Category: Performance

• How Napoleon’s semaphore telegraph changed the world

  A BBC article from back in June this year that I happened to miss on the world’s first telegraph network.

  Hugh Schofield recounts the wonderful description by Alexandre Dumas in The Count of Monte Cristo on one of these ‘Chappe stations’  (named after their creator, Claude Chappe):

  The count sees the contraption “like the claws of an immense beetle” and feels wonder that “these various signs should be made to cleave the air with such precision as to convey to the distance of three hundred leagues the ideas and wishes of a man sitting at a table”.

  The video at the top of the article also contains some information on the relay of messages. Telegraph operators, although mechanically involved, were not privy to the content of the messages sent. Only ‘superintendents’ were able to decode such commands. This was because a code book or vocabulary was required in order to parse the message and understand its sending.

  The reason why this is so incredible is that semaphore lines required a line of sight. The mechanical arms of each station needed to be visible to other stations in order for messages to be received and decoded. In so being, anyone in the surrounding area and within the line of sight could indeed see the mechanical arms, but crucially for its deployment as a military technology, not actually read the message. To all without the code book the content of the message remained a mystery. For something so visible there is a startlingly secret dimension to its operation. Despite the possibility, as Dumas evocatively notes, to “convey…the ideas and wishes of a man sitting at a table” there were actually very few people to whom this transmission was deemed accessible, open and actable upon.

  2013.11.11

• Call for PhD Summer School of Cultural Transformations‏

  2nd Ph.D. Summer School of Cultural Transformations:

  Please circulate to PhD students

  Cultural Im/materialities: Contagion, Affective Rhythms and Mobilization

  International PhD course, 23-27 June 2014, Aarhus University, Denmark

  The summer school is funded by the Ph.D. programmes Art, Literature and Cultural Studies and ICT, Media, Communication and Journalism and by Centre for Sociological Studies Aarhus University (all Aarhus University). The event is part of a cultural studies summer school network with Warwick University, University of Southern Denmark, Södertörn University and Aarhus University as partners. The first event in 2013 was hosted by Warwick University.              

  Organisers      

  Associate Professor, PhD, Britta Timm Knudsen; Associate Professor, PhD, Mads Krogh; Assistant Professor, PhD, Carsten Stage; Associate Professor, PhD, Anne Marit Waade

  Partners: Warwick University, UK, University of Southern Denmark, DK, Södertörn University, SE, CESAU, DK, Copenhagen Business School, DK

  Confirmed keynotes

  Professor Georgina Born (Music and Anthropology, Oxford University), UK

  Reader Tony D. Sampson (Digital Culture and Communications, University of East London), UK

  Professor John Protevi (Philosophy and French Studies, Loyola University Chicago), US

  Senior Lecturer Luciana Parisi (Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths), UK

  Lecturers / workshop organizers / discussants

  Jenny Sundén, Södertörn University

  Nathaniel Tkacz, Warwick University

  Christian Borch, Copenhagen Business School

  Representative from University of Southern Denmark

  Anne Marit Waade, Aarhus University

  Carsten Stage, Aarhus University

  Mads Krogh, Aarhus University

  Britta Timm Knudsen, Aarhus University

  Christoffer Kølvraa, Aarhus University

  Louise Fabian, Aarhus University

  Camilla Møhring Reestorff, Aarhus University

  ECTS: 5 ECTS

  Time: June 23-27 2014

  Room and Place: Aarhus University

  Cost/ Policy: No cost fee, each participant covers travel & accommodation.

  Max. number of participants: 30

  Description

  The summer school wants to explore the role of affect, suggestive rhythms and contagion for the somatic mobilization of agents across a range of socio-cultural situations (e.g. protest events, dance halls, online forums, catastrophes), practises and processes (e.g. political mobilization and engagement, school bullying, youth loneliness, xenophobic/nationalist panics). In recent years an increasing interest in materiality, space, technology and embodiment has developed in the humanities and social sciences combined with an ëaffective turní (Clough, Massumi, Thrift, Seigworth and Gregg, Ahmed) to immaterial dimensions of these phenomena.

  This has re-actualised early sociological theories about affective suggestion, contagion and imitation (e.g. Gustave Le Bon and Gabriel Tarde), which offer valuable insights to the analysis of a contemporary cultural landscape characterised by for instance viral/memetic phenomena, mediated/networked/rhythmically coordinated crowds, affective online communication and political modulation of citizen affects (Blackman, Borch, Gibbs, Sampson, Butler). During the summer school we wish to collectively explore the immaterial dimensions of the material social world and vice versa, discuss the potentialities, implications and risks of such analysis in an open interdisciplinary environment.

  The event will attract PhD students from a range of academic fields (anthropology, geography, media, cultural studies, aesthetics, sociology, political science etc.) interested in, and doing research on, the affective turn, processes of imitation/suggestion/contagion, the rhythmically attuning mobilisation of bodies, and the im/material dimensions of culture and the social world.

  Possible areas/topics:

  • The affective dimensions of materiality, space, technology and things
  • Aesthetics and affectivity, sensual design
  • Mobilization within public and private spheres of action
  • Viral communication, virality in the media, memes, social media
  • The methodological challenges of analysing cultural materialities and immaterial processes
  • Theoretical legacies to the ëaffective turní and new materialist orientations within the humanities and social sciences; early sociologies of contagion, suggestion and imitation
  • Moral, media and financial panics
  • Music culture, sound, dance and rhythm
  • Industries of affect, affective consumption
  • Tourism, black spot/dark tourism
  • Artistic agency, idols and fandom
  • Crowds, protest culture, social movements, (creative/eventful) activism, political events
  • Depression, loneliness, bullying, affective exclusion
  • Charity, empathy and sympathy
  • Affect, emotion and power, war and affective modulation
  • Xenophobia, nationalism, the strategic production of fear and hate
  • Atmosphere, aura, prestige
  • Sexuality, porn, love and care
  • The affectivity of catastrophes
  • Blasphemy, fanaticism and provocative politics

  The Ph.D.-summer school will be based on keynote presentations, workshops and studentsí own project presentations and organized feedback sessions.

  Exam

  The examination will consist of three parts: 1. Full paper hand-in (deadline May 15); 2. Attending workshops and doing group assignments; 3. Paper presentation and discussion of papers.

  Deadline for submission

  Deadline: March 1 2014

  Send an email to: Marianne Hoffmeister mho@adm.au.dk

  Attach a description of your research topic and project (max. 300 words).

  March 15: You will get to know if you participate, and you will be asked to confirm your  participation.

  Preparation for PhD students

  April 1: The organizers will form groups out of the participants (5 in all) and each group has to organize a slot of one hour each with a social and/or academic content (e.g. academic speed-dating, guided tours in Aarhus for strangers by strangers, exercises between the slots).

  May 15: Deadline for submitting a full paper (10 pages).

  Preparation for teachers

  March: Organizers must read the abstracts and form participants groups.

  Medio May: The group of teachers will be responsible for 3-4 papers, that he/she has read  carefully in advance in order to 1) place the paper within the theme of the summer school 2) to be a discussant of the paper and to give an open and constructive feedback at the summer school.

  About the summer school network (SSCT)

  The series aims at creating an international environment of constructive academic discussions in the field of cultural studies in order to strengthen this discipline in our respective academic communities and to develop the discipline of cultural studies according to actual developments and new theoretical paradigms. The series aims at improving teaching in cultural studies through a meticulous work on theoretical, methodological and empirical challenges. It is also our intention to build stronger research relations and exchange opportunities between the involved institutions and participants. Network coordinator: Carsten Stage (norcs@hum.au.dk).

  2013.11.08

• Playing Gozo

  

  Fellow Charting the Digital member Alex Gekker has put together a thoughtful piece over at his blog on the experience of devising and participating in a game for a group of undergraduate geographers. If you desire to know about the mechanisms of the game, please read Alex’s post. I also helped put together and play the game myself, and I offer up some of my own thoughts below:

  THE PHOTO that heads this post was taken by me on the second stage of the game. In my hand is a geocache command given to my group from another set of students. As the group had chosen Catholicism as their guiding theme, the other group were tasked with devising a series of geo-located commands in order to structure their thinking on the theme. Gozo is a deeply religious island, as is Malta in general, and the inscription of Catholicism on the physical landscape is hard to ignore. Churches dominate the skyline, from wherever you are, and their red tiled roofs make them easily identifiable. Upon the Rabat Citadel we counted something like 12 red-roofed buildings. On the ground its influence is even greater. Madonna niches are on every corner – and I mean every corner. They are ornate, lighted and well-kept.

  Religious mosaics, although less common, also provided an interesting talking point for my group. An earlier task on the first stage of the game required them to “eat a food with religious connotation”, and following some discussion (can we drink red wine?) we opted to head to a convenience store for some fresh bread and tinned anchovies (see below). Luckily none of us had an aversion to the latter, although on giving the same task to a later group, eating the anchovies provided a rather haunting experience!

  Later, after our delicious meal, we spotted a tiled image on the front wall of a small church. On investigation we discovered its rather delightful symbolism: the fish and basket of bread (below) depicting one of the classically retold miracles. The connection between the initial command (“eat something religious”), the performance of carrying it out (eating outside, on the floor, “humbly”) and the physical architecture (miracle as symbolic object) provided a wonderful opportunity for my group to really interrogate the pervasiveness of Catholicism on this tiny island. And as if to push this connection even further, to really ground the specificity of Catholic practices in Gozo, we discovered another tile – this time in marble on the floor outside the same church – of a desert island scene, complete with palm tree and olive branch-holding bird. It was almost too good to be true.

  

  However, therein lay a potential problem. In advancing an understanding of how Catholicism and island life were intimately entwined its importance became overbearing, if not downright wrong. Discussion spread to all manner of activity from family life and daily chores, to sports meetings, local council decisions, schooling and architecture. It became the explanation for everything and resulted in a kind of religious determinism. Although the island is genuinely one of the most avowedly Catholic places I’ve had the pleasure of visiting I, along with other PhD students and staff, was determined to explore a more pluralistic account of everyday life; one that took into account not only other religions alive and well on the island (yes there were some!), but also Catholicism’s own Paganistic beginnings more generally.

  There were two particular moments or sites that allowed us to do so. Firstly, Gozo is home to a Neolithic, megalithic temple complex called Ġgantija. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the oldest man-made religious structures in the whole world, dating back over 5500 years. Critically it isn’t a site of Catholic importance. It isn’t a church, shrine or a niche. In fact, it’s thought it was probably a site connected to a fertility cult. Phallic objects and animal carvings recovered from the site are now preserved in the Gozo Museum of Archaeology. So this early religio-spiritual site predates Catholicism on the island. It suggests an alternative, nuanced history of faith and human belief that does not relate directly to the now dominant religion. As part of our attempt to explore this history we hid a bottle at the location of the temples with a quotation from a journal article for my group to find. The quotation came from a paper by Kathryn Rountree in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute on ‘Localizing Neo-Paganism‘. A picture taken by Rountree of a Maltese Pagan praying at a Neolithic temple on the island on page 3 of the article draws the Ġgantija site and the journal text together beautifully.

  

  The second moment provided less fanfare, but in many ways was just as significant. On the return from a particularly exhausting journey “to the edge” (as part of our exploration of another group’s geocache on ‘boundaries’) I spotted, on an otherwise unremarkable street, a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although far less ostentatious than any Catholic basilica, and far less majestic than any Neolithic ritual site, the Kingdom Hall for local followers was in fact no less important and no less central to the investigation of  religious practice and everyday life on the island. In what could otherwise have been a rather orthodox reading of Catholic life on the island just about managed to tease open a number of alternative narratives that scratched away at not only the embedding of island life within a longer historical framework, but also the contemporary nuance of religious practice. Although Catholicism certainly dictates large swathes of social and cultural life on the island, it is only half the story. The game acted as a practical device to tease open the thematic content of the island. We hope to tweak and re-run it next year with another group of willing participants.

  2013.11.01

• A different sort of hell

  Derek Gregory on Joe Sacco’s stunning new title, a 24ft illustration entitled ‘The Great War: July 1, 1916’.

  The comparisons to Hergé are apt in this context, seeing as Hergé himself didn’t travel in the first instance to most of the places he depicted in his graphic novels. Only later did he see reason to, and thus only later did he realize the errors of his career to that point. The National Geographic providing the inspiration for most of Tintin’s (mis)adventures. On this occasion Sacco hasn’t either – that might’ve require some difficult time-travelling in order to capture first-hand the brutal reality of war. Nonetheless, with the aid of the Imperial War Museum’s archives, Sacco has rendered the first day of the Battle of the Somme as barbaric, messy and as shocking as it truly was. 

  geographical imaginations

  I’ve been in Grant Writing Hell for most of last week and right through this long week-end. Everything has to be in by tomorrow morning, and I’ll post the final version of what has become Medical-military machines and casualties of war 1914-2014 once it’s done and I am in recovery (for an early preview see here).  If only I could track down whoever persuaded the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (and the rest of the world for that matter) that drop-down menus achieve consistency and save time… They don’t; apart from the time taken to scroll through endless lists the pre-selected categories never seem to quite fit so you have to click “Other” AND THEN TYPE IT IN ANYWAY.

  

  But I must stick my head above the parapet to notice Joe Sacco‘s forthcoming book The Great War, July 1, 1916, due out at the end of this…

  View original post 683 more words

  2013.10.24

• ANNOUNCING GEM: RESEARCH GROUP ON GEOMEDIA AND URBAN INTERFACES

  What is GEM?

  GEM will regularly assemble at Utrecht University to discuss topics on the intersection of media studies and critical geography, with a special focus on screens as navigational interfaces in urban mobile settings. Tied to the Charting the Digital European Research Council project and in cooperation with the University of Warwick and Manchester University, we aim to provide an inclusive platform to discuss interdisciplinary topics pertaining to this focus.

  Academic Focus

  Whether or not we wish to speak of a spatial – or spatiotemporal – turn, spatiality has both become a central theoretical concept in media studies as well as in critical geography. New urban interfaces, and in particular digital mapping, have prompted challenging questions about how spatialities can be epistemologically and ontologically understood and which theories, tools and methodologies are needed to understand our contemporary mediatized and mobile daily lives to their full extent. GEM aims to shed light on such questions by exploring the intersections of the different notions of space in different disciplines and traditions of thought, combined with the analysis of and reflection on cultural and technological practices. It wants to offer a platform for discussion, analysis and reflection on how we can approach and ‘do’ geo-media and urban interfaces and explore the essentials we need as researchers to engage with these research topics.

  Who is it for?

  Open to Ph.D. candidates and as well as other junior and senior researchers, we will occasionally incorporate guest lectures, workshops and master classes. Those who join are more than welcome to suggest their own workshops, reading material, research questions and/or methodologies.

  //

  First Meeting: Non-Representational Theory
  Friday, November 15, Utrecht University 13:00-15:00, Muntstraat 2A, 1.11
  

  

  Perhaps one of the most persistent notions in media theory is representation. Geographer Nigel Thrift suggests moving away from representation, towards the domain of practices and performativity. Combining the works of classic phenomenologists with Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, as well as science and technology studies (STS) and the political sciences, Thrift suggests a new approach to studying the everyday and the role of technology in it.

  For this session we will read Thrift’s Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect (2007) and discuss how his thoughts and concepts relate to our own work.

  If you are interested in joining this session and/or wish to be on the mailing list, please send an email to Nanna Verhoeff (n.verhoeff@uu.nl)

  2013.10.24