[the future of creative technologies conference]

xposted from the ioct blog:


Yesterday saw the Campus Centre filled with over 100 delegates participating in workshops and discussions on the Future of Creative Technologies. After the morning workshop sessions there were talks by Jim Hendler, Lev Manovich and Howard Rheingold. We concluded the conference with a lively discussion session.

Have a look at what people were saying about the conference

Twitter - http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23foct08

Jerry Fishenden has a text version the twitter stream: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dg9qx8bc_3hpxpkhd5

Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=foct08

Googled:

http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2008/11/future-of-creative-technologies-foct08.html

http://www.l4l.co.uk/?p=129

http://transitlab.org/2008/11/20/the-future-of-creative-technologies-conference-08/

My photos on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesslaccetti/sets/72157609610632533/

[new media writing and publishing, 22 Oct 2008, ioct]

Every autumn, First Year CWNM students spend a week on campus at DMU. This year Campus Week includes a day of discussion open to DMU students, staff, and the general public. It takes place on Wednesday 22 October 2008 at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester. Admission is free and booking not required, but space is limited so arrive early to secure a seat.

10.00-11.00 Meet your Reader Dr Jess Laccetti presents a reader’s eye view of new media writing.

11.00-11.30 Break

11.30-12.30 African Writing and New Media
Chair: Professor Sue Thomas
IOCT PhD student and novelist Anietie Isong introduces his research into African Writers and the Internet, and Nur Yaryare of the Somali Afro European Media Project presents his plan for a new media African heritage project in Leicester.

12.30-13.30 Lunch break

13.30-15.00 Writing and Publishing New Media
Chair: Kate Pullinger
Sara Lloyd and Michael Bhaskar, digital editors at Pan Macmillan, discuss Sara’s Book Publisher’s Manifesto for the 21st century, and Chris Meade, former CWNM student and Director of if:book London, presents Digital Livings, a report commissioned by CWNM to assess the potential of new media as a career path for writers.
Preparatory Reading for this session:
Book Publisher's Manifesto for the 21st century by Sara Lloyd
Digital Livings by Chris Meade

15.00-15.30 Break

15.30-16.30 E-Poetry
This year CWNM offers an E-Poetry workshop for the first time. Tutor Peter Howard presents an introduction to E-Poetry including a selection of his own work.

16.30-17.00 Plenary

17.00 End

[transliteracy & transdisciplinarity in new highcross, leicester]

Today marks the opening of the new Highcross area in Leicester. It boasts some great new shops (including a flagship and absolutely enormous John Lewis) and loads of fabulous eateries (business meetings right Sue?!) Sue and I headed down today for the opening and ended up beginning and finishing our first collaborative research project of the new academic year. We used clay (how transdisciplinary) to create a transliteracy/ioct island complete with people (well, one person), a tree and two flowers. Though this is difficult to tell in the photo below as it's a bit blurry.... After that hard work we enjoyed a very tasty hot chocolate (I had a white one) at a All Things Chocolate and then saw the silk parade complete with clowns on stilts and marching band. A bit from the Highcross site:

"The river of Silk will, flow through the city to the hub of Highcross Leicester. Made up of a flowing river of 24 silk banners, which signify Leicester’s rich textile heritage, community groups from across the county will start the procession at the Clock Tower with participants making their way down High Street, along Shires Lane and through the lower level of the new mall."

[ioct honorary phd - howard rheingold]

Howard Rheingold received his honorary phd during the afternoon ceremony at DMU on the 16th of July...I received mine during the morning so we didn't managed to cross paths but here is a token from the day: Howard with Professor of New Media, Sue Thomas and Director of the IOCT, Professor Andrew Hugill:



Now...I just need to photoshop myself between my supervisor and advisor! (me jealous of the kodak moment...no........)


Note Howard's advice given during his acceptance address: "Pay attention to irrelevant details and follow intriguing but useless connections."

[my phd graduation day - july 16 2008]

It feels like grad actually arrived quite quickly. I submitted the thesis the first day back after Christmas hols in Jan.'08, had the viva in Feb. and then the graduation ceromony the same year! I was the last graduand to be awarded a degree during the ceremony and had time to admire the surroundings. De Montfort Hall was filled with smiling graduates, the organ player who leant an air of tradition to the proceedings and numerous proud and loud friends and family. I can't believe it's all happened and now I can look back and it's already the past and I got to wear that bonnet!

I had an amazing supervisor - a great teacher and supporter (check out the lovely post she wrote) - Prof. Sue Thomas who was there at grad. dressed up in her finery. Thanks Sue! My thesis advisor, Prof. Andrew Hugill also helped me immensely though sadly I missed him at my grad. ceremony (I think he was busy with honourary PhD recipient Howard Rheingold who received his own degree that same Wednesday afternoon!). Thanks too to my external examiner Dr. Ruth Page who helped me be the first ever IOCT phd graduate!

[happy birthday steve!]

[canada day in london]

[nlab social networks conference - jim benson]

Social Networking Beyond The Dogma: Let's Make Some Money

The application of social networking and social media technologies ultimately should help your business work better. How do you set goals, create campaigns, and execute cost effectively?

NOTE: if you join a social network - twitter, facebook etc...you must give back to the community, answer other questions, participate otherwise you're just a leech.

Which social media networks should we be on? Well, can't say but Jim does tell us what we shouldn't be on...Facebook! At least if we're thinking about time vs content...it takes too much time whereas twitter etc...can offer benefit/value much quicker.

Social networking reduces costs of: lead acquisition, product improvement, individual sales, expert information and opportunities

Social networks are like cities by fostering growth, coordination, affinity, voice, realisation

[nature and textile art]

A little while ago I participated in a round-table discussion at the ICA where 2 of the 3 artists were textile artists...or at least they created art with textiles. I'm thinking here specifically of Rachel Beth Egenhoefer and Nicola Naismith. Both artists create some really interesting objects and installations with wool etc... That must be why I'm going to be checking out the THE HYPERBOLIC CROCHET CORAL REEF at the Hayward Gallery in London curated by Margaret and Christine Wertheim from the Institute for Figuring.

"During Summer 2008 - in this International Year of the Reef - the Crochet Coral Reef will be showing in London at the Hayward Gallery. The exhibition will include an expanded version of the Bleached Reef, a new configuration of the Ladies Silurian Reef, the beautifully archaic Branched Anemone Garden, and the ever-growing Toxic Reef. On show for the first time will be the wondrously surreal Chicago Cambrian Reef (curated by IFF contributor Aviva Alter), plus a new formation of the Beaded Reef by master beaders Rebecca Peapples and Sue Von Ohlsen. The exhibition will also debut several new plastic installations: The Exploding Plastic Inevitable Reef (with hot-pink sand by Kathleen Greco), and the Bottle Tree Grove (featuring works by Christine
Wertheim, Evelyn Hardin and Nadia Severns). Hanging elements in the show will include the all-plastic-bag Rubbish Vortex by Australian contributor Helle Jorgensen, a flotilla of jellyfish by Irish crafter Inga Hamilton, and Dr Axt's psychedelic coral-cloud "Reefer Madness."

In addition to the IFF reefs, the exhibition will also debut the amazing new UK Reef, currently being constructed by crafters across the UK (with contributions from Ireland, and even Australia - hey its a former colony)."

On the 13th of June there's going to be an all-day symposium with the crochet reef creators Margaret and Christine Wertheim; mathematician Dr Daina Taimina, inventor of hyperbolic crochet; radical UK crafters, environmentalists, and coral reef biologists. How neat is that?

Now I just need to learn how to knit or crochet...right Edith?!

Thanks to Sue for the head's up.

[lord judd & creative technologies]

(image from Sue Thomas)


Yesterday a few of the researchers involved with the IOCT were invited to a meeting with Lord Judd. Our brief: to give him an overview of our research and our findings.


Sascha Westendorf and Keno Buss kicked things off with an overview of their DMU Creativity Assistant:

"a tool designed to help develop creative ideas in a transdisciplinary multimedia context, based upon the thesis that "creativity is an emergent property". The intention is to first understand the stages that creative people move through in their journeys of exploration, discovery, innovation, and composition. The well-established path from preparation to incubation to illumination and verification is a good starting point, but more elaborate models are needed to guide software design for individual and social creativity support, and to deal with the controversial question of how such creativity support tools can be evaluated."

Next came Heather Conboy, E-Learning Co-ordinator for Faculty of Humanties at DMU she's also researching her phd on the impact of online environments on creative writers (a bit about a previous talk here). Heather showed us some interesting statistics including this one: 95% of UK higher education institutions have VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments). I wondered what that meant for the other 5%? Are they ahead of the game and using non-institution based systems like open source platforms or do they have class blogs and teach in Second Life? Heather did explain that these stats are from 2006...I wonder what the deal is now?

Also along the lines of creative writers, Anietie Isong shared with us his research on African Writers. Anietie is specifically looking at:

• How the internet is influencing writing from Africa
• The writers' attitudes towards their writing
• Burgeoning styles employed in their writing

Lord Judd asked if all the African fiction was...well, fiction...Anietie says that though it is mainly fictional there are deep political and relgious themes.

I was really interested in Anietie's research and wonder how concepts like "postcolonial" literature will appear (or not?) in African new media writing? What is the play between the marginalised and the privledged - especially when thinking about access to computers, internet, IT learning? I also wonder how the role of "native" might change as Anietie explained that some African writers are writing from the West (UK and USA were some examples).

See some of Anietie's own poetry here and a short story here.


I concluded the presentation segment with an overview of my ph.d research:

After my presentation we opened up into a more general discussion. Lord Judd (I just cannot say "Frank"!) raised some anxieties and concerns with which we agreed. I think this surprised him. In general I'd say that we all agreed that balance is the key to using new media. Though how MPs are to negotiate all the communication they receive and then have to respond to...I don't know. When I suggested just checking e-mail/letters etc...in the morning I was told that is near impossible; something really important might require feedback and can't just be left until the next morning. Sue suggested we have filters like already junk messages go into spam folders...but maybe we need intelligent agents (like PAs!) to sift through messages first? I didn't realise that MPs received so much communication? That's when the discussion turned to literacies...the literacy of navigating all the information available but also the literacy on the side of the people who write to MPs...do they realise (are they literate?) that they need not write for every small thing and are they sure they are writing to the right person?


Quotes of the Day:
When I introduced myself to him as Jess, he responded with: "I'm Frank." (not "Lord Judd")
When told of my recent phd award he said: "So you're a *real* doctor" (!!!)
When beginning the discussion he exclaimed: "I am not a Luddite. I am NOT a Luddite."

********************************************

Thanks to Sue Thomas for organising the interesting tête - à - tête and thanks to Lord Judd for sharing his time.

NB If you'd like to keep up with Lord Judd's speaking arrangements, you can sign up to an e-mail alert here or subscribe to the rss feed here (who said MPs aren't digitally literate?!)

Sue has blogged about the day over at PART.

[may day 2008]

[learning on screen - day 2]

1st speaker of the day: Paul Maidment, BBC Worldwide, BBC Motion Gallery

check out: https://jisc.bbcmotiongallery.com (but this is the corporate site although there is a 30 day free trial), the accessible version is here.

(nb: am struck again how un-googleable some of these speakers are...)

One of the pros of using the bbc motion gallery is the ability to view a video (which are tagged with key words but the tags are more or a taxonomy rather than folksonomy as it is the bbc who ass the "search related keywords") and then choose the key words which allows an "intuitive" way to search.

Interesting is the ability to choose the "inspiration" link which provides a *concept randomiser* "spawning new keywords as fast as you can click."

500 new BBC clips added each month, feedback from establishments to dictate future content addtions, more content collections to be added each quarter, including both broadcast and niche archives, showcasing of student work, competition to encourage students to creatively use BBC material (winning entries will appear on BBC tv)

---

Professor Sean Street, Bournemouth University speaking about Online Access to the Archives of Independent Radio




Challenge: how to make available radio archives: radio.bufvc.ac.uk


(just tried to access the site but, sadly, my athens account doesn't give me access...so is this really accessible?)




We're being shown a radio documentary on Albert Pierrepoint called "The Hangman." Though a sound piece they're using windowms media player and have the image randomization turned on so we're all feeling slightly hypnotised.



Sean decides to show us how the search function works on this radio archive and decides to search for "suicide"..funnily enough: "no clips match your terms." The archive is still under construction. What is available is Brodsky and James Stewart, The Glen Miller Story (with some typos but we're told "it's a work in progress"). The idea of making independent radio clips available

The problem: the digitisation of clips. sticky-tape syndrome, some take was left to oxidise and that means part of the tape would be unreadable. The British Library figured out a way to *bake* the clips which could then be played ONCE and digitised then, if not the clips would be lost. This is restoration as well as access.

---

Nipan J. Maniar, head of advanced interactive multimedia research group (what a great job title!) at Uni. of Portsmouth. He's talking about the university's use of streaming media.

• there are security issues, DRM
• right now the database has to be updated manually so out of 3000 uploads only 380 are available
• available in different kinds of quality because "bandwidth is not an issue" hrm...I think it's a huge issue in this country, some parts don't even have the possibility of broadband (lack of providers or inadequate lines etc..)
• they track the usage of any media that *leaves* portsmouth
• how to combine the teaching with the showing of streaming video? it shouldn't be a case of spectatorship but should be interactive
• look at www.lifesign.ac.uk and stream.port.ac.uk but nanonet.org.uk seems to have a really useful tool that allows people to upload ppts and video so on one side of the screen there is an image (ppt or page of text) and on the other side of the screen is a video of a lecture or presentation.
  

Here is a sample of Nipan using streaming media in his lectures:

• One stop media shop


• securing media
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

• log usage


• tools for teachers - helpful way of encouraging/enabling academics' independency
  access to streaming media server


"it is good to give academics some weapons to make media interesting"

Nipan's idea to have educational media online for people to download as and when (like any other kind of video store but online and for educational media): www.sourcelearn.com.

---

Chris Lane: "Presentation of DVD player/text commentary software (DPTCS)


This seems to be an idea that allows DVD content to be re-edited and integrated with other media such as text etc...

as teachers, we are moving from film educators to film makers, enacting while teaching

why is more sohpisticated DVD control important - prepare a teaching presentation, embed production in student learning

There is a really great idea - add GIS information to films so that students can literally track not only the shots but how the events/timeline unfold - the actual physicality of the more ephemeral film.

They have also created a massive database of their films that means all film files are searchable by character (how many shots and types of shots, close up etc...), by mood, by lighting...a major taxonomy behind each film but how great a resource would this be in any classroom?




We've just been shown a little clip of how users can add commentary to a dvd: AMAZING! I wish I'd had this software for my thesis. It means I would have been able to annoted web fictions with my different points of view. The clip we've been shown is a "traditional" reading of Vertigo, then a commentary employing theories of the male gaze and finally a third commentary with suggests a feminist interpretation.

But, right now this software seems only available for DVDs.

[candy + code @ the ICA]

Shamefully I arrived home quite late lastnight and then had to pack for today's trip up to York (Inanimate Alice is up for a Learning on Screen Award and the Faculty of Humanities is paying for me to go up there AND enjoy the 2-day conference!)...so I didn't really have *time* to blog. Is that a better excuse than the dog ate my blog post?

I'll catch up and post all the notes I made on the three incredible artists: Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, Dr Barbara Rauch and Nicola Naismith? They were all working on different things yet there were loads of crossovers. I was able to ask a few questions too during the final panel session but amazingly, we ended up going over and we had to be kicked out into the ICA bar (darn!). :)

I also want to *shout out* to Helen Sloan director of SCAN who is interested in social media and mapping business networks!

Thanks to Dr. Jane Harris for organising the event and to Lucy for all her help e-mailing updates and organising ppts etc...

Hopfully the National Science Learning Centre will have wireless...

[candy + code at the ICA, London]

On Monday night I'm going to have the pleasure of listening to three female [digital] artists who interestingly incorporate textiles/textures into their work which seem to (at least to me) question the role of code/coding (among other things). A kind of digital/textural semiotics perhaps? My job, after their presentations, is to ask them *riveting* questions. Hrm...anyone out there in the blogosphere have any questions they'd like to put to Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, Dr Barbara Rauch or Nicola Naismith? I won't be the only one asking questions though. Dr Jane Harris, Director of TFRG, and Helen Sloan, Director of SCAN will have their interviewing caps on too.







This what the ICA says about the event:

[transliteracy workshop today]

Today is the day!

Following on from last year's transliteracy unconference we're holding a transliteracy workshop. Last year the vote was to have a day where we could put into practise our ideas of transliteracy in order to *make* transliterate objects.

We have piles of string, coloured papers, digital cameras, computers, scanners, robot lego, old answering machines, playstation and more.

As a reminder, the definition of transliteracy (so far) that we're using is:

"The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks."

The aim of making transliterate objects will help us understand *why* something is transliterate as right now we seem to have an innate idea of what transliteracy is but how to we begin to describe it in words, images, sounds etc...?

more on the PART blog.

[happy birthday to me!]

cue drumroll...

a selection of bithday cards...some even arriving via snail mail!

The inside of this card is hilarious..."with 12 years experience"! Ha! Thanks Keith!

Update - 9:50am and look what's been delivered:

Update - 10:37, look what's just arrived:

Update - 12:00, more pressies:

[jan. 1st already]

[research talks at the ioct]

Heather Conboy began by talking about creative writing and pedagogy

"teacher dependent learners: natural audience is the teachers not the peer group"

"Most of the students interviewed found that they preferrred to read the forum rather than post messages and contribute to the debates (Canole, de Laat, Dillon & Darby, 2006)

What are the cognitive and social aspects of writing?

Discourses as kits - James P. Gee, 2005, page 21

Framework from processes of writing
Stage 1: text (corporeal analysis, independent words), stage 2: cognitive processes (immediate surroundings of the reading process), stage 3: Event, Stage 4: Sociocultural and political context (ideology)

Community Relationships/social
Tacit/informal/declarative/subjectivity

Psychological distance - depends on written alnguage and diacritics, paalanguage which depends on emoticons, paralanguage of body language...

CMC - idea of social presence:

"the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships"

(Shore, Williams & Christie, 1976 p. 65)

- reduced social cues, reductio in social and contextual cues affects social behaviour (see Sroull and Keisler)

Self-Presentation:
Goffman's dramaturgical actors theorise this...
Signs and signs given off...
Idealisation (receiver) optimization, misrepresentation

Social Presence - extension of transactional distance

"the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as "real" people."

Garrison et al, 2001)

Social Presence and Learning
Has a positive impact on learning satisfaction (Tu & cIssac, 2002)
Linked to levels and quiality of interactions (Richardson and Swan 2003)
Provides essential scaffolding for cognitive activity (Garrison et al 2001)
A strong correlation exists between and insturctors presence and student

In terms of pedagogy - what behaviours can tell you that there is presence?- design a framework using content analysis but what is now apparent is that content analysis isn't enough on it's own (good for transferability though) so:

"If any group of scholars ought to be interested in CMC, it is linguists. Indeed, CMC is arguably the greatest boon to the study of language use since the invernstion of the protable tape recorder in the 1950s."

(Herring, 1996, p.155).

What the Research Tells Us:
1: Corpora - Reasearch indicates that gender and other structural inequalities do exist and operate within this medium. Social markers are cues and may mirror power imbalances and other inequalities present in society (Yates 1997)

2: Content Analysis - Although remaining as an area for investigation patterns of group engagement as viewed in the terms of social and cognitive presence have been found to vary over time (Richardson and Richardson and Swan, 2003)

3: Discourse Analysis: highlights the manner in which students are aware of institutional and situational factors such ast eh need to perform for assessment (Jacobs and Cook 2004)

What are the main questions to join these frameworks together:
What is the experience of CMC in the learning and practise of creative writing?
What if any is the relevance of CMC for the development on the creative writer?

Research Design and Methods
Interpretivist, Constructionist epistemology
Mixed methods: Interview, transcripts
Discourse analysis; content analysis, network analysis

Heather seeking to use concepts developed by Jonathan Potter, but would consider how to adapt for online environment.

Network Analysis - exchange patterns are defined as "the recurrent transactions which begin to charcterize the interaction among specific members of groups." (Fayer)

What is the main question: how the social fits in with the meaning-making of the group (around creative writing)

Ian Wilcox: Multimedia and Live Performance - Developing an Infrastructure fo Support Creativity

Is is possible to have a tool for performance and what might that tool look like?

Activities: Survey of multimedia use in Live Performance, Creative activity, System Development
Outcomes: resource for artists, awareness of activity
Criteria for Success: Development and promotion of diverse, innovative and creative activity using multimedia and live performance

Taxonomy of usage:
gathering input from performers or users
gathering information about the environment
outputting and presenting information
controlling devices and systems
Processing information

Initial Results of what should be in the s