Anglia Ruskin University

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ARCDigital to co-host Network Politics event

As part of the AHRC funded 'Exploring New Configurations in Network Politics' ARCDigital will be co-hosting, with the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media, Ryerson University, a symposium: 'Network Politics: Objects, Subjects and New Political Affects' in Toronto on 22 - 23 October 2010.

For more information please visit the project website.

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Dr Jussi Parikka wins prestigious fellowship

Dr Jussi Parikka, Director of the CoDE research institute and Co-Director of ARCDigital, has won a prestigious Alexander von Humboldt foundation fellowship for Spring 2011. The fellowship allows Parikka to work with Humboldt University's Media Studies Department in Berlin and write his new book on media archaeology, contracted with Polity Press.

Media archaeology is an emerging methodological and theoretical approach to themes of media history in the age of digital culture, as well as the changing notions of archive in the midst of web 2.0 culture. It represents one of the new key trends in media studies. Parikka has published extensively on the topic, and the co-edited volume Media Archaeologies is forthcoming early 2011 from University of California Press. In addition, Parikka has already won a short-term fellowship with the London Science Museum.

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ARCDigital Director publishes major new interview on media theory and arts

Dr Jussi Parikka was recently interviewed by Garnet Hertz for Ctheory - an international peer-reviewed journal of theory, technology and culture. In conversation with Hertz, Parikka talks about media archaeological methods in cultural analysis and artistic work, especially media arts.

The co-edited volume (with Erkki Huhtamo, UCLA) 'Media Archaeologies' is forthcoming 2010/2011 from University of California Press, and he is also currently writing a new book on media archaeology for Polity Press, as well as blogging on the subject.

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Thinking Network Politics: Methods, Epistemology, Process

An ARCDigital conference

Date: 25-26 March 2010
Venue: St. George's House, Cambridge

Fee: £25 (full) and £15 (concession for students, including PhD students)

This is the first event for the AHRC funded project 'Exploring New Configurations in Network Politics'. For more information please visit the project website.

Conference bookings can be made via the Anglia Ruskin Online Store.

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Beyond reference: Eclectic Method's music for the eyes

Professor Nicholas Cook talks on musical multimedia at Anglia Ruskin University

Date: Tuesday 11 May 2010
Time: 17:00 - 18:15
Location: Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, Helmore 252

Free entry - all welcome.

Screen media genres from Fantasia (1940) to the music video of half a century later extended the boundaries of music by bringing moving images within the purview of musical organisation: the visuals of rap videos, for example, are in essence just another set of musical parameters, bringing their own connotations into play within the semantic mix in precisely the same way as do more traditional musical parameters. But in the last two decades digital technology has taken such musicalisation of the visible to a new level, with the development of integrated software tools for the editing and manipulation of sounds and images. In this paper I illustrate these developments through the work of the UK-born but US-based remix trio Eclectic Method, focussing in particular on the interaction between their multimedia compositional procedures and the complex chains of reference that result, in particular, from their film mashups.

Professor Nicholas Cook is currently Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of Darwin College. Previously, he was Professorial Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he directed the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). He has also taught at the University of Hong Kong, University of Sydney, and University of Southampton, where he served as Dean of Arts. He is a former editor of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001.

The talk is organized by the Cultures of the Digital Economy (CoDE) Institute at Anglia Ruskin University and the Anglia Research Centre in Digital Culture (ArcDigital).

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Co-director publishes new article

Dr Jussi Parikka, Director of CoDE and co-director of ARCDigital, has just had a new article of his published in the media art collection Verbinding/Jonctions 10 - Tracks in Electr(on)ic fields. The piece is called "Insects, Affects and Imagining New Sensoriums" and focuses on the posthuman ideas in media design and media history.

Parikka argues that several media artistic work actually touch the non-human affects, and capacities of sensation, and hence point towards a new way of understanding perception and embodiment.

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February ARCDigital talk by J. Nathan Matias

Operational Media: Functional Design Trends Online

Date: Tuesday 16 February 2010
Time: 17.00-18.00
Venue: Helmore 252, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge

All welcome.

Two prominent visions have guided the development of Internet technology from its beginning: the never-ending information space of creativity and information; and the networked tool for action. Now that markets for media production and search are saturated and stalling, second generation web tech has shifted focus to media that helps people make decisions and get things done. This lecture provides an introduction to key issues in the information design and software engineering of operational media.

For more information on J.Nathan Matias please see his personal website.

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ARCDigital co-director appointed as CoDE director

The Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences is pleased to announce the start of the Directorship of CoDE by Dr Jussi Parikka. Dr Parikka will be working alongside co-director Dr Samantha Rayner.

The Cultures of the Digital Economy research institute (CoDE) has been formed as a collaboration between the Faculty of Arts, Law, and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and Technology and Inspire to pursue research related to digital culture and the digital economy.

Alongside our other Institutes, it is part of a new impetus to engage in interdisciplinary research that pushes the boundaries of knowledge. It aims to participate strongly towards our Corporate Plan objectives of enhancing research income, research students, knowledge transfer and scholarly publications.

For more information please see the full news item on the ALSS website.

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