[-empyre-] TechnoPanic, Week 4: Introducing Sean Cubitt

[renate ferro <rtf9@cornell.edu>, timothy murray <tcm1@cornell.edu>]

> Thanks so much to Paul Vanouse for catalyzing such a lively 
> discussion, which has taken a turn down the virtual path of Second 
> Life.  It's been so interesting for us to be witness to the many 
> branches that are developing in the extended discussions and 
> references to TechnoPanic.

For this final week of the month's focus on TechnoPanic, we're happy 
to introduce Sean Cubitt who has been an active participant in the 
past week's discussions.

Sean is Professor and Director of the Program in Media and 
Communications at the University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor 
of Duncan of Jordanstone College of the University of Dundee. 
Previously Professor of Screen and Media Studies at the University of 
Waikato, New Zealand and Professor of Media Arts at Liverpool John 
Moores University, Sean is the author of a series of monographs that 
have set the cartographical standards for tracing various patterns, 
life lines, and faults that are shared by cinema, video, and new 
media, as well as those particular to each practice. H is the author 
of Timeshift: On Video Culture (Comedia/Routledge, 1991), 
Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture (Macmillans/St Martins 
Press, 1993), Digital Aesthetics (Theory, Culture and Society/Sage, 
1998), Simulation and Social Theory (Theory, Culture and Society/ 
Sage, 2001), The Cinema Effect (MIT Press, 2004) and EcoMedia 
(Rodopi, 2005); and coeditor of Aliens R Us: Postcolonial Science 
Fiction with Ziauddin Sardar (Pluto Press 2002), The Third Text 
Reader with Rasheed Araeen and Ziauddin Sardar (Athlone/Continuum, 
2002) and How to Study the Event Film: The Lord of the Rings with 
Thierry Jutel, Barry King and Harriet Margolis (Manchester UP 2007, 
in press). It's hard to imagine that there would be many of us in the 
extended -empyre- community who have not been touched critically and 
artistically by Sean many books and innumerable essays (we often 
wonder how he maintains his critical energy!).

Sean also is a member of the editorial boards of Screen, Third Text, 
The International Journal of Cultural Studies, Futures, Time and 
Society, Journal of Visual Communication, Leonardo Digital Reviews, 
Iowa Web Review, Cultural Politics, fibreculture journal, 
International Journal of Cultural Politics, Public, Vectors and 
Animation, and he has curated video and new media exhibitions and 
authored videos, courseware and web poetry. He is currently 
researching a book on the history of techniques for reproducing light 
from pigment to pixel, and acts as Editor in Chief of the Leonardo 
Book Series for MIT Press and Leonardo/ISAST.

It's fantastic to have your lively voice with us this week, Sean, and 
we're looking forward to your thoughts on TechnoPanic: Terror and 
Technology.

Renate and Tim

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