after-workshop insights

Four categories of collaborative documentary

by Mandy Rose posted on COLLAB DOCS November 30, 2011

I’ve just been in Barcelona, at the ECREA (European Communication Research & Education Association) Digital Culture Workshop which looked at innovative practices and critical theories. It was a terrific gathering – small enough to get to know people, focussed enough to be productive – a great mix of conviviality and critical dialogue. (Thanks to the convenors, Caroline Basset and Elisenda Ardevol.)

I presented in the Creative Practices strand which was concerned with, “concepts of participation, co-creativity, co-design or co-innovation in creative processes involving audiences and independent creators in a wide spectrum of activities including art, photography, video, and videogames.” My paper offered a draft categorisation of the projects I write about here, according to the type of contribution made by the participants. I’ll give a brief summary of the four categories.

In “The Creative Crowd” model which covers work including Mad V’s The Message, and perry bard’s Man with a Movie Camera; the Global Remix, multiple participants contribute fragments to a highly templated whole, analogous to the separate panels within a quilt. The units of content may not make much sense on their own but value and meaning accrue as they come together producing a distinctive aesthetic that’s about energy and repetition. (Though not a documentary, The Johnny Cash Project is a prime example of this mode.)

(more at: COLLAB DOCS)

Thanks to all the participants of the dccecreabcn workshop!

A Sensory Approach to Digital Media

Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories.
ECREA Digital Culture & Communication 3rd workshop
Barcelona, Spain, November 24-25

Abstract plenary session
Sarah Pink, Loughborough University

In recent years there has been a ‘sensory turn’ in scholarship across the social sciences and humanities. This focus on the senses has had some influence in media and communication studies and visual studies. However, the existing literature in this area remains emergent rather than proposing a wider re-thinking, and the ways the senses are understood in these fields have sometimes been rooted in approaches that focus on culture and representation. In this lecture I examine the consequences of engaging such theoretical and methodological tools for thinking about media and the senses. In doing I so argue that we need to go beyond representational approaches that simply add other senses to the audio-visuality of media, or engage with the senses as a series of separate faculties. Instead I suggest how a strand in scholarship that attends to anthropology, philosophy, and the neurosciences might offer alternative routes to understanding how digital media become implicated as part of our practical activity in perceptual and material environments.

co-organised by the
ECREA Digital Culture & Communication (DCC) section,
Humanities Department and Information and Communication Sciences Department, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,
with support from the
Centre for Material Digital Culture (DMDC),
University of Sussex, UK

Digital Culture: Precarity, (self)exploitation and unspeakable inequalities in the cultural and creative industries

Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories.
ECREA Digital Culture & Communication 3rd workshop
Barcelona, Spain, November 24-25

Abstract keynote speaker Rosalind Gill, King’s college, London

This talk has three aims. Firstly, it will review “what we know” about the features of cultural and creative work, discussing issues such as precariousness, bulimic patterns of working, and the intensification and extensification of work over time and space . It will consider how these now ‘well-established’ ‘facts’ about creative work may be being challenged by co-creation. Is this the ‘ultimate’ in exploitation of ‘free labour’ or a harbinger of a different set of participatory ethical practices in the cultural sphere, a democratization of who gets to ‘make culture’?
Secondly, it will explore the notion of “self exploitation” that has emerged as a key term for theorizing the labouring conditions and subjectivities of workers involved in the cultural and creative industries. Whilst this originated as a critical term from a Foucaultian tradition concerned with theorizing new modalities of power and discipline, its usefulness both as an analytical and political tool will be interrogated. Has it become another neoliberal term of abuse–blaming workers for their own exploitation and rendering invisible the structural conditions in which work is carried out? Why has the word exploitation only become speakable when it prefixed by the notion that we are somehow doing it to ourselves? What would it take for us to start talking about exploitation again? Do we need a new vocabulary to think about labour – especially in the context of co-creation? And what kind of resistance is possible without recourse to this vocabulary?
Finally, the talk will raise questions about what still remains a largely silenced issue in debates about the conditions of cultural workers–inequalities between workers. I will develop from the notion of “unmanageable inequalities” to explore how gender, race and class inequalities have become not simply unmanageable but unspeakable in cultural work–even by those most adversely affected by them. How do we begin to challenge the toxic myths of egalitarianism and meritocracy that circulate in the cultural and creative industries–and in much writing about them? And how can we make sure that questions about inequality are on the agenda of a politics that seeks to challenge and resist contemporary labouring conditions – whether this is the labour of freelancers of employees or of hobbyists who give their time ‘freely’.

Full Abstracts and Programme ECREA DCC Workshop

Getting ready for the workshop!

Please, you can find the programme and abstracts for the workshop at:

PROGRAME AND FULL ABSTRACTS

http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/workshop_ecrea2011/programa_eng.html

updates of the ECREA Digital Culture and Communication 3rd Workshop

Dear participants of the ECREA Digital Culture and Communication 3rd Workshop,

Finally we got almost 80 contributions! That's quite a lot considering that we would like to accept around 36 papers...

We are glad to announce that registration application is now available in the workshop website:

http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/workshop_ecrea2011/inscripcio_eng.html

The fee includes coffee breaks, lunch (the two days) and programme materials.

We are getting ready with the schedule arrangements and other details that we will inform you soon.

Looking forward to seeing you in Barcelona,

The organizing team

review process

Digital Culture and Communication Workshop:

The review process will end by July, 12. Acceptation notification during July, 12-14.
Thanks for the patience,
the convenors

Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories

LAST NEWS:

For incoming information you can also consult:
http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/workshop_ecrea2011

The workshop fee is 80 Euro, it includes participants documentations and coffee breaks.

On of the workshop aims is to publish a selection of presented papers, but final details depends on the outputs of the participants.

The workshop papers are submitted to a peer-review process.

The reviewing process will finish the 7 of July.

CFP: Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories

Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories.
ECREA Digital Culture & Communication 3rd workshop
Barcelona, Spain, November 24-25

co-organised by the
ECREA Digital Culture & Communication (DCC) section,
Humanities Department and Information and Communication Sciences Department
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,
with support from the
Centre for Material Digital Culture (DMDC), University of Sussex, UK

CALL FOR PAPERS:

This workshop seeks to explore innovative perspectives on digital
culture and the study of digital culture. Our concern is to focus on
developing forms of theorizing, critiquing, understanding and
researching digital culture, forms and practice. Our intention is to
contribute to emerging work responding (1) to ‘new’ new media
technologies of all kinds, and (2) to respond to developments in media
research on technology and innovation.

We invite contributions of all kinds, but suggest proposals for papers
may fall into three main areas. Each relates to theories, practices
and methodologies of innovation. They are:

1) Digital Media and the senses. This may include work on or related
to enhanced reality, locative media and virtual worlds.
2) Creative practices and participation in new media. Here we are
particularly concerned with discussing concepts of participation,
co-creativity, co-design or co-innovation in creative processes
involving audiences and independent creators in a wide spectrum of
activities including art, photography, video, videogames.
3) Digital research and education in digital culture.This would seek
to explore innovative theoretical and methodological approaches in
digital media studies as well as innovative teaching tools.

The workshop develops concepts and ideas developed at the previous
Digital stream workshop ‘Revisiting Digital Theories’ – our goal in
exploring innovative forms of media culture is to do so within
frameworks that are capable of thinking through technological and
critical innovation whilst also recognizing the connection of both
with earlier forms.

Please submit an extended abstract (500 words max.) by the 6th of June
2011 (and clearly stating which topic section you would like to submit
this to) to: ecreadigitalculture@gmail.com

Venue: Centre d'Estudis i Recursos Culturals, Barcelona (Spain)

Keynote speakers:

Rosalind Gill, Centre for Culture, Media and Creative Industries
King’s College London

Sarah Pink, Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University, Visiting Scholar IN·3 Institute, UOC.


Coordinators:

Elisenda Ardèvol - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Caroline Basset - University of Sussex
Gemma San Cornelio - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Digital Culture and Communication ECREA section

Scientific Committee:

Katlheen O’Riordan - University of Sussex
Smiljana Antonijevic - Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Bridget Wessels – Sheffield University
Alberto García - Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Antoni Roig - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Natalia Abuin - Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Micheal Bull - University of Sussex
David Berry – Swansea University
Caja Thimm - Universität Bonn
Aristea Fotopoulou - University of Sussex
Sisse Siggaard Jensen -Roskilde University
Gemma San Cornelio - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Caroline Bassett - University of Sussex
Elisenda Ardévol - Universitat Oberta de Catalunya


email
ecreadigitalculture[@]gmail.com

Mid term Section event: Barcelona 2011

Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories.

After the ECREA main meeting in Hamburg, we are now working on next section event to be held in Barcelona, late November, 2011.

This workshop seeks to explore innovative perspectives on digital culture and the study of digital culture. Our concern is to focus on developing forms of theorizing, critiquing, understanding and researching digital culture, forms and practice. Our intention is to contribute to emerging work responding (1) to ‘new’ new media technologies of all kinds –from videogames or locative media to social networks related to creative and participatory practices, and (2) to respond to developments in media research and education on technology and innovation.

forthcoming...