Anti-Media. Ephemera on Speculative Arts by Florian Cramer, nai010 Publishers: Florian Cramer, lecturer at the Rotterdam based Willem de Kooning Academy, demonstrates in his new collection of essays Anti-Media, how media and art critique constantly reflect on their own tradition, language and manifestations, while at the same time trying to subvert them.

In the essays Cramer presents and analyzes a wide range of subcultures — from Internet porn to neo-Nazi’s and anti-copyright activists — and offers a critical view on their imagery and poetry, plagiarism and automatisms.

Cramer asserts that art coexists with ‘anti-art’, and that the term ‘media’ is just as vague, or unfixed, as is ‘art’. Continue reading

Media Archaeology & Technological Debris Conference :: June 21, 2013; 10:00 am – 5:30 pm :: NAB LG01 (New Academic Building), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London (map) :: Free, open to the public, no reservations necessary.

Conference speakers: Sean Cubitt (Media & Comms, Goldsmiths); Graham Harwood (Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths); Jennifer Gabrys (Sociology, Goldsmiths); Gabriel Menotti (Audiovisual, UFES); Jussi Parikka (University of Southampton); and James Wallbank (Access Space, Sheffield).

This workshop means to combine the thriving approach of media archaeology with the growing environmental concerns about technological debris, emphasizing the complementary character of these topics in the construction of a material understanding of media practices’ past, present and future. Continue reading

Evil Media by Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey, MIT Press:

Evil Media develops a philosophy of media power that extends the concept of media beyond its tried and trusted use in the games of meaning, symbolism, and truth. It addresses the gray zones in which media exist as corporate work systems, algorithms and data structures, twenty-first century self-improvement manuals, and pharmaceutical techniques. Evil Media invites the reader to explore and understand the abstract infrastructure of the present day. From search engines to flirting strategies, from the value of institutional stupidity to the malicious minutiae of databases, this book shows how the devil is in the details.

The title takes the imperative “Don’t be evil” and asks, what would be done any differently in contemporary computational and networked media were that maxim reversed. Continue reading

16th Japan Media Arts Festival :: February 13-24, 2013 :: The National Art Center, Tokyo 7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 106-8558 Japan :: Call for Entries – Deadline: September 20, 2012. Continue reading

Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles by Erkki Huhtamo, MIT Press:

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, huge circular panoramas presented their audiences with resplendent representations that ranged from historic battles to exotic locations. Such panoramas were immersive but static. There were other panoramas that moved–hundreds, and probably thousands of them. Their history has been largely forgotten. In Illusions in Motion, Erkki Huhtamo excavates this neglected early manifestation of media culture in the making. The moving panorama was a long painting that unscrolled behind a “window” by means of a mechanical cranking system, accompanied by a lecture, music, and sometimes sound and light effects. Showmen exhibited such panoramas in venues that ranged from opera houses to church halls, creating a market for mediated realities in both city and country. Continue reading

ReLocate: Community Engagement and Solidarity :: Kivalina and Shishmaref, Alaska – Call For Civic Media Artist — Deadline: May 28, 2012. Continue reading

Digital Memory and the Archive by Wolfgang Ernst, Edited and with an Introduction by Jussi Parikka:

In the popular imagination, archives are remote, largely obsolete institutions: either antiquated, inevitably dusty libraries or sinister repositories of personal secrets maintained by police states. Yet the archive is now a ubiquitous feature of digital life. Rather than being deleted, e-mails and other computer files are archived. Media software and cloud storage allow for the instantaneous cataloging and preservation of data, from music, photographs, and videos to personal information gathered by social media sites.

In this digital landscape, the archival-oriented media theories of Wolfgang Ernst are particularly relevant. Continue reading

Berkman Luncheon Series: Dalida Maria Benfield: Unexpected Development: Decolonial Media Aesthetics and Women’s ICT4D Video :: April 17, 2012; 12:30 pm :: Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor, Cambridge, Massachusetts + webcast :: RSVP required for those attending in person via this form.

ICT4D (Information Communication Technology for Development) powerfully frames women’s grassroots video production in the Global South, much of which is distributed widely through YouTube. Often, these videos reproduce racialized and gendered discourses — legacies of colonialism — in their narratives of economic, social, and technological progress. Continue reading

Social Media For Urban Research :: March 27, 2012; 6:30 – 8:30 pm :: Studio-X NYC, 180 Varick St., Suite 1610, New York City.

Social media are increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives, from connecting with friends and sharing images to exploring cities through location-based applications. These new services have given us a different vantage point from which to understand, explore, navigate, and geographically record the places we live.

This panel discussion brings together academics, professionals, and journalists who are researching, building, and using social media data to better understand our urban environment. Continue reading

PUBLIC 44: Experimental Media, edited by Peggy Gale:

In “Cultural Engineering 1982–2010” Tom Sherman challenges the institutionalizing and mythologizing of experimental media through economic support and academic research. Konrad Becker uses slogan, picture and text from his “Strategic Reality Dictionary” to reveal power mechanisms and newspeak from the past half-century. The irreplaceable nature of individual media is a recurring theme, as Michael Snow and Nicky Hamlyn consider works created necessarily in a chosen medium. Christopher Eamon considers media installations new prominence in the museum. Teacher and curator Peter Ride investigates the place of the viewer and systems to evaluate audience response. Continue reading