0:00:00.742,0:00:03.325
...and sort of debate and discuss[br]all the things she brings up.
0:00:03.325,0:00:05.732
- So, Tara McPherson![br]- Thank you very much.
0:00:06.311,0:00:07.976
(audience applauds)
0:00:10.846,0:00:14.802
I told my graduate students[br]I was coming to the DH mothership, so...
0:00:14.969,0:00:15.987
(audience laughs)
0:00:16.097,0:00:17.195
It feels good to be here.
0:00:17.205,0:00:22.036
And I've obviously followed the work[br]that comes out of this space
0:00:22.036,0:00:25.146
for a very long time,[br]so it's nice to be here.
0:00:25.569,0:00:30.107
I kind of break what I understand[br]to be protocol here a little bit
0:00:30.107,0:00:33.245
by doing a mix of talking and reading,
0:00:33.245,0:00:35.573
because I'm working [br]through some new ideas
0:00:35.573,0:00:39.205
and I actually find writing and reading[br]still really useful for that
0:00:39.205,0:00:42.006
as well as in the kind of context[br]of making.
0:00:42.236,0:00:45.619
And the title has changed a little bit,[br]because I was supposed to be here
0:00:45.619,0:00:51.036
last fall, doing a talk on databases,[br]but hurricane Sandy had other ideas!
0:00:51.667,0:00:52.715
I was not here.
0:00:53.332,0:00:56.791
And I'm really happy to have [br]finally made the program.
0:00:56.791,0:00:57.995
So...
0:00:57.995,0:01:02.475
I'm going to talk in a vein [br]that characterizes some of the recent work
0:01:02.475,0:01:05.196
I've been doing,[br]in an attempt to hold together
0:01:05.196,0:01:06.801
my schizophrenic identities.
0:01:07.534,0:01:13.505
And primarily that's a deep commitment[br]to forms of theoretical inquiry
0:01:13.899,0:01:16.734
and post-structuralist scholarship
0:01:17.399,0:01:22.205
with an interest in the making [br]and doing of the digital.
0:01:22.834,0:01:27.732
And I've been engaged in trying to force[br]these different parts of myself together
0:01:27.732,0:01:29.003
for a little while,
0:01:29.003,0:01:31.505
and I'm kind of continuing in that vein.
0:01:31.812,0:01:35.435
In his very kind of purposefully[br]provocative essay
0:01:35.435,0:01:39.135
that first was on the blog[br]and then later included
0:01:39.135,0:01:43.172
in the Debates in the Digital Humanities[br]book here in its digital form,
0:01:43.172,0:01:50.451
Alan Liu really argues "the digital[br]humanities are noticeably missing
0:01:50.451,0:01:55.101
"in action on the cultural critical scene.[br]Where the digital humanists
0:01:55.101,0:02:00.203
"develop tools, data and metadata,[br]critically,
0:02:00.203,0:02:04.971
"rarely do they extend their critique[br]to the full register of society,
0:02:04.971,0:02:07.032
"economics, politics or culture."
0:02:07.770,0:02:09.769
And these debates aren't entirely new.
0:02:09.769,0:02:13.903
Liu first delivered a kind of pacifist[br]at the MLA in Los Angeles,
0:02:13.903,0:02:18.239
but your own Martha Nell Smith[br]has for quite awhile been interested
0:02:18.239,0:02:21.200
in variations of many of these questions.
0:02:21.871,0:02:27.435
And Martha has narrated a particular[br]history of humanities computing,
0:02:27.435,0:02:32.130
you know, as the field was known[br]for many years before it was rebranded,
0:02:32.130,0:02:36.496
under the sign of the digital humanities,[br]as a kind of reaction formation
0:02:36.496,0:02:40.880
to "the concerns that had taken over[br]so much of academic work and literature
0:02:41.205,0:02:43.974
those of gender, race, class[br]and sexuality."
0:02:44.675,0:02:48.011
Today I want to consider some recent[br]variations on this debate,
0:02:48.011,0:02:50.271
which is longstanding and ongoing,
0:02:50.271,0:02:53.709
around the role of cultural theory[br]within the digital humanities
0:02:53.975,0:02:55.514
and its close analogs.
0:02:55.779,0:02:58.581
And in order to argue[br]for a theoretically explicit form
0:02:58.581,0:03:02.014
of digital praxis[br]within the digital humanities.
0:03:02.338,0:03:07.112
And in doing this I also take seriously[br]recent claims by colleagues in the UK
0:03:07.112,0:03:11.149
like Gary Hall, that the very goals[br]of critical theory
0:03:11.149,0:03:16.681
and of quantitative or computational study[br]might in fact be incommensurable.
0:03:16.846,0:03:18.743
He's recently written [br]a very interesting piece
0:03:18.743,0:03:21.884
that'll be in a special issue[br]of American Literature
0:03:21.884,0:03:23.783
that I co-edited this winter,
0:03:23.783,0:03:25.875
making precisely that argument.
0:03:26.283,0:03:29.310
And the goals of critical [br]theoretical inquiry
0:03:29.310,0:03:33.481
in the humanities interpretive traditions[br]are not compatible
0:03:33.639,0:03:36.509
with computational analysis[br]that they proceed from.
0:03:36.509,0:03:39.283
And while I don't agree with him entirely,[br]it's an interesting
0:03:39.283,0:03:40.966
and provocative argument.
0:03:40.966,0:03:44.111
And he goes on to conclude [br]that their productive combination
0:03:44.111,0:03:48.579
will require far more time and care[br]than has been devoted to that endeavor
0:03:49.112,0:03:49.703
thus far.
0:03:50.672,0:03:54.414
As such, I ask what it might mean[br]to design from the very conception
0:03:54.414,0:03:58.279
digital tools and applications[br]that emerge from the concerns
0:03:58.279,0:03:59.908
of cultural theory.
0:04:00.440,0:04:03.716
And in particular from a feminist concern[br]for difference.
0:04:04.782,0:04:07.282
This need to attend [br]with more time and care
0:04:07.282,0:04:11.338
to potential intersections of theory[br]and the digital humanities
0:04:11.338,0:04:15.510
has been the subject of recent[br]and often heated online discussions,
0:04:15.510,0:04:20.514
conference panels, various publications,[br]Twitter wars, you name it.
0:04:22.115,0:04:24.279
Groups of emerging scholars[br]have organized
0:04:24.279,0:04:28.682
under such rubrics as "Transform DH",[br]"In DH Poco",
0:04:28.682,0:04:32.115
in order to catalyze just such exchanges.
0:04:32.342,0:04:35.815
And have recently formed the FemTechNet[br]organization.
0:04:35.815,0:04:38.640
If you're not aware of FemTechNet,[br]it's a kind of anti-MOOC
0:04:38.640,0:04:42.978
underway right now, being taught[br]with a very large list
0:04:42.978,0:04:46.511
of feminist collaborators[br]under the leadership of Anne Balsamo
0:04:46.511,0:04:47.879
and Alex Juhasz.
0:04:48.814,0:04:52.613
One online forum initiated by [br]Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam
0:04:52.613,0:04:56.740
on the postcolonial digital humanities[br]in May 2013
0:04:56.740,0:05:01.278
fostered a lively and sometimes heated[br]debate in response to the question:
0:05:01.278,0:05:03.440
is DH a refuge?
0:05:04.075,0:05:05.690
I'm not even sure what that meant, exactly
0:05:05.690,0:05:08.082
but from race, class, [br]gender and sexuality.
0:05:09.113,0:05:12.745
I'll not attempt to summarize [br]the conversation that transpired here.
0:05:12.745,0:05:16.010
If I were to scroll down [br]it would go on almost infinitely.
0:05:16.010,0:05:19.881
And Adeline and Roopika have already[br]kind of storified it
0:05:19.881,0:05:21.381
in a variety of ways,
0:05:21.381,0:05:24.346
so you can find their summary elsewhere.
0:05:24.346,0:05:28.024
Including an interesting experiment[br]on a shared Google Doc
0:05:28.024,0:05:34.773
where folks could critique[br]how they summed up their own statement.
0:05:34.773,0:05:37.861
I do want to zero in on a few points[br]in this exchange
0:05:37.861,0:05:40.819
to stage the beginnings of a claim[br]for a particular mode
0:05:40.819,0:05:43.077
of enacting the digital humanities.
0:05:43.273,0:05:47.815
Or following Katie King, one might [br]say "re-enacting the humanities".
0:05:49.441,0:05:51.044
Entering into the--
0:05:51.238,0:05:52.811
I don't know if you'll be able [br]to read this,
0:05:52.811,0:05:54.441
but I'll summarize some of it[br]for you.
0:05:54.441,0:05:57.207
Entering into the forum's fray[br]by in his words
0:05:57.207,0:05:59.011
"tapping on his cell phone"
0:05:59.011,0:06:03.479
meaning that there weren't really[br]considered keyboard-linked responses,
0:06:03.479,0:06:07.314
but still pretty hefty responses to be [br]doing it from your cellphone keyboard,
0:06:07.314,0:06:12.816
Ian Bogost wrote "On the one hand[br]anyone who believes computational platforms
0:06:12.816,0:06:16.380
"are transparent doesn't really[br]understand those platforms,
0:06:16.380,0:06:20.313
"but on the other, a blind focus[br]on identity politics
0:06:20.313,0:06:24.078
"above all other concerns,[br]has partly prevented humanists
0:06:24.078,0:06:28.349
"from deeply exploring the technical [br]nature of computer systems
0:06:28.349,0:06:31.308
"in order to grasp [br]those very understandings."
0:06:32.275,0:06:35.213
Bogost's insistence that we must[br]explore the technical nature
0:06:35.213,0:06:38.618
of the computer[br]resonates with various formulations
0:06:38.618,0:06:40.216
in the digital humanities,
0:06:40.216,0:06:44.014
even though I don't think Ian himself[br]would necessarily claim membership
0:06:44.014,0:06:45.616
in the tribe of DH...
0:06:45.616,0:06:48.454
Although he might, you never know[br]on a given day.
0:06:48.454,0:06:51.716
It aligns as well with a good deal[br]of digital media studies
0:06:51.716,0:06:56.042
including hardware and software studies,[br]where end research has been prolific
0:06:56.042,0:06:57.249
and important.
0:06:57.851,0:07:00.782
It's an insight that's also fueled[br]my own work.
0:07:00.782,0:07:03.677
In the conversation that then spools[br]throughout the thread,
0:07:03.677,0:07:04.973
as you scroll down here,
0:07:04.973,0:07:09.146
Ian goes on to observe that[br]"doing hardware and software studies
0:07:09.146,0:07:12.478
"sometimes requires one [br]to bracket identity
0:07:12.478,0:07:15.639
"even if just for a moment,[br]in order to learn something
0:07:15.639,0:07:17.911
"in the latter's service.
0:07:17.911,0:07:22.083
"But those of us who do that work[br]are frequently chided
0:07:22.083,0:07:26.244
"for failing to focus all energy[br]and all attention at all times
0:07:26.244,0:07:30.476
"on the accuser's notion[br]of what comprises the entire discourse
0:07:30.476,0:07:32.147
"of social justice."
0:07:34.448,0:07:37.410
I find two things especially curious[br]in this formulation.
0:07:37.410,0:07:41.717
First, it's interesting that a forum[br]originally framed quite broadly,
0:07:41.717,0:07:46.180
it's about the intermingling of race,[br]class, gender and sexuality
0:07:46.180,0:07:49.050
and disability in the digital humanities,
0:07:49.050,0:07:52.053
quickly moves to a discussion[br]of identity politics
0:07:52.053,0:07:56.072
as the natural or likely terrain[br]for such concerns.
0:07:56.248,0:07:59.110
Later in the forum, Anne Balsamo[br]observes that there are certainly
0:07:59.110,0:08:02.714
many ways to address questions[br]of feminism and of difference
0:08:02.714,0:08:06.082
that do not narrowly default[br]to identity politics.
0:08:06.848,0:08:09.876
And she points the forum[br]to the work of feminist philosopher
0:08:09.876,0:08:11.018
Karen Barad.
0:08:11.949,0:08:15.941
In her book, Designing Culture,[br]Balsamo builds upon Barad's theory
0:08:15.941,0:08:17.712
of intra-actions,
0:08:17.712,0:08:21.270
in order to develop a complex model[br]of design practice
0:08:21.270,0:08:26.112
that understands the relationship[br]between materiality and discursivity
0:08:26.112,0:08:28.409
between objects and subjects
0:08:28.409,0:08:30.615
and between nature and culture
0:08:30.615,0:08:34.079
to be fluid, open-ended and contingent.
0:08:34.481,0:08:38.410
In such a model, design of technologies,[br]of software, of code,
0:08:38.410,0:08:42.412
proceeds from an acknowledgement[br]of our messy entanglements
0:08:42.412,0:08:44.538
with matter and with each other.
0:08:44.743,0:08:48.746
For Barad, to be entangled is not simply[br]to be intertwined with another,
0:08:48.746,0:08:51.639
it's in the joining of separate entities,
0:08:51.639,0:08:54.781
but to lack an independent,[br]self-contained existence.
0:08:56.009,0:08:59.150
Given this formulation, a second element[br]of the forum exchange
0:08:59.150,0:09:01.581
from this website stands out.
0:09:02.482,0:09:05.313
The notion of the bracketing of identity,[br]or of other things,
0:09:05.313,0:09:08.214
other aspects of culture[br]that might prevent one
0:09:08.214,0:09:12.447
from accessing properly[br]the technical nature of the computer.
0:09:13.085,0:09:16.528
Similar ideas surface in a number[br]of moments across the discussion.
0:09:16.528,0:09:21.009
For instance, Andrew Smart observes[br]the "Digital technology
0:09:21.114,0:09:24.435
"at its lowest level relies [br]on the physical laws
0:09:24.435,0:09:27.409
"of how information is represented[br]in voltage.
0:09:27.409,0:09:30.601
"The way computers and networks work[br]is determined,
0:09:30.601,0:09:35.042
"or may be very constrained[br]by the laws of physics."
0:09:36.836,0:09:38.236
Is this you, Travis?
0:09:39.873,0:09:41.103
(Travis) Yes, it is.
0:09:41.103,0:09:42.869
I had no idea you were here!
0:09:43.295,0:09:46.038
Sorry, but here we're going to go[br]for a little bit into Lambda the Ultimate.
0:09:46.038,0:09:47.972
When you introduced yourself
0:09:47.972,0:09:49.505
my ears went PING!
0:09:49.970,0:09:55.003
The tendency to describe computation[br]as a series of levels
0:09:55.003,0:10:00.707
increasingly abstracted from culture,[br]surfaces in other online venues as well.
0:10:00.971,0:10:04.201
A further interesting example[br]is found at Lambda the ultimate,
0:10:04.201,0:10:08.571
a site that "deals with issues [br]directly related to programming languages[br]
0:10:08.571,0:10:11.711
"and is largely populated by programmers."
0:10:11.711,0:10:15.940
On May 5th 2010, Travis Brown,[br]here in living flesh,
0:10:16.268,0:10:17.950
created a forum there
0:10:17.950,0:10:21.600
under the heading "critical code studies",[br]asking the Lambda community
0:10:21.600,0:10:24.567
to reflect on the idea [br]of critical code studies
0:10:24.567,0:10:27.874
as articulated by new media scholar[br]Mark Marino,
0:10:27.874,0:10:32.210
including a link to a CFP [br]and essay by Marino,
0:10:32.210,0:10:36.643
as well as to essays by Katherine Hayles[br]and Rita Raley.
0:10:37.179,0:10:39.673
The ensuing discussion [br]lasted several days.
0:10:40.143,0:10:42.500
While a few contributors were intrigued[br]by the possibility
0:10:42.500,0:10:46.310
that cultural theory might be useful[br]in the study of code,
0:10:46.310,0:10:47.637
including Travis,
0:10:47.637,0:10:49.102
many were skeptical,
0:10:49.102,0:10:52.539
or rejected the idea pretty much[br]out of hand.
0:10:53.105,0:10:58.544
So, these are some fairly typical comments[br]gleaned from this forum.
0:10:59.231,0:11:03.176
This is actually an essay forthcoming[br]in the feminist journal Differences
0:11:03.176,0:11:08.103
and I attend to some of the other comments[br]from this forum in that list as well.
0:11:08.103,0:11:10.504
But I bet you never imagined[br]when you posted this
0:11:10.504,0:11:13.300
that it would end up in the pages[br]of Differences, right?
0:11:13.740,0:11:14.508
(Travis) No!
0:11:16.344,0:11:21.476
The comments begin to kind of replay[br]a lot of the same kind of argument I think,
0:11:21.476,0:11:24.609
that code at the end functions[br]or it doesn't,
0:11:24.609,0:11:26.839
and at some level, [br]if it's going to function
0:11:26.839,0:11:30.717
it really can't have that much[br]to do with culture and society.
0:11:30.717,0:11:34.604
It's functional or it's not functional,[br]as one commenter says,
0:11:34.604,0:11:38.038
"what I mean is that the sociological[br]aspects of code
0:11:38.038,0:11:40.141
"are not in the code itself."
0:11:40.141,0:11:43.474
And I think that is actually something[br]we don't know for sure,
0:11:43.474,0:11:45.536
and I would hold that [br]as an open question,
0:11:45.536,0:11:50.166
that perhaps there are ways [br]that we might come to understand culture
0:11:50.166,0:11:54.742
as quite deeply embedded[br]in our systems, infrastructures
0:11:54.742,0:11:55.807
and code.
0:11:56.268,0:12:00.377
In these examples, code functions[br]much as Andrew Smart imagines it does.
0:12:00.377,0:12:04.006
In a realm determined by math, physics,[br]or reason,
0:12:04.006,0:12:06.806
apart from the messy realms[br]of culture.
0:12:08.205,0:12:12.106
This tendency to frame computational[br]technologies in "levels",
0:12:12.106,0:12:13.803
you know, kind of nested layers,
0:12:13.803,0:12:18.939
is also reflected in the description[br]of the bulk series "Platform Studies"
0:12:19.299,0:12:23.976
published by MIT Press, with editors[br]Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort.
0:12:24.976,0:12:28.274
In the website that describes [br]the Platform Studies series,
0:12:28.274,0:12:32.708
Bogost and Montfort offer a chart[br]delineating the five stacked levels
0:12:32.708,0:12:35.335
of analysis of new media studies.
0:12:35.635,0:12:40.312
So, we move from "reception and operation"[br]to "interface", to "form and function",
0:12:40.312,0:12:42.509
to "code" to "platform".
0:12:42.770,0:12:45.144
And most of the cultural stuff[br]happens up here
0:12:45.144,0:12:47.545
in the ways those descriptions[br]are understood.
0:12:47.545,0:12:49.775
Some of you may be flashing back[br]to Jameson,
0:12:49.775,0:12:52.672
if you ever had that past, right?
0:12:52.947,0:12:56.509
The nitty gritty technological,[br]really important stuff
0:12:56.509,0:13:01.941
in the framing of book series[br]happens down at the level of platform.
0:13:03.102,0:13:05.838
And, potentially at the level of code [br]as well,
0:13:05.838,0:13:09.333
but there's a very particular [br]kind of system
0:13:09.333,0:13:13.841
of privilege built in [br]to the way the analysis operates.
0:13:14.704,0:13:19.845
Platform is framed as the foundation layer[br]"an abstraction layer beneath code."
0:13:20.414,0:13:23.443
And even in the title of the series[br]Platform Studies
0:13:23.443,0:13:25.372
it's obviously given primacy.
0:13:26.004,0:13:29.211
A later revision of this chart[br]in their book Raising the Beam
0:13:29.211,0:13:33.710
encloses these five levels,[br]following some critique of this diagram.
0:13:33.710,0:13:37.309
It encloses these five levels[br]in a chart labelled "culture".
0:13:37.512,0:13:38.534
(audience laughs)
0:13:38.534,0:13:40.403
A box encloses those layers,
0:13:40.403,0:13:44.770
and the authors stress "we see all[br]of these levels
0:13:44.770,0:13:48.138
"not just the top level of reception[br]and operation"
0:13:48.138,0:13:50.433
which on this website is where culture[br]is located,
0:13:50.433,0:13:55.959
"as being situated in culture, society,[br]economy and history."[br]
0:13:55.959,0:13:58.599
Yet the very model of discreet [br]boxed layers,
0:13:58.599,0:14:02.601
neatly enclosed in the larger box[br]of history puts into place
0:14:02.601,0:14:06.499
a conceptual framework[br]that undervalues entanglements
0:14:06.499,0:14:07.737
and interactions,
0:14:07.737,0:14:13.535
encouraging a focus on individual layers[br]rather than a focus on the complex ways
0:14:13.535,0:14:16.673
in which the layers themselves[br]come into being,
0:14:16.673,0:14:19.631
delineate particular possibilities [br]and boundaries
0:14:19.631,0:14:23.194
and foreclose potential futures[br]and becomings.
0:14:23.702,0:14:27.005
Obviously we need to focus [br]our scholarly attention somewhere,
0:14:27.005,0:14:30.371
on particular themes, processes[br]or ideas,
0:14:30.371,0:14:32.963
but the models we work from[br]are important.
0:14:32.963,0:14:39.033
To follow Barad, if matter matters,[br]how we focus on matter also matters.
0:14:40.067,0:14:42.902
Despite this critique, I value[br]and learn from the work
0:14:42.902,0:14:46.467
of code and Platform Studies,[br]in particular from Ian's work
0:14:46.467,0:14:50.099
and careful examinations[br]of particular platforms.
0:14:51.534,0:14:55.064
And from the digital humanities practices[br]more generally.
0:14:55.064,0:14:57.604
I too have written at length[br]how hard it is
0:14:57.604,0:15:02.129
to entangle examinations of code[br]with cultural critique.
0:15:02.562,0:15:05.596
How easy it is to get into the lure[br]of the bracket.
0:15:05.596,0:15:09.213
I've called for humanity scholars[br]to take code seriously
0:15:09.260,0:15:11.003
and to learn to make things.
0:15:11.003,0:15:13.583
Maybe not as vociferously[br]as Stephen Ramsay,
0:15:13.845,0:15:14.811
(audience laughs)
0:15:14.811,0:15:16.413
but certainly loudly!
0:15:16.413,0:15:18.478
But I also worry [br]that the digital humanities
0:15:18.478,0:15:20.384
code and platform studies,
0:15:20.384,0:15:23.612
all too often center computation[br]and technology
0:15:23.612,0:15:26.946
in a way that makes interaction [br]hard to discern.
0:15:27.473,0:15:30.514
In fact, I've argued that this[br]conceptual bracketing,
0:15:30.514,0:15:34.850
this singling out of code from culture,[br]is in itself part and parcel
0:15:34.850,0:15:37.252
of the organization [br]of knowledge production
0:15:37.252,0:15:42.049
that computation has disseminated[br]around the world for well over 50 years.
0:15:43.147,0:15:46.082
In an essay that tracks the [br]entangled historical moment
0:15:46.082,0:15:49.949
that produced new racial codes[br]and new forms of computation,
0:15:49.949,0:15:53.681
I maintain that the development[br]of computer operating systems
0:15:53.681,0:15:59.943
mid-century installed an extreme logic[br]of modularity that black-boxed knowledge
0:15:59.943,0:16:06.211
in a manner quite similar to emerging[br]logics of racial visibility and racism.
0:16:06.211,0:16:09.876
An operating system like UNIX[br]works by removing context
0:16:09.876,0:16:12.319
and decreasing complexity.
0:16:12.912,0:16:18.152
Early computers, from 1940 - 1960[br]had complex interdependent designs
0:16:18.152,0:16:20.419
that were pre-modular.
0:16:20.784,0:16:22.992
But the development of databases[br]would depend
0:16:22.992,0:16:27.651
upon the modularity of UNIX[br]and languages like C and C++.
0:16:28.747,0:16:30.886
We could see at work here[br]the basic contours
0:16:30.886,0:16:34.815
of an approach to the world[br]that separates object from subject.
0:16:35.356,0:16:38.791
Cause from effect, context from code.
0:16:38.791,0:16:42.424
I am suggesting that there's something[br]particular to the very forms
0:16:42.424,0:16:45.735
of digital culture that encourages[br]such a partitioning.
0:16:45.866,0:16:49.988
A portioning off that also played out[br]in the increasing specialization
0:16:49.988,0:16:51.717
of academic fields,
0:16:51.717,0:16:56.073
and even in the formation of mini modes[br]of identity politics after World War II.
0:16:56.894,0:16:59.728
We need conceptual models[br]for the digital humanities
0:16:59.728,0:17:03.735
and for digital media studies[br]that do not rely upon the bracket,
0:17:03.735,0:17:06.067
the module, the box,[br]or the partition.
0:17:06.560,0:17:09.779
Feminist theory, [br]particularly theories of difference,
0:17:09.779,0:17:11.734
has much to offer in this regard.
0:17:12.401,0:17:15.966
Participants in both the DH Poco[br]and the Lambda forums,
0:17:15.966,0:17:18.261
and in the digital humanities [br]more generally,
0:17:18.261,0:17:20.899
call on humanist scholars[br]to learn to code,
0:17:20.899,0:17:25.235
or at the very least, to require [br]advanced technological literacies.
0:17:25.524,0:17:29.295
I agree, but I would also issue[br]a reciprocal call
0:17:29.295,0:17:33.331
for coding humanists to engage[br]feminist phenomenology,
0:17:33.331,0:17:37.197
postcolonial theory, and theorizations[br]of difference.
0:17:37.435,0:17:41.999
Gender, race, sexuality, class, disability[br]might then be understood
0:17:41.999,0:17:47.067
not as things that could simply be added[br]to our analyses, or to our metadata,
0:17:47.067,0:17:50.899
but instead as operating principles[br]of a different order,
0:17:50.899,0:17:54.628
always already coursing through discourse[br]and matter.
0:17:54.628,0:17:58.167
And if we cannot study all discourse[br]and all matter at once,
0:17:58.167,0:18:02.826
Barad offers up not the bracket,[br]but the agencial cut,
0:18:03.201,0:18:05.189
a kind of movement,[br]a fluid movement
0:18:05.535,0:18:10.133
as a method through which "in the absence[br]of a classic ontological condition,
0:18:10.133,0:18:13.705
"of exteriority between observed [br]and observer,
0:18:13.705,0:18:19.026
"we might enact a local, causal structure[br]among components of a phenomenon."
0:18:19.595,0:18:23.077
And here I think there are analogies[br]to be drawn between Barad's work
0:18:23.077,0:18:24.866
and, say, the work of Bruno Latour.
0:18:24.866,0:18:27.429
A lot of ways to begin to think [br]about theorizing systems
0:18:27.429,0:18:29.631
that don't depend upon the bracket.
0:18:30.527,0:18:33.794
If bracketing tends to recapitulate[br]the modularity of code,
0:18:33.794,0:18:36.902
treating difference, either at the level[br]of content,
0:18:36.902,0:18:40.235
and here, difference becomes the thing[br]we fill our archives with,
0:18:40.235,0:18:44.832
we build neutral archive platforms,[br]but we have one about women,
0:18:45.023,0:18:48.633
and one about scholars of color,[br]and one about Native Americans.
0:18:48.633,0:18:51.463
Or difference functions in the background.
0:18:51.463,0:18:55.592
i.e. that box that wraps around[br]the different levels of technology.
0:18:55.592,0:18:59.861
The cut as a methodological paradigm[br]is fluid and mobile,
0:18:59.861,0:19:03.524
even as it recognizes [br]the constituitive work of difference.
0:19:04.293,0:19:09.503
As Barad notes, cuts are part of phenomena[br]that they help to produce.
0:19:09.503,0:19:14.196
Sarah Kember and Johanna Zylinska[br]in their recent book Life After New Media
0:19:14.196,0:19:18.092
have highlighted the dual ontological[br]and ethical dimensions
0:19:18.092,0:19:22.565
of Barad's agencial cut, observing[br]that the cut is a causal procedure
0:19:22.565,0:19:26.263
that performs the division [br]of the world into entities,
0:19:26.263,0:19:28.660
but it is also a decision.
0:19:29.255,0:19:32.757
That is, where and how we focus matters.
0:19:32.894,0:19:37.580
This concept of the cut resonates,[br]if unevenly and imprecisely,
0:19:37.580,0:19:42.050
with tension with a number of feminist[br]conceptual paradigms.
0:19:42.050,0:19:46.356
Including Katie King's re-enactments,[br]Chantal Mouffe's articulations
0:19:46.356,0:19:49.424
Chela Sandoval's[br]differential consciousness
0:19:49.424,0:19:52.190
and Jane Bennett's vital materiality.
0:19:52.617,0:19:56.118
While these theoretical models[br]are as different as they are alike,
0:19:56.118,0:20:00.236
they each offer ways to understand[br]relation between object and subject
0:20:00.236,0:20:04.254
between discourse and matter,[br]between identity and difference.
0:20:04.786,0:20:08.551
So, that was very long-winded[br]and not very DH-y.
0:20:08.700,0:20:12.433
How might any of this matter at all[br]for the digital humanities?
0:20:12.433,0:20:16.060
Alan Liu mantains that the appropriate[br]unique contribution
0:20:16.060,0:20:20.768
that the digital humanities can make[br]to cultural criticism at the present time
0:20:20.768,0:20:26.167
is to use the tools, paradigms [br]and concepts of digital technologies[br]
0:20:26.167,0:20:29.835
to help re-think the idea[br]of instrumentality.
0:20:30.703,0:20:32.765
If a core activity [br]in the digital humanities
0:20:32.765,0:20:36.969
has been the building of tools,[br]we should design our tools differently,
0:20:36.969,0:20:41.598
in a mode the explicitly engages[br]power and difference from the get-go,
0:20:41.598,0:20:45.637
laying bare our theoretical allegiances[br]and exploring the interactions
0:20:45.637,0:20:47.993
of culture and matter.
0:20:48.729,0:20:52.166
And I just want to, in the background,[br]have some slides up
0:20:52.166,0:20:55.537
illustrating what I think are kind of [br]people already engaging this work,
0:20:55.537,0:20:58.667
including Kim Christen, who was one [br]of our Vector scholars years ago
0:20:58.667,0:21:01.924
and has been funded [br]by the likes of the NEH
0:21:01.924,0:21:07.599
and IMLS to do a lot of work that's [br]really rethinking database structures
0:21:07.599,0:21:12.936
and ontologies from an indigenous [br]perspective in fairly radical new ways,
0:21:12.936,0:21:16.603
kind of putting [br]her theoretical inclinations
0:21:16.603,0:21:21.732
as a HisCon student at Santa Cruz[br]to practice in new forms
0:21:21.732,0:21:25.528
of database and archiving technologies.
0:21:26.029,0:21:27.039
This is...
0:21:37.917,0:21:39.047
Sorry...
0:21:50.555,0:21:54.681
This is just one out of many projects[br]from our practice-based PhD program
0:21:54.681,0:21:57.851
which integrates theory and praxis.
0:21:58.210,0:22:03.182
And this is by a young woman[br]Susana Ruiz, a video game designer,
0:22:03.182,0:22:07.152
who produced years ago,[br]an award-winning videogame
0:22:07.152,0:22:09.521
on genocide in Darfur,
0:22:09.521,0:22:12.487
who's now doing a series of projects[br]around...
0:22:12.816,0:22:16.318
card play, strategy games.
0:22:18.851,0:22:22.180
This is sort of like the kids' game[br]Apples to Apples,
0:22:22.180,0:22:26.572
but it's meant as a social infrastructure[br]to wrap around a series
0:22:26.572,0:22:30.780
of documentaries on women, girls,[br]and social justice.
0:22:31.077,0:22:34.446
So, it extends the moving [br]into a transmedial space
0:22:34.446,0:22:37.353
and connects back up to social networks.
0:22:37.353,0:22:39.911
So, she's thinking [br]about feminist game design
0:22:39.911,0:22:44.276
and how game mechanics[br]need to incorporate activist mentalities.
0:22:44.814,0:22:48.859
She's doing a lot of really fantastic work[br]with her collaborators.
0:22:49.147,0:22:53.945
Other feminist scholars offer models[br]of how practice-based work might unfold,
0:22:53.945,0:22:57.451
including Martha Nell Smith,[br]Anne Balsamo, Marsha Kinder,
0:22:57.451,0:23:02.411
Sharon Daniel, Susan Brown,[br]Bethan Nowviskie, Alex Juhasz,
0:23:02.736,0:23:07.305
Julia Flanders, Jackie Wernimont,[br]Misha Cardenas and Mary Flanagan.
0:23:07.843,0:23:11.146
And not all those names [br]usually cohere under 'DH',
0:23:11.146,0:23:15.411
but I want to argue they're all DH[br]in profoundly important ways.
0:23:15.810,0:23:18.707
Now I want to shift gears a little bit[br]and read at you much less
0:23:18.707,0:23:23.173
and talk a little bit about the ways[br]and the collaborative practice
0:23:23.173,0:23:27.319
of my own workspace at USC.
0:23:27.545,0:23:30.414
We've tried to think [br]about what it actually means
0:23:30.414,0:23:33.437
to build feminist systems[br]for knowledge production
0:23:33.437,0:23:34.702
and circulation
0:23:34.702,0:23:36.714
and show you some examples[br]of that work.
0:23:36.940,0:23:39.806
So, this is the journal that I...
0:23:41.342,0:23:45.410
originally edited and now I co-edit[br]with my colleague Steve Anderson,
0:23:45.410,0:23:46.342
at USC,
0:23:46.342,0:23:48.517
it's a very experimental project.
0:23:48.517,0:23:52.450
It looks almost nothing like [br]what we imagined a journal to be.
0:23:52.450,0:23:57.044
And it began really as a set of [br]experiments at the interface
0:23:57.044,0:23:59.815
to try to understand [br]how new screen languages
0:23:59.815,0:24:03.210
might afford scholars new ways[br]to work with the materials
0:24:03.210,0:24:06.540
from their evidence and archives.
0:24:06.742,0:24:11.508
So, I'll really quickly just show you[br]one project from Vectors.
0:24:11.929,0:24:15.337
It's open access, [br]it's available for free online,
0:24:16.169,0:24:19.738
you can find it and [br]see it for yourself, but...
0:24:23.481,0:24:27.946
We were very interested, besides looking[br]at screen aesthetics,
0:24:27.946,0:24:31.308
also thinking [br]about multi-sensory engagement
0:24:31.308,0:24:34.871
and what it meant [br]to have truly multi-modal composition
0:24:34.871,0:24:38.941
for scholarly materials,[br]and what kind of impact that might have
0:24:38.941,0:24:42.639
on how scholars understood [br]their relationship to their work.
0:24:44.914,0:24:49.540
I'm at a very big screen resolution here,[br]so we'll see if it all fits on!
0:24:50.637,0:24:51.979
Oh, no sound...
0:24:58.505,0:25:00.813
Let me know if this sound is turned on...
0:25:00.813,0:25:03.982
(audience member 1) The best thing to do[br]might be to crank up your laptop
0:25:03.982,0:25:05.412
as loud as it'll go.
0:25:07.308,0:25:09.349
I always forget to ask about sound!
0:25:11.919,0:25:14.115
Actually I think I'll show you[br]another piece, real quick,
0:25:14.115,0:25:17.417
that we talked about in the launch,[br]because it doesn't need sound.
0:25:18.820,0:25:22.014
Would not be entirely fair [br]to Sharon's piece
0:25:22.014,0:25:23.647
to show it without sound.
0:25:26.579,0:25:28.419
So, this is the very first issue
0:25:28.419,0:25:33.122
and it included a project[br]called The Stolen Time Archive
0:25:35.218,0:25:37.181
by Alice Gambrell.
0:25:42.512,0:25:45.107
And it's probably an appropriate project[br]to show in the space of MITH
0:25:45.107,0:25:47.917
since there's so much interest here[br]in widening technologies
0:25:47.917,0:25:50.016
and the history of those technologies,[br]because this project
0:25:50.016,0:25:51.882
is a digital...
0:25:54.479,0:25:58.153
performance of the central arguments[br]of a written book project
0:25:58.153,0:25:59.485
called Writing is Work
0:25:59.485,0:26:02.422
that's interested [br]in the material practices of writing
0:26:02.422,0:26:06.350
and the ways this practice [br]has changed quite substantially
0:26:06.350,0:26:08.522
across the early 20th century,
0:26:08.522,0:26:12.222
from being masculine [br]to feminine occupations
0:26:12.222,0:26:16.118
and the kind of cultural anxieties[br]that were produced around that.
0:26:16.118,0:26:19.921
So, the project is basically[br]an eclectic small archive
0:26:19.921,0:26:22.785
of hundreds of documents[br]that somehow relate
0:26:22.785,0:26:26.777
to this kind of material status[br]of writing and exchanging conditions
0:26:26.777,0:26:30.178
that you interact with[br]through this interface.
0:26:32.318,0:26:33.917
Do people know what these are?
0:26:35.321,0:26:36.816
(a few audience members) Shorthand.
0:26:36.816,0:26:38.114
So, these are the...
0:26:38.312,0:26:42.719
What they mean sort of refract[br]the different personalities of the scholar
0:26:42.719,0:26:44.983
and the designer she was working with.
0:26:44.983,0:26:46.919
So, "toy" I would attribute to Alice,
0:26:46.919,0:26:49.384
and "abuse" I would attribute[br]to Reagan Kelly.
0:26:49.384,0:26:52.553
And the interface plays with, [br]esthetically with the tension
0:26:52.553,0:26:54.121
between those dimensions.
0:26:54.121,0:26:57.690
So, to clock in, because the piece[br]is getting you to think
0:26:57.690,0:27:00.908
about the structuring [br]of employment and time.
0:27:00.908,0:27:03.720
You have to practice your shorthand.
0:27:03.720,0:27:05.717
All those orange things are mistakes.
0:27:05.717,0:27:07.919
You don't really have to do it,[br]you could just clock in.
0:27:07.919,0:27:10.017
But people tend to do it anyway.
0:27:10.488,0:27:13.288
And what you gradually begin to do[br]as you move through the piece
0:27:13.288,0:27:16.446
is to explore Alice's eclectic archive
0:27:16.446,0:27:20.485
that's the unacknowledged [br]infrastructure for her book.
0:27:20.485,0:27:25.412
And you can read through her glosses[br]on the materials.
0:27:25.412,0:27:30.348
The words on the project are probably[br]equivalent to a small book,
0:27:30.348,0:27:33.786
but they're deliberate in these[br]kind of smaller sections.
0:27:36.748,0:27:40.546
We quickly realize although we thought[br]we were interested in the surface
0:27:40.546,0:27:43.646
of the screen, that we were working[br]with databases, almost immediately,
0:27:43.646,0:27:48.451
as we meant to build these lovely[br]bespoke, unsustainable Vectors projects.
0:27:48.814,0:27:53.617
So, the first iteration [br]of the database structures,
0:27:53.617,0:27:57.650
we would go on to work with,[br]came out of these projects.
0:27:58.225,0:27:59.823
So, you can move through the...
0:27:59.823,0:28:02.419
I'm not going to tell you a lot[br]about the project,
0:28:02.419,0:28:05.986
but it's full of everything[br]from didactic materials
0:28:05.986,0:28:09.356
produced for office workers [br]and secretaries
0:28:09.356,0:28:12.414
to cartoons, to contemporary zines.
0:28:12.414,0:28:16.882
Stolen time is what you do at work[br]when you're on Zappo's buying shoes
0:28:16.882,0:28:19.218
instead of the work [br]you're supposed to be doing.
0:28:19.218,0:28:21.688
And that's the conceit[br]that organizes the piece.
0:28:21.688,0:28:24.762
As you move through it,[br]if you click on Alice's glosses,
0:28:24.762,0:28:27.184
you start to build a composite[br]of where you've been.
0:28:27.184,0:28:30.589
This was very early,[br]this was 2004 when we built it.
0:28:30.589,0:28:33.485
It's still pretty, I think.
0:28:34.451,0:28:37.720
And lovely to spend time with,[br]but it's not doing a lot of things
0:28:37.720,0:28:40.515
the networked web is interested[br]in doing.
0:28:41.682,0:28:47.281
The early projects were all done in Flash,[br]so they're kind of hermetically sealed.
0:28:47.281,0:28:50.516
The very early ones,[br]you can't even get the data out of.
0:28:50.516,0:28:54.677
There were problems with the way[br]the work unfolded in some ways.
0:28:54.677,0:28:58.655
But it was also an experiment[br]that we learned an enormous amount from.
0:28:58.655,0:29:02.247
In terms of what we might want to do next[br]and where we can move.
0:29:02.746,0:29:06.395
We learned about screen language,[br]but also database design,
0:29:06.395,0:29:10.552
about open access publishing,[br]and I think probably most importantly,
0:29:10.552,0:29:11.789
about collaboration
0:29:11.789,0:29:16.655
with scholars with very particular [br]theoretical and activist commitments.
0:29:17.721,0:29:21.715
Our projects were speculative in [br]the sense that Johanna Drucker describes,
0:29:21.715,0:29:24.550
"committed to pushing back[br]against the cultural authority
0:29:24.550,0:29:28.783
"of rationalism in the digital humanities[br]and in digital design."
0:29:29.145,0:29:31.952
They were also centered on critical[br]and theoretical questions
0:29:31.952,0:29:34.479
that motivated the scholars[br]with whom we worked.
0:29:34.479,0:29:37.660
Humanities scholars interested[br]in questions of memory,
0:29:37.660,0:29:42.885
race, gender, embodiment, sexuality,[br]perception, temporality
0:29:42.885,0:29:45.022
ideology and power."
0:29:45.716,0:29:49.684
While Vectors projects began [br]as experiments at the surface of the screen,
0:29:49.684,0:29:51.616
they soon led us to building tools,
0:29:51.616,0:29:55.752
in particular we began to grapple[br]with the database as an object
0:29:55.752,0:29:58.147
to think with and to think against.
0:29:58.586,0:30:02.352
We found that the constraints[br]of much relational database software
0:30:02.352,0:30:06.355
were not particularly well-suited[br]to the ways in which humanities scholars
0:30:06.355,0:30:07.649
think and work.
0:30:07.649,0:30:11.152
And, in particular, [br]to interpretive humanity scholarship,
0:30:11.152,0:30:12.851
which is often narratively-driven.
0:30:13.122,0:30:14.452
And we wanted to think [br]about how the database
0:30:14.452,0:30:18.617
might be amended somehow[br]to perform differently.
0:30:19.115,0:30:21.681
Through the guidance of our[br]information design director,
0:30:21.681,0:30:25.723
Craig Dietrich, the team developed[br]a customized database tool
0:30:25.767,0:30:29.728
that allowed more flexibility[br]in how scholars could iteratively work[br]
0:30:29.728,0:30:30.892
within our middleware.
0:30:30.892,0:30:34.622
The scholars each built [br]out their own infrastructure,
0:30:34.622,0:30:36.994
while the designer worked[br]on the front end.
0:30:36.994,0:30:41.560
This is from a project by Minoo Moallem
0:30:41.560,0:30:43.722
looking at the function [br]of the Persian carpet
0:30:43.722,0:30:45.829
in the American imaginary.
0:30:45.829,0:30:48.005
She's a feminist postcolonial [br]scholar at Berkeley.
0:30:50.181,0:30:52.358
And she did that with Eric Loyer.
0:30:52.358,0:30:57.021
So we began to explore several things,[br]including the ways
0:30:57.021,0:30:58.962
in which the interface design
0:30:58.962,0:31:01.795
might mitigate the database's[br]relentless logic.
0:31:01.987,0:31:03.961
So, the Vectors projects[br]were very much toddling
0:31:03.961,0:31:06.859
between the rigid structures[br]of the database
0:31:06.859,0:31:07.531
and...
0:31:07.531,0:31:13.589
a very designed, estheticized front end[br]that performed in ways quite different
0:31:13.589,0:31:16.122
than most database structures.
0:31:16.955,0:31:19.494
We were interested[br]in really refusing the tyranny
0:31:19.494,0:31:20.491
of the template.
0:31:20.491,0:31:24.499
But obviously we're still using [br]computational materials
0:31:24.499,0:31:27.997
that physics still had to work,[br]that voltage still had
0:31:27.997,0:31:30.060
to course through the machine.
0:31:30.452,0:31:32.595
In exploring relations of form[br]to content,
0:31:32.595,0:31:35.461
we privileged particular kinds[br]of content.
0:31:35.893,0:31:39.457
Choosing to work with scholars[br]interested in questions of gender,
0:31:39.457,0:31:43.096
race, affect, memory and social justice.
0:31:43.096,0:31:45.930
And those concerns were at the core[br]of our research.
0:31:45.930,0:31:47.436
Those intellectual questions.
0:31:47.823,0:31:49.120
And they profoundly continued
0:31:49.120,0:31:52.488
to shape the way we design[br]technological systems today.
0:31:52.960,0:31:57.165
Now, over the past five years,[br]I've worked with a number of colleagues
0:31:57.165,0:31:59.291
from across the country,[br]in the UK,
0:31:59.291,0:32:03.921
around the emergence of the new kind[br]of organization
0:32:03.921,0:32:07.157
that grows out of the Vectors work,[br]really trying to think
0:32:07.157,0:32:11.062
about how we might work[br]with digital materials held in archives,
0:32:11.062,0:32:12.361
in new ways.
0:32:12.751,0:32:17.530
And this work has been supported by Mellon[br]and by the Office of Digital Humanities
0:32:17.530,0:32:18.493
at NEH,
0:32:18.493,0:32:23.192
and roughly, models a new kind of workflow[br]for scholarly materials
0:32:23.192,0:32:28.764
from digital archive through a set[br]of archive partners like the Getty,
0:32:28.764,0:32:31.924
and Shoah[br]and the Internet Archive
0:32:31.924,0:32:33.823
and Critical Commons,
0:32:33.823,0:32:36.621
all the way through [br]to university press partners
0:32:36.621,0:32:42.655
like MIT, California, Oxford, Cambridge,[br]Michigan, Duke and...
0:32:43.962,0:32:45.262
I'm missing somebody...
0:32:45.262,0:32:46.664
California, right, so...
0:32:46.664,0:32:50.130
We're interested in how scholars [br]might work with digital archival materials
0:32:50.130,0:32:53.960
and publish them in interesting[br]and lively new ways.
0:32:54.423,0:32:58.198
And really begin to think about how[br]we can activate the archive
0:32:58.198,0:33:02.894
as more than a neutral, [br]objective repository for materials
0:33:02.894,0:33:07.359
and instead think about the archive[br]as a space for argumentation,
0:33:07.359,0:33:09.193
a space for point of view,
0:33:09.193,0:33:12.163
even while it can maintain,[br]under another interface,
0:33:12.163,0:33:13.964
its own objectivity.
0:33:14.491,0:33:17.527
So, we're interested [br]in theories of difference
0:33:17.527,0:33:20.963
activated in the archive[br]in a variety of ways.
0:33:21.522,0:33:25.192
And to really begin to push[br]toward new forums of publication.
0:33:25.562,0:33:30.955
We also are committed to ethical issues[br]around open access and to fair use,
0:33:30.955,0:33:34.121
and one of our archive partners[br]is Critical Commons,
0:33:34.121,0:33:37.097
which was founded by my colleague,[br]Steve Anderson,
0:33:37.097,0:33:39.926
and is a sort of YouTube[br]for media studies scholars
0:33:39.926,0:33:44.295
to put commercial media[br]and to use it in emerging genres
0:33:44.295,0:33:46.732
of digital scholarly publishing.
0:33:47.189,0:33:51.459
And we mostly work through[br]prototyping and iteration,
0:33:51.459,0:33:53.196
not always rapid iteration!
0:33:53.196,0:33:55.726
I think there may be a lot[br]to rapid prototyping,
0:33:55.726,0:34:00.326
but the first project was with feminist[br]activist scholar Alex Juhasz,
0:34:00.326,0:34:03.398
who wanted to do a book[br]about YouTube
0:34:03.398,0:34:05.294
in the form of YouTube,
0:34:05.294,0:34:08.226
and this was peer-reviewed[br]and published open access
0:34:08.226,0:34:10.765
by MIT Press a few years ago.
0:34:11.197,0:34:13.689
And it was the prototype[br]through which we began
0:34:13.689,0:34:16.195
to build the software system[br]that I want to talk to you
0:34:16.195,0:34:19.197
a little bit now,[br]called Scalr.
0:34:19.340,0:34:22.839
And her work has always evolved[br]from trying to understand with
0:34:22.839,0:34:24.006
want and need,
0:34:24.006,0:34:26.438
and then building systems[br]to support that work.
0:34:26.730,0:34:29.633
Both conceptually and practically.
0:34:30.132,0:34:35.795
So, Scalr is an authoring platform,[br]it connects to archival resources
0:34:35.839,0:34:36.632
as well.
0:34:37.065,0:34:39.768
It allows you to render your views[br]as well, in many different ways
0:34:39.768,0:34:41.422
so it not only...
0:34:41.422,0:34:44.539
Well it feels in some ways[br]when you're authoring in it,
0:34:45.620,0:34:49.055
like Wordpress, it's radically [br]quite different from Wordpress.
0:34:49.055,0:34:50.681
It's infinitely more flexible.
0:34:50.681,0:34:53.552
It's horizontal, it's non-hierarchical.
0:34:54.143,0:34:57.208
It also connects to archival materials[br]and we're building out
0:34:57.208,0:34:58.681
that set of archive partners.
0:34:58.681,0:35:00.788
So, when you're working [br]in a Scalr project,
0:35:00.788,0:35:03.750
you could connect [br]to the native search function
0:35:03.750,0:35:07.183
of the archives you're interested in[br]and pull the metadata
0:35:07.183,0:35:09.280
associated with those objects[br]as you bring them in
0:35:09.280,0:35:14.014
to your Scalr book or project[br]with the object from the archive.
0:35:14.214,0:35:17.288
So, that careful metadata record[br]is not lost
0:35:17.288,0:35:19.488
as scholars begin to work[br]with the material.
0:35:19.845,0:35:22.654
And down the road,[br]we're interested in what you add
0:35:22.654,0:35:26.320
in the layer in Scalr[br]roundtripped back to the archive,
0:35:26.320,0:35:28.887
and that allows the archive[br]to build out that.
0:35:29.115,0:35:32.311
So, really it's a kind of management[br]of workflow
0:35:32.311,0:35:35.680
from archive to article, [br]to digital project.
0:35:36.148,0:35:39.015
Because it's not like Wordpress,[br]it allows you
0:35:39.015,0:35:42.814
to do some very funky things[br]with structure if you choose to.
0:35:42.814,0:35:47.687
You could build a Scalr project[br]that's a linear path of 30 pages,
0:35:47.687,0:35:50.879
1 - 30, just like a chapter,
0:35:50.879,0:35:55.590
but you can also begin to allow[br]multiplicity and multivocality
0:35:55.590,0:36:00.180
intersecting points of view[br]to seep into the project
0:36:00.180,0:36:04.092
in a variety of ways,[br]because its structure is quite malleable.
0:36:04.092,0:36:08.117
Scalr understands technologically[br]all of its components,
0:36:08.117,0:36:14.286
a media object, a path, a page, a tag, [br]an annotation, to all be the same thing
0:36:14.286,0:36:18.215
and that allows this kind [br]of flattening out of the structure
0:36:18.215,0:36:22.657
which is not really possible[br]in a platform like Wordpress.
0:36:23.688,0:36:26.553
So when I say we've intentionally[br]designed a system
0:36:26.553,0:36:29.520
which values the cut, fluidity,[br]intersectionality,
0:36:29.520,0:36:33.246
that is reflected in the kind[br]of conscious design decisions
0:36:33.246,0:36:35.123
made about Scalr.
0:36:36.015,0:36:39.153
I'm going to quickly walk you[br]through several different projects,
0:36:39.153,0:36:40.556
but in a little more detail,[br]this one,
0:36:40.556,0:36:46.867
which is a project by Nick Mirzoeff[br]to extend his book
0:36:46.867,0:36:48.118
The Right to Look
0:36:48.438,0:36:52.917
which is a long history of visuality[br]and counter-visuality and power.
0:36:53.489,0:36:57.285
And in this project,[br]after he'd turned his book in to Duke,
0:36:57.285,0:37:01.154
the Arab Spring happened,[br]which was very relevant
0:37:01.154,0:37:02.855
to the book Nick was writing,
0:37:02.855,0:37:08.323
and he wanted to kind of address in some detail[br]that in an extension to the book.
0:37:08.323,0:37:11.057
So, this is not really dealing[br]with material from the book,
0:37:11.057,0:37:14.650
as much as it's extending the argument[br]of the book to the present.
0:37:15.078,0:37:17.962
And it's actually got [br]a fairly complex structure.
0:37:17.962,0:37:20.723
What I'm going to show you now[br]is a series of screenshots
0:37:20.723,0:37:23.910
that are all the same page[br]rendered in different views
0:37:23.910,0:37:27.187
through the technology[br]that's just sort of off-the-shelf,
0:37:27.187,0:37:28.953
built into Scalr.
0:37:29.450,0:37:32.914
So, you could explore the whole structure[br]of the project
0:37:32.914,0:37:36.614
through visualizations that come[br]from the jQuery library
0:37:36.614,0:37:42.652
you could see the kind of structure[br]of its organization, its paths and pages
0:37:42.652,0:37:46.322
You could explore it through media[br]or through tags and a variety
0:37:46.366,0:37:48.082
of different visualizations.
0:37:48.717,0:37:51.451
You could look at the metadata[br]for the object you're seeing
0:37:51.451,0:37:52.988
on the page we looked at.
0:37:52.988,0:37:55.354
These are all the pages[br]rendered on the fly
0:37:55.354,0:37:59.284
through the View button [br]automatically into a new dimension.
0:37:59.580,0:38:02.519
Nick has said that this project[br]was really intended
0:38:02.519,0:38:06.714
to illustrate the new possibilities[br]of a kind of horizontal writing,
0:38:06.714,0:38:11.155
and the way that he's talked about that[br]resonates, I think quite interestingly,
0:38:11.155,0:38:14.680
with work by both Jane Bennett[br]and Karen Barad.
0:38:15.348,0:38:17.883
It incorporates a rich set[br]of multimedia examples,
0:38:17.883,0:38:22.522
but it also structures the piece[br]along multiple intersecting pathways
0:38:22.522,0:38:26.881
in a manner that serves to reinforce [br]his larger theoretical arguments
0:38:26.881,0:38:30.918
about the value of the demonstration[br]or the meeting point
0:38:30.918,0:38:32.752
as a theoretical model.
0:38:33.111,0:38:36.824
So, here, much as in the Vectors project,[br]although less obviously I think,
0:38:36.824,0:38:39.716
form and content merge[br]in compelling ways.
0:38:40.717,0:38:43.519
Other scholars have used the platform[br]for a variety of things.
0:38:43.519,0:38:47.388
This is a project by Matt Delmont[br]that is very straightforward
0:38:47.388,0:38:49.884
and simply incorporates all the media
0:38:49.884,0:38:52.420
that couldn't obviously [br]go in his print book,
0:38:52.420,0:38:55.814
into a website[br]that's organized through Scalar.
0:38:56.254,0:39:00.722
And the argument of his project[br]is about looking at American Bandstand
0:39:00.722,0:39:05.218
as a way to understand the struggle[br]for civil rights in a particular locale,
0:39:05.218,0:39:09.655
so there's a lot of media material[br]but also advertising and other images
0:39:09.655,0:39:11.221
collected in this piece.
0:39:11.713,0:39:14.187
Diana Taylor [br]from the Hemispheric Institute
0:39:14.187,0:39:17.719
is one of our archive partners,[br]but also one of our scholarly
0:39:17.719,0:39:19.620
research center counterparts.
0:39:19.620,0:39:23.576
We're now partnered with eleven[br]humanities centers around the country,
0:39:23.576,0:39:28.357
and Diana is basically using Scalar,[br]in this case they're doing five books,
0:39:28.357,0:39:32.982
to remediate a book that she did years ago[br]that didn't sell very well,
0:39:32.982,0:39:41.482
but it's about relatively unknown,[br]experimental Latin American women
0:39:41.482,0:39:42.588
feminist performance artists.
0:39:43.190,0:39:46.623
And what she's able to do[br]in the context of the Scalar book
0:39:46.623,0:39:49.124
is incorporate all the media[br]of those performances
0:39:49.124,0:39:53.054
that might allow the material[br]to circulate in different ways.
0:39:53.054,0:39:55.014
It's also a trilingual book.
0:39:55.014,0:39:56.817
Trying to reach [br]the different audiences
0:39:56.817,0:39:58.551
that he works with.
0:39:58.780,0:40:01.590
This is a project that began[br]as a dissertation at NYU,
0:40:01.590,0:40:03.214
by Deb Levine,
0:40:03.214,0:40:07.184
who, in her dissertation,[br]spent a lot of time and care
0:40:07.184,0:40:11.047
theorizing the methods[br]of activism of Act Up in New York.
0:40:12.110,0:40:15.918
And a lot of time in the archive[br]of oral history materials.
0:40:15.918,0:40:19.416
So, this project brings together[br]many hours of that testimony
0:40:19.416,0:40:21.788
of oral history, activism,
0:40:21.788,0:40:25.990
with a theoretical argument[br]about Act Up's model
0:40:25.990,0:40:31.065
of affinity organizing,[br]which was a flat, non-hierarchical...
0:40:31.065,0:40:34.081
differential consciousness mode[br]of organizing.
0:40:34.555,0:40:37.723
So, she uses the platform[br]to model that flat structure,
0:40:37.723,0:40:41.518
by allowing to tag the [br]key players in that history
0:40:41.518,0:40:46.683
and see their shifting relationship[br]to different groups and organizations
0:40:46.683,0:40:48.480
over a chunk of history.
0:40:50.952,0:40:53.115
Lesbian feminist scholar Kara Keeling
0:40:53.115,0:40:54.916
is working with one [br]of her graduate students
0:40:54.916,0:40:59.182
who has a long history as an activist[br]in third world organizations,
0:40:59.182,0:41:01.354
to bring together [br]all the archival materials
0:41:01.354,0:41:06.459
from an early 21st century[br]digital storytelling group
0:41:06.459,0:41:10.154
called Third World Majority[br]that was founded.
0:41:10.154,0:41:12.086
All their archival materials
0:41:12.136,0:41:14.035
are being collected [br]on the internet archive
0:41:14.035,0:41:15.495
and pulled into a Scalr book.
0:41:15.495,0:41:19.994
And twelve scholars are now writing[br]critical pathways through that archive.
0:41:20.361,0:41:24.460
So, the book will exist at once[br]as the archive of the materials
0:41:24.460,0:41:27.893
and as narrated pathways[br]through the material,
0:41:27.893,0:41:30.524
when you might come[br]or go through it either way.
0:41:34.530,0:41:35.065
Oops!
0:41:36.762,0:41:39.663
This was a project that was taken live[br]this spring.
0:41:39.663,0:41:42.966
It's an edited volume of essays[br]interacting,
0:41:42.966,0:41:45.960
illustrating database narrative.
0:41:46.892,0:41:52.058
And many of the pathways or chapters[br]are themselves database narratives
0:41:52.058,0:41:54.893
that have interesting [br]information structures
0:41:54.893,0:41:56.462
as part of their design.
0:41:57.297,0:41:59.031
This project went live this summer.
0:41:59.031,0:42:00.635
It's a virtual exhibition
0:42:00.635,0:42:02.860
as part of [br]the College Art Association's
0:42:02.860,0:42:05.359
CEA Reviews journal.
0:42:06.329,0:42:09.997
It was their first attempt[br]to actually review an exhibition
0:42:09.997,0:42:11.502
multi-modally.
0:42:11.721,0:42:14.557
So, it includes photographs, [br]a video walkthrough,
0:42:14.557,0:42:20.031
floor plans, very expansive
0:42:20.031,0:42:23.263
and high-quality professional photography[br]of the exhibits,
0:42:23.263,0:42:25.527
as well as a review of the exhibit itself.
0:42:25.527,0:42:27.601
So, the platform is fairly flexible
0:42:27.601,0:42:30.900
and could be taken [br]in a lot of different kinds of directions
0:42:30.900,0:42:33.564
This project went live[br]about a year and a half ago,
0:42:33.564,0:42:38.765
by the artist and activist Evan Bissell,[br]and our creative director Erik Loyer.
0:42:38.765,0:42:43.568
It's an interactive exploration[br]of the history of imprisonment
0:42:43.568,0:42:46.131
and incarceration in California.
0:42:46.532,0:42:50.624
Roughly asking over hundreds of years[br]why California's become
0:42:50.624,0:42:52.468
the prison capital of the world.
0:42:52.468,0:42:57.626
And it uses a feature of Scalr[br]that's an open API,
0:42:57.626,0:43:02.266
so that the front end is done[br]in one version for OS
0:43:02.266,0:43:03.695
and one version in Flash,
0:43:03.695,0:43:06.868
but the content is driven by Scalr[br]and you click
0:43:06.868,0:43:10.494
through the interactive interface[br]into a Scalr book.
0:43:10.494,0:43:14.193
This is a recent collaboration[br]which just went live last month
0:43:14.193,0:43:17.564
in celebration of the March [br]on Washington, its anniversary.
0:43:18.131,0:43:20.295
If you haven't seen this piece,[br]I'm not going to show it,
0:43:20.295,0:43:21.558
because I haven't got the sound,
0:43:21.558,0:43:23.666
please go look at it,[br]it's gorgeous!
0:43:23.991,0:43:25.401
It's...
0:43:25.401,0:43:29.851
as you enter the piece, you enter[br]archival text of the speech
0:43:29.910,0:43:33.254
of the March on Washington,[br]with audio playing,
0:43:33.254,0:43:35.789
and as the audio plays,[br]you can scroll down the page
0:43:35.789,0:43:39.885
and see the improvisations King[br]made on the fly
0:43:39.885,0:43:43.125
that left his script[br]and that he chose to omit,
0:43:43.125,0:43:46.355
and then you can click[br]into a variety of information
0:43:46.355,0:43:50.653
that builds out the context in history[br]and lingering ramifications
0:43:50.653,0:43:51.789
of that moment.
0:43:51.789,0:43:53.988
There are hundreds of pieces of media[br]in here,
0:43:53.988,0:43:57.123
and both this and The Knotted Line[br]are meant to be teaching platforms,
0:43:57.123,0:44:03.386
primarily to use in after-school[br]and in various kinds of youth groups.
0:44:04.427,0:44:09.393
So, we're really trying hard[br]to think about how a platform
0:44:09.393,0:44:13.124
might allow us to mediate[br]a lot of kind of binaries
0:44:13.124,0:44:15.453
of the digital humanities.
0:44:15.984,0:44:18.291
Within a single project,[br]we can glimpse research
0:44:18.291,0:44:21.155
operating across scales,[br]with scholars able
0:44:21.155,0:44:23.380
to move from the micro level[br]of a project,
0:44:23.380,0:44:26.488
perhaps a single image[br]or video annotation,
0:44:26.488,0:44:29.059
to the structure[br]of the entire project
0:44:29.059,0:44:30.824
and its integrated media.
0:44:31.451,0:44:34.257
The researcher can create careful[br]close readings within a project
0:44:34.257,0:44:35.655
of many components.
0:44:36.350,0:44:39.787
They could also be instantly represented[br]as a whole collection.
0:44:39.787,0:44:44.389
Thus moving beyond the artificial binary[br]of distant versus close reading
0:44:44.389,0:44:46.888
that often characterizes [br]our conversations.
0:44:47.721,0:44:50.725
The result richly combines[br]narrative interpretation
0:44:50.725,0:44:55.522
with visualizations that are automatically[br]generated via the semantic elements
0:44:55.522,0:44:56.860
of the platform.
0:44:57.423,0:45:01.186
These visualizations allow an author[br]or reader to see the larger structure
0:45:01.186,0:45:04.755
of a project they have been building up[br]more organically, piece by piece
0:45:04.755,0:45:09.822
while also allowing iterative refinements[br]to the information structure.
0:45:10.721,0:45:13.555
They could also allow a user[br]to access and explore
0:45:13.555,0:45:15.321
specific elements of a project.
0:45:15.690,0:45:18.855
Including tags, media files[br]or narrative pathways.
0:45:19.320,0:45:22.352
Thus, the visualizations[br]are not merely illustrative,
0:45:22.352,0:45:26.759
they're also powerful interpretations[br]that present a project's structure,
0:45:26.759,0:45:29.791
evidence and interpretations[br]in new ways.
0:45:30.851,0:45:34.254
They bring narrative and analysis[br]together with the database
0:45:34.254,0:45:35.492
enriching each.
0:45:36.284,0:45:39.190
This method of researching and writing[br]across scales
0:45:39.190,0:45:42.448
now predominantly unfolds[br]within a given scale or project
0:45:42.448,0:45:45.492
with the possibility of reporting[br]these modes of analysis
0:45:45.492,0:45:49.053
back to archival partners,[br]larger holdings,
0:45:49.053,0:45:55.034
in between Scalr books represents [br]a key area for ongoing research
0:45:55.034,0:45:57.945
The software that underpins Scalr[br]was born of the frustrations
0:45:57.945,0:46:02.179
our scholars often experience[br]working with traditional database tools.
0:46:03.112,0:46:06.778
Vectors engaged intersectional, political,[br]and feminist work
0:46:06.778,0:46:10.812
at the level of content,[br]but also integrated form and content,
0:46:10.812,0:46:14.376
so that the theoretical implications[br]of the work were manifest
0:46:14.376,0:46:17.147
in both aesthetic and information design.
0:46:17.979,0:46:20.475
Scalar is now seeking to integrate[br]these methodologies
0:46:20.475,0:46:22.314
at the level of software design.
0:46:22.772,0:46:24.512
Scalr takes our early experiments
0:46:24.512,0:46:27.011
at hacking the database [br]for Vectors projects
0:46:27.011,0:46:30.173
to a different level,[br]by wrapping a relational database
0:46:30.173,0:46:32.744
in a very particular semantic layer.
0:46:33.773,0:46:37.073
In effect, we wanted to build a system[br]that respected and extended
0:46:37.073,0:46:40.740
the research methodologies[br]of the scholars with whom we work.
0:46:41.314,0:46:45.040
Scalr resists the modularity[br]and compartmentalized logics
0:46:45.040,0:46:49.709
of dominant computational design,[br]by flattening out the hierarchical structure
0:46:49.709,0:46:51.342
of platforms like Wordpress.
0:46:52.017,0:46:53.748
While relatively easy to use,
0:46:53.748,0:46:56.113
it also moves beyond [br]the template structures
0:46:56.113,0:47:01.374
that frequently characterize the web,[br]allowing a high degree of customization
0:47:01.374,0:47:04.346
with cascading style sheets[br]or through its API.
0:47:04.940,0:47:07.343
Thus it mediates a whole set[br]of binaries,
0:47:07.343,0:47:10.605
between close and distant reading,[br]author/user,
0:47:10.913,0:47:12.114
interface/backend,
0:47:12.373,0:47:13.579
macro/micro,
0:47:13.579,0:47:15.004
theory/practice,
0:47:15.004,0:47:16.606
archive/interpretation,
0:47:16.606,0:47:17.707
text/image,
0:47:17.707,0:47:19.347
database/narrative,
0:47:19.347,0:47:20.613
human/machine.
0:47:21.372,0:47:23.907
Scalr takes seriously [br]feminist methodologies
0:47:23.907,0:47:26.642
ranging from the cut to theories [br]of alliance,
0:47:26.642,0:47:29.310
intersectionality and articulation,
0:47:29.310,0:47:32.845
not only in support of scholars[br]undertaking individual projects,
0:47:32.845,0:47:35.179
but in our very design principles.
0:47:35.513,0:47:39.512
As authors work with the platform,[br]they enter into a flow of becoming
0:47:39.811,0:47:42.145
through the creation of a database[br]on the fly
0:47:42.145,0:47:44.981
and through an engagement[br]with the otherness of the machine.
0:47:45.515,0:47:50.108
Scalr respects machine agency,[br]but it does not cede everything to it.
0:47:50.873,0:47:52.911
As Anne Balsamo reminds us:
0:47:52.911,0:47:55.880
"Every interaction that constitutes[br]a technology
0:47:55.880,0:47:58.973
"offers an opportunity[br]to do things differently.
0:47:59.579,0:48:02.371
"Scalr offers a way to explore[br]the rich interactions
0:48:02.371,0:48:06.383
"that link matter and discourse,[br]to engage the alterity of technology,
0:48:06.383,0:48:10.243
"and to cut through plentitude[br]with ethical intent.
0:48:10.243,0:48:12.742
"Our goal is to build technology
0:48:12.742,0:48:14.673
"in order that we might [br]better understand it
0:48:14.673,0:48:16.979
"and its entanglements with culture.
0:48:16.979,0:48:19.412
"We aim to bend the digital[br]to our desires,
0:48:19.412,0:48:22.377
"and to use it in our utopias,[br]if only in the instant.
0:48:23.305,0:48:27.051
"In theories of difference,[br]we already find bountiful ways
0:48:27.051,0:48:30.110
"in which we might rewire these circuits.
0:48:30.110,0:48:33.980
"Feminists have long brought together[br]those who value hybrid practices
0:48:33.980,0:48:39.612
"artist theorist, activist scholars,[br]theoretical archivists, queer failures,
0:48:39.612,0:48:41.542
"[inaudible] cyborgs.
0:48:42.048,0:48:46.216
"I ask you, who better to turn the digital[br]against its darkest logics?"
0:48:47.113,0:48:47.746
Thanks
0:48:48.280,0:48:50.149
(audience applauds)