontaneous and flexible virtual communities, defining themselves less by market exchange than by social convention.
Richard Barbrook was educated at Cambridge, Essex and Kent universities. During the early-1980s, he was involved in pirate and community radio broadcasting. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, Richard worked for a research institute at the University of Westminster on media regulation within the EU. For the last few years, Richard has been coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster and was the first course leader of its MA in Hypermedia Studies. At present, Richard is preparing 'Imaginary Futures' for publication as a book.
http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/

Trebor Scholz is a media artist, writer and organizer who works in the fields of media art, event-based cultural practice, education, and network culture. His work has been exhibited at the Sao Paulo Biennial, the Venice Biennial (with Martha Rosler/ The Fleas), the Web Biennial of the Istanbul Museum for Contemporary Art and many other venues. Scholz has facilitated several large scale programs such as "FreeCooperation" (with Geert Lovink),  "Right2Fight" (with Dominique Malaquais), "Aestheticization of War" (PS1/MOMA), and Kosovo: Carnival in the Eye of the Storm. He has lectured at ISEA 04 (Helsinki, Tallin), Transmediale 04 (Berlin), Multimedia Art Asia Pacific Conference (Singapore), Stanford University, New York University, University of California Los Angeles, and Dartmouth College. He is professor and researcher at the Department of Media Study, SUNY at Buffalo. In 2004 Scholz founded the Institute for Distributed Creativity.
http://molodiez.org

McKenzie Wark is the author of A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard 2004) and several other books. He co-edited the nettime anthology Readme! (Autonomedia 1999). He teaches media studies at New School University.
http://www.ludiccrew.org/wark/

William Griswold/Adriene Jenik

Explorations in community-oriented ubiquitous computing ActiveCampus, a case study

* Introduction

The ActiveCampus project aims to provide location-based services for educational networks and understand how such systems are used. ActiveClass enables collaboration between students and professors by serving as a visual moderator for classroom interaction. ActiveCampus Explorer uses a person's context, like location, to help engage them in campus life.

* About Adriene Jenik:

Adriene Jenik is a telecommunications media artist who has been working for over 15 years as an artist, educator, curator, administrator, and engineer. Her works, including EL NAFTAZTECA (w/Guillermo Gomez-Pena), MAUVE DESERT: A CD-ROM Translation and DESKTOP THEATER (w/Lisa Brenneis and the DT troupe), use the collision of "high" technology and human desire to propose new forms of literature, cinema, and performance. Jenik is currently serving as Associate Professor of Computer & Media Arts in the Visual Arts Department at University of California, San Diego. Her recent works (the ActiveCampus Explorientation and SPEC-FLIC) instigate large-scale public art events over community-wide wireless networks.

* About William Grishold:

William Griswold is Director of the ActiveCampus project and a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington in 1991, and his BA in Mathematics from the University of Arizona in 1985. His research interests include ubiquitous computing, educational technology, software evolution and design, software tools and visualization, and program analysis. He is Program Co-Chair for the 2005 International Conference on Software Engineering. He is a principal of the UCSD division of Cal-(IT)2, the UCSD/UCI California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.

Reshaping the Wireless Commons

A Lecture by Brooke Singer (NYC Wireless) April 11, 5pm , CFA 112
(organized in collaboration between the Institute for Distributed Creativity and the Art Department, SUNY at Buffalo)

As wireless technologies reshape our social interactions and the environments we inhabit, these same technologies provide new possibilities for independent media production. Brooke Singer will discuss her most recent collaborations both as an artist and curator that utilize wireless (Wi-Fi, mobile phone cameras, RFID) as tools for initiating discussion and positive system failures. She is focused on emerging technologies not only because they are fun, but also because they are malleable and contingent.

www.bsing.net
www.preemptivemedia.net
www.spectropolis.info
www.moport.org

Brooke Singer is a digital media artist and arts organizer who lives in Brooklyn. She is currently Assistant Professor of New Media at SUNY Purchase. She recently exhibited “Swipe,” a collaboration with Beatriz da Costa and Jamie Schulte, in Database Imaginary at the Banff Centre and co-curated Spectropolis, a wireless art event in Lower Mahattan with NYCwireless and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Lisa Gye

Approaches to Technology in Australia

    * Introduction:

Vocational Imperative vs. Responsible Education transfer of "just-in-time knowledge" versus a broad education

How do we stretch a vision between the Futurist narratives of progress with all their techno-optimism and the technophobia often encountered in more traditional cultural theorists? What can we do about anti-intellectualism and boredom in the undergraduate classroom? Concrete examples of useful assignments and ways in which to teach theory or tech (ie. How could the role plays proposed by Augusto Boal's "Games for Actors and Non-actors" be applied to the teaching theatre?)

    * About Lisa Gye (Australia):

Lisa Gye teaches new media theory and production at Swinburne University of Technology (Victoria, Australia).

http://www.swin.edu.au/sbs/media/staff/gye/

http://halflives.adc.rmit.edu.au/

SwinMC http://www.swinmc.net/