James G. R. Cronin

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HIDDEN HISTORIES: SYMPOSIUM ON METHODOLOGIES FOR THE HISTORY OF COMPUTING IN THE HUMANITIES, C1949-1980 A one-day symposium at University College London, 17 September 2011. (Sponsored by HKFZ and UCLDH ) Speakers include: Opening Keynote: Beyond chronology and profession: discovering how to write a history of the Digital Humanities, Willard McCarty, Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London; Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney. Knowledge Spaces and Digital Humanities, Claudine Moulin, Universitaet Trier, Germany Unwriting the history of Humanities Computing, Edward Vanhoutte, Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature - Ghent, Belgium Crowd sourcing: beyond the traditional, boundaries of academic history, Melissa Terras, Dept. Information Studies, UCL Different stories to be lived and told: recovering Lehmann James Oppenheimer (1868-1916) for the narrative of the Irish Arts & Crafts movement (1894-1925), James G.R. Cr...

The characteristic of the contemporary age, says Ivan Illich (1926-2002), is “system”, understood through the science of cybernetics as a comprehensive metaphor to describe the computer world "information revolution". This term “system” marks the end of, what Illich calls, “The Age of Instrumentality” which he understood as a time in which our relationship to the world was mediated, primarily, by our tools. Using the term "tool" in its widest possible sense to signify any engineered instrumental means of mediation, Illich argues that what characterises a tool is what makes it distinct from its user. By contrast, the “system” lacks this distinction because it integrates its user within it. In cybernetics the world system, metaphorically, becomes a "network" and an "ecosphere" whereby the computer becomes increasingly identified with the self. Paradoxically, for Illich, this does not lead to holistic integration, but rather to disembodiment. In...

International media are reporting that President Obama was watching on a TV screen as a commando gunned down Osama bin Laden ( White House released image ) Via a video camera fixed to the helmet of a U.S. Navy Seal, White House chiefs of staff watched as bin Laden was shot in the left eye. This sequence of events has already been anticipated and rehearsed, as far back as 1984, in Paul Virilio’s prophetic vision of the prosthetics of technology whereby the eye itself, through technological mediation, becomes a weapon: 'The Eye-Tracked synchronization system fixes the pilot’s gaze, however sudden the movement of his eyes, so that firing can proceed as soon as binocular accommodation is achieved. Finally, there is the “homing image”, which joins together an infra-red ray and an explosive projectile fitted with a special device. This device acts in the manner of an eye, picking up the image of the infra-red-lit target. The projectile that makes its way towards the image – and thus towa...

Paul Virilio, still one of the most significant French cultural theorists writing today, is an essayist with a special interest in urbanism and the strategic implications of new technologies. For Paul Virilio, hypermodernity is played out via the cinema screen through immersive moments of accelerated vision. Images are ‘loaded weapons'. The cinema projector functions as a ‘vector of acceleration’. The speed at which these images are projected, at 24 frames per second, disrupts perception. Awareness is only perceived after the event has occurred like the affects of an explosion. Virilio draws a correlation between cinematic illusion and the mirage of information replicated on a computer screen. This simulation of information without the embodiment of sensation only manifests the paradox of being everywhere yet nowhere. Readings : Armitage, J. 2001. Virilio live: Selected interviews . Sage. Cronin, J. 2011. Excavating the future: taking an 'archaeological' approach to techno...

Keri Facer's work with Futurelab, proposes six future scenarios structured around increasingly individualised, increasingly collective or increasingly contested approaches towards life and education. Scenario 1: Informed choice -- " Learning is a bespoke, life-long journey ". Scenario 2: Independent consumers -- " Learning is an individual responsibility, educational providers are suppliers responsible for ensuring quality of delivery ". Scenario 3: Discovery -- " Learners are encouraged to recognise that there are many communities in which they might participate, each with its own values, priorities, demands and focus, and to draw on a variety of these in constructing their course through education. They are supported in this by mentors, whose role is to guide learners around knowledge situated within a particular community and to help them access related communities. Mentors do not simply relay established practices or patterns of thought – learners are e...

An alternative perspective on collaboration features in Leah A. Lievrouw’s recently published book, Alternative and Activist New Media (Polity Press, 2011), where the collaborative activity of digital activists, directed at blocking the smooth flow of dominant socio-cultural discourses, is a dominant feature of the five genres of new media activism surveyed -- culture-jamming, alternative computing, participatory journalism, mediated mobilisation, and commons knowledge. By surveying the activities at the fringe Lievrouw hopes to better understand the dynamics at the institutional centre. She concludes that these genres of media activism are good indicators of a contemporary cultural ‘turn’ from broadcasting to mediation. Mediation can ‘push’ culture in certain ways. In the context of digital cultures, mediation, Lievrouw argues, will continue to be an ongoing, mutually shaping relationship between personal uses of communication technologies (reconfiguration) and their communicative ac...