“Deep Time of Media Infrastructure” In Lisa Parks and Nicole Starosielski, Eds., Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures (University of Illinois Press, 2015)
Categories
Deep Time of Media Infrastructure
Tag: media infrastructure
This semester I’m teaching Urban Media Archaeology for the fourth — and probably final — time (the embedded link takes you to our class website). UMA has been one of the most cohesive, stimulating, boundary-pushing, rewarding — and challenging and time-intensive — courses I’ve ever taught. I’m particularly grateful that I’ve been able to work with the spectacular Rory Solomon for all four years. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him, and he’s become a fabulous — and, I hope, long-lasting — friend.
We’ll be kicking off the semester once again with a “walking tour of the Internet” with Tubes author Andrew Blum (I wrote about this annual ritual in my recent “Infrastructural Tourism” article). Then, as in past semesters, we’ll talk about media archaeology, urban archaeology, and digital humanities. This year I’m pleased to be able to use excerpts from Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner, and Jeffrey Schnapp’s 2012 Digital_Humanities book from MIT Press. Then in October we’ll be taking part in a media archaeology panel discussion, organized by my friend and colleague Kate Eichhorn; she’s invited Jussi Parikka, Lisa Gitelman, and me to participate.
We’ll also spend a couple weeks talking about critical cartography. Then we’ll work with the students to develop spatial data models; Rory and I have evolved our teaching tools and techniques for this lesson — which is always a challenge — over the years, and we have tentative plans to co-author an article on data-modeling in the humanities to reflect what we‘ve learned about the students’ learning. After modeling our data, we’ll have our mid-semester Pecha Kucha — with guest critics Anne Balsamo, Joseph Heathcott, and Jane Pirone — and we’ll do some paper prototyping.
In the final third of the semester, as the students are concretizing their “cartographic arguments,” another good friend and colleague, Nicole Starosielski, will join us from NYU to talk about her own process of developing a geographic/cartographic argument about undersea cables for her forthcoming book and interactive project, Surfacing. After that, we’ll close out the semester with a few tech workshops and one-on-one consultations, followed by final presentations.
Here’s to a fun and productive final semester of UMA!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I want to do a better job of identifying what useful skills students can develop in my classes. And by “useful” I don’t mean simply “marketable” — but that is indeed part of it. I think even “critical” and “creative” skills, like “critical thinking” and “the ability to develop a solid literature review,” can be translated into competencies that a hiring director would valorize.
So here are the “applicable critical skills” and “practical skills” that students can develop in my fall classes, Archives, Libraries + Databases and Urban Media Archaeology.
Why learn about archives and libraries and databases if you have no interest in being a librarian or archivist or database manager?
- Well, because we’re all archivists and librarians now. This is not to discount the tremendous knowledge and expertise possessed by our trained archivists and librarians, or to ignore the invaluable contributions they make to our institutions, both big and small. Rather, I’m suggesting that the sheer volume of data that passes across our various screens requires that each of us develops an information management strategy. We have to develop filters to determine what deserves our attention; determine when and how to preserve and delete; devise strategies by which we can easily retrieve stored material, etc. And given the rate of data-flow, we usually have to make these choices instantaneously and automatically. But we really should “de-naturalize” these processes and consider what ideologies and epistemologies are built into our automated info-management systems.
- Because all institutions and businesses face data-management challenges, and, ideally, the folks in charge will make smart, creative decisions informed by historical precedent and an appreciation of the many critical (political economic, ethical, accessibility-related, etc.) issues at stake.
- Because there’s a database behind pretty much every transaction or movement you make. Databases let you through the transit turnstile; they turn the traffic lights green; they determine your medical bills; they allow you to orient yourself on Google Maps and buy things online; they define you as a student, a citizen, a taxpayer…
- Because our institutions of information management play a key role in defining what is meaningful (consider what’s “meaningful” to the NSA, or to your doctor); what’s worth preserving or deleting (which, in turn, determines what constitutes tomorrow‘s historical record); what should be made accessible or inaccessible, when, where, and to whom.
What useful skills do we develop in Archives, Libraries + Databases? Well, this is a seminar, so most of our labor involves reading and discussing and writing (although students do have the option of completing a creative project for their final). But the things we read and talk about do have plenty of potential applications in the “real world”; here’s how we might translate those applications into contemporary resume-language. We’ll learn to…
- Assess different models of knowledge organization and data management — for government, business, education, the arts, etc. — and consider the epistemologies they embody
- Consider the usability and intelligibility of various knowledge-management systems for a variety of user-groups
- Investigate various collection development strategies, classification schemes, and approaches to preservation — both those that are in common use, and alternative, experimental approaches
- Examine how our information-management institutions have to evolve to accommodate rapidly evolving media formats and uses; and new user groups
- Appreciate the myriad uses to which archival and library material is put — in academic research, in public scholarship, in management, in governance, in media-making, in the fine arts, etc.
Now, what about Urban Media Archaeology? Why learn about mapping and urban history and infrastructure — three of our central themes in the course?
- Because we would do well to recognize that our “new” media aren’t quite as new as we think they are — and that their patterns of development frequently follow paths laid out by older technologies. I talk more about the methodological value of historical infrastructure studies in my “Deep Time of Media Infrastructure” talk, which I’m currently developing into a book chapter for an edited collection.
- Because knowing about how our infrastructures work makes us better able to serve as advocates for reliable, equitably distributed resources. I say more about this in my recent “Infrastructural Tourism” article.
- Because mapping is used widely in the academy, throughout the “Big Data” fields, everywhere in social media, etc. We need to understand what it means to use mapping as a method in these various domains, and what it means to “spatialize” — or GIS-ify — so much of our existence.
What practical skills do we develop in Urban Media Archaeology?
- We practice data modeling and familiarize ourselves with basic database design
- We take a peek into the software development process and learn about best-practices in open-source tech development
- We look into the professional practice of cartography, explore basic GIS, and consider how map-making might serve as an important skill in various fields
- We practice various forms of design prototyping, considering how the prototype-as-medium serves different purposes at different stages of a design process, and for different stakeholders
- We practice design critique and iteration: we consider how to develop appropriate criteria to critique design projects-in-progress, practice effective means of providing feedback to others, and implement others’ critiques in iterations of our own work
- We consider strategies for multimedia storytelling
- And all throughout the semester we implement effective strategies for project management and documentation
I hope it’s apparent that these skills are applicable in a wide variety of fields and scenarios.
At the 2012 Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, I joined Lisa Parks from UC Santa Barbara, Nicole Starosielski from Miami University, and Jonathan Sterne from McGill — all fabulous and inspiring — on the “Signal Traffic” panel, which focused on media infrastructure. You can find my text and slides here.