Kotaku
If you're going to be in San Diego and free next Wednesday afternoon, UCSD is hosting a public portion of their "SoftWhere 2008" at the UCSD campus Lots of people are involved (including names like Ian Bogost), and the public portion will be a rapid-fire format of quick presentations. A reception will be held afterwards. The full release is after the jump — I'll be taking the afternoon off to check it out:
Wednesday, May 21st, from 12:30-5:30pm, the Software Studies Initiative at
UC San Diego invites you to attend a public event:
SoftWhere 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 12:30-5:30pm
UCSD Faculty Club, Atkinson Pavilion
Reception to follow
RSVP to softwarestudies@gmail.com
directions: http://facclub.ucsd.edu/mod_AboutUs/Directions.aspx
Software studies is a research field that examines software and
cyberinfrastructure using approaches from humanities, cultural criticism,
and social sciences. The public session will feature a rapid series of
short presentations by key national and international figures in this
emerging field. The format is 5-10 minute speed-talks, modeled on the
popular "Pecha Kucha" format, in which each presenter is allowed a slideshow
of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. Attendees can expect a collage of
diverse perspectives on what it means to live in software society and how to
study it.
http://workshop.softwarestudies.com/
Off-Campus Participants:
Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Geoff Bowker (Santa Clara University)
Benjamin Bratton (UCLA / SCI-Arc)
Matthew Fuller (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
N. Katherine Hayles (UCLA)
Matthew Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland)
Peter Lunenfeld (Art Center College of Design)
Mark Marino (USC)
Michael (Mateas (UCSC)
Nick Montfort (MIT)
Rita Raley (UCSB)
Casey Reas (UCLA)
Warren Sack (UCSC)
Phoebe Sengers (Cornell)
Doug Sery (MIT Press)
Chandler McWilliams (UCLA)
Campus Participants:
Lev Manovich (UCSD)
Noah Wardrip-Fruin (UCSD)
Jeremy Douglass (UCSD)
Amy Alexander (UCSD)
Barry Brown (UCSD)
Jordan Crandall (UCSD)
Kelly Gates (UCSD)
Brian Goldfarb (UCSD)
Jim Hollan (UCSD)
Stefan Tanaka (UCSD)
Geoff Voelker (UCSD)
ABOUT SOFTWARE STUDIES
http://softwarestudies.com
Google searches and Amazon recommendations, airline flight paths and traffic
lights, email and your phone: our culture runs on software. How does
software shape the world?
Software is a layer that permeates all areas of contemporary societies.
Therefore, if we want to understand contemporary techniques of control,
communication, representation, simulation, analysis, decision-making,
memory, vision, writing, and interaction, our analysis can\'t be complete
until we consider this software layer. Social scientists, philosophers,
cultural critics, and media and new media theorists now seem to cover all
aspects of the IT revolution, creating a number of new disciplines such as
cyber culture, Internet studies, new media theory, and digital culture. Yet
the underlying engine that drives most of these subjects - software - has
received little or no direct attention. Software is still invisible to most
academics, artists, and cultural professionals interested in IT and its
cultural and social effects. But if we continue to limit critical
discussions to the notions of "cyber," "digital," "new media," or
"Internet," we are in danger of always dealing only with effects rather than
causes; the output that appears on a computer screen rather than the
programs and social cultures that produce these outputs.
Following on the first Software Studies Workshop organized by Matthew Fuller
(Rotterdam, 2006), the workshop SoftWhere 2008 @ UCSD is an invitation-only,
foundational event bringing together key U.S. figures in this emerging area.
The workshop will discuss what it means to study software cultures, and the
direction and goals of Software Studies as an emerging movement. Our goal is
for the workshop to result in publishing a founding statement on the field,
as well as initiate a set of interdisciplinary project collaborations. The
workshop will take place in Atkinson Hall, home of Calit2, a preeminent
research center for future computing and telecommunication, where the
Software Studies Initiative @ UCSD is located and currently collaborating
with researchers on several exciting projects. The workshop has also been
timed to precede (and coordinate with) the the HASTAC II conference which
will begin in nearby UC Irvine on the evening of Thursday May 22.
The majority of the workshop will be closed sessions, however, the Pecha
Kucha on Wednesday afternoon is open to the public. Seating is limited and
RSVP is required by May 19 to softwarestudies@gmail.com.
The workshop is sponsored by Calit2, CRCA, HASTAC, UCDARNet, and the UCSD
Visual Arts Department.
