A Different Kind of Remediation

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I’ve been thinking about a statement I heard while at conferences this summer; I think I probably blogged the talk, but I’m too lazy to check right now. Anyway, the claim was that appropriate response to a good work in new media was “how clever.” I’m not sure now that I think about it whether that was supposed to be what the audience expects, or what the creator aims for, but in any case it was set in contrast to traditional art that aims for “how beautiful.” And certainly I can think of art that aims for beauty. But does this mean new media art should forget about all of those categories? I’m thinking about the sublime right now; I think it would be amazing if someone created something in new/digital media that struck me as sublime. But so often it does seem to only be about cleverness. Even when it claims to be political, it’s usually addressing politics in a clever parodic way. I can’t think if I’ve ever seen software art, or media art that was just using computers instead of brushes, that really moved me emotionally.

While visiting Rotterdam I went to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum and saw a lot of art, from Medieval to contemporary. It was cool to see the Tower of Babel, for example. But one painting really struck me; a Madonna and Child–the type where Mary is cradling her dead son. This is the first time I’ve been confronted with one of these since having my own children, and it stopped me dead. I stood there tearing up not because of any Christian meaning, but because I was thinking of how agonizing it would be for a mother (or I suppose any parent) to experience such a thing–or worse, to lose you child without having the chance to be with her or him at the end. In fact, even now, it’s upsetting me to even type this in. Can software art or net.art or any other new media art ever create this kind of response? –not grief per se, but something this powerful?

If not, it may never get that far beyond a small academic or expert audience, because many people, in the face of their everyday tragedies and triumphs will simply find it irrelevant.

I’m now thinking of this whole experience–hearing the comment, weeks later seeing the painting, almost a month later having this thought–in terms of the emerging complexity Hayles defined. At the moment, the recursive paths my own thoughts took are very clear to me, as are the unpredictable interactions between different intellectual inputs.

But I also am struck again by how really central experiences aren’t addressed in a lot of the research. –For example, lots of people are writing about virtual communities and social networks, but most people seem to be studying rather groups/networks that are focused on rather shallow things (myself included, to some degree). What about online communities of people who have lost a child? Or who have aging parents for whom they must care? Or who escaped from a camp in whatever war-torn country (plenty to choose from right now)? Or have I just missed it somehow? Is it just not well-publicised? Not tagged as a Technorati fave? Not

In fact, this didn’t bother me a week ago, and maybe it won’t bother me next week either. Maybe this post is just the record of my overthinking. Or the news that my friend’s wife went to the hospital because she thought the baby had stopped moving.

Traditionally, art, music, poetry, etc have (among other things) helped people deal with the aspects of life that are difficult (sublime, maybe?). What is net.art or software art or whatever, for? I mean, really? (and I just know at least one friend who may be rolling his eyes at this question, and he is free to comment!) Oh well, it’s late and I’ll end this post before it gets even more rambly.

I am a "third back-up"

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No, I’m not talking about computers. A friend’s wife is expecting a baby and they already have a little girl who is about 18 months old, so when the baby comes, I am 3rd in line to watch the little girl. –of the three of us on the list, my own kids are youngest, so I guess that makes me least eligible, or something like that. My own require the most attention, this actually means, which I hope is a function of age. Anyway, my friend is quite anxious because if his wife needs a C-section, she won’t be able to lift either baby for about 10 days, my friend works full-time, and their families are far away. He asked “what will we do?” And I said, “you call me, and M, and S, and T, (other friends) and you ask for help, of course.” Parents know that you have to help other parents because you have to be able to trust others will help you, and it’s the right thing anyway.

–I’m also thinking about how no one ever flames parents for asking newbie questions, which we all have done, in spite of reading all the manuals and guides obsessively. The first thing parents learn is that infants are full of buggy software, installing new apps never goes as planned, predicting up or down-time is impossible, and the documentation never seems to cover your exact problem, the error messages are well nigh unintelligible (voice recognition training takes forever). Even input and output are pretty unreliable.

Really, after kids, computers are an f-ing cakewalk.

I bring all this up because it occurred to me that in all the discussion of how communities work, and why some people will help others with computer stuff for free, or put effort into communities for free, this is one model I’ve never heard mentioned. That is, I think just about anyone who has had children understands that sometimes you have to just ask for help without knowing if you’ll ever be able to repay it, and sometimes you offer help without worrying about being repaid. Both cases require swallowing your pride, I’d say. Maybe that’s why it’s not discussed, because people are so firm in believing that net culture is all about reputation. (I assume it’s not lack of experience, because net/computer/whatever scholars can’t all be childless!) And people think the web is all about impatience; but regardless of anything else, parenting requires incredible patience for years on end, with consistently insufficient sleep.

Also, thinking about intellectual property, our children represent perhaps the only group to whom most of us will give money, time, energy, and maybe most important, ideas, without the least concern about who gets the credit. Maybe this last sounds silly, but it’s rather novel for an academic who lives and prospers on the strength of her ideas (or doesn’t).

Well, I think the failure to consider parenting as a useful behavioral model might represent a blindspot in the research. Not sure yet; now that I’ve thought of the possibility, I have to watch and see if it seems to be borne out. (so to speak. *g*)

Cultural groups and academics take over social networking sites

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OK, not really, but Theory.org.uk has a Facebook account now, MySpace has a group called “multimedia electronic literature and art: the subversive and avant-garde” and a number of the edgier arts and academic groups have MySpaces, such as Worm, in R’dam, and the C’Lick Me festival has a MySpace. And of course many people are on Linkdn–me, Henry Jenkins, several folks from De Waag Society. Of course some people have the “excuse” that they are researching social networking sites, so they have to register, but I do find it creepily addictive, or would if it were my only way of connecting to people.

Yes, the debate has run for years and years about whether socializing online isolates you or the reverse, and I’m not going to get into it here (which means I’m going to get into it some, but not a lot). I think that most of the time, the extent to which people socialize online reflects the the extent to which they socialize generally, with some specific exceptions, such as GLBT people who have no local community, or members of an ethnic diaspora, or something like that. (and in fact, a Pew study on internet use finds this as well). Ok, I have to find the link to that study…meanwhile, according to the latest Pew quiz, I am an “omnivore” when it comes to ICT. That means that along with 8% of Americans (who unlike me are in their 20s!) I use ICT “voraciously” for all kinds of things, including socializing.

And I do fit the pattern they report; I am usually very sociable in person as well–as any of my colleagues will attest having wasted enjoyed chatting with me at length while I (at least) am escaping some actual work. On the other hand, I’m not so fond of mobile devices, or rather, of what some people assume my having them means–that I will always be available. But some people even assume that about email. –Just say “no” to instant responses.

Anyway, what I’ve noticed is that when I have many avenues available for socializing, I don’t care so much about doing it a lot on line–face to face is always nicer, when possible. During those times I just email or chat with people I just can’t see because they are too far off–and even then we send pictures back and for or maybe skype also.

But, when I get so busy that I can’t actually meet up with people, or when everyone is away, or whatever, then I find I am far more focused on email and other online contact, and even get quite agitated if I try contacting a bunch of people and no one answers. And then of course I feel like an idiot, because what am I, 12? Do I seriously think someone is shunning me? No, so why worry? Which leads to the next question; after how many days is it reasonable to worry that a) someone is ignoring you on purpose, or b) he or she has met with some misfortune? And is it different between friends as compared to professional connections? –Of course these questions are hardly unique to the ICT age; “waiting for a call” is a widely recognized scenario; Neil Gaiman recently published a really funny poem about it, and it could just as easily be about waiting for email, or IM, or text-messaging.

So I was originally talking about academics and social networking, and my point is, that while some might say they just do it for research, I think most of us end up rather enamoured of the whole business. It’s rather flattering to see that some people link to my Del.icio.us page–it affirms that my sifting through the sea of information is yielding at list some value. And knowing that people are linking to that actually makes me feel a certain sense of responsibility; I know how disappointed I’ve been when I find that a really useful site is no longer being updated. Maybe it’s not creepy (maybe that’s only me 😉 but it’s certainly interesting. Or maybe that’s also only me…

And does this mean teens all over the US (at least) are going to become all saavy about critical theory and computers too? You are now entering the twilight zone…

The joys of a conference co-chair

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So after months of not hearing so much from anyone else involved with our biannual conference, my co-chair, Betsy Eudey, and I have taken the bit in our collective teeth and chosen “Empire: Migrations, Diasporas, and Networks.” Now we just have to line up speakers and finalize the dates… Hopefully I can get the website up and the call out next week.

And, I’m having two meeting. with our new dean, Carolyn Stefanco, today about all the projects we are trying to get started–the new MA, the new minor, the faculty workshops, my own research…and there are all the grant proposals! And the conference…We had one meeting, and that just wasn’t enough time this morning, so we are meeting this afternoon as well! She’s really interested in the idea of collaborating with Piet Zwart (yay!) and in international education generally. In fact, she will be away herself on a Fulbright scholarship during the fall term. I need to get her advice on applying for one of those…in a year or two.

Americans in the Netherlands

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I met quite a few Americans while in the Netherlands; that by itself isn’t so surprising but I was startled at how many were from Californian universities, mostly the UC. At New Network Theory, Alan Liu from UC Santa Barbara spoke, and Ramesh Srinivasan from UCLA (discussed in my last post), and Warren Sack from UC Santa Cruz–there may have been others too. Then at Remediating Literature, Katherine Hayles, also from UCLA, gave a keynote. Apparently I need to go to another country to meet fellow Californian faculty. Well, I could make some kind of snide comment except I also met Nanette Wylde from California State University, Chico. She was very pleasant and is doing some very interesting work. I didn’t realize it at first, but she’s part of the group that created Meaning Maker, which I love. The conference edition is hilarious, and bitingly accurate. So I was actually rather thrilled to meet one of the creators, and to find out she is also at a branch of the CSU.

In addition to all the Californians, I also met Renee Turner, who originally hailed from Texas, but has been in the Netherlands for at least 10 years, I think. I mentioned her weeks ago now, but never got back to really describing her work or our meeting. Renee was making a presentation at Remediating Literature about A Seance with Guy Debord, one of the projects by De Geuzen (the three-woman artist collective of which she’s a member). This was more a performance than an academic paper; I wished the panel had focused on that exclusively so we had more time for discussion. (Not that the other papers weren’t interesting as well!)

Anyway, even before I saw her panel, Renee and I happened to start chatting during one of the tea breaks, and really hit it off. W e turned out to know some people in common because she has worked in the past (and will again come Sept.) for the Piet Zwart Institute and also just because she’s been in the Netherlands since the early 90s. So she very kindly gave me the scoop on some people I’d met only recently on this trip, and we hung out quite a bit between sessions and during meals. I was really impressed to hear about how she balances her own artistic work with new pursuits in creative writing, along with her teaching. She doesn’t have (or want) a steady connection with any of the schools at which she has taught, and that struck me, because it’s so different from what I’ve chosen, which is is a pretty traditional journey down the tenure track. If I were single, with no kids, maybe I would feel able to take a less certain path, but Renee has a child, so I think she must be just more adventurous, or less risk-averse, or something. Anyway, I admire it.

–That’s not to say I want to trade; I’m actually pretty amazed at well things are going for me at the moment. As grad student I sometimes felt I was most talented at getting in my own way, and for the past 12 months I’ve seemed to avoid my usual self-entrapments. I only hope I don’t have a relapse!

After this conference was over, Renee and I connected again in Rotterdam, where it turns out she lives. We went to the Euromast tower, which is weird and campy, but does have a really nice view of the city. Renee was also nice enough to give me some chocoladehagl (chocolate sprinkles) to take home for my kids. These are a traditional Dutch condiment for breakfast toast, and of course the kids loved it. (And got really hyper!) So thanks to Renee for being so friendly and also interesting. I’m looking forward to doing some work with De Geuzen, related to their Female Icons project, because in addition to all the tech-y academic stuff I do, I also am a comic book fan and write about those quite a lot. More on that when it gets sorted out.

And now, off to a meeting about the next few grants I’ll be writing. –It may sound boring, but it’s a welcome interruption from the revisions to a book chapter I’m forcing myself through…

Scholars and Artists

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In the last couple of months I have enjoyed meeting a host of really interesting scholars and artists. I’ve written about those I was seeing or meeting in an official way–keynote speakers, panelists, interviewees, etc. But, I also met quite a few people in a more casual way who are also doing research and or art that ought to be getting some attention. Plus they were just cool and I enjoyed meeting them so much!

So, who did I meet…

Well, I guess it’s easiest to go chronologically. At New Network Theory I met Matthew Fuller briefly; he was Course Director at Piet Zwart before Florian, and I had the fun of listening as they argued over the rough draft of Florian’s talk. We didn’t actually get to talk much, but I have just been informed by our library that his Media Ecologies book has come in, so I will probably write him about it later. And post more here, of course. Then I met Olia Lialina, whose talk on html style I enjoyed a lot. I don’t think I posted about that yet–maybe by next summer I will have caught up. Anyway, she was nice, but I was so jet-lagged, I doubt I said anything remotely intelligent or memorable. Maybe next time. I spent a little more time with Jacob Lillemose when he and I and Florian had dinner on the first day. He’s on the board of a Danish group called ArtNode, an independent Research Center for Digital Art and Culture. I should interview him! But when we met we talked more about his dissertation which if I recall aright, is about “Post-object Aesthetics.” One thing I found really interesting about several of the people I met is that they already have a lot of authority in the field, have publish, are giving keynotes, directing things, all before they have even finished their doctoral work. Very impressive. We all shared Rijstaffel and it was delicious.

The next day I met few interesting people very briefly, but then met two again later at length. My panel was chaired by Ramesh Srinivasan who is in his own words an

Assistant Professor of Information Studies – University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), holds a M.S. Degree from MIT’s Media Laboratory and a Doctorate degree from Harvard, and has focused his research globally on the development of information systems within the context of culturally-differentiated communities. He has studied how an information system can be developed to engage communities to develop their socioeconomic, educational, and cultural infrastructures. This has included an analysis of how the cultural practices specific to communities can manifest themselves into an information system’s architecture, particularly with respect to how it represents, categorizes, and disseminates the information it stores. This research allows one to uncover mechanisms by which local visions and practices can converge with international development initiatives. His research has spanned such bounds as Native Americans, Somali refugees, Indian villages, Aboriginal Australia, and Maori New Zealand.

We spoke briefly afterwards and agreed we should stay in touch. I need to email him now that I’m home because I think the kind of work he’s done would be really relevant to our students and community.

One of the most interesting panels I attended was the one actually titled “Network Theory” –why they got that title out of everyone, no one seems to know– and I thought the most interesting speaker was Mirko Tobias Schäfer who was proposing a new metaphor, foam, for discussing social relationships. In this case online, but actually there’s no reason to restrict it to that. Anyway, I spoke to Mirko a bit after the panel, but we were both rushing because everything was behind schedule and we almost missed lunch and the next session (which I was speaking in). Happily, we both were at the Piet Zwart graduation show where we were able to chat much more comfortably over beer and art.

Mirko has written numerous papers about opensource culture and communities, many of which are available at his website; about half and half English and German. (of course, not the one on Foam…) Right now he’s writing his dissertation on “Bastard Culture! Competent Users, Networks and Cultural Industries”. More to the point, he’s a nice guy who has offered to let me grill him about his work via email and skype. And, he’s another who seems to have accomplished a lot even while finishing his PhD. Coincidentally (or I suppose not, given our shared academic interests) Mirko is doing his doctorate at the University of Utrecht where he sees a fair amount of William Uricchio, whom I knew at MIT, and UU is where my other conference was.

Anyway, he’s written quite a bit lately about how users of both software and hardware contribute to it’s development through hacking, and how people actually learn to do this–that is, how naive users gain enough knowledge to even join communities in which they can learn more. Figuring out this second part will be crucial to the success of our new programs because our students may be as inexperienced a group of users as you can find inside a developed nation, so I’m glad to have found some people who are studying this, and who are so cool! It’s lovely to have so many nice and grown-up conversations in such a short time–in fact, after 4 years during which the majority of my talk was with someone under the age of 4, such intellectually stimulating discourse feels almost an illicit pleasure. And I want to especially thank Mirko for our long talk at the graduation show; all the other people I already knew from Piet Zwart were obviously busy, so I might have felt a complete wallflower. (Not to mention that professionally interesting talk with charming people is the thing I enjoy most during conference trips, so I’m indebted to anyone who contributes.)

He also offered to sightsee with me, which would have been fun, but we both ended up being too busy to coordinate very well. (In fact, given that I was visiting for 16 days, I didn’t do so much sightseeing.) –Several people I met offered to let me stay with them if I wanted to visit their city during my trip, and I only wish I could have had more time to do that, and know these people better.

Finally, I also got to speak a few times with Kristina Andersen, who this year has been a tutor at Piet Zwart and who is an active artist connected to Steim. We had and interesting talk about being working moms, and gossiped a bit about other people in the field. She gave a very interesting talk a few years back about how artistic collaborations work (or don’t) and hopefully we’ll talk more about that some time. She’s another PZI teacher who clearly has meant a lot to the students and who cares about them too.

I think that covers the first conference and the PZI events. Next time some people I met at Remediating Literature.

The Big Picture

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Early on I introduced this blog and why I was writing it, but didn’t say much about the overall plan of which my trip to the Netherlands was part. Here’s a brief summary:

last fall I started organizing faculty that were interested in New/digital media to talk about possible projects and to write grants. We really got going on it in January and now we are really picking up steam (except of course the first grant was submitted in late April and the rest are underway, so we won’t know about money until Late Sept., at the earliest). Money aside, we all felt that students really needed far more experience using and thinking about computer technology and the ways it has changed almost every aspect of our culture. We want them to gain the skills they really need for future employment, which now go beyond sending email and making powerpoint presentations, but most of all we want them to be active creators and users of digital technology, not just passive consumers.

So we decided to create a center through which to develop projects and programs, but interestingly, it’s hard to get money for a center and easier to get it for projects, so we are just trying to do the projects and say they are through the center so that at first it will just exist in name. Hopefully, if the projects and programs succeed, we will be able to convince our administration to give us structural support (meaning space and money) so that someday the center will exist as a physical reality and a line in the base budget. Or maybe we’ll make a space like Worm did (see my second entry on them) where almost everything is salvaged.

Anyway, we are working on the following projects:

  • Running a series of workshops for faculty who want to incorporate technology or teach about it in their classes. We have funding for the fall portion and are seeking funding for the spring to offer small stipends to 15 faculty who actually create new classes or course modules and to bring in some visiting speakers.

  • Connecting with local organizations such as the Turlock Library, the local schools, and the Arts Commission to run public programs for, students and teachers and the public. We’ve already got a letter of support from the Arts Commission.

  • Creating a new minor in Digital Media–We just submitted a letter of intent to the NSF for a grant in support of this. –If the minor proves popular, I imagine in 5 years or so we might propose a major.

  • Creating a new Interdisciplinary MA in Digital Media (or Technology, the title is still up in the air)

  • As part of the new MA, we are proposing an international collaboration with the Piet Zwart Institute Media Design MA in Rotterdam, NL. This would involve an optional exchange program for students that would allow them to receive a Joint MA from our programs. I have been communicating with the Director of the Program and met with him and the of Piet Zwart this month and they are enthusiastic. I also attended the first-year student exhibit and the graduation exhibit, and spoke at length with students and staff, besides looking at student papers, class syllabi, etc. We are developing a plan that will be part of the MA proposal.

  • We are planning to create a lost cost wireless mesh network in Turlock to provide cheap high-speed internet access. Lack of high-speed access is a nagging problem for many students and resident in the area and certainly would hinder our efforts to provide more educational and cultural material via the internet.

  • I am conducting a study of cultural and academic institutions organized around new/digital media which will lead in the near future to articles and conference presentations and ultimately to a book. This summer I conducted a series of interviews with some directors of these kinds of programs in the Netherlands and will be continuing these over the next few years. –A lot about these interviews are covered in earlier entries.

As we work on all of these we are applying for grant after grant and I’m writing a lot of them. If I combine all the proposals, I’ll have a book-length text by December. Too bad they don’t count as publications!

Letters of intent (LOI)

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Some granting agencies encourage (or require) applicants to submit a letter of intent before applying so the agency can decide on reviewers more easily. So, OK, coming up with a 2-page letter with one inch margins, 12-point font in an NSF approved typeface is slightly tiresome, but I write so many conference abstracts, it wasn’t a big deal. Doing it while emailing drafts around with my colleagues while we are all on vacation and dealing with family stuff was a little more tiresome but still, it’s only two pages. We got it done and sent it to our Office of Sponsored Research and Programs, and Nancy, one of our devoted pre-award staff, was to submit it through that delightful online Fastlane system.

Surprise surprise, when Nancy logged in she found that the Fastlane system had a different set of requirements than the program solicitation had listed. Since by then I was offline and we were up against the deadline, she and one of my other colleagues had to improvise, and they did yeoman work re-writing the letter to fit texts fields with very limited character-counts.

–I actually like character counts in one way; they force much leaner, more elegant prose. But trying to produce that on a short deadline is trying. To paraphrase something Henry Jenkins once wrote in his blog, I write long when I don’t have time to write short.

Anyway, here’s what we ultimately submitted:

PROJECT TITLE
Pilot: Increasing underrepresented groups in computer science through interdisciplinary and community collaboration

SYNOPSIS
Historically, women and people of color have been under-represented in Computer Science. California State University, Stanislaus, designated as a Hispanic-Serving institution with an enrollment of over 50% female undergraduates, experiences this same under-representation. Faculty from an array of disciplines that span the physical and mathematical sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities have come together to develop a new curriculum based on an inter-disciplinary and project-centered approach, and to connect with students and teachers at the secondary level in order to increase underrepresented student population in Computer Science. Our approach will emphasize creativity, teamwork, and the development of projects relevant to students and the local community. These have been shown to make computer science more attractive to women and paint a more realistic picture of the skills needed for a career in computer science. We are transforming existing courses and developing additional ones to create new routes into Computer Scie

nce for our undergraduates, and to create new connections with the community. We intend to develop a new minor in Digital Media and a variety of courses and outreach programs to attract our target student population. These will include workshops for local high school teachers and students; and visiting speakers, artists and industry professionals who will make presentations to both university and public audiences, strengthening ties to the community and to other schools. The visiting lecturers will reinforce the practical application and ethical implications of the projects that the students are learning within the minor, and will make those relationships explicit to the public.

OTHER COMMENTS
The target population typically chooses majors in English, Art, Communication, and Gender or Ethnic studies. Our experiences in those classes and observations of other programs suggest that many of these students can learn how to use sophisticated applications and become skilled programmers if they are taught in a project-centered way and if the applications and programming skills are presented as tools rather than an end unto themselves. They are interested in the ethical, pedagogical, and cultural aspects of computer technology. Our students have strong ties to local communities, thus projects that benefit local communities will be far more compelling.

Minor in Digital Media Capstone course: The capstone project will focus on archiving regional living histories and will have a slightly different focus each year. The specific focus will be determined by the students and will be influenced by the contributing courses from other departments, allowing direct relationships between courses revealing the intricate and overlapping ways in which the interaction of technology and culture affects all parts of our community.

Computer Science will develop a method to index and retrieve the content and the programming of the presentation. Art will contribute visual material and will
guide the design of the presentation created from the content collected. English and other participating departments will contribute interpretive content.

The presentation for the capstone course will be consistent from year to year, allowing for data integration and for the project to become more robust with time,
as each project forms part of a new digital library. During the capstone project exhibition, student creators will present and discuss their projects through public
forum.

Project-based courses and workshops for middle and high school students and teachers in digital media will be a method of outreach. These groups will collaborate on archiving the previous capstone project in an online format. In addition, we plan to have an ongoing speaker/exhibit series that brings prominent speakers from industry, arts, and academia to a university audience and also to forums in the community. These community lectures will be aimed at high school students in particular, as we work to attract new applicants to the program. The local city arts commission has already expressed interest in contributing to the realization of our projects.

Yet another cool institution in Rotterdam…

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I realized that while I’ve written quite a bit about the Piet Zwart first year and graduation shows, and have mentioned them in connection with Worm, but I haven’t said that much about what this school is or what my connection is. I’ll warn you now that if my last post about Worm was alarmingly enthusiastic, well, this one is, hmmmn…ardent?

In brief, my school is developing a new Master’s program, as yet untitled, but basically it’s about media, technology, design…suggestions are welcome! So I’ve been working with other faculty on that idea since early last fall, and then I ran into Florian Cramer, an old friend from grad. school, at MLA 2007 . As it turned out, he is the director of the Piet Zwart Institute Media Design MA and they would be interested in working with us. They have been running this MA since 2002, but because they are part of a hogeschool (The Willem de Kooning Academie) instead of a university, their MA is recognized in the Netherlands as a special case, and so is a bit precarious. After talking a bit, we realized our programs each had something that would help the other, so we decided to attempt a joint MA. When our program comes online it will be for a regular accredited MA, so that helps PZI, while they have gained valuable experience pioneering a novel (and as it turns out really successful) approach to this kind of program and that experience will really help us.

This summer when I realized I would be coming to the Netherlands for conferences and other interviews, I arranged with Florian to soak up as much info about the school as I could. I went to the first year show and the graduation show; I went along with him to the final shows of the Willem de Kooning Academie BA programs to look for potential recruits, I talked to many of the students and some of the teachers as well, and met with officials of the Academie, and generally did all I could to learn exactly how they did things and how successful their approach might be.

It is extremely successful.

A lot of factors contribute to this success; several are structural. Students enter as a class of about 10 and proceed as a cohort through the program, all taking the same classes. This creates a strong community that can at least offer its members adequate feedback on projects, even in groups that don’t have terribly good chemistry. When the chemistry is good, the students become really supportive of each other and are able to learn even more thanks to both the collective intelligence effect and the reduction of the affective filter (anxiety).

Further, rather than having several classes each day, classes are divided by days, so that students spend an entire day focusing on one topic which creates an intense immersion. It might sound daunting, but the students I spoke with were very enthusiastic, one saying that she had never liked school before joining this program, which she loves. In fact, because some of the students enter without much experience programming, this approach might even be crucial to their being able to become skillful enough programmers by the time they are done that they can realize their final projects.

I think the balance of theory, practice, and reflection also makes an important contribution to this program’s success. Students get a thorough grounding in the critical theory relevant to Media Design; not just in aesthetic concerns, but also in the ongoing debates over licensing, privacy, and so on. They learn hardware and software hacking techniques, and they are required to produce a quantity of academic prose reflecting on these experiences. After seeing both the student exhibitions and reading the final papers each graduating student made available, I could see clearly how well all of these pieces had worked together and because synthesis is one of the hardest skills for students to learn, I was all the more impressed. Some students of course created more sophisticated projects or explored their ideas more thoroughly in writing than others, but all displayed competence and many were inspired. In fact, two were subsequently selected from a Europe-wide pool of students as part of a small group to display their work at V2, and another has been invited to Ars Electronica.

Also, this balance works on a cognitive level because it combines several different modes or intelligences (depending which educational psych theories you like best). The programming, writing, design work, hardware hacking, oral presentations, and performances pull in many different ways to learn material in a way that comes as close as I’ve ever seen to an optimal environment for learning (as defined by the various theories). I don’t know if this was deliberate, based on these theories, or just lucky, but either way, students really learn.

Finally, the Media Design program succeeds because it has great teachers. I haven’t had the chance to speak with all of them personally, and some change from year to year, but those I did speak to were intensely dedicated to the students, and all of them were very good at their jobs. One way the program enriches students’ education is to have visiting tutors each that supervise that term’s thematic project. These tutors are all active designers, programmers, scholars and artists; many are very well known and influential in their fields, such as Jodi, Geert Lovink, Lev Manovich, Peter Lunenfeld, Sandra Fauconnier….

I have to single one person out for recognition though he may find it embarrassing, and that is the Florian, the MDMA Course Director. Now I have known Florian a long time, since we were both in graduate school (yikes, since 1993!), and I’ve always known him to be a first-rate scholar, but this summer I had the chance to observe him as a teacher and director. Now that my friends and I have all been out of grad school for a few years, I keep having this weird experience of getting to know them all over as professionals. It’s kind of like seeing a sibling on the job or as a parent, and realizing that in some way, there are parts of that person you never knew, though you might have known him or her for many many years.

Anyway, Speaking as someone who has made a study of pedagogical practice (it comes with the territory for people in Composition) and as someone who trains future teachers, I was mightily impressed with this “new” friend. Scholarship is no guarantee of good teaching or managing, and in fact sometimes (perhaps even often) really good scholars are terrible teachers and managers because they are so focused on scholarship. But I could see that Florian is one of those exceptional people who excels at all three.

Not only did I see him spending tremendous time and energy on the program, (that could just mean he was bad at time management, after all!) but I saw how the students and other staff felt about him. The staff I spoke with at PZI all had good things to say which they were apparently compelled to share since, I wasn’t actually trying to solicit these comments, and the students I spoke with, especially those finishing their first year, were positively devoted. As if all this wasn’t enough, Florian is a good manager. I have to say that this struck me even more than the rest because since I also direct a program at my school, I know how difficult balancing responsibilities can be.

Well, I’ve probably put him to the blush enough now. But it’s a great thing to see my friends from grad school doing so well. I get a feeling I might put into words this way: I thought back then they were terrific, but it was all just gut feeling, easily marked down as the bias of friendship, but now I have proof; I was right about these people. They are really wonderful. –I’ve shifted to plural now because I’ve just learned that another close friend from grad school has been made dept. chair at her school. My friends rock!

I’m sure then it should be no surprise that we at CSU want to partner with this program and hopefully create an MA course that works as well for our students. More about that later; but your next treat will be “letters of intent–what the hell are they really?”

Worm invaded

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Worm invaded
Originally uploaded by cuuixsilver

Not caring so much about Worm’s status, being more focused on it’s principles and goals seems to account for some of the biggest differences between this group and many of the others. For example, unlike V2, which is explicitly disinterested in having students trooping through, Worm has carried out what seems likely to be the first of many collaborations with the Piet Zwart Media Design MA program by hosting their graduation ceremony, final show, and celebration. After seeing that some other institutions were no so interested in working with schools in the way Worm has started to, I asked Hajo why he was. –This is important to me of course since we are creating a new program in digital media and design at my school, and because we are already working on a partnership with Piet Zwart.