Postdigital afterglow

Just coming down from the high of Postdigital Encounters and gearing up for two more talks. This Saturday at Screen, Glasgow and the following Thursday at Electronic Visualisation and the Arts, London, plus the next iteration which will be evaluated on 14 July.  It was intense, as ever, presenting at postdigi – in between introducing the symposium and being the Skype amanuensis for Jackie Calderwood‘s paper – trying to focus in on what it is that the project is attempting to do, whilst still being in the throes of developing the next iteration. Perhaps I should have focused on finishing the project before disseminating it!  Still, you live and learn.  And a very steep learning curve it has certainly been – getting to grips with Calvium’s PiRL platform, learning (how to nick other people’s) Javascript, grappling with Photoshop to design the look and feel of the app, and mining the digital video footage shot over the past few months with the Curzon’s education officer, Cathy Poole, for juicy memories for the content.

What I now need time to reflect on is precisely how this creative experience is inflected with and by the technological apparatus (to recall 1970s film theory), or should that be “app-aratus”? I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between a “user” or “user interface” and the notion of the enunciating and enunciated “subject,” since Paul Long asked me to reflect on the “app-ness” of my work from the perspective of being a filmmaker, when I was invited to speak at Birmingham City University in May.  Lizzie Thynne  asked an equally pertinent question about this on Friday at the postdigi event, which I must ask her to email me so I can continue the dialogue.   I have also just read a really useful article published in the online journal Scope on the ‘Past and Futures of 1970s Film Theory’ that will certainly inform my thinking in this area.

In the meantime I’m sewing velvet curtains for the Projection Hero installation that I’m working on with Tarim – more info on that and some ‘making of’ piccies to follow….