WEBVTT
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...and sort of debate and discuss
all the things she brings up.
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- So, Tara McPherson!
- Thank you very much.
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(audience applauds)
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I told my graduate students
I was coming to the DH mothership, so...
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(audience laughs)
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It feels good to be here.
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And I've obviously followed the work
that comes out of this space
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for a very long time,
so it's nice to be here.
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I kind of break what I understand
to be protocol here a little bit
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by doing a mix of talking and reading,
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because I'm working
through some new ideas
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and I actually find writing and reading
still really useful for that
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as well as in the kind of context
of making.
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And the title has changed a little bit,
because I was supposed to be here
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last fall, doing a talk on databases,
but hurricane Sandy had other ideas!
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I was not here.
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And I'm really happy to have
finally made the program.
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So...
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I'm going to talk in a vein
that characterizes some of the recent work
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I've been doing,
in an attempt to hold together
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my schizophrenic identities.
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And primarily that's a deep commitment
to forms of theoretical inquiry
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and post-structuralist scholarship
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with an interest in the making
and doing of the digital.
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And I've been engaged in trying to force
these different parts of myself together
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for a little while,
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and I'm kind of continuing in that vein.
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In his very kind of purposefully
provocative essay
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that first was on the blog
and then later included
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in the Debates in the Digital Humanities
book here in its digital form,
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Alan Liu really argues "the digital
humanities are noticeably missing
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"in action on the cultural critical scene.
Where the digital humanists
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"develop tools, data and metadata,
critically,
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"rarely do they extend their critique
to the full register of society,
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"economics, politics or culture."
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And these debates aren't entirely new.
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Liu first delivered a kind of pacifist
at the MLA in Los Angeles,
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but your own Martha Nell Smith
has for quite awhile been interested
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in variations of many of these questions.
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And Martha has narrated a particular
history of humanities computing,
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you know, as the field was known
for many years before it was rebranded,
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under the sign of the digital humanities,
as a kind of reaction formation
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to "the concerns that had taken over
so much of academic work and literature
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those of gender, race, class
and sexuality."
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Today I want to consider some recent
variations on this debate,
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which is longstanding and ongoing,
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around the role of cultural theory
within the digital humanities
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and its close analogs.
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And in order to argue
for a theoretically explicit form
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of digital praxis
within the digital humanities.
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And in doing this I also take seriously
recent claims by colleagues in the UK
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like Gary Hall, that the very goals
of critical theory
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and of quantitative or computational study
might in fact be incommensurable.
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He's recently written
a very interesting piece
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that'll be in a special issue
of American Literature
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that I co-edited this winter,
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making precisely that argument.
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And the goals of critical
theoretical inquiry
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in the humanities interpretive traditions
are not compatible
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with computational analysis
that they proceed from.
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And while I don't agree with him entirely,
it's an interesting
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and provocative argument.
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And he goes on to conclude
that their productive combination
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will require far more time and care
than has been devoted to that endeavor
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thus far.
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As such, I ask what it might mean
to design from the very conception
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digital tools and applications
that emerge from the concerns
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of cultural theory.
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And in particular from a feminist concern
for difference.
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This need to attend
with more time and care
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to potential intersections of theory
and the digital humanities
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has been the subject of recent
and often heated online discussions,
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conference panels, various publications,
Twitter wars, you name it.
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Groups of emerging scholars
have organized
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under such rubrics as "Transform DH",
"In DH Poco",
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in order to catalyze just such exchanges.
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And have recently formed the FemTechNet
organization.
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If you're not aware of FemTechNet,
it's a kind of anti-MOOC
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underway right now, being taught
with a very large list
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of feminist collaborators
under the leadership of Anne Balsamo
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and Alex Juhasz.
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One online forum initiated by
Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam
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on the postcolonial digital humanities
in May 2013
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fostered a lively and sometimes heated
debate in response to the question:
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is DH a refuge?
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I'm not even sure what that meant, exactly
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but from race, class,
gender and sexuality.
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I'll not attempt to summarize
the conversation that transpired here.
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If I were to scroll down
it would go on almost infinitely.
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And Adeline and Roopika have already
kind of storified it
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in a variety of ways,
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so you can find their summary elsewhere.
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Including an interesting experiment
on a shared Google Doc
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where folks could critique
how they summed up their own statement.
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I do want to zero in on a few points
in this exchange
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to stage the beginnings of a claim
for a particular mode
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of enacting the digital humanities.
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Or following Katie King, one might
say "re-enacting the humanities".
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Entering into the--
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I don't know if you'll be able
to read this,
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but I'll summarize some of it
for you.
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Entering into the forum's fray
by in his words
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"tapping on his cell phone"
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meaning that there weren't really
considered keyboard-linked responses,
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but still pretty hefty responses to be
doing it from your cellphone keyboard,
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Ian Bogost wrote "On the one hand
anyone who believes computational platforms
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"are transparent doesn't really
understand those platforms,
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"but on the other, a blind focus
on identity politics
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"above all other concerns,
has partly prevented humanists
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"from deeply exploring the technical
nature of computer systems
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"in order to grasp
those very understandings."
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Bogost's insistence that we must
explore the technical nature
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of the computer
resonates with various formulations
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in the digital humanities,
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even though I don't think Ian himself
would necessarily claim membership
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in the tribe of DH...
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Although he might, you never know
on a given day.
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It aligns as well with a good deal
of digital media studies
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including hardware and software studies,
where end research has been prolific
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and important.
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It's an insight that's also fueled
my own work.
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In the conversation that then spools
throughout the thread,
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as you scroll down here,
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Ian goes on to observe that
"doing hardware and software studies
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"sometimes requires one
to bracket identity
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"even if just for a moment,
in order to learn something
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"in the latter's service.
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"But those of us who do that work
are frequently chided
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"for failing to focus all energy
and all attention at all times
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"on the accuser's notion
of what comprises the entire discourse
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"of social justice."
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I find two things especially curious
in this formulation.
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First, it's interesting that a forum
originally framed quite broadly,
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it's about the intermingling of race,
class, gender and sexuality
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and disability in the digital humanities,
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quickly moves to a discussion
of identity politics
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as the natural or likely terrain
for such concerns.
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Later in the forum, Anne Balsamo
observes that there are certainly
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many ways to address questions
of feminism and of difference
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that do not narrowly default
to identity politics.
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And she points the forum
to the work of feminist philosopher
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Karen Barad.
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In her book, Designing Culture,
Balsamo builds upon Barad's theory
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of intra-actions,
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in order to develop a complex model
of design practice
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that understands the relationship
between materiality and discursivity
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between objects and subjects
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and between nature and culture
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to be fluid, open-ended and contingent.
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In such a model, design of technologies,
of software, of code,
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proceeds from an acknowledgement
of our messy entanglements
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with matter and with each other.
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For Barad, to be entangled is not simply
to be intertwined with another,
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it's in the joining of separate entities,
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but to lack an independent,
self-contained existence.
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Given this formulation, a second element
of the forum exchange
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from this website stands out.
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The notion of the bracketing of identity,
or of other things,
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other aspects of culture
that might prevent one
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from accessing properly
the technical nature of the computer.
00:09:13.085 --> 00:09:16.528
Similar ideas surface in a number
of moments across the discussion.
00:09:16.528 --> 00:09:21.009
For instance, Andrew Smart observes
the "Digital technology
00:09:21.114 --> 00:09:24.435
"at its lowest level relies
on the physical laws
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"of how information is represented
in voltage.
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"The way computers and networks work
is determined,
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"or may be very constrained
by the laws of physics."
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Is this you, Travis?
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(Travis) Yes, it is.
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I had no idea you were here!
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Sorry, but here we're going to go
for a little bit into Lambda the Ultimate.
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When you introduced yourself
00:09:47.972 --> 00:09:49.505
my ears went PING!
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The tendency to describe computation
as a series of levels
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increasingly abstracted from culture,
surfaces in other online venues as well.
00:10:00.971 --> 00:10:04.201
A further interesting example
is found at Lambda the ultimate,
00:10:04.201 --> 00:10:08.571
a site that "deals with issues
directly related to programming languages
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"and is largely populated by programmers."
00:10:11.711 --> 00:10:15.940
On May 5th 2010, Travis Brown,
here in living flesh,
00:10:16.268 --> 00:10:17.950
created a forum there
00:10:17.950 --> 00:10:21.600
under the heading "critical code studies",
asking the Lambda community
00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:24.567
to reflect on the idea
of critical code studies
00:10:24.567 --> 00:10:27.874
as articulated by new media scholar
Mark Marino,
00:10:27.874 --> 00:10:32.210
including a link to a CFP
and essay by Marino,
00:10:32.210 --> 00:10:36.643
as well as to essays by Katherine Hayles
and Rita Raley.
00:10:37.179 --> 00:10:39.673
The ensuing discussion
lasted several days.
00:10:40.143 --> 00:10:42.500
While a few contributors were intrigued
by the possibility
00:10:42.500 --> 00:10:46.310
that cultural theory might be useful
in the study of code,
00:10:46.310 --> 00:10:47.637
including Travis,
00:10:47.637 --> 00:10:49.102
many were skeptical,
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or rejected the idea pretty much
out of hand.
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So, these are some fairly typical comments
gleaned from this forum.
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This is actually an essay forthcoming
in the feminist journal Differences
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and I attend to some of the other comments
from this forum in that list as well.
00:11:08.103 --> 00:11:10.504
But I bet you never imagined
when you posted this
00:11:10.504 --> 00:11:13.300
that it would end up in the pages
of Differences, right?
00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:14.508
(Travis) No!
00:11:16.344 --> 00:11:21.476
The comments begin to kind of replay
a lot of the same kind of argument I think,
00:11:21.476 --> 00:11:24.609
that code at the end functions
or it doesn't,
00:11:24.609 --> 00:11:26.839
and at some level,
if it's going to function
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it really can't have that much
to do with culture and society.
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It's functional or it's not functional,
as one commenter says,
00:11:34.604 --> 00:11:38.038
"what I mean is that the sociological
aspects of code
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"are not in the code itself."
00:11:40.141 --> 00:11:43.474
And I think that is actually something
we don't know for sure,
00:11:43.474 --> 00:11:45.536
and I would hold that
as an open question,
00:11:45.536 --> 00:11:50.166
that perhaps there are ways
that we might come to understand culture
00:11:50.166 --> 00:11:54.742
as quite deeply embedded
in our systems, infrastructures
00:11:54.742 --> 00:11:55.807
and code.
00:11:56.268 --> 00:12:00.377
In these examples, code functions
much as Andrew Smart imagines it does.
00:12:00.377 --> 00:12:04.006
In a realm determined by math, physics,
or reason,
00:12:04.006 --> 00:12:06.806
apart from the messy realms
of culture.
00:12:08.205 --> 00:12:12.106
This tendency to frame computational
technologies in "levels",
00:12:12.106 --> 00:12:13.803
you know, kind of nested layers,
00:12:13.803 --> 00:12:18.939
is also reflected in the description
of the bulk series "Platform Studies"
00:12:19.299 --> 00:12:23.976
published by MIT Press, with editors
Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort.
00:12:24.976 --> 00:12:28.274
In the website that describes
the Platform Studies series,
00:12:28.274 --> 00:12:32.708
Bogost and Montfort offer a chart
delineating the five stacked levels
00:12:32.708 --> 00:12:35.335
of analysis of new media studies.
00:12:35.635 --> 00:12:40.312
So, we move from "reception and operation"
to "interface", to "form and function",
00:12:40.312 --> 00:12:42.509
to "code" to "platform".
00:12:42.770 --> 00:12:45.144
And most of the cultural stuff
happens up here
00:12:45.144 --> 00:12:47.545
in the ways those descriptions
are understood.
00:12:47.545 --> 00:12:49.775
Some of you may be flashing back
to Jameson,
00:12:49.775 --> 00:12:52.672
if you ever had that past, right?
00:12:52.947 --> 00:12:56.509
The nitty gritty technological,
really important stuff
00:12:56.509 --> 00:13:01.941
in the framing of book series
happens down at the level of platform.
00:13:03.102 --> 00:13:05.838
And, potentially at the level of code
as well,
00:13:05.838 --> 00:13:09.333
but there's a very particular
kind of system
00:13:09.333 --> 00:13:13.841
of privilege built in
to the way the analysis operates.
00:13:14.704 --> 00:13:19.845
Platform is framed as the foundation layer
"an abstraction layer beneath code."
00:13:20.414 --> 00:13:23.443
And even in the title of the series
Platform Studies
00:13:23.443 --> 00:13:25.372
it's obviously given primacy.
00:13:26.004 --> 00:13:29.211
A later revision of this chart
in their book Raising the Beam
00:13:29.211 --> 00:13:33.710
encloses these five levels,
following some critique of this diagram.
00:13:33.710 --> 00:13:37.309
It encloses these five levels
in a chart labelled "culture".
00:13:37.512 --> 00:13:38.534
(audience laughs)
00:13:38.534 --> 00:13:40.403
A box encloses those layers,
00:13:40.403 --> 00:13:44.770
and the authors stress "we see all
of these levels
00:13:44.770 --> 00:13:48.138
"not just the top level of reception
and operation"
00:13:48.138 --> 00:13:50.433
which on this website is where culture
is located,
00:13:50.433 --> 00:13:55.959
"as being situated in culture, society,
economy and history."
00:13:55.959 --> 00:13:58.599
Yet the very model of discreet
boxed layers,
00:13:58.599 --> 00:14:02.601
neatly enclosed in the larger box
of history puts into place
00:14:02.601 --> 00:14:06.499
a conceptual framework
that undervalues entanglements
00:14:06.499 --> 00:14:07.737
and interactions,
00:14:07.737 --> 00:14:13.535
encouraging a focus on individual layers
rather than a focus on the complex ways
00:14:13.535 --> 00:14:16.673
in which the layers themselves
come into being,
00:14:16.673 --> 00:14:19.631
delineate particular possibilities
and boundaries
00:14:19.631 --> 00:14:23.194
and foreclose potential futures
and becomings.
00:14:23.702 --> 00:14:27.005
Obviously we need to focus
our scholarly attention somewhere,
00:14:27.005 --> 00:14:30.371
on particular themes, processes
or ideas,
00:14:30.371 --> 00:14:32.963
but the models we work from
are important.
00:14:32.963 --> 00:14:39.033
To follow Barad, if matter matters,
how we focus on matter also matters.
00:14:40.067 --> 00:14:42.902
Despite this critique, I value
and learn from the work
00:14:42.902 --> 00:14:46.467
of code and Platform Studies,
in particular from Ian's work
00:14:46.467 --> 00:14:50.099
and careful examinations
of particular platforms.
00:14:51.534 --> 00:14:55.064
And from the digital humanities practices
more generally.
00:14:55.064 --> 00:14:57.604
I too have written at length
how hard it is
00:14:57.604 --> 00:15:02.129
to entangle examinations of code
with cultural critique.
00:15:02.562 --> 00:15:05.596
How easy it is to get into the lure
of the bracket.
00:15:05.596 --> 00:15:09.213
I've called for humanity scholars
to take code seriously
00:15:09.260 --> 00:15:11.003
and to learn to make things.
00:15:11.003 --> 00:15:13.583
Maybe not as vociferously
as Stephen Ramsay,
00:15:13.845 --> 00:15:14.811
(audience laughs)
00:15:14.811 --> 00:15:16.413
but certainly loudly!
00:15:16.413 --> 00:15:18.478
But I also worry
that the digital humanities
00:15:18.478 --> 00:15:20.384
code and platform studies,
00:15:20.384 --> 00:15:23.612
all too often center computation
and technology
00:15:23.612 --> 00:15:26.946
in a way that makes interaction
hard to discern.
00:15:27.473 --> 00:15:30.514
In fact, I've argued that this
conceptual bracketing,
00:15:30.514 --> 00:15:34.850
this singling out of code from culture,
is in itself part and parcel
00:15:34.850 --> 00:15:37.252
of the organization
of knowledge production
00:15:37.252 --> 00:15:42.049
that computation has disseminated
around the world for well over 50 years.
00:15:43.147 --> 00:15:46.082
In an essay that tracks the
entangled historical moment
00:15:46.082 --> 00:15:49.949
that produced new racial codes
and new forms of computation,
00:15:49.949 --> 00:15:53.681
I maintain that the development
of computer operating systems
00:15:53.681 --> 00:15:59.943
mid-century installed an extreme logic
of modularity that black-boxed knowledge
00:15:59.943 --> 00:16:06.211
in a manner quite similar to emerging
logics of racial visibility and racism.
00:16:06.211 --> 00:16:09.876
An operating system like UNIX
works by removing context
00:16:09.876 --> 00:16:12.319
and decreasing complexity.
00:16:12.912 --> 00:16:18.152
Early computers, from 1940 - 1960
had complex interdependent designs
00:16:18.152 --> 00:16:20.419
that were pre-modular.
00:16:20.784 --> 00:16:22.992
But the development of databases
would depend
00:16:22.992 --> 00:16:27.651
upon the modularity of UNIX
and languages like C and C++.
00:16:28.747 --> 00:16:30.886
We could see at work here
the basic contours
00:16:30.886 --> 00:16:34.815
of an approach to the world
that separates object from subject.
00:16:35.356 --> 00:16:38.791
Cause from effect, context from code.
00:16:38.791 --> 00:16:42.424
I am suggesting that there's something
particular to the very forms
00:16:42.424 --> 00:16:45.735
of digital culture that encourages
such a partitioning.
00:16:45.866 --> 00:16:49.988
A portioning off that also played out
in the increasing specialization
00:16:49.988 --> 00:16:51.717
of academic fields,
00:16:51.717 --> 00:16:56.073
and even in the formation of mini modes
of identity politics after World War II.
00:16:56.894 --> 00:16:59.728
We need conceptual models
for the digital humanities
00:16:59.728 --> 00:17:03.735
and for digital media studies
that do not rely upon the bracket,
00:17:03.735 --> 00:17:06.067
the module, the box,
or the partition.
00:17:06.560 --> 00:17:09.779
Feminist theory,
particularly theories of difference,
00:17:09.779 --> 00:17:11.734
has much to offer in this regard.
00:17:12.401 --> 00:17:15.966
Participants in both the DH Poco
and the Lambda forums,
00:17:15.966 --> 00:17:18.261
and in the digital humanities
more generally,
00:17:18.261 --> 00:17:20.899
call on humanist scholars
to learn to code,
00:17:20.899 --> 00:17:25.235
or at the very least, to require
advanced technological literacies.
00:17:25.524 --> 00:17:29.295
I agree, but I would also issue
a reciprocal call
00:17:29.295 --> 00:17:33.331
for coding humanists to engage
feminist phenomenology,
00:17:33.331 --> 00:17:37.197
postcolonial theory, and theorizations
of difference.
00:17:37.435 --> 00:17:41.999
Gender, race, sexuality, class, disability
might then be understood
00:17:41.999 --> 00:17:47.067
not as things that could simply be added
to our analyses, or to our metadata,
00:17:47.067 --> 00:17:50.899
but instead as operating principles
of a different order,
00:17:50.899 --> 00:17:54.628
always already coursing through discourse
and matter.
00:17:54.628 --> 00:17:58.167
And if we cannot study all discourse
and all matter at once,
00:17:58.167 --> 00:18:02.826
Barad offers up not the bracket,
but the agencial cut,
00:18:03.201 --> 00:18:05.189
a kind of movement,
a fluid movement
00:18:05.535 --> 00:18:10.133
as a method through which "in the absence
of a classic ontological condition,
00:18:10.133 --> 00:18:13.705
"of exteriority between observed
and observer,
00:18:13.705 --> 00:18:19.026
"we might enact a local, causal structure
among components of a phenomenon."
00:18:19.595 --> 00:18:23.077
And here I think there are analogies
to be drawn between Barad's work
00:18:23.077 --> 00:18:24.866
and, say, the work of Bruno Latour.
00:18:24.866 --> 00:18:27.429
A lot of ways to begin to think
about theorizing systems
00:18:27.429 --> 00:18:29.631
that don't depend upon the bracket.
00:18:30.527 --> 00:18:33.794
If bracketing tends to recapitulate
the modularity of code,
00:18:33.794 --> 00:18:36.902
treating difference, either at the level
of content,
00:18:36.902 --> 00:18:40.235
and here, difference becomes the thing
we fill our archives with,
00:18:40.235 --> 00:18:44.832
we build neutral archive platforms,
but we have one about women,
00:18:45.023 --> 00:18:48.633
and one about scholars of color,
and one about Native Americans.
00:18:48.633 --> 00:18:51.463
Or difference functions in the background.
00:18:51.463 --> 00:18:55.592
i.e. that box that wraps around
the different levels of technology.
00:18:55.592 --> 00:18:59.861
The cut as a methodological paradigm
is fluid and mobile,
00:18:59.861 --> 00:19:03.524
even as it recognizes
the constituitive work of difference.
00:19:04.293 --> 00:19:09.503
As Barad notes, cuts are part of phenomena
that they help to produce.
00:19:09.503 --> 00:19:14.196
Sarah Kember and Johanna Zylinska
in their recent book Life After New Media
00:19:14.196 --> 00:19:18.092
have highlighted the dual ontological
and ethical dimensions
00:19:18.092 --> 00:19:22.565
of Barad's agencial cut, observing
that the cut is a causal procedure
00:19:22.565 --> 00:19:26.263
that performs the division
of the world into entities,
00:19:26.263 --> 00:19:28.660
but it is also a decision.
00:19:29.255 --> 00:19:32.757
That is, where and how we focus matters.
00:19:32.894 --> 00:19:37.580
This concept of the cut resonates,
if unevenly and imprecisely,
00:19:37.580 --> 00:19:42.050
with tension with a number of feminist
conceptual paradigms.
00:19:42.050 --> 00:19:46.356
Including Katie King's re-enactments,
Chantal Mouffe's articulations
00:19:46.356 --> 00:19:49.424
Chela Sandoval's
differential consciousness
00:19:49.424 --> 00:19:52.190
and Jane Bennett's vital materiality.
00:19:52.617 --> 00:19:56.118
While these theoretical models
are as different as they are alike,
00:19:56.118 --> 00:20:00.236
they each offer ways to understand
relation between object and subject
00:20:00.236 --> 00:20:04.254
between discourse and matter,
between identity and difference.
00:20:04.786 --> 00:20:08.551
So, that was very long-winded
and not very DH-y.
00:20:08.700 --> 00:20:12.433
How might any of this matter at all
for the digital humanities?
00:20:12.433 --> 00:20:16.060
Alan Liu mantains that the appropriate
unique contribution
00:20:16.060 --> 00:20:20.768
that the digital humanities can make
to cultural criticism at the present time
00:20:20.768 --> 00:20:26.167
is to use the tools, paradigms
and concepts of digital technologies
00:20:26.167 --> 00:20:29.835
to help re-think the idea
of instrumentality.
00:20:30.703 --> 00:20:32.765
If a core activity
in the digital humanities
00:20:32.765 --> 00:20:36.969
has been the building of tools,
we should design our tools differently,
00:20:36.969 --> 00:20:41.598
in a mode the explicitly engages
power and difference from the get-go,
00:20:41.598 --> 00:20:45.637
laying bare our theoretical allegiances
and exploring the interactions
00:20:45.637 --> 00:20:47.993
of culture and matter.
00:20:48.729 --> 00:20:52.166
And I just want to, in the background,
have some slides up
00:20:52.166 --> 00:20:55.537
illustrating what I think are kind of
people already engaging this work,
00:20:55.537 --> 00:20:58.667
including Kim Christen, who was one
of our Vector scholars years ago
00:20:58.667 --> 00:21:01.924
and has been funded
by the likes of the NEH
00:21:01.924 --> 00:21:07.599
and IMLS to do a lot of work that's
really rethinking database structures
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:12.936
and ontologies from an indigenous
perspective in fairly radical new ways,
00:21:12.936 --> 00:21:16.603
kind of putting
her theoretical inclinations
00:21:16.603 --> 00:21:21.732
as a HisCon student at Santa Cruz
to practice in new forms
00:21:21.732 --> 00:21:25.528
of database and archiving technologies.
00:21:26.029 --> 00:21:27.039
This is...
00:21:37.917 --> 00:21:39.047
Sorry...
00:21:50.555 --> 00:21:54.681
This is just one out of many projects
from our practice-based PhD program
00:21:54.681 --> 00:21:57.851
which integrates theory and praxis.
00:21:58.210 --> 00:22:03.182
And this is by a young woman
Susana Ruiz, a video game designer,
00:22:03.182 --> 00:22:07.152
who produced years ago,
an award-winning videogame
00:22:07.152 --> 00:22:09.521
on genocide in Darfur,
00:22:09.521 --> 00:22:12.487
who's now doing a series of projects
around...
00:22:12.816 --> 00:22:16.318
card play, strategy games.
00:22:18.851 --> 00:22:22.180
This is sort of like the kids' game
Apples to Apples,
00:22:22.180 --> 00:22:26.572
but it's meant as a social infrastructure
to wrap around a series
00:22:26.572 --> 00:22:30.780
of documentaries on women, girls,
and social justice.
00:22:31.077 --> 00:22:34.446
So, it extends the moving
into a transmedial space
00:22:34.446 --> 00:22:37.353
and connects back up to social networks.
00:22:37.353 --> 00:22:39.911
So, she's thinking
about feminist game design
00:22:39.911 --> 00:22:44.276
and how game mechanics
need to incorporate activist mentalities.
00:22:44.814 --> 00:22:48.859
She's doing a lot of really fantastic work
with her collaborators.
00:22:49.147 --> 00:22:53.945
Other feminist scholars offer models
of how practice-based work might unfold,
00:22:53.945 --> 00:22:57.451
including Martha Nell Smith,
Anne Balsamo, Marsha Kinder,
00:22:57.451 --> 00:23:02.411
Sharon Daniel, Susan Brown,
Bethan Nowviskie, Alex Juhasz,
00:23:02.736 --> 00:23:07.305
Julia Flanders, Jackie Wernimont,
Misha Cardenas and Mary Flanagan.
00:23:07.843 --> 00:23:11.146
And not all those names
usually cohere under 'DH',
00:23:11.146 --> 00:23:15.411
but I want to argue they're all DH
in profoundly important ways.
00:23:15.810 --> 00:23:18.707
Now I want to shift gears a little bit
and read at you much less
00:23:18.707 --> 00:23:23.173
and talk a little bit about the ways
and the collaborative practice
00:23:23.173 --> 00:23:27.319
of my own workspace at USC.
00:23:27.545 --> 00:23:30.414
We've tried to think
about what it actually means
00:23:30.414 --> 00:23:33.437
to build feminist systems
for knowledge production
00:23:33.437 --> 00:23:34.702
and circulation
00:23:34.702 --> 00:23:36.714
and show you some examples
of that work.
00:23:36.940 --> 00:23:39.806
So, this is the journal that I...
00:23:41.342 --> 00:23:45.410
originally edited and now I co-edit
with my colleague Steve Anderson,
00:23:45.410 --> 00:23:46.342
at USC,
00:23:46.342 --> 00:23:48.517
it's a very experimental project.
00:23:48.517 --> 00:23:52.450
It looks almost nothing like
what we imagined a journal to be.
00:23:52.450 --> 00:23:57.044
And it began really as a set of
experiments at the interface
00:23:57.044 --> 00:23:59.815
to try to understand
how new screen languages
00:23:59.815 --> 00:24:03.210
might afford scholars new ways
to work with the materials
00:24:03.210 --> 00:24:06.540
from their evidence and archives.
00:24:06.742 --> 00:24:11.508
So, I'll really quickly just show you
one project from Vectors.
00:24:11.929 --> 00:24:15.337
It's open access,
it's available for free online,
00:24:16.169 --> 00:24:19.738
you can find it and
see it for yourself, but...
00:24:23.481 --> 00:24:27.946
We were very interested, besides looking
at screen aesthetics,
00:24:27.946 --> 00:24:31.308
also thinking
about multi-sensory engagement
00:24:31.308 --> 00:24:34.871
and what it meant
to have truly multi-modal composition
00:24:34.871 --> 00:24:38.941
for scholarly materials,
and what kind of impact that might have
00:24:38.941 --> 00:24:42.639
on how scholars understood
their relationship to their work.
00:24:44.914 --> 00:24:49.540
I'm at a very big screen resolution here,
so we'll see if it all fits on!
00:24:50.637 --> 00:24:51.979
Oh, no sound...
00:24:58.505 --> 00:25:00.813
Let me know if this sound is turned on...
00:25:00.813 --> 00:25:03.982
(audience member 1) The best thing to do
might be to crank up your laptop
00:25:03.982 --> 00:25:05.412
as loud as it'll go.
00:25:07.308 --> 00:25:09.349
I always forget to ask about sound!
00:25:11.919 --> 00:25:14.115
Actually I think I'll show you
another piece, real quick,
00:25:14.115 --> 00:25:17.417
that we talked about in the launch,
because it doesn't need sound.
00:25:18.820 --> 00:25:22.014
Would not be entirely fair
to Sharon's piece
00:25:22.014 --> 00:25:23.647
to show it without sound.
00:25:26.579 --> 00:25:28.419
So, this is the very first issue
00:25:28.419 --> 00:25:33.122
and it included a project
called The Stolen Time Archive
00:25:35.218 --> 00:25:37.181
by Alice Gambrell.
00:25:42.512 --> 00:25:45.107
And it's probably an appropriate project
to show in the space of MITH
00:25:45.107 --> 00:25:47.917
since there's so much interest here
in widening technologies
00:25:47.917 --> 00:25:50.016
and the history of those technologies,
because this project
00:25:50.016 --> 00:25:51.882
is a digital...
00:25:54.479 --> 00:25:58.153
performance of the central arguments
of a written book project
00:25:58.153 --> 00:25:59.485
called Writing is Work
00:25:59.485 --> 00:26:02.422
that's interested
in the material practices of writing
00:26:02.422 --> 00:26:06.350
and the ways this practice
has changed quite substantially
00:26:06.350 --> 00:26:08.522
across the early 20th century,
00:26:08.522 --> 00:26:12.222
from being masculine
to feminine occupations
00:26:12.222 --> 00:26:16.118
and the kind of cultural anxieties
that were produced around that.
00:26:16.118 --> 00:26:19.921
So, the project is basically
an eclectic small archive
00:26:19.921 --> 00:26:22.785
of hundreds of documents
that somehow relate
00:26:22.785 --> 00:26:26.777
to this kind of material status
of writing and exchanging conditions
00:26:26.777 --> 00:26:30.178
that you interact with
through this interface.
00:26:32.318 --> 00:26:33.917
Do people know what these are?
00:26:35.321 --> 00:26:36.816
(a few audience members) Shorthand.
00:26:36.816 --> 00:26:38.114
So, these are the...
00:26:38.312 --> 00:26:42.719
What they mean sort of refract
the different personalities of the scholar
00:26:42.719 --> 00:26:44.983
and the designer she was working with.
00:26:44.983 --> 00:26:46.919
So, "toy" I would attribute to Alice,
00:26:46.919 --> 00:26:49.384
and "abuse" I would attribute
to Reagan Kelly.
00:26:49.384 --> 00:26:52.553
And the interface plays with,
esthetically with the tension
00:26:52.553 --> 00:26:54.121
between those dimensions.
00:26:54.121 --> 00:26:57.690
So, to clock in, because the piece
is getting you to think
00:26:57.690 --> 00:27:00.908
about the structuring
of employment and time.
00:27:00.908 --> 00:27:03.720
You have to practice your shorthand.
00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:05.717
All those orange things are mistakes.
00:27:05.717 --> 00:27:07.919
You don't really have to do it,
you could just clock in.
00:27:07.919 --> 00:27:10.017
But people tend to do it anyway.
00:27:10.488 --> 00:27:13.288
And what you gradually begin to do
as you move through the piece
00:27:13.288 --> 00:27:16.446
is to explore Alice's eclectic archive
00:27:16.446 --> 00:27:20.485
that's the unacknowledged
infrastructure for her book.
00:27:20.485 --> 00:27:25.412
And you can read through her glosses
on the materials.
00:27:25.412 --> 00:27:30.348
The words on the project are probably
equivalent to a small book,
00:27:30.348 --> 00:27:33.786
but they're deliberate in these
kind of smaller sections.
00:27:36.748 --> 00:27:40.546
We quickly realize although we thought
we were interested in the surface
00:27:40.546 --> 00:27:43.646
of the screen, that we were working
with databases, almost immediately,
00:27:43.646 --> 00:27:48.451
as we meant to build these lovely
bespoke, unsustainable Vectors projects.
00:27:48.814 --> 00:27:53.617
So, the first iteration
of the database structures,
00:27:53.617 --> 00:27:57.650
we would go on to work with,
came out of these projects.
00:27:58.225 --> 00:27:59.823
So, you can move through the...
00:27:59.823 --> 00:28:02.419
I'm not going to tell you a lot
about the project,
00:28:02.419 --> 00:28:05.986
but it's full of everything
from didactic materials
00:28:05.986 --> 00:28:09.356
produced for office workers
and secretaries
00:28:09.356 --> 00:28:12.414
to cartoons, to contemporary zines.
00:28:12.414 --> 00:28:16.882
Stolen time is what you do at work
when you're on Zappo's buying shoes
00:28:16.882 --> 00:28:19.218
instead of the work
you're supposed to be doing.
00:28:19.218 --> 00:28:21.688
And that's the conceit
that organizes the piece.
00:28:21.688 --> 00:28:24.762
As you move through it,
if you click on Alice's glosses,
00:28:24.762 --> 00:28:27.184
you start to build a composite
of where you've been.
00:28:27.184 --> 00:28:30.589
This was very early,
this was 2004 when we built it.
00:28:30.589 --> 00:28:33.485
It's still pretty, I think.
00:28:34.451 --> 00:28:37.720
And lovely to spend time with,
but it's not doing a lot of things
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:40.515
the networked web is interested
in doing.
00:28:41.682 --> 00:28:47.281
The early projects were all done in Flash,
so they're kind of hermetically sealed.
00:28:47.281 --> 00:28:50.516
The very early ones,
you can't even get the data out of.
00:28:50.516 --> 00:28:54.677
There were problems with the way
the work unfolded in some ways.
00:28:54.677 --> 00:28:58.655
But it was also an experiment
that we learned an enormous amount from.
00:28:58.655 --> 00:29:02.247
In terms of what we might want to do next
and where we can move.
00:29:02.746 --> 00:29:06.395
We learned about screen language,
but also database design,
00:29:06.395 --> 00:29:10.552
about open access publishing,
and I think probably most importantly,
00:29:10.552 --> 00:29:11.789
about collaboration
00:29:11.789 --> 00:29:16.655
with scholars with very particular
theoretical and activist commitments.
00:29:17.721 --> 00:29:21.715
Our projects were speculative in
the sense that Johanna Drucker describes,
00:29:21.715 --> 00:29:24.550
"committed to pushing back
against the cultural authority
00:29:24.550 --> 00:29:28.783
"of rationalism in the digital humanities
and in digital design."
00:29:29.145 --> 00:29:31.952
They were also centered on critical
and theoretical questions
00:29:31.952 --> 00:29:34.479
that motivated the scholars
with whom we worked.
00:29:34.479 --> 00:29:37.660
Humanities scholars interested
in questions of memory,
00:29:37.660 --> 00:29:42.885
race, gender, embodiment, sexuality,
perception, temporality
00:29:42.885 --> 00:29:45.022
ideology and power."
00:29:45.716 --> 00:29:49.684
While Vectors projects began
as experiments at the surface of the screen,
00:29:49.684 --> 00:29:51.616
they soon led us to building tools,
00:29:51.616 --> 00:29:55.752
in particular we began to grapple
with the database as an object
00:29:55.752 --> 00:29:58.147
to think with and to think against.
00:29:58.586 --> 00:30:02.352
We found that the constraints
of much relational database software
00:30:02.352 --> 00:30:06.355
were not particularly well-suited
to the ways in which humanities scholars
00:30:06.355 --> 00:30:07.649
think and work.
00:30:07.649 --> 00:30:11.152
And, in particular,
to interpretive humanity scholarship,
00:30:11.152 --> 00:30:12.851
which is often narratively-driven.
00:30:13.122 --> 00:30:14.452
And we wanted to think
about how the database
00:30:14.452 --> 00:30:18.617
might be amended somehow
to perform differently.
00:30:19.115 --> 00:30:21.681
Through the guidance of our
information design director,
00:30:21.681 --> 00:30:25.723
Craig Dietrich, the team developed
a customized database tool
00:30:25.767 --> 00:30:29.728
that allowed more flexibility
in how scholars could iteratively work
00:30:29.728 --> 00:30:30.892
within our middleware.
00:30:30.892 --> 00:30:34.622
The scholars each built
out their own infrastructure,
00:30:34.622 --> 00:30:36.994
while the designer worked
on the front end.
00:30:36.994 --> 00:30:41.560
This is from a project by Minoo Moallem
00:30:41.560 --> 00:30:43.722
looking at the function
of the Persian carpet
00:30:43.722 --> 00:30:45.829
in the American imaginary.
00:30:45.829 --> 00:30:48.005
She's a feminist postcolonial
scholar at Berkeley.
00:30:50.181 --> 00:30:52.358
And she did that with Eric Loyer.
00:30:52.358 --> 00:30:57.021
So we began to explore several things,
including the ways
00:30:57.021 --> 00:30:58.962
in which the interface design
00:30:58.962 --> 00:31:01.795
might mitigate the database's
relentless logic.
00:31:01.987 --> 00:31:03.961
So, the Vectors projects
were very much toddling
00:31:03.961 --> 00:31:06.859
between the rigid structures
of the database
00:31:06.859 --> 00:31:07.531
and...
00:31:07.531 --> 00:31:13.589
a very designed, estheticized front end
that performed in ways quite different
00:31:13.589 --> 00:31:16.122
than most database structures.
00:31:16.955 --> 00:31:19.494
We were interested
in really refusing the tyranny
00:31:19.494 --> 00:31:20.491
of the template.
00:31:20.491 --> 00:31:24.499
But obviously we're still using
computational materials
00:31:24.499 --> 00:31:27.997
that physics still had to work,
that voltage still had
00:31:27.997 --> 00:31:30.060
to course through the machine.
00:31:30.452 --> 00:31:32.595
In exploring relations of form
to content,
00:31:32.595 --> 00:31:35.461
we privileged particular kinds
of content.
00:31:35.893 --> 00:31:39.457
Choosing to work with scholars
interested in questions of gender,
00:31:39.457 --> 00:31:43.096
race, affect, memory and social justice.
00:31:43.096 --> 00:31:45.930
And those concerns were at the core
of our research.
00:31:45.930 --> 00:31:47.436
Those intellectual questions.
00:31:47.823 --> 00:31:49.120
And they profoundly continued
00:31:49.120 --> 00:31:52.488
to shape the way we design
technological systems today.
00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:57.165
Now, over the past five years,
I've worked with a number of colleagues
00:31:57.165 --> 00:31:59.291
from across the country,
in the UK,
00:31:59.291 --> 00:32:03.921
around the emergence of the new kind
of organization
00:32:03.921 --> 00:32:07.157
that grows out of the Vectors work,
really trying to think
00:32:07.157 --> 00:32:11.062
about how we might work
with digital materials held in archives,
00:32:11.062 --> 00:32:12.361
in new ways.
00:32:12.751 --> 00:32:17.530
And this work has been supported by Mellon
and by the Office of Digital Humanities
00:32:17.530 --> 00:32:18.493
at NEH,
00:32:18.493 --> 00:32:23.192
and roughly, models a new kind of workflow
for scholarly materials
00:32:23.192 --> 00:32:28.764
from digital archive through a set
of archive partners like the Getty,
00:32:28.764 --> 00:32:31.924
and Shoah
and the Internet Archive
00:32:31.924 --> 00:32:33.823
and Critical Commons,
00:32:33.823 --> 00:32:36.621
all the way through
to university press partners
00:32:36.621 --> 00:32:42.655
like MIT, California, Oxford, Cambridge,
Michigan, Duke and...
00:32:43.962 --> 00:32:45.262
I'm missing somebody...
00:32:45.262 --> 00:32:46.664
California, right, so...
00:32:46.664 --> 00:32:50.130
We're interested in how scholars
might work with digital archival materials
00:32:50.130 --> 00:32:53.960
and publish them in interesting
and lively new ways.
00:32:54.423 --> 00:32:58.198
And really begin to think about how
we can activate the archive
00:32:58.198 --> 00:33:02.894
as more than a neutral,
objective repository for materials
00:33:02.894 --> 00:33:07.359
and instead think about the archive
as a space for argumentation,
00:33:07.359 --> 00:33:09.193
a space for point of view,
00:33:09.193 --> 00:33:12.163
even while it can maintain,
under another interface,
00:33:12.163 --> 00:33:13.964
its own objectivity.
00:33:14.491 --> 00:33:17.527
So, we're interested
in theories of difference
00:33:17.527 --> 00:33:20.963
activated in the archive
in a variety of ways.
00:33:21.522 --> 00:33:25.192
And to really begin to push
toward new forums of publication.
00:33:25.562 --> 00:33:30.955
We also are committed to ethical issues
around open access and to fair use,
00:33:30.955 --> 00:33:34.121
and one of our archive partners
is Critical Commons,
00:33:34.121 --> 00:33:37.097
which was founded by my colleague,
Steve Anderson,
00:33:37.097 --> 00:33:39.926
and is a sort of YouTube
for media studies scholars
00:33:39.926 --> 00:33:44.295
to put commercial media
and to use it in emerging genres
00:33:44.295 --> 00:33:46.732
of digital scholarly publishing.
00:33:47.189 --> 00:33:51.459
And we mostly work through
prototyping and iteration,
00:33:51.459 --> 00:33:53.196
not always rapid iteration!
00:33:53.196 --> 00:33:55.726
I think there may be a lot
to rapid prototyping,
00:33:55.726 --> 00:34:00.326
but the first project was with feminist
activist scholar Alex Juhasz,
00:34:00.326 --> 00:34:03.398
who wanted to do a book
about YouTube
00:34:03.398 --> 00:34:05.294
in the form of YouTube,
00:34:05.294 --> 00:34:08.226
and this was peer-reviewed
and published open access
00:34:08.226 --> 00:34:10.765
by MIT Press a few years ago.
00:34:11.197 --> 00:34:13.689
And it was the prototype
through which we began
00:34:13.689 --> 00:34:16.195
to build the software system
that I want to talk to you
00:34:16.195 --> 00:34:19.197
a little bit now,
called Scalr.
00:34:19.340 --> 00:34:22.839
And her work has always evolved
from trying to understand with
00:34:22.839 --> 00:34:24.006
want and need,
00:34:24.006 --> 00:34:26.438
and then building systems
to support that work.
00:34:26.730 --> 00:34:29.633
Both conceptually and practically.
00:34:30.132 --> 00:34:35.795
So, Scalr is an authoring platform,
it connects to archival resources
00:34:35.839 --> 00:34:36.632
as well.
00:34:37.065 --> 00:34:39.768
It allows you to render your views
as well, in many different ways
00:34:39.768 --> 00:34:41.422
so it not only...
00:34:41.422 --> 00:34:44.539
Well it feels in some ways
when you're authoring in it,
00:34:45.620 --> 00:34:49.055
like Wordpress, it's radically
quite different from Wordpress.
00:34:49.055 --> 00:34:50.681
It's infinitely more flexible.
00:34:50.681 --> 00:34:53.552
It's horizontal, it's non-hierarchical.
00:34:54.143 --> 00:34:57.208
It also connects to archival materials
and we're building out
00:34:57.208 --> 00:34:58.681
that set of archive partners.
00:34:58.681 --> 00:35:00.788
So, when you're working
in a Scalr project,
00:35:00.788 --> 00:35:03.750
you could connect
to the native search function
00:35:03.750 --> 00:35:07.183
of the archives you're interested in
and pull the metadata
00:35:07.183 --> 00:35:09.280
associated with those objects
as you bring them in
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:14.014
to your Scalr book or project
with the object from the archive.
00:35:14.214 --> 00:35:17.288
So, that careful metadata record
is not lost
00:35:17.288 --> 00:35:19.488
as scholars begin to work
with the material.
00:35:19.845 --> 00:35:22.654
And down the road,
we're interested in what you add
00:35:22.654 --> 00:35:26.320
in the layer in Scalr
roundtripped back to the archive,
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:28.887
and that allows the archive
to build out that.
00:35:29.115 --> 00:35:32.311
So, really it's a kind of management
of workflow
00:35:32.311 --> 00:35:35.680
from archive to article,
to digital project.
00:35:36.148 --> 00:35:39.015
Because it's not like Wordpress,
it allows you
00:35:39.015 --> 00:35:42.814
to do some very funky things
with structure if you choose to.
00:35:42.814 --> 00:35:47.687
You could build a Scalr project
that's a linear path of 30 pages,
00:35:47.687 --> 00:35:50.879
1 - 30, just like a chapter,
00:35:50.879 --> 00:35:55.590
but you can also begin to allow
multiplicity and multivocality
00:35:55.590 --> 00:36:00.180
intersecting points of view
to seep into the project
00:36:00.180 --> 00:36:04.092
in a variety of ways,
because its structure is quite malleable.
00:36:04.092 --> 00:36:08.117
Scalr understands technologically
all of its components,
00:36:08.117 --> 00:36:14.286
a media object, a path, a page, a tag,
an annotation, to all be the same thing
00:36:14.286 --> 00:36:18.215
and that allows this kind
of flattening out of the structure
00:36:18.215 --> 00:36:22.657
which is not really possible
in a platform like Wordpress.
00:36:23.688 --> 00:36:26.553
So when I say we've intentionally
designed a system
00:36:26.553 --> 00:36:29.520
which values the cut, fluidity,
intersectionality,
00:36:29.520 --> 00:36:33.246
that is reflected in the kind
of conscious design decisions
00:36:33.246 --> 00:36:35.123
made about Scalr.
00:36:36.015 --> 00:36:39.153
I'm going to quickly walk you
through several different projects,
00:36:39.153 --> 00:36:40.556
but in a little more detail,
this one,
00:36:40.556 --> 00:36:46.867
which is a project by Nick Mirzoeff
to extend his book
00:36:46.867 --> 00:36:48.118
The Right to Look
00:36:48.438 --> 00:36:52.917
which is a long history of visuality
and counter-visuality and power.
00:36:53.489 --> 00:36:57.285
And in this project,
after he'd turned his book in to Duke,
00:36:57.285 --> 00:37:01.154
the Arab Spring happened,
which was very relevant
00:37:01.154 --> 00:37:02.855
to the book Nick was writing,
00:37:02.855 --> 00:37:08.323
and he wanted to kind of address in some detail
that in an extension to the book.
00:37:08.323 --> 00:37:11.057
So, this is not really dealing
with material from the book,
00:37:11.057 --> 00:37:14.650
as much as it's extending the argument
of the book to the present.
00:37:15.078 --> 00:37:17.962
And it's actually got
a fairly complex structure.
00:37:17.962 --> 00:37:20.723
What I'm going to show you now
is a series of screenshots
00:37:20.723 --> 00:37:23.910
that are all the same page
rendered in different views
00:37:23.910 --> 00:37:27.187
through the technology
that's just sort of off-the-shelf,
00:37:27.187 --> 00:37:28.953
built into Scalr.
00:37:29.450 --> 00:37:32.914
So, you could explore the whole structure
of the project
00:37:32.914 --> 00:37:36.614
through visualizations that come
from the jQuery library
00:37:36.614 --> 00:37:42.652
you could see the kind of structure
of its organization, its paths and pages
00:37:42.652 --> 00:37:46.322
You could explore it through media
or through tags and a variety
00:37:46.366 --> 00:37:48.082
of different visualizations.
00:37:48.717 --> 00:37:51.451
You could look at the metadata
for the object you're seeing
00:37:51.451 --> 00:37:52.988
on the page we looked at.
00:37:52.988 --> 00:37:55.354
These are all the pages
rendered on the fly
00:37:55.354 --> 00:37:59.284
through the View button
automatically into a new dimension.
00:37:59.580 --> 00:38:02.519
Nick has said that this project
was really intended
00:38:02.519 --> 00:38:06.714
to illustrate the new possibilities
of a kind of horizontal writing,
00:38:06.714 --> 00:38:11.155
and the way that he's talked about that
resonates, I think quite interestingly,
00:38:11.155 --> 00:38:14.680
with work by both Jane Bennett
and Karen Barad.
00:38:15.348 --> 00:38:17.883
It incorporates a rich set
of multimedia examples,
00:38:17.883 --> 00:38:22.522
but it also structures the piece
along multiple intersecting pathways
00:38:22.522 --> 00:38:26.881
in a manner that serves to reinforce
his larger theoretical arguments
00:38:26.881 --> 00:38:30.918
about the value of the demonstration
or the meeting point
00:38:30.918 --> 00:38:32.752
as a theoretical model.
00:38:33.111 --> 00:38:36.824
So, here, much as in the Vectors project,
although less obviously I think,
00:38:36.824 --> 00:38:39.716
form and content merge
in compelling ways.
00:38:40.717 --> 00:38:43.519
Other scholars have used the platform
for a variety of things.
00:38:43.519 --> 00:38:47.388
This is a project by Matt Delmont
that is very straightforward
00:38:47.388 --> 00:38:49.884
and simply incorporates all the media
00:38:49.884 --> 00:38:52.420
that couldn't obviously
go in his print book,
00:38:52.420 --> 00:38:55.814
into a website
that's organized through Scalar.
00:38:56.254 --> 00:39:00.722
And the argument of his project
is about looking at American Bandstand
00:39:00.722 --> 00:39:05.218
as a way to understand the struggle
for civil rights in a particular locale,
00:39:05.218 --> 00:39:09.655
so there's a lot of media material
but also advertising and other images
00:39:09.655 --> 00:39:11.221
collected in this piece.
00:39:11.713 --> 00:39:14.187
Diana Taylor
from the Hemispheric Institute
00:39:14.187 --> 00:39:17.719
is one of our archive partners,
but also one of our scholarly
00:39:17.719 --> 00:39:19.620
research center counterparts.
00:39:19.620 --> 00:39:23.576
We're now partnered with eleven
humanities centers around the country,
00:39:23.576 --> 00:39:28.357
and Diana is basically using Scalar,
in this case they're doing five books,
00:39:28.357 --> 00:39:32.982
to remediate a book that she did years ago
that didn't sell very well,
00:39:32.982 --> 00:39:41.482
but it's about relatively unknown,
experimental Latin American women
00:39:41.482 --> 00:39:42.588
feminist performance artists.
00:39:43.190 --> 00:39:46.623
And what she's able to do
in the context of the Scalar book
00:39:46.623 --> 00:39:49.124
is incorporate all the media
of those performances
00:39:49.124 --> 00:39:53.054
that might allow the material
to circulate in different ways.
00:39:53.054 --> 00:39:55.014
It's also a trilingual book.
00:39:55.014 --> 00:39:56.817
Trying to reach
the different audiences
00:39:56.817 --> 00:39:58.551
that he works with.
00:39:58.780 --> 00:40:01.590
This is a project that began
as a dissertation at NYU,
00:40:01.590 --> 00:40:03.214
by Deb Levine,
00:40:03.214 --> 00:40:07.184
who, in her dissertation,
spent a lot of time and care
00:40:07.184 --> 00:40:11.047
theorizing the methods
of activism of Act Up in New York.
00:40:12.110 --> 00:40:15.918
And a lot of time in the archive
of oral history materials.
00:40:15.918 --> 00:40:19.416
So, this project brings together
many hours of that testimony
00:40:19.416 --> 00:40:21.788
of world history, activism,
00:40:21.788 --> 00:40:25.990
with a theoretical argument
about Act Up's model
00:40:25.990 --> 00:40:31.065
of affinity organizing,
which was a flat, non-hierarchical...
00:40:31.065 --> 00:40:34.081
differential consciousness mode
of organizing.
00:40:34.555 --> 00:40:37.723
So, she uses the platform
to model that flat structure,
00:40:37.723 --> 00:40:41.518
by allowing to tag the
key players in that history
00:40:41.518 --> 00:40:46.683
and see their shifting relationship
to different groups and organizations
00:40:46.683 --> 00:40:48.480
over a chunk of history.
00:40:50.952 --> 00:40:53.115
Lesbian feminist scholar Kara Keeling
00:40:53.115 --> 00:40:54.916
is working with one
of her graduate students
00:40:54.916 --> 00:40:59.182
who has a long history as an activist
in third world organizations,
00:40:59.182 --> 00:41:01.354
to bring together
all the archival materials
00:41:01.354 --> 00:41:06.459
from an early 21st century
digital storytelling group
00:41:06.459 --> 00:41:10.154
called Third World Majority
that was founded.
00:41:10.154 --> 00:41:12.086
All their archival materials
00:41:12.136 --> 00:41:14.035
are being collected
on the internet archive
00:41:14.035 --> 00:41:15.495
and pulled into a Scalar book.
00:41:15.495 --> 00:41:19.994
And twelve scholars are now writing
critical pathways through that archive.
00:41:20.361 --> 00:41:24.460
So, the book will exist at once
as the archive of the materials
00:41:24.460 --> 00:41:27.893
and as narrated pathways
through the material,
00:41:27.893 --> 00:41:30.524
when you might come
or go through it either way.
00:41:34.530 --> 00:41:35.065
Oops!
00:41:36.762 --> 00:41:39.663
This was a project that was taken live
this spring.
00:41:39.663 --> 00:41:42.966
It's an edited volume of essays
interacting,
00:41:42.966 --> 00:41:45.960
illustrating database narrative.
00:41:46.892 --> 00:41:52.058
And many of the pathways or chapters
are themselves database narratives
00:41:52.058 --> 00:41:54.893
that have interesting
information structures
00:41:54.893 --> 00:41:56.462
as part of their design.
00:41:57.297 --> 00:41:59.031
This project went live this summer.
00:41:59.031 --> 00:42:00.635
It's a virtual exhibition
00:42:00.635 --> 00:42:02.860
as part of
the College Art Association's
00:42:02.860 --> 00:42:05.359
CEA Reviews journal.
00:42:06.329 --> 00:42:09.997
It was their first attempt
to actually review an exhibition
00:42:09.997 --> 00:42:11.502
multi-modally.
00:42:11.721 --> 00:42:14.557
So, it includes photographs,
a video walkthrough,
00:42:14.557 --> 00:42:20.031
floor plans, very expansive
00:42:20.031 --> 00:42:23.263
and high-quality professional photography
of the exhibits,
00:42:23.263 --> 00:42:25.527
as well as a review of the exhibit itself.
00:42:25.527 --> 00:42:27.601
So, the platform is fairly flexible
00:42:27.601 --> 00:42:30.900
and could be taken
in a lot of different kinds of directions
00:42:30.900 --> 00:42:33.564
This project went live
about a year and a half ago,
00:42:33.564 --> 00:42:38.765
by the artist and activist Evan Bissell,
and our creative director Erik Loyer.
00:42:38.765 --> 00:42:43.568
It's an interactive exploration
of the history of imprisonment
00:42:43.568 --> 00:42:46.131
and incarceration in California.
00:42:46.532 --> 00:42:50.624
Roughly asking over hundreds of years
why California's become
00:42:50.624 --> 00:42:52.468
the prison capital of the world.
00:42:52.468 --> 00:42:57.626
And it uses a feature of Scalar
that's an open API,
00:42:57.626 --> 00:43:02.266
so that the front end is done
in one version for OS
00:43:02.266 --> 00:43:03.695
and one version in Flash,
00:43:03.695 --> 00:43:06.868
but the content is driven by Scalar
and you click
00:43:06.868 --> 00:43:10.494
through the interactive interface
into a Scalar book.
00:43:10.494 --> 00:43:14.193
This is a recent collaboration
which just went live last month
00:43:14.193 --> 00:43:17.564
in celebration of the march
on Washington, its anniversary.
00:43:18.131 --> 00:43:20.295
If you haven't seen this piece,
I'm not going to show it,
00:43:20.295 --> 00:43:21.558
because I haven't got the sound,
00:43:21.558 --> 00:43:23.666
please go look at it,
it's gorgeous!
00:43:23.991 --> 00:43:25.401
It's...
00:43:25.401 --> 00:43:29.851
as you enter the archival text
of the speech
00:43:29.910 --> 00:43:33.254
of the march on Washington,
with audio playing,
00:43:33.254 --> 00:43:35.789
and as the audio plays,
you can scroll down the page
00:43:35.789 --> 00:43:39.885
and see the improvisation
made on the fly
00:43:39.885 --> 00:43:43.125
that left his script
and that he chose to omit,
00:43:43.125 --> 00:43:46.355
and then you can click
into a variety of information
00:43:46.355 --> 00:43:50.653
that builds out the context in history
and lingering ramifications
00:43:50.653 --> 00:43:51.789
of that moment.
00:43:51.789 --> 00:43:53.988
There are hundreds of pieces of media
in here,
00:43:53.988 --> 00:43:57.123
and both this and the [?]
are meant to be teaching platforms,
00:43:57.123 --> 00:44:03.386
primarily to use in after-school
and in various kinds of youth groups.
00:44:04.427 --> 00:44:09.393
So, we're really trying hard
to think about how a platform
00:44:09.393 --> 00:44:13.124
might allow us to mediate
a lot of kind of binaries
00:44:13.124 --> 00:44:15.453
of the digital humanities.
00:44:15.984 --> 00:44:18.291
Within a single project,
we can glimpse research
00:44:18.291 --> 00:44:21.155
operating across scales,
with scholars able
00:44:21.155 --> 00:44:23.380
to move from the micro level
of a project,
00:44:23.380 --> 00:44:26.488
perhaps a single image
or video annotation,
00:44:26.488 --> 00:44:29.059
to the structure
of the entire project
00:44:29.059 --> 00:44:30.824
and its integrated media.
00:44:31.451 --> 00:44:34.257
The researcher can create careful
close readings within a project
00:44:34.257 --> 00:44:35.655
of many components.
00:44:36.350 --> 00:44:39.787
They could also be instantly represented
as a whole collection.
00:44:39.787 --> 00:44:44.389
Thus moving beyond the artificial binary
of distant versus close reading
00:44:44.389 --> 00:44:46.888
that often characterizes
our conversations.
00:44:47.721 --> 00:44:50.725
The result richly combines
narrative interpretation
00:44:50.725 --> 00:44:55.522
with visualizations that are automatically
generated via the semantic elements
00:44:55.522 --> 00:44:56.860
of the platform.
00:44:57.423 --> 00:45:01.186
These visualizations allow an author
or reader to see the larger structure
00:45:01.186 --> 00:45:04.755
of a project they have been building up
more organically, piece by piece
00:45:04.755 --> 00:45:09.822
while also allowing iterative refinements
to the information structure.
00:45:10.721 --> 00:45:13.555
They could also allow a user
to access and explore
00:45:13.555 --> 00:45:15.321
specific elements of a project.
00:45:15.690 --> 00:45:18.855
Including tags, media files
or narrative pathways.
00:45:19.320 --> 00:45:22.352
Thus, the visualizations
are not merely illustrative,
00:45:22.352 --> 00:45:26.759
they're also powerful interpretations
that present a project's structure,
00:45:26.759 --> 00:45:29.791
evidence and interpretations
in new ways.
00:45:30.851 --> 00:45:34.254
They bring narrative and analysis
together with the database
00:45:34.254 --> 00:45:35.492
enriching each.
00:45:36.284 --> 00:45:39.190
This method of researching and writing
across scales
00:45:39.190 --> 00:45:42.448
now predominantly unfolds
within a given scale or project
00:45:42.448 --> 00:45:45.492
with the possibility of reporting
these modes of analysis
00:45:45.492 --> 00:45:49.053
back to archival partners,
larger holdings,
00:45:49.053 --> 00:45:55.034
in between Scalar books represents
a key area for ongoing research
00:45:55.034 --> 00:45:57.945
The software that underpins Scalar
was born of the frustrations
00:45:57.945 --> 00:46:02.179
our scholars often experience
working with traditional database tools.
00:46:03.112 --> 00:46:06.778
Vectors engaged intersectional, political,
and feminist work
00:46:06.778 --> 00:46:10.812
at the level of content,
but also integrated form and content,
00:46:10.812 --> 00:46:14.376
so that the theoretical implications
of the work were manifest
00:46:14.376 --> 00:46:17.147
in both esthetic and information design.
00:46:17.979 --> 00:46:20.475
Scalar is now seeking to integrate
these methodologies
00:46:20.475 --> 00:46:22.314
at the level of software design.
00:46:22.772 --> 00:46:24.512
Scalar takes our early experiments
00:46:24.512 --> 00:46:27.011
at hacking the database
for Vectors projects
00:46:27.011 --> 00:46:30.173
to a different level,
by wrapping a relational database
00:46:30.173 --> 00:46:32.744
in a very particular semantic layer.
00:46:33.773 --> 00:46:37.073
In effect, we wanted to build a system
that respected and extended
00:46:37.073 --> 00:46:40.740
the research methodologies
of the scholars with whom we work.
00:46:41.314 --> 00:46:45.040
Scalar resists the modularity
and compartmentalized logics
00:46:45.040 --> 00:46:49.709
of dominant computational design,
by flattening out the hierarchical structure
00:46:49.709 --> 00:46:51.342
of platforms like Wordpress.
00:46:52.017 --> 00:46:53.748
While relatively easy to use,
00:46:53.748 --> 00:46:56.113
it also moves beyond
the template structures
00:46:56.113 --> 00:47:01.374
that frequently characterize the web,
allowing a high degree of customization
00:47:01.374 --> 00:47:04.346
with cascading style sheets
or through its API.
00:47:04.940 --> 00:47:07.343
Thus it mediates a whole set
of binaries,
00:47:07.343 --> 00:47:10.605
between close and distant reading,
author/user,
00:47:10.913 --> 00:47:12.114
interface/backend,
00:47:12.373 --> 00:47:13.579
macro/micro,
00:47:13.579 --> 00:47:15.004
theory/practice,
00:47:15.004 --> 00:47:16.606
archive/interpretation,
00:47:16.606 --> 00:47:17.707
text/image,
00:47:17.707 --> 00:47:19.347
database/narrative,
00:47:19.347 --> 00:47:20.613
human/machine.
00:47:21.372 --> 00:47:23.907
Scalar takes seriously
feminist methodologies
00:47:23.907 --> 00:47:26.642
ranging from the cut to theories
of alliance,
00:47:26.642 --> 00:47:29.310
intersectionality and articulation,
00:47:29.310 --> 00:47:32.845
not only in support of scholars
undertaking individual projects,
00:47:32.845 --> 00:47:35.179
but in our very design principles.
00:47:35.513 --> 00:47:39.512
As authors work with the platform,
they enter into a flow of becoming
00:47:39.811 --> 00:47:42.145
through the creation of a database
on the fly
00:47:42.145 --> 00:47:44.981
and through an engagement
with the otherness of the machine.
00:47:45.515 --> 00:47:50.108
Scalar respects machine agency,
but it does not cede everything to it.
00:47:50.873 --> 00:47:52.911
As Anne Balsamo reminds us:
00:47:52.911 --> 00:47:55.880
"Every interaction that constitutes
a technology
00:47:55.880 --> 00:47:58.973
"offers an opportunity
to do things differently.
00:47:59.579 --> 00:48:02.371
"Scalar offers a way to explore
the rich interactions
00:48:02.371 --> 00:48:06.383
"that link matter and discourse,
to engage the alterity of technology,
00:48:06.383 --> 00:48:10.243
"and to cut through plentitude
with ethical intent.
00:48:10.243 --> 00:48:12.742
"Our goal is to build technology
00:48:12.742 --> 00:48:14.673
"in order that we might
better understand it
00:48:14.673 --> 00:48:16.979
"and its entanglements with culture.
00:48:16.979 --> 00:48:19.412
"We aim to bend the digital
to our desires,
00:48:19.412 --> 00:48:22.377
"and to use it in our utopias,
if only in the instant.
00:48:23.305 --> 00:48:27.051
"In theories of difference,
we already find bountiful ways
00:48:27.051 --> 00:48:30.110
"in which we might rewire these circuits.
00:48:30.110 --> 00:48:33.980
"Feminists have long brought together
those who value hybrid practices
00:48:33.980 --> 00:48:39.612
"artist theorist, activist scholars,
theoretical archivists, queer failures,
00:48:39.612 --> 00:48:41.542
"[inaudible] cyborgs.
00:48:42.048 --> 00:48:46.216
"I ask you, who better to turn the digital
against its darkest logics?"
00:48:47.113 --> 00:48:47.746
Thanks
00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:50.149
(audience applauds)