I’m excited to be joining a stellar team of mentors at the CCI Winter School in Brisbane in June and I hope to see you (yes, you) there!

The deadline for submission of applications has been extended to 7 February 2012 and you can apply now.

CCI’s 2012 Winter School (coinciding with summer in the northern hemisphere) offers selected doctoral students and early career researchers a week-long program of interdisciplinary study, collaboration and social interaction in the broad area of creative industries and innovation research, drawing on the Centre’s expertise in media, cultural and communication studies, economics, education, policy and law, in relation to the creative economy.

We welcome applications from emerging scholars working on related topics including, but not limited to:

• Cultural, media and creative industries policy
• Digital society
• Community arts and media
• New business models in the creative economy
• Innovation studies
• Economics of the creative industries
• The creative industries in Asia
• Transmedia
• Internet studies
• Copyright and intellectual property
• The challenges of ‘big data’
• Creative careers and creative labour

Participants will work with leading researchers, engage in intensive workshop activities and receive direct feedback and individual mentoring on their own work. Social activities will provide additional opportunities for participants to get to know each other and form collaborative relationships that will last for years to come.

CFP for Special Themed Issue of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (JOBEM), March 2013.

Emerging Methods for Digital Media Research

With the rise of ‘big data’, locative media, and smartphones, existing media and communication studies methods are being recombined, reconfigured and replaced alongside their objects of study. This special issue of JOBEM seeks to expose new research methods for understanding the changing nature of the content industries, the impact of digital media on the practices of creative workers, and the experiences and practices of everyday users of digital media technologies.

We welcome papers based in the humanities and social sciences that reflect on, discuss or critique current methodological trends in digital media research, shedding light on the following questions:

1. Where are the emerging methodological gaps – are there pressing research problems that require the development of new methods, techniques and tools?
2. Where are there needs for new combinations of methods, within or across disciplines?
3. What are the implications for future pedagogical models in internet, media and communication studies, including doctoral education and other forms of research training?

We especially welcome papers grounded in the experience of conducting empirical digital media research. However we will give preference to papers that contextualise, historicise, and reflect on current methodological trends; rather than simply report on the applications or results of new methods.

Abstracts of 250 words are due by 31 March, 2012. Depending on the number of abstracts received, we may shortlist submissions at this stage. Please email your abstract and a list of 3 or 4 suggested peer reviewers to: jobem.edm@gmail.com.

Full articles of no more than 7000 words should be submitted on or before 1 August, 2012 at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hbem (select “Special Issue: Emerging Digital Methods” as a manuscript type). Manuscripts should conform to the guidelines of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Guest Editors: Jean Burgess (QUT), Axel Bruns (QUT), Larissa Hjorth (RMIT), ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation (http://cci.edu.au/)

Editor: Zizi Papacharissi

History or background of award
A scholarship, supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund, is available for a Master’s student to work in the School of Design at Victoria University of Wellington, in Wellington, New Zealand.

This fully-funded 2 year position in the new Master of Design Innovation programme supports Dr Anne Galloway’s Counting Sheep: NZ Merino in an Internet of Things research project.

Purpose of award
The Counting Sheep project aims to create near-future digital media and/or physical computing scenarios that can support public debate on the use of pervasive computing in agriculture, and the future of merino production and consumption.

The student will form part of a small team led by Dr Galloway and will conduct design research in the area of human-animal-computer interaction.

Selection criteria
Applicants require a Bachelors degree in design or computer science, with a focus on digital media production and/or pervasive computing.

In addition to the scholarship application form (pdf), applicants are required to submit a one-page statement of interest that:

1. identifies potential research areas or questions that are compatible with the larger project;
2. describes any relevant experience that supports the successful completion of this research.

Preference will be given to projects dealing with pervasive computing and NZ merino sheep, but other animal-based agriculture topics will be considered. An interest in the cultural contexts of new technologies and experience with ethnographic research methods would be considered an asset.

Number of awards offered
One.

Value
NZ16,000 annual stipend.

Tenure of award
Up to two years.

Closing dates for applications
Monday 27 February 2012.

Applications will be reviewed as they come in and the start date is 5 March, 2012.

How do students apply?
Please submit a completed application form (pdf) plus a one-page statement of interest to:

The Scholarships Office
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Phone: (04) 463 5113 or (04)463 5557
Email: scholarships-office@vuw.ac.nz

Additional information
Please contact Dr Galloway (anne.galloway@vuw.ac.nz) with any questions.

Jonny Wan – Dragon

Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!

2012 is the Year of the Dragon, traditionally associated with energy and change, good luck and good health.

Given a rather inauspicious start to the calendar year–two long-haul flights in two weeks, followed by almost immediate and prolonged immobilisation due to my dislocated kneecap, ended up causing a couple of large and scary pulmonary emboli–I’m really looking forward to what the mythical dragon will bring.

It’s Chinese tradition to sweep away any bad fortune from last year to make room for the good, and in doing this I’d like to acknowledge the good I’ve already seen emerge from the bad:

PE is a life-threatening condition that will involve at least six months recuperation and a lifetime of watchfulness, and I want to thank Dr Cookson at City GPs, who promptly turned a routine check-up into a trip to the emergency ward; Dr Eberhardt and Dr Perrin at Wellington Hospital, who diagnosed me and started treatment so quickly; the incomparable nursing staff who took such good care of me during my first-ever stay in hospital; and all the medical staff who continue to help me recover. I’m thankful that my body, mind and spirit weren’t ready to give up, but without the dedicated efforts of all these people, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have lived to see another day, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I also consider myself fortunate to have experienced the extraordinary kindness and generosity of spirit that some people so naturally and freely share. I’m grateful to have learned the difference between fair-weather friends and soul-mates, and for the chance to let the people I love, both old and new, know how much they mean to me. I also appreciate the opportunity to prioritise my own values and desires–instead of too often doing what others expect of me. For example, I actually enjoy doing less, this is the only kind of fame to which I genuinely aspire, and I honestly believe that it’s the little things that are most important. This year, I want to read and write more–and not for work. I want to listen to music without doing anything else at the same time. I want to grow strange little plants and practice abstract embroidery. And I want to swim in the ocean and walk in the sun.

Best wishes for the Year of the Dragon everyone!

Thanks to all our friends and colleagues for an inspiring 2011, and we wish you much joy and adventure in the coming year!

Baaa by Cyriak (Thx Adam!)

2011 was a busy and rewarding year for us. I had the pleasure of learning about farm tech at Fieldays in Hamilton, shearing and woolhandling at the Merino Championships in Alexandra, and sheep breeding and judging at the Canterbury A&P Show in Christchurch. I presented a remote lecture at the Edinburgh School of Art and a live seminar at the Royal College of Art in London. Ben Kraal and I led a workshop at Communities & Technologies 2011 in Brisbane, I gave the opening keynote at Web Directions South in Sydney, and I presented our research at Critically Making the Internet of Things in Umeå. In addition, Sam Carew and I made a couple of educational videos, and Hamish McPhail, Peggy Russell and I designed a fictional farm.

2012 promises more fieldwork, a few articles, and a really fun design project I’ve been working on with Jonathon Toon. Unfortunately, I dislocated my kneecap just before Christmas and have weeks of rehab to look forward to, so there won’t be any travel for a bit. On the upside, my lack of mobility means I should have more time to read and write–so stay tuned for more frequent updates here.

Cheers!

My presentation was the last one in the last session. I’ll put my slides online as soon as possible, but this was the set-up:

Why study animals? In an era of “smart” cities and things, Donna Haraway reminds us that “animals enrich our ignorance.”

Sheep and humans have lived together for more than 10,000 years, but sheep have rarely been “brought into the open with their people.”

(Haraway: “‘the open’ is where what is to come is not yet—is not fixed by teleology or function, whether malignant or benign—and might still be otherwise…” i.e. a space of potentiality)

Our cultural and design research explores human + animal + computer interaction, or how we (can) be/come together.

I also think it’s fair to say that the audience’s favourite image was this one, taken during last month’s Canterbury A&P Show merino judging, where I learned that flipping a merino onto its back makes it go limp like a noodle.

And, actually, the difference between this image and the majestic Icebreaker merino ram on my first slide offers a way into design fiction that I didn’t talk about in my presentation but should follow up on….

Thanks to everyone at the Critically Making the Internet of Things conference. I had a great time!

Notes taken in real-time and subject to my brain’s filtering mechanisms. My comments in italics.

Social Memory within the ‘Internet of Things’
Chris Speed, Edinburgh College of Art

Real-time is deeply contingent. The space between where we are and where we think we are is open for discussion. For example, Google Maps was only two weeks behind during the Beijing Olympics rather than 12-18 months behind normally; and it is never an agreed upon “now.”

So what happens when you start to place things across this temporally contingent landscape? Ghosts and hauntings can serve as metaphor or example.

“When you scratch or mark-up a surface, be prepared for ghosts and traumas to surface.”

The Orphanage (2007)

Poltergeist (1982)

So. What does this have to do with the IoT?

Tales of Things - but the website is only an archive; tagged objects in second-hand stores allow people to hear the objects’ stories or past lives. “Listen to the pink jumper … It’s good for short-turn love affairs.”

Washington, DC Ghost Bikes – when the original bike was removed by the city, it was replaced with 22 more bikes by citizens. Is the lesson that when you scratch the surface, be prepared for ghosts?

A slip and a rub.

Very nice!

Good audience comment about how tagging objects might actually devalue them by providing too much information. Chris responded that it points to how buying is under stress. Sweet.

Narrative and Agency in PostSecret Postcards
Stephanie Hendrick, HUMlab

PostSecret postcards as physical things re-presented on/in the internet.

Narratives by, and about, victims of domestic violence.

“Until someone abuses me, I can’t love them.” (Image: Tina & Ike Turner.)

“I accepted my childhood molester’s friend request.” (Image: Two happy girls holding hands.)

“Every time a childhood friend of mine posts to Facebook, I have an urge to message them and ask if they had ever had any idea that I was being abused.” (Image: Baby with confused expression but no signs of physical harm.)

Collage as juxtaposition of image and text changes and extends the definition of abuse and violence.

Transformational agency. The postcards transform the person and their experience.

Interesting. But no questioning of whether these secrets are “true” or “simply” public performances of self.