Book Launch “Digital Material”
Our appreciated colleagues, the Department of New Media and Digital Culture of Utrecht University to be exact, have their 10th anniversary May 15. And you are cordially invited! On this day UU’s New media folks want to reflect on what they have achieved in the last ten years and how they have developed into a full-fledged and indispensable field of study. The festivities might be of interest to you as there will be a book presentation (the book will become available online under a CC license soon after the festivities) and input from our department. Geert Lovink will give a lecture and I will be there to celebrate the book launch itself as well as my contribution to it (a chapter on war & games).
The day will be kicked off with a series of presentations of former UU students who will tell you about their professional careers after their study. In the afternoon their book Digital Material: Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology will be launched (AUP, eds. M. van den Boomen, S. Lammes, A.-S. Lehmann, J. Raessens and M.T. Schäfer). The first copy of the book will be presented to Prof. Wiljan van den Akker (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities). Afterwards academics and artist will reflect upon the theme of the book. Two installations will be featured at Studio T: nOtbOt by Walter Langelaar and threads by Audrey Samson. he talks in the morning will be all held in Dutch. Please reserve a.s.a.p by e-mail (M.T.Schaefer AT UU.NL), indicating which part of the day you would like to attend. (Friday the 15th of May in Studio T, Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, 3512HH Utrecht.)
Official program:
11.00-13.00 hours, Professional perspectives, StudioT (Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht)
10:30 Coffee
11:00-13.00 Alumni talk about their careers, amongst others:
– Stan van Engelen, VPRO
– Keimpe de Heer, De Zwijger/Creative Learning Lab
– Naomi van Stelten, Ijsfontijn
– Lotte Vergouwen: Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO).
14.00-17.00 hours, Book Launch, StudioT
Moderator: Ann-Sophie Lehmann
14:00-14.30 Official opening and presentation of first copy to Wiljan van den Akker (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities)
14.30-15.15 Presentations by some contributors to book
15:15-15:30 Break
15.30-17.00 Presentations
15.30-16.15 Geert Lovink & Florian Cramer
16.15-17.00 Walter Langenaar & Audrey Samson
17:00-18:00 Drinks
About the Book
Digital Material. Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology – by Marianne van den Boomen, Sybille Lammes, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Raessens, Mirko Tobias Schaeefer
Three decades of societal and cultural alignment of new media yielded to a host of innovations, trials, and problems, accompanied by versatile popular and academic discourse. New Media Studies crystallized internationally into an established academic discipline, and this begs the question: where do we stand now? Which new questions emerge now new media are taken for granted, and which riddles are still unsolved? Is contemporary digital culture indeed all about ‘you’, the participating user, or do we still not really understand the digital machinery and how this constitutes us as ‘you’?
The contributors of the present book, all teaching and researching new media and digital culture, assembled their ‘digital material’ into an anthology, covering issues ranging from desktop metaphors to Web 2.0 ecosystems, from touch screens to blogging and e-learning, from role-playing games and Cybergoth music to wireless dreams. Together the contributions provide a showcase of current research in the field, from what may be called a ‘digitalmaterialist’ perspective.
