For readers of German, the Leibniz School of Education in Hannover, Germany has a nice write-up of the talk I gave there on “Post-Cinematic Realism” back in July. The material I presented there will also appear in my forthcoming book, Discorrelated Images.
Flyer for my Introduction to Media class for Fall 2019. Not too different from past iterations of the flyer, but this time including a couple of TL;DR tweets, which are probably not legible above:
On July 3, 2019, I delivered a talk related to my forthcoming book, Discorrelated Images, at Leuphana Universität’s Institute of Advanced Study on Media Cultures of Computer Simulation (MECS), during my fellowship in Lüneburg. The video is now online, and can be viewed here (or the direct link to YouTube).
Thanks to Florian Hoof for the kind invitation, and for everyone at MECS and the Center for Digital Cultures for hosting me this summer!
Yesterday was the first event on my trip to Germany and Switzerland: the symposium Videographic Criticism: Aesthetics and Methods of the Video Essay, organized by Kathleen Loock, and with talks/screenings from her, Allison de Fren, Chloé Galibert-Laîné and Kevin B. Lee, Liz Greene, David Verdeure, and myself.
Above, you will find my video contribution, “The Algorithmic Nickelodeon,” which builds on work started at the Duke S-1: Speculative Sensation Lab during my time there as a postdoc. The video is offered as proof-of-concept for an experimental approach to videographic theory–using video not (only) as a vehicle for theoretical expression but as a more radically transductive medium of media-theoretical exploration and transformation.
On June 26, 2019, I’ll be giving a talk titled “Desktop Horror: Screening Fear/Fearing Screens” at the Culture/Literature Research Colloquium at the JFK Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Thanks to Frank Kelleter, Alexander Starre, and everyone else involved for inviting me and making this happen!
This week, thanks to a kind invitation from Julia Leyda, I have been in Trondheim, Norway, where I’ve led two workshops on videographic scholarship and pedagogy with Kathleen Loock and, today, gave a talk on “Screen Time.” Tomorrow, March 29, 2019, I will head down south, where I will be speaking on “The Horror of Discorrelation” at University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. Thanks to Ahmet Gürata for inviting me!
Coming up in a few weeks: N. Katherine Hayles will be joining the Digital Aesthetics Workshop to present some of her latest research. This session will take place in the Humanities Center Board Room, on Tues. Feb 12, from 5-7 PM. Her event is entitled Can Computers Create Meaning? A Cyber-Bio-Semiotic Perspective.
We anticipate a full event, so you must RSVP to this google form link. We will circulate Hayles’s paper, which she will briefly introduce and then invite conversation around it. Here is her abstract:
Can Computers Create Meaning? A Cyber-Bio-Semiotic Perspective
N. Katherine Hayles
One of the promising areas to understand how computers cognize is biosemiotics, a field that draws on C. S. Peirce’s semiotics to argue that all living organisms generate and understand meanings appropriate to their contexts, even plants and unicellular organisms. Although these approaches by such theorists as Jesper Hoffmeyer, Wendy Wheeler, and Terrence Deacon have considerable explanatory power, they share a common blind spot in arguing that such signifying capabilities apply only to living organisms, not computers. However, many of their objections to networked and programmed machines creating, disseminating and understanding meanings become moot if the relevant unit is considered to be human plus computer rather than either alone. The human species, this paper will argue, is in the midst of entering into a deep symbiosis with computational media. Still incomplete, this symbiosis is akin to endosymbiosis, where previously independently living organisms unite into a single entity, as happened for example with the absorption of mitochondria by eukaryotic cells. The paper will conclude by exploring the implications of this symbiosis-in-progress.
The latest issue of NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies has just come out. As always, it is freely accessible as an open-access publication, and it is chock full of articles, reviews, audiovisual essays, and a special section on “Mapping.”
Among the feature articles is an article I co-authored with Ruth Mayer on “Border Crossings: Serial Figures and the Evolution of Media” — a text that outlines some of the topics we covered in our research project within the DFG Research Unit on “Popular Seriality” from 2010 – 2013. This is a slightly revised translation of a text that first appeared in German in Frank Kelleter’s edited collection Populäre Serialität: Narration – Evolution – Distinktion. Zum seriellen Erzählen seit dem 19. Jahrhundert. We are happy to see this text made available in English, and especially happy that it found a home at NECSUS, which is the perfect venue for this transatlantic and interdisciplinary kind of media studies work.
Check out the whole issue here!
On December 17, 2018, I will be giving a talk titled “Participatory Horror: Glitches, Ghosts, and Networked Images” at the University of Siegen. Thanks to Marcel Hartwig and Daniel Stein for making this happen!
Introducing the inaugural Stanford – Leuphana Summer Academy:
Stanford–Leuphana Summer Academy 2019
»Against presentism. Historicizing mediality«
Thinking about technological changes or revolutions is often marked by a presentist, ahistorical mode of thinking and debate. Consider the contemporary discussion about »digital culture« and its technologies. The tropes mobilized are usually technicist and innovation- or even disruption-oriented, in both their affirmative and critical guises. Little attention is given to historical precursors of technologically driven social change. Even less attention is given to concepts and theories from other historical periods that might help investigate and understand our current predicament.
The Stanford-Leuphana Summer Academy seeks to change perspectives by focusing on concepts and theories that break with the myopia of presentism. In seeking to formulate a new research area in terms of other periods (e.g. premodern or early modern) and fields (e.g. anthropology, religious studies, art history, etc.), this 5-day seminar seeks to historicize mediality in productive and innovative ways. If »digital cultures« are not only modernity’s final product, but also brought an end to modernity, then it might be inspiring to think about digital cultures beyond or apart from modern concepts. What terms are historically specific for an age or culture, and what concepts apply broadly to various phenomena from the premodern to the present age? In what ways do preliterate, oral, or ritualistic cultures intersect with digital modes of information? How can these other perspectives change our thinking about the present?
Key terms:»ritual«, »authorship«, »sovereignty«, »arcane«, »orality«, »participation«, »public sphere«, »social construction of time«, »art«, »literature«, »history«, »philosophy«, »history of science«, »historiography«
Date: June 24 – 28, 2019
Location: Stanford Berlin, »Haus Cramer«, Pacelliallee 18, 14195 Berlin
Faculty
- Timon Beyes (Sociology of Organisation and Culture, Leuphana)
- Shane Denson (Film and Media Studies, Stanford)
- Elena Esposito (Sociology, Modena/Reggio Emilia)
- Marisa Galvez (French, Italian, and German Studies, Stanford)
- Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht (Comparative Literature and German Studies, Stanford)
- Thomas Macho (Cultural History, IFK Vienna)
- Karla Oeler (Film and Media Studies, Stanford)
- Claus Pias (History and Epistemology of Media, Leuphana)
- Fred Turner (Communication, Stanford)
- Sigrid Weigel (Literature and Cultural Science, Berlin)
Application
All applications must be submitted electronically in PDF format. Please submit your CV (1-2 pages) along with a 500-word abstract of your topic, and a short letter of intent explaining why you would like to attend this Summer Academy.
Please use the following naming convention for your application files:Lastname_CV.pdf, Lastname_Abstract.pdf, Lastname_Letter_of_Intent.pdf.
Please email your applications to Nelly Y. Pinkrah (nelly.pinkrah@leuphana.de).
This summer school is designed for graduate students. The deadline for applications for the summer school is December 15, 2018. All applicants will be informed about the selection of participants by end of January 2019. The working language of the Summer Academy will be English.
The organizers will cover travel (economy) and accommodation costs for the time of the summer school. No additional fees will be charged.
Contact
Claus Pias (pias@leuphana.de)
Please spread the word to graduate students who might benefit from an interdisciplinary effort to rethink mediality and its relation to history.