I’m heading to the annual American Folklore Societymeetings in Bloomington, IN, and will participate in a poster session focused on digital humanities. This will be the test drive for the “mimetic inquiry” concept I’ve been batting around. A JPEG of the poster is above, and here is how I describe the concept on the poster:
Embracing an ethos within digital humanities that positions the “digital” as simultaneously object of study and context of scholarly practice, mimetic inquiry utilizes tools of digital content creation and manipulation to generate interpretative analysis that is both process and product-oriented. As such, it entails ethnographically-grounded interpretation that echoes artistic processes, while proposing a move beyond textual representation as the norm for cultural research.
I’m hoping to get some feedback so that I can continue to refine the ideas I’m working with and push this idea further into the realm of usable.
Image courtesy Wisconsin Historical Images (some rights reserved)
On April 1 I was in Madison, WI for a workshop co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Folklore Program, the American Folklore Society, and the ARIS team at UW. ARIS stands for “augmented reality interactive storytelling,” and the project consists of an iPhone app (the client) and a web-based game editor within which someone would construct a “situated documentary” or place-based educational “game.” Run largely by ARIS team members, the workshop focused on getting folklorists to think about how to employ this platform (and related technologies) in cultural heritage/tourism contexts. We did plenty of hands-on work with the extremely-alpha editor (based on MIT open source code), but also spend time discussing best practices, limitations to application, and conceptual issues related to the whole effort. Since the games in ARIS are place-based, you can’t really play them unless you are physically in the places they reference, but the app is free and once they move into beta stages of development I imagine there will be wider access to the whole system.
Somewhat related, I received an announcement the other day about a series of webinars hosted by South Arts (regional arts non-profit that works with nine state arts agencies in the U.S. South). Geared largely toward folklorists and heritage workers, the series kicks off on April 13. Go here for a descriptive list of all of them, but below are selected highlights:
April 13, 2011 10:00 a.m. ET (1.5 hrs)
Folklife Emergency! 12 Steps to Readiness All areas of the nation are subject to emergencies including natural disasters and human-caused events. However, our cultural resources-including people, buildings, and objects-are often at risk for severe damage or loss. Learn about 12 simple things that you can do right now to protect your folklife and cultural heritage assets.
May 5, 2011 2:00 p.m. ET (1.5 hrs)
Digital Tools for the Folk Spotlight on digital trends and tools folklorists can use to advance their work. Participants will learn about an assortment of free and low-cost resources easy enough for the non-techie to use.
June 1, 2011 10:00 a.m. ET (1.5 hrs)
Online Exhibits: Get Your Fabulous Folklore Content to an Online Audience As more and more organizations jump on the online exhibit bandwagon, competition for eyeballs gets tougher. In this webinar you’ll learn best practices to make your exhibit stand out from the rest.
All of the workshops have some sort of connection to media, management, documentation, and arts/culture work. Each costs $25.oo to register, and look well worth it.
This past Friday (11/19/2010) proved to be a successful and energizing day, with the Oregon Folklife Network moving into a chrysallis phase of development via a symposium held at the Many Nations Longhouse on the University of Oregon campus. Titled “Public Folklore in the 21st Century,” the symposium focused on entertaining questions on, insights into, and critical examination of the shape a state-wide public folklore effort should take here and now. An array of local & regional panelists and active attendees anchored the proceedings in immediate context of Oregon, while special guest Bill Ivey brought a national-policy frame to things (often from the 20,000-foot perspective, as he noted periodically…). This combination of distal and proximal, macro and micro, created a dynamic intellectual climate in which we pursued collective analysis of several key issues/themes:
the relationship between ‘non-profit’ and ‘for-profit’ models for cultural programming
developing sustainable structures that support arts & culture (maybe the issue, according to Devon Leger of Hearth Music)
the terminological salad: folklife, folk art, culture, art, or expressive life (Bill Ivey’s suggestion)—which is best for describing the “what” of our efforts?
the difficult necessity of including as many voices/constituencies/interests as possible in developing the strategies, projects, and goals of the OFN such that it serves all communities of the state
An invited panel of arts & culture leaders started the day off, by responding to prompts and offering perspectives on the challenges and possibilities in front of the OFN. Discussion and audience response to this panel bled into a working lunch, during which each table chewed on food and a key question distributed by symposium organizers; my tablemates and I batted around ideas for an OFN mission as well as strategies for generating state-wide engagement. After a short table-reporting session, we moved into the final panel for the day: a student-centered discussion about the relationship between academic training and community-engaged work that emerges at the nexus of folklore and arts management. I moderated this panel, but the four students—two representing the Arts Administration Program, two representing the Folklore Program—did all the work, providing compelling examples from their own research or coursework that gave everyone plenty to think about. To wrap up the day, Bill Ivey presented a short series of synthesizing observations/remarks; the overall theme of these (and the day as well) was: the network-model put into place via the establishment of the OFN is unique and potentially very powerful, so let’s make good on it!
As an experiment, and in order to encourage an avenue of participation that enabled those in the room as well as those far away to partake, a Twitter stream drawing on the official hashtag (#ofn2010) ran on one of the walls as a projection. You can access an archive of it here…While most of the tweets were from people in the room, this stream nonetheless provided a meeting-within-a-meeting of sorts, a meta-commentary on the events and a simultaneous exploration of how/where/why emerging tech can play a role in arts and culture work. Look for video from the symposium in the near future on the OFN site.
I just returned from the annual meeting of AFS, where I participated as a workshop leader during pre-conference professional development workshops on digital audio fieldrecording & digitial preservation for folklore fieldworkers, as well as presenting on/chairing a panel entitled, “Placing Ethics: Public Folklore and the University Setting.” You can find the program as well as other info about the 2009 meeting here.
There was a lot of energy in sessions and the hallways around topics connected to cultural policy and cultural sustainability. Folklorists have been immersing themselves in high-level dialog at the federal/national level in the U.S. for a few years now, and having Bill Ivey on Obama’s transition team certainly raised the profile regarding the kinds of understandings and approaches that folklorists contribute to cultural issues (for more on/from Ivey, go here, here, here, or here).
Two sessions stood out for me related to cultural policy and cultural sustainability. The first featured Richard Kurin discussing the question, “Does the U.S. need a Secretary of Culture?” This was actually to be a debate between Kurin (against the idea) and Ivey (for the idea), but apparently their schedules did not allow them to be on site at the same time—so I only heard Kurin’s side of the debate. It was a convincing and cogent presentation, in which he outlined quite clearly how a cabinet-level ‘culture’ position would most likely be a bad idea. In large part, his argument rested on the notion that government (in the end) regulates things, and most people in the U.S. would likely recoil at the idea of ‘culture’ being regulated; he had many other supporting points that nuanced his position, and most folks in the room appeared to side with him (again, remembering that Ivey was not actually there…). Kurin did state—rather strongly— that the only argument for such a position is that it would possibly contribute to a centralized ‘voice’ advocating for more arts & cultural funding for the public sector. Situating such a ‘voice’ in the West Wing, however, presents too many dangers and compromises.
The other session I found quite engaging was an informational session presented by Rory Turner about the new M.A. in Cultural Sustainability that he has helped craft at Goucher College. Go here for more info. It’s an exciting-sounding program that brings together folklore, cultural policy, arts management, and social justice in a flexible training program geared toward community-centered work. Much of what Rory had to say caused me to reflect on the kinds of training/education we do here at the UO AAD program, though we do not overtly use the “sustainability” word when dealing with culture or cultural processes. Watch the blog on their site as they lead up to the launch.
Overall, the meeting was great and Boise offered a lot to explore. One of the coolest things was a public art piece just outside the convention center. A series of four sidewalk lamps lining a main pathway into the courtyard outside the center, this installation comprised mechanical ‘puppets’ inside each lantern that performed percussive patterns when triggered by passing pedestrians (via motion sensors). This was cool during the day—as it is largely unexpected—but even cooler at night since the ‘puppets’ become kinetic shadows inside their luminous homes. Well done, Boise!
