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This feels a little like bandwagoning, but I guess it is the right kind. After all, my friend Sarah Pullman and 'Kris and the Gang' (much cooler than kool) have been visible there. Anyway, I will speak about Geek Entertainment TV my final lecture on my Cyberculture course tomorrow, so here's the link. Critical insights into that whole webby thing and pretty funny too.
an interesting new project which will:
"bring together practicing artists, technology developers and ethnographers with the aim of advancing interdisciplinary understanding and building consortia for future collaborative projects. It will be of relevance to people working in the arts, games, education, tourism, heritage, science and engineering.
The network will stage three major gatherings. Each gathering will have a distinct form and focus: an initial workshop to launch the network and assess the state of the art; a technology summer camp for artists and technologists, including hands-on prototyping sessions using the facilities at Nottingham's Mixed reality Laboratory; and a major public conference and participatory exhibition as a central component of the Futuresonic 2006 festival in Manchester; as well as a supporting web site and other resources."
Quoting from a Wired article. This raises a whole range of questions... "In the United States, virtual worlds could eventually have the same legal status as another lucrative recreation industry: pro sports. The NHL isn't exempt from federal legislation like labor, antitrust, and drug laws. But inside the "magic circle," on the field of play, sports leagues are given great latitude to make judgments, even though jobs, endorsement contracts, and the value of team franchises hang in the balance." Global Gaming Crackdown: How governments from Beijing to the Beltway could shackle your freedom By Chris Suellentrop
An anonymous blogger has been nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. A great message for those new writers who are beginning to make their way into the writing world.
University of Nottingham VIRAT lab demonstrate improvements to patients with 'amblyopia (lazy eye) by using computer games as an integral part of the therapy. More from the BBC.
More from the VIRAT 'I-BIT' project.
The BBC reports this story, which just takes things way too far! My first thought was confirmed in this article, that many people want them just in case they wake up. It goes on to suggest that these gadgets are status symbols for some people, which reminds us of how different meanings are attached to the same technological artefacts. It's not just a mobile phone!
Chairs:William Dutton, Oxford Internet Institute; Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council.
Panelists to include: - Vera Franz, OSI, London - Alison Bernstein, Ford Foundation, New York - Sean O'Siochru, NEXUS, Dublin - Karen Banks, Association of Progressive Communication, London - Richard Allen, Cisco Systems
Date: 02 February 2006, 17:00 - 18:30 Location: Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3JS
Attendance: This panel discussion is open to the public, but places are strictly limited. If you are interested in attending please email your name and affiliation, if any, to events@oii.ox.ac.uk. As places are so limited they will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.
This event will be webcast and available to view on our website at http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/ from Friday 3rd February 2006.
Abstract New media, such as the Internet and other convergent information and communication technologies (ICTs), are now widely used in ways that are reshaping political, economic, cultural, legal, scientific, and other activities. The interrelated outcomes in the public sphere of these diverse uses of the Internet and new media by communities, individuals, and private and public organizations are leading to wide-ranging societal transformations, both locally and globally. The pervasive nature of this growing digital mediation and governance of social life has stimulated rethinking of research practices, institutional arrangements, and policies needed to provide better accounts and understandings of such transformations.
Over the past decade, digital convergence has been accompanied by a partial realignment of research around the technologies themselves, most notably in the form of efforts to build better-integrated, more-fluid models of engagement across social and technical disciplinary boundaries. No established field, dominant paradigm or appropriate institutional restructuring has emerged to take advantage of the new multidisciplinary research opportunities. However, distinctive approaches and themes for research on the social dimensions of new media and related ICTs-such as the relationship between ICTs, public life, media, and governance-have been created within communication and media fields, information studies, social informatics, computer science, law, the humanities, and the core social sciences. Some of these new configurations have acquired stability within or between fields; in other cases, they are characterized mostly by isolated experiments.
This is an open session designed to stimulate and inform an invited workshop to be held on 3-4 February. Panelists in policy, practice and advocacy fields will provide brief perspectives on the intersection between research and more applied agendas. It is an opportunity to reflect on what constituencies outside the research field expect from information, communication and media studies. Can it meet these expectations? Under what conditions?
For further information on all OII events, please refer to our website
Kind regards The Events Team
Oxford Internet Institute 1 St Giles University of Oxford Oxford OX1 3JS
Tel: +44 (0)1865 287209 Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211
While in Torino for the Games, I gave a lecture via some new software we are piloting at the University. Thanks to Kris, Boris and Robert for making this happen. After the death of one laptop and impossible firewalls at the Media Center, British Columbia Canada Place was really the only option. Thanks also to Daniel who convinced the pc to play ball.
Andy Miah gives a remote university lecture
Originally uploaded by bmann.
Here I am sitting with 3 students from the GSA talking about the merits of wordpress and how it can provide many more facilities compared with other blogs. Kris, you have convinced me that this is worthwhile and I even went pro with Flick and I even talked about your work in the lecture. How much more of a rock star does that make you feel?
The sony reader claims to be look just like paper and hopes to revitalise the digital book market. I use a palmpilot lifedrive and frequently read articles from my endnote database in this unit. It is not particularly easy, navigation is frustrating and the size of the text field small, but it's possible and reasonably enjoyable. I have never used a digital book reader but look forward to the prospect of integrating it with my work. This new technology reminds me of a piece I wrote a few years ago about the future of publishing. At the time, there were still no clear means through which to archive websites and urls really seemed to matter. Recently, I have noticed that films no longer have a unique url attached to the trailers. One reason for this is surely that urls are becoming much less relevant as a decriptor of some virtual place. With increasingly powerful search engines, I rarely bother to note down urls anymore, especially when they are attached to articles. All too often, the domain name of the articles changes and the easiest way to find the piece is just to google the title.
Here's the title and url [;)]: (e)text:Error...404 Not Found! or the disappearance of history http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j005/Articles/AMiah.htm
I am a long-distance member for one of Yale's inter-disciplinary bioethics group, which soon receives a talk from Professor Deb Roy. Taking a closer look at Roy's work draws me even nearer to the work at MIT. I visited there in April this year and was struck by the breadth of creative invention taking place there. This project 10x Human-Machine Symbiosis is discussed in an outline paper available from its website, wher Roy explains ths relationship between art, science and design.
In my various travels, I have found the richest of environments where a range of disciplines and views inform an approach to a problem, where it is difficult to characterise researchers as having expertise in specific domains. The more intriguing researchers seem to be those who apply a set of understandings to a range of applications.
More recently, I have been drawn towards architecture in work related to technology - such as William Mitchell's 'city of bits' - to research surrounding media spectacles - the Situationist Internationale are integral to a course I wrote on Spectacle. Today, I was reading an article about Unifying Urbanism, which described a use of communication technology within the city to de-fragment its evolving character. I struggle to separate out disciplinary perspectives when writing about culture. Far too much is connected.
In March 2004, The British Medical Journal reported on the International Narcotics Control Board statement on the sale of drugs over the Internet. They highlight popular drugs such as sildenafil (viagra) and fluoxetine (Prozac) - who hasn't received email about these substances!? It is interesting that some of these drugs are associated with so-called 'lifestyle' enhancements. While the lack of regulation over online drugs is significant, I wonder how much of their concern is about how these drugs reflect a shift in the way people use and perceive medicine. One of the difficulties facing the medical profession is how to curb the tide on lifestyle medicine. There seem to be a number of legal and moral questions arising from the development of online pharmacies and, even if the current regulations offer a structure through which action could be taken against a dodgy company, we need to take into account how online pharmacies are different social spaces, compared with high-street retail outlets. For example, how does a physician take a history of their patient through the Internet? What relationship between the physician and patient is possible?
There also seem to be difficult boundary issues facing regulation. Even if the legal issues are similar to the importation of substances from one place to another, the manner in which people transcend these boundaries is radically different - it is much easier to click on a website of a company in a country far away, than it is to go there or connnect with a supplier in that country.
A few months ago, the University of California Davis Medical Center began testing its robot, Rudy, as a way of dveloping greater flexibility for physicians and more personal care for patients. At first sight, this looks like such a bad idea - there is no escaping the technological face of this charcater, it is surely better than a 'Hal' like camera, which might surely have been an alternative. It just reminds me of one of the Daleks from Doctor Who. (Let's hope there's no 'exterminate' facility, unless, of course, assisted suicide becomes more acceptable!)
Gregory Pence is keen on digital technology applied to medical encounters. He describes cases where patients use the Internet to develop shared communities, where they can talk about the illnesses thy suffer in open spaces. He is also concerned that technology often gets a rough deal in the media, where genetics is characterised as Frakenstein science and IT separates people from each other. In Chapter 2 of his book 'Re-Creating Medicine' , he discusses the Doctor-Patient role specifically, suggesting that doctors can use WebMD to find out about conditions they know little about and encourages a dialogue between patients and doctors about these discoveries. As he states: "Moral informational exchanges, ones that help and empower patients, rather than keep them in the position of passive children, do occure in cybermedicine. Such exchanges humanize both parties involved"
Call for papers... Hybrid Identities in Digital Media Vol 11, no 4, Winter 2005
Digital bodies, virtual characters, man-machine hybrids, simulated 'humans', androids, and cyborgs
Guest-edited by Kerstin Mey and Yvonne Spielmann
The focus of the special issue:
While digitally constructed identities have entered the popular media environment through fiction film, television, and computer games, where they have homogenising effects on the viewer/user that do not encourage them to question or critically look at the cultural concept of 'hybridity', we find that in experimental fields of creative practices (arts, youth cultures, and other groups) the challenge lies in the articulation of individual features that are appropriate to specific needs and express – through diversity – reflections on the hybrid, increasingly interactive and virtual production in digital media. The common interest here seems to lie in the expression of virtual selves that abandon the pre-fabricated products of cinema, television, computer games, and so on.
We encourage a discussion of the following: In what way does the construction of hybrid identities in digital media arts and cultural practices have an effect on:
* new role models (of behaviour, action) * innovative ways of identification (participation, interaction, communication) * new ways of collaborative experience (through multiple user interfaces, MUDs) * novel ways of self-reflection (of role models, ethic/gender/social patterns) * new ways of self-representation (public/private spaces).
Copy deadline for refereed research articles: 1 April 2005
All proposals, inquiries and submissions for this special issue to:
Yvonne Spielmann Braunschweig School of Art Institute of Media Research Johannes-Selenka-Platz 1 38118 Braunschweig Germany tel: +49 (0)531 2810728 fax: +49 (0)531 2810713 email: spielmann@medien-peb.uni-siegen.de
Kerstin Mey School of Art and Design University of Belfast York Street Belfast BT15 1ED Northern Ireland, UK tel: +44 (0)28 9026 7258 fax: +44 (0)28 9026 7310 email: k.mey@ulster.ac.uk
Submission details: Two hard copies and one electronic copy (Macintosh Word compatible) of all articles should be sent to the guest editors with the following information attached separately: name, institution and address for correspondence, telephone, fax and email address. Papers should be typed on one side of the sheet with endnotes in accordance with the MLA style sheet. Authors should also enclose a 50 word biography and an abstract.
Kember, S. (2003). Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life. London and New York, Routledge. Kember's work marks a new relationship between the study and theory of technological cultures. ALife signals a shift towards a fresh way of conceptualising the salient characteristics of humanness.
Waldby, C. (1997). "Revenants: The Visible Human Project and the Digital Uncanny." Body and Society 3(1): 1-16. Waldby, C. (2000). "Virtual Anatomy: From the Body in the Text to the Body on the Screen." Journal of Medical Humanities 21(2): 85-107.
Waldby, C. (2000). The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine. London and New York, Routledge.
Catherine Waldby's work on the VHP is not to be missed. She describes the VHP, a new digital technology that can replicate human beings internally and externally. She claims that the technology is ontologically revolutionary, arguing it to reflect a change in the relationship between life and death. Waldby suggests that public interest with the VHP can be situated in a history of popular fascination with and anxiety about medicine technologies that represent the human body. She considers that digital visualisation intensifies the altered distinction be life and death facilitated by photography.
"Virtual space as the matrix for new form of life"
VHP captures narrative of Frankenstein - the medical experiment, the reanimated corpse, the monstrosity of animated death.
