Author Profile

  • Chris Castiglione
  • Url: http://www.ccastig.com
  • Posts: 24
  • About the user: Chris is currently a graduate student at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and a part of the New Media M.A. He graduated from James Madison University where he studied Music and Media Arts and Design. Chris is also a web developer who concentrates primarily on working with non-profit organizations.

Author Archive

Martijn de Waal, Improving Cultural Public Space

Chris Castiglione | 10 December 2009, 1:17 pm | 2 comments | tags: , , , , ,

What is Urban Culture? How do we shape and express our own identify in the city? How do we relate to others? At the Institute of Network Culture’s Urban Screens conference Martijn de Waal discussed these issues as well as how to improve cultural public spaces.

Siva Vaidhyanathan on Googlization, “Only the elite and proficient get to opt out”

Chris Castiglione | 30 November 2009, 3:35 am | 2 comments | tags: , ,

The term Googlization, according to Siva Vaidhyanathan, is the process of being processed, rendered, and represented by Google. His upcoming book The Googlization of Everything investigates the actions and intentions behind Google. At The Society of the Query Vaidhyanathan choose one issue from his book: the politics and implications of Google Maps’ Street View.

Lev Manovich: Studying Culture With Search Algorithms

Chris Castiglione | 20 November 2009, 1:15 am | 3 comments | tags: , , , ,

New media theorist Lev Manovich summarized his latest contribution to the field of software studies: cultural analytics. Whereas traditional cultural analysis relies on real-world resources (human interpretation and physical storage), cultural analytics relies on the computer and search algorithms in order to discern and interpret culture.

Matthew Fuller: Search Engine Alternatives

Chris Castiglione | 15 November 2009, 8:33 pm | 1 comment | tags: , , , ,

The search market is a multi-billion dollar industry, and given such potential to capitalize there is a large window of opportunity with a vast range of possibilities for the future of search. The mythology of the search engine is that there is only one type of user and only one end-point for any given search. Matthew Fuller, author of a number of books on art, media and software, dismisses such narrow thinking by welcoming a cast of “alternative search engines” that offer some variety to the classic retrieval model of search.

Yann Moulier Boutang @ The Society of The Query asking, “Are we all just Google’s worker bees?”

Chris Castiglione | 14 November 2009, 12:22 am | 1 comment | tags: , ,

Are we all just worker bees being exploited by Google for capitalistic means? What Google is selling is not an ordinary service, but a meta-service, one that depends on human contribution. Yann Moulier Boutang likens this human activity to that of the worker bee, and the economy of Google is dependent on the pollination of these bees.

4 Minute Thesis Video on the TEDx Amsterdam Site

Chris Castiglione | 10 November 2009, 1:34 pm | tags: , , ,

I posted a 4-minute video which summarizes some of the main points from my thesis on the music industr(ies), “Copy What Can’t Be Sold; and Sell What Can’t Be Copied”.

Google Maps & Google Earth In The Classroom

Chris Castiglione | 25 October 2009, 9:12 pm | 1 comment | tags: , , ,

Longitude and latitude coordinates are like the words we use to tell a story and only gain substance when we use them in context. With a list of resources to help teachers, Google Maps and Google Earth are helping us tell stories better and bringing geographic data to life in ways that make traditional maps look more like decorations on the wall. This blog post shows how teachers around the world are using Google Maps/Earth in ways that support new competencies like visualization, simulation and play.

Tim Berners-Lee in Amsterdam: On the World Wide Web and Social Development in Africa

Chris Castiglione | 20 October 2009, 6:37 pm | 4 comments | tags: , ,

The World Wide Web and Social Development symposium at the VU University Amsterdam welcomed a variety of prominent speakers to discuss answers to the question: How can the Web contribute to the social and economic development in the world? The event culminated with the VU granting Sir Tim Berners-Lee an honorary doctorate for his contribution to the development of the World Wide Web.

#Picnic09: The Creative Commons Special in Amsterdam

Chris Castiglione | 02 October 2009, 1:16 pm | tags: , ,

The Creative Commons special, hosted by Paul Keller and Donatella Della Ratta, focused on three examples of organizations using Creative Commons (CC) in a positive (and hopefully a lucrative) way: Al Jazeera, Beeld en Geluid and VPRO.

#Picnic09: STEIM, Music, and Training Our Intuition

Chris Castiglione | 01 October 2009, 5:20 pm | tags: , , ,

“Say goodbye to control. Say hello to improvisation,” these were a few of the opening remarks made by STEIM director Dick Rijken. He stressed that in a world of less control we need to concentrate on training our intuition.