Organizers: Laura DeNardis and Despina Kakoudaki

This working group will provide an interdisciplinary space for examining the implications of emerging technologies for society and culture. New forms of media serve as the pervasive social structures supporting political discourse, commerce, individual identity expression, and communication.  This group will study how society both shapes and is shaped by media technologies, and how this interplay forms the basis of social and economic power and rights in the digital age.

Spring 2016

• Wednesday April 6th, 2016,  5:15 pm. Battelle 228.

Drones: Kate Chandler

We will focus on drones and their contemporary uses, both military and civilian. Kate Chandler (Assistant Professor, Georgetown University) is completing a book on the history of drones and unmanned flight. Kate will be there to present her work. Group participants will receive a PDF of her chapter, “American Kamikaze: Television-Guided Assault Drones in World War II,” for discussion during our meeting.

Also, we will comment on Grégoire Chamayou’s recent book, A Theory of the Drone, which theorizes questions of drone warfare in contemporary contexts.

You can find the description of A Theory of the Drone here: http://thenewpress.com/books/theory-of-drone

And a recent review of the book here:  http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/22389/a-theory-of-the-drone

 Also click on the image below to see archival footage of one of the early tests for an unmanned airplane that Kate Chandler discusses in her chapter. The Torpedo Drone TDR-1 is  being tested in the South Pacific during WWII.

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• Wednesday March 30, 2016,  3-5 pm,  Battelle 228

   

For our March meeting, Mike Treanor is going to present his work on designing videogames. Mike has a background in both art and computer science: he has an MFA in Digital Art and New Media and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Since the language of video game design may be new to many of us, I am suggesting that we all read one or two of his pieces as a way for us to see this language in action. So I will send some of Mike’s publications to group participants. We will start from two of his articles articles, on AI Based Design, and on Proceduralist Meaning, because they have the most theoretical concepts.

You can find out more on his website, http://mtreanor.com/ 

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Fall 2015

• Tuesday, October 20th, 2015, 2.30-4 pm, Battelle  228

This is our introductory meeting, please join us to discuss your interests, current projects, and the way you want the group to proceed in the next year.

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Related Events:

Aram Sinnreich, Ethics Evolved: Copying in the Digital Age
Tuesday, November 3, 2015, 11:00 a.m   McKinley Building, Media Innovation Lab

Maggie Burnette Stogner, New Lens on the Past: A Creative Exploration of How 21st century Media Technologies Reinterpret History
Tuesday. Dcember 1, 2015, 11:00 a.m.   McKinley Building, Media Innovation Lab

MEETING TIMES

Interested in joining?

Email Laura DeNardis, denardis@american.edu or Despina Kakoudaki, kakoudak@american.edu