Event overview
Professor Lev Manovich (Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego)
"Scale Effects, or How to Track Global Digital Culture"
The exponential growth of a number of both non-professional and professional media producers over the last decade has created a fundamentally new cultural situation. Hundreds of millions of people are routinely creating and sharing cultural content (blogs, photos, videos, online comments and discussions, etc.). As the number of mobile phones is projected to grow during 2008 from 2.2 billion to 3 billion, this number is only going to increase.
At the same time, the rapid growth of professional educational and cultural institutions in many newly globalized countries along with the instant availability of cultural news over the web has also dramatically increased the number of "culture professionals" who participate in global cultural creation and discussions. Hundreds of thousands of students, artists, designers now have access to the same ideas, information and tools. It is no longer possible to talk about centers and provinces, and students, culture professionals, and governments in newly globalized countries are often more ready to embrace latest ideas than their equivalents in "old centers" of world culture.
Before, cultural theorists and historians could generate theories and histories based on small data sets (for instance, "classical Hollywood cinema," "Italian Renaissance," etc.) But how can we track "global digital culture" (or cultures), with its billions of cultural objects, and hundreds of millions of contributors? Before you could write about culture by following what was going on in a small number of world capitals and schools. But how can we follow the developments in tens of thousands of cities and educational institutions?
Impossible as this may sound, it can actually be done...
This lecture will be given in association with the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme. All are welcome. Please contact Guinevere Narraway (g.narraway@gold.ac.uk) if you wish to attend.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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24 Apr 2008 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm |
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