New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Raspberry Pi: an educational tool for everyone?

Let me introduce you to the Raspberry Pi, a small computer (about the size of a credit card) that can be purchased for only 30 dollar*. Equipped with 512 Mb of RAM, a powerful processor and a HDMI card...

By Yvette Ducaneaux on 09/15/14 Comments Off

Adobe Muse: from coding to designing

How does it work? Adobe Muse is the new website developing program from Adobe, which makes it possible for its users to design a website just like they’d design a prototype in one of the Adobe’s other design programs....

By Roy Schutte on 09/11/14 Comments Off

My World Heritage Passport App for Androids

We live in the world of technology and digital information. As everything, it also has its pros and contras but personally, I prefer look at the new ideas, including the My Heritage Passport application. According to the UNWTO (United...

By Blanka Szamos on 09/11/14 Comments Off

Nothing to Represent Something

On the 6th of September 2014 the conference “Visualise it!” took place in Utrecht. One of the speakers was Andy Kirk, his presentation ‘The Design of Nothing‘ focused on the question: ‘what...

By Dominique Verschragen on 09/11/14 Comments Off

Photo Opportunities, an analytical review

With Photo Opportunities the Swiss/French artist Corinne Vionnet puts into question the socio-cultural imagery generated by the abundance of images that circulate everyday on social networks by creating a series of works that are formed by overlapping on...

By Ana Mireles on 09/10/14 Comments Off

Smart phones and Digital Inclusion in the developing world

The Digital Divide is a socio-economic inequality defined by ones access, use or knowledge of Internet and Communications Technology. This can be defined within a country or on a global scale. The later shows that ICT has developed unevenly...

By Evelien Christiaanse on 09/09/14 Comments Off

The perfect bell pepper: from sheet film to Instagram

Some eleven or twelve years ago, I went to one of the many Turkish or Moroccan grocery stores in Amsterdam to buy a bell pepper. For the sixteenth time in a couple of weeks. I tried to find the...

By Jan-Jaap Heine on 09/09/14 Comments Off

The BB.Suit: Wearable Tech as Fashion’s New Playground

Borre Akkersdijk’s BB.Suit combines built-in technology with 3D printed fabrics offering an aesthetic approach to electronics that challenges the notion of wearable technology. This high tech jumpsuit is a collaboration between the University of Technology in Eindhoven, 22Tracks, CRISP,...

By Ivar Dusseljee on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Gov 2.0: please like your government

Imagine a friend of you unlocking your smartphone, scrolling through your apps and detect the Adopt-a-Hydrant app. Surprised and impressed he asks you what kind of app that is, in which you can respond: ”oh just normal you...

By Rik van Eijk on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Shazam: predicting future hits

Have you ever listened to a song and almost died trying to find out the name of the song? Then Shazam is going to be your best friend. Shazam is a music recognition app that was launched in 2002....

By Yvette Ducaneaux on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Interactive music videos

Its feels like yesterday. Me as a teenager watching MTV in my room all day long. But even more , I remember how frustrated I felt that I couldn’t see my favourite videos whenever I wanted. Not to mention...

By Anne van Egmond on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Connectivity: friend or foe?

According to a news item, Facebook is willing to spend billions on connecting the world to the internet. This might come as a surprise since Facebook isn’t an internetprovider but a social media platform, but will be one of...

By Kyrsha Verweij on 09/08/14 Comments Off

ICE BUCKET GHALLENGE

RULES OF THE GAME What? Ice Bucket Challenge or ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is an innovative way of donation. Who? One or more challengers dare friends or family to pour ice water on their heads. Where? Went viral on...

By Aliki Eleftheriadou on 09/08/14 Comments Off

Book as a reflexive medium : the materiality in post-digital print

Introduction The term ‘post-digital’ was introduced by Kim Cascone in 2000 to describe the rapidly changing relationship between humans and technology and the resulting aesthetics of digital failures and errors, like what has become to be known as ‘glitch...

By Jakub Dutka on 05/19/14 1

From Digital to Print-E self-Fashioning

Self-fashioning online E-Self fashioning is how people present themselves on the internet, through social media, blogs, weblogs, websites etc. “It is done through technologies of the self, which usually take the form of documents or writing. People explicitly...

By Alexandra Kontou on 05/12/14 Comments Off

SHOW ME THE DATA! 2014

On Thursday afternoon March 27th seven interactive data visualization projects will be presented, developed by Master students of the University of Amsterdam. Show Me The Data is an annual event which is open to the public, click here for...

By Nicholas Vieira on 03/22/14 Comments Off

Re-visiting 90s media theory: The Media Archive by ADILKNO

Alexandra Kontou, Caroline Boserup, Jakub Dutka ADILKNO / BILWET (Foundation for the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge / Stichting tot Bevordering van Illegale Wetenschap ) was founded in 1983 as a collective of five artists/authors, Geert Lovink, Arjen Mulder,...

By Jakub Dutka on 03/21/14 Comments Off

Second Tuesday proudly presents LEV Light Reader

The LEV Light Reader The LEV Light Reader is a selection of key texts by Lev Manovich, most of which where previously unpublished. This reader has been compiled and edited by students at the University of Amsterdam in cooperation...

By Chris on 03/21/14 3

Call for Applications – International M.A. in New Media 2014-2015

International M.A. in New Media at the University of Amsterdam Call for Applications for Fall 2014, rolling admissions open on December 15, 2013 and close on 1 April 2014 One-year and two-year New Media M.A. Programs available. For the...

By Bernhard Rieder on 12/04/13 Comments Off

New ecologies

The advent of new technologies often comes paired with wild utopianism and rampant negativity – it is usually only after the hype has died down that people are starting to think about the material, environmental and ecological dimensions of...

By Jakko Kemper on 11/14/13 Comments Off

Truly Going Green

The world is facing a great number of problems in the 21st century: environmental destruction, climate change, massive economic inequality and poverty, the dependence on fossil fuels, ongoing wars and conflicts, physical and mental disease; just to name...

By Gijs van der Grinten on 11/05/13 Comments Off

Escape the Overcode – Wild Cards project

Brian Holmes wrote the book “Escape the overcode. Activist art in control society” as a part of a wider long-term collaborative research project “Continental Drift”. The research focused on the geopolitics and geopoetics. In the book, Brian Holmes discusses...

By Samantha Carter on 11/01/13 Comments Off

Wild Card Symposium: The Society of the Spectacle

For the Wild Card Symposium of 2013 we have made a short film about Guy Debord’s book The Society of the Spectacle (originally published in 1967). Six years after Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle, he directed his first feature film...

By Pascal Janssens on 11/01/13 Comments Off

Tactical Media: beyond the digital

In preparation for the Wildcards Symposium as part of the New Media Theories course, we have read and critiqued Rita Raley’s 2009 publication, Tactical Media. Though the book reads as a fairly good overview of the concept of tactical...

By Rebecca Cachia on 10/31/13 Comments Off