Mit Cms/w

Newspapers and magazines are reducing their critical coverage of the arts, but the human appetite to evaluate culture, to debate reactions and opinions, remains as vibrant as ever. Panelists Doug McLennan (editor of ArtsJournal.com) and Bill Marx (editor of TheArtsFuse.com) discuss how cyberspace is transforming arts journalism, in some cases radically redefining its form and content. The forum debates what critical values from the traditional media should survive, explores how digital media is changing the ways we articulate our responses to the arts, and points to promising contemporary business models and experiments in cultural coverage.

In 1897, the year H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man was published, Marconi filed his patent and established the first station for wireless telegraphy, what would become radio. Wells’s novel reads as if it were an instruction manual for the uses and abuses of the nascent radio voice. In this podcast, Picker argues that, in conjunction with the racist basis of much fin-de-siecle anxiety, the acousmatic status of Wells’s protagonist allows for a conspicuous if incoherent racial performance. This performance tests the limits of Wells’s sympathetic imagination even as it further amplifies the voice of Griffin, the Invisible Man. Picker begins with Wells’s story and goes on to show how, when one attends to questions of voice and sound technologies in several different media, the racial and ethnic dimensions that become audible forge invisible connections among modes of art that we have been taught to keep distinct. Tracing a transatlantic route from fiction to radio and sound film back to fiction, this approach offers

Many people talk about “cinematic” games, but what does this really mean? Over their century of existence, films have been using a range of techniques to create specific emotional responses in their audience. Instead of simply using more cut-scenes, better script writers, or making more heavily scripted game experiences, game designers can look to film techniques as an inspiration for new techniques that accentuate what games do well. This lecture presents film clips from a number of classic movies, analyzes how they work from a cinematic standpoint, and then suggests ways these techniques can be used in gameplay to create even more stimulating experiences for gamers, including examples from games that have successfully bridged the gap. Richard Rouse III is a game designer and writer, best known for The Suffering horror games and his book Game Design: Theory & Practice. He is currently the Lead Single Player Designer on the story-driven first-person shooter Homefront at Kaos Studios in New York City.

Remixers are on the front lines of the battle between new media technologies and impeding copyright laws that threaten to obstruct the public discursive space for critiquing popular culture. These spaces are abundant with meticulously crafted and articulate video remixes that deconstruct social myths, challenge dominant media messages and form powerful arguments reflecting the participatory nature of both pop and remix cultures. We’ll deconstruct these videos, honor the history of female fan vidders and the influences of African-American hip-hop cultures and debate the remix’s ability to effect actual change. Elisa Kreisinger is a video remix artist, hacktivist, and writer. She co-edits the blog, PoliticalRemixVideo.com, teaches new media to Cambridge teens and is currently working on her first screenplay.

The election of an African-American president in November 2008 has been hailed as a transforming event. But has Obama’s ascension transformed anything? Many people’s answer to that question changed this summer when a famous Harvard professor was arrested at his home in Cambridge. Are the harsh realities of race and class in the U.S. clearer now or murkier, following the media tsunami of Gatesgate? And has this polarizing event given greater visibility to racial minorities in the media’s coverage of politics? How are race issues and racial politics covered in our national media, and what are the implications of the demise of major city newspapers for the coverage of race and politics? Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News discussed these and related questions in a candid conversation with Phillip Thompson, associate professor of urban politics in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, and David Thorburn, Professor of Literature and Director of the MIT Communications Forum. This forum is the first of

Hanna Rose Shell, a historian and media artist, is as Assistant Professor in the Program on Science, Technology and Society at MIT. This was a talk about camouflage framed by the question of “how not to be seen”–in film, on film, as film. In the first part, Shell introduced “how not to be seen” in terms of the aspiration for, and actualization of concealment in both filmic and natural ecologies through mixed-media practices that simultaneously incorporate and subvert the photographic media of reconnaissance. In the second part, Shell screened and discussed her film-in-progress, called Blind, about the phenomenology of camouflage. Blind as in blindness, and blind as in that actively constructed structure intended for the concealment of a hunter from her game. Shell’s book Hide and Seek: Camouflage and the Media of Reconnaissance will be published by Zone Books.

A long lifetime of developing electronic consumer products has taken Ralph Baer from vacuum tube through microprocessor designs. Although the technology has undergone vast changes, the underlying motivation for, and execution of, the process has not changed radically. Baer cited numerous examples of specific product designs that made it all the way through the process to a successful product and drew some conclusions from that experience that shed some light on the continuum of invention, development, and marketing novel product ideas.

Presidential elections are considered decisions on politicians’ virtues and reflections of public values. On an ongoing basis, polling data and snap punditry engorge the body politic between elections. Taken together, these judgments on leadership and partisanship – on statecraft and stagecraft – lie at the core of democracy today. Tucker Eskew explores the permanent campaign of the last ten years. What is “message discipline” in an era of atomized opinion leadership – a necessity or a fool’s errand? Are the parties inevitably devoted to different styles of communication, and is this era’s favored approach inextricably the domain of the new Administration? Can unfettered dialogue, as an expression of freedom, be a pure benefit to society, or is “Fire!” being texted in a crowded coffee house? Consistent with his conservatism, Eskew will have firm answers to some of these and other questions. Reflecting his consulting firm ViaNovo’s “new ways”, he welcomed dialogue on all.

Claude Mussou, INA France Pelle Snickars, Swedish National Archive Richard Wright, BBC Research and Information Moderator: William Uricchio, MIT and Utrecht University

Gavin Grant, Small Bear Press Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maass Literary Agency Robert Miller, HarperCollins Bob Stein, Institute for the Future of the Book Moderator: Geoff Long, MIT

Mary Bryson, University of British Columbia Marlene Manoff, MIT Libraries John Durham Peters, University of Iowa Thomas Pettitt, University of Southern Denmark Moderator: James Paradis, MIT Writing and Humanistic Studies

Jessica Clark, Center for Social Media (American University) Ellen Hume, Center for Future Civic Media (MIT) Persephone Miel, Media Re:public and Internews Network Respondents: Dean Jansen, Participatory Culture Foundation Jake Shapiro, Public Radio Exchange (PRX) Moderator: Pat Aufderheide, American University

John Miles Foley, Univ. of Missouri Lisa Gitelman, Harvard Univ. Rick Prelinger, Prelinger Archives Ann Wolpert, MIT Libraries Moderator: Peter Walsh, Andover Newton Theological School

This panel explored theoretical, methodological, and practical issues surrounding the study of media circulation in an age of increasing global connectivity. “Global media” often serves as a placeholder for media outside Anglo-American academic settings, with “global” gesturing towards “Other” media ecologies. This panel brought together scholars and practitioners who wrestle with the simultaneous indispensability and inadequacy of Anglo-American paradigms – both for media practitioners and scholars – in Asian, African, and Latin American contexts. In what ways can we move away from the “national” as the pre-eminent analytic frame? How do media producers in the global south grapple with the challenges and opportunities of globalization? What role are audiences playing in shaping media circuits? In tackling these and other questions, panelists Jonathan Gray, Communication and Media Studies, Fordham University; Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia; Af

Chris Claremont is best known for his 17 year unbroken run on the X-Men comic series — a feat in world building that has supported many uses, from comics to movies to video games and more. Now Chris is returning to that world, with a new comics series titled X-Men Forever. This time, the rules are different. Mr. Claremont addressed thoughts and considerations that go into building a world that can support years of use, and variations. How has the concept of world-building changed over time? What is the purpose of continuity? Multiplicity? How to take into account growth and risk, and play outside the rules.

A discussion about the inducement of pleasure, fantasy fulfillment, and the mediation of intimacy in a socially-networked gaming paradigm such as World of Warcraft (WOW) this event was held in conjunction with the exhibition SHADA/JAHN/VAUCELLE, “Hollowed,” which includes the WOW Pod, a collaborative project by Cati Vaucelle & Shada/Jahn. Panelists included Jean-Baptiste Labrune, Postdoctoral Associate at the Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab; Raimundas Malasauskas, Curator, Artists Space (NYC); Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program; Marisa Jahn, Artist in Residence, MIT Media Lab; Steve Shada, artist collaborator; Cati Vaucelle, PhD candidate Tangible Media Group, MIT Media Lab; and Laura Knott, Curatorial Associate, MIT Museum.

The widespread adoption of computer-based methods of digital recording technology has profoundly changed film scoring practices around the globe, not least in Hollywood. This panel will explore those changes with attention to current techniques compared to those of past generations. Our speakers, Paul Chihara of UCLA and Dan Carlin of the Berklee College of Music, are widely respected professional film scorers as well as teachers. Drawing on their own experiences in film production, they explored the decisive changes in personnel, economics, and stylistic values at work in Hollywood today. Moderator Martin Marks of MIT provided historical perspectives and guided the discussion with questions for the panelists concerning the music of landmark films past and present.

A fluid text is any work that exists in multiple versions. What are the ethics and legality in the creation, sharing, and ownership of textual versions? What are the boundaries of textual appropriation? How does technology abet appropriation; how might it assist in the useful designation of boundaries? Is the law keeping up? Hofstra University professor John Bryant explores the larger applications of the notion of fluid text to culture, and in particular identity formation in a multicultural democracy. Wendy Seltzer is a Fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and is a visiting professor at American University. She founded and leads the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, helping Internet users to understand their rights in response to cease-and-desist threats, and to research the effects of these threats on free expression.

In humans, gender–femininity, masculinity–is an array of performed behaviors, from dressing in certain clothes to walking and talking in certain ways. These behaviors are both socially and historically shaped, but are also contingent upon many situational influences, including individual choices. Female and male bodies alike can perform a variety of femininities and masculinities. What can human gender(ed) practices and performances tell us about how humanoid robots are gendered, and vice versa? Jennifer Robertson, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, explored and interrogated the gendering of humanoid robots manufactured today in Japan for use in the home and workplace. She showed that Japanese roboticists assign gender to their creations based on rigid assumptions about female and male sex and gender roles. Thus, humanoid robots can productively be understood as the vanguard of a “posthuman sexism,” and are being developed in a socio-political climate of reactionary conservatism.

Robert Putnam has suggested that the political consciousness and civic engagement of the post-World War II generation may have taken shape in bowling alleys and other spaces where community members gathered. Might the political consciousness of the new generation be taking shape in and around popular culture? Are we seeing a blurring of the roles of citizen and consumer? Is this fusion between entertainment and news a good or a bad thing? What links exist between our cultural and our political preferences? How are activists and political leaders utilizing metaphors from popular culture as resources to mobilize their supporters? Is it possible that aspects of our popular culturemay generate utopian visions that fuel political change? These and other questions were explored by panelists Johanna Blakley, deputy director of the Norman Lear Center at USC; David Carr, media and culture writer for the New York Times; and Stephen Duncombe, associate professor at NYU and author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Polit