Five Theorists from the Last Five Years

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Yesterday I was granted the final extension for my thesis appointment. I have been a PhD candidate since June 2004 and by June 2010 I will be finished. My dissertation is in the process of being re-written for the final time, and it is actually on track. I am confident, if I continue working basically all the time, I will make it.

So, it is almost over. The PhD has been the most remarkable period in my professional adult life. Doing a PhD is like nothing else I have ever experienced. Intense, rewarding, stressful, bewildering and fascinating are some words that spring to mind regarding the hard slog and great privilege that has been the last five and a half years.

Now, looking back over the time as a PhD candidate the contact with the words of others has been perhaps the most rewarding aspect of it. I have been paid to spend time thinking, listening and writing (even speaking occasionally!). With this in mind I thought to post here some of the words of people who have been with me during my own research, People whose ideas have had a marked, and occasionally extreme, influence on my own thinking. I begin with five of the basic building blocks of the digital side of my thesis (a critical literary theory work with a digital corpus as its subject). So here are presentations given by danah boyd, Howard Rheingold, Henry Jenkins, N. Katherine Hayles, Lawrence Lessig and Lawrence Liang. To anyone working in the field it reads like a list of the usual suspects. To me these were the early points of reference from which I branched out into less well worn paths where I tried (and continue to try) to find my own way forward.

UBUWEB Poetry Podcasts have Arrived

UBUWEB has stared a Podcast and the first is the brilliant Ken Goldsmith (founder of UBUWEB and a sound word artist in his own right) presenting the famous The John Giorno Poetry Systems (featuring just about everyone who was doing interesting things with words in New York in the 1970s):

"In 1961 I was a young poet who hung out with young artists like Andy Warhol, Bob Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, as well as with members of the Judson Dance Theatre. The use of modern mass media and technologies by these artists made me realize that poetry was 75 years behind painting and sculpture, dance and music. And I thought, if they can do it, why can't I do it for poetry. Why not try to connect with an audience using all the entertainments of ordinary life: television, the telephone, record albums, etc? It was the poet's job to invent new venues and make fresh contact with the audience.

"This inspiration gave rise to Giorno Poetry Systems, a non-profit foundation under which many projects were born. The record label called Giorno Poetry Systems eventually built up a catalog of 40 titles, ushering poetry onto the radio alongside rock, jazz, etc. for the first time. The Dial-A-Poem service, begun, in 1968, was a huge success. Not only did we ourselves get millions of calls, we inspired the creation of dial-for-stock market info and dial for sports-info services, etc. We also foreshadowed by a generation the explosion of 1-900 telephone promotions, not to mention the delivery of the Internet over phone lines. we produced poetry videos, videopaks and films. We formed bands and toured like the rock'n' rollers. We displayed poetry on the surface of ordinary objects, producing silk-screen and lithograph Poem Prints. We established the AIDS Treatment Project in 1984.

"But in 1965, even before founding Giorno Poetry Systems, I began recording my friend William Burroughs, starting with tape experiments at his Centre Street loft and with Brion Gysin at the Hotel Chelsea. Before the year was out, with my earlier inspirations turning into tangible performances, electronic events and sound pieces at a show at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, I began Giorno Poetry Systems.

"We taped the riotous Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1968, and presented the results that September at New York's Central Park Bandshell. Three months later I featured William in the inaugural installation of Dial-A-Poem at the Architectural League of New York.

"In 1975 William moved into The Bunker at 222 Bowery, where I'd lived on the third floor since 1966.

"In 1976 Giorno Poetry Systems released a double-record set, one LP featuring William's live recordings, the other my sound poems.

"In 1978 in New York there was the Nova Convention, a three-day tribute to William that crowned him patriarch of heroin and wisdom, and featured performances by Patti Smith, Frank Zappa and many others, including Laurie Anderson, who was making her debut public performance." John Giorno

You can subscribe to the UBUWEB podcasts feed HERE (its educational!!).

Internet Filtering and Censorship Podcast

Like manna from above:

Rob Faris, the OpenNet Initiative’s Research Director and John Palfrey, one of the project’s Principal Investigators, lead a discussion of Internet filtering and provided a glimpse of the results of ONI’s first global survey of Internet censorship.

Download the audio podcast (time: 1:08:57).

To get more goodies from the Yale University Berkman Center you can subscibe to the feed HERE.

Podcasts from Media in Transition 5

I am so glad there is a thing called podcasting. Media in Transition 5 started today at MIT (a long way from where I am at the moment) and THEY HAVE PODCATS OF EACH SESSION ONLINE NOW..ALREADY...SO QUCIK THEY ARE!!!

The sessions from today:
Plenary 1: Folk Cultures and Digital Cultures (4/27) podcast
Plenary 2: Collaboration and Collective Intelligence (4/27) podcast

Tomorrow (and therefore no podcasts yet)
Plenary 3: Copyright, Fair Use and the Cultural Commons (4/28) podcast
Plenary 4: Learning through Remixing (4/28) podcast

Blogging from the event at Jill.txt and GTA.

The Creative Remix

The Creative Remix, with host Benjamen Walker, is an hour-long “lawyer free” examination of the art, culture, and history of the remix. The hour kicks off with a musical analysis of DJ Dangermouse’s infamous remix of the Beatles and Jay-Z. Then we go back in time to check out the ancient Roman art of the poetry mash-up, or the Cento. Then we rewind to the 18th century to check out the birth of copyright and how it effected writers like Alexander Pope; and the early 20th century when the visual artist Marcel Duchamp used the remix to reinvent everything. We also take a field trip to the Mass Mocca museum of modern art to check out the exhibit “Yankee Remix.” Walker brings along a few grad students and a pair of curmudgeonly New England antique collectors to investigate different attitudes towards remixing.

In the second part of the program Benjamen Walker speaks with three unique remix artists: The historical novelist Matthew Pearl, Gideon D’arcangelo the walkman buster, and Cory Arcangel, a Nintendo hacker and one of the youngest representatives at this year’s Whitney Biennial.
The Creative Remix was produced by Benjamen Walker with funding from Creative Commons and the CPB Open Studios project.

Listen Now
Part 1 (65Mb mp2 file) Part 2 (44Mb mp2 file)

From Creative Commons Radio

Get ready to transcend......

Performance artist Ken Hamazaki's annual tea ceremony on the Burning Man playa, 2003

Get ready to transcend......
1. Guided Visualization by Jackie Gordon, musical accompaniment by the 17th street new age jammers
2. Henry Flynt, Central Park Transverse Vocal #1
3. Axlotl, Track 5
4. Caroline Myss - Anatomy of Spririt
5. La Monte Young, Four Brass
6. Miscellaneous Hypnosis
7. Popol Vuh, Aguirre III
8. Kraus, Track 6
9. Ruth White, Hanged Man
10. Richard Pinhas, Indicatif Radio
11. Harry Flynt, Raga Electric