[-empyre-] Translating 'Performance' (Digitally)

[Hamilton, Kevin]

Thank you Tim and all for hosting us this week.

One issue I think the dialogue between Gabriela and Diana calls attention
to is the matter of the technical or disciplinary "platform." The appeal
of a fresh, self-contained, "intuitive" and user-friendly space for new
exchange has been persistent in both technology spaces and in
interdisciplinary ones. In our weekly lab meeting this week for the Seeing
Systems group, where we watched tweets go by onscreen for the annual "Day
of DH," scholar Prita Meier pointed out the similarities of DH today to
Visual Studies in the 1990s. In both cases, we see scholars wondering
about the liberatory potential offered by an expanded field.

Scalar's appeal as a potentially fruitful new space for scholarship
hearkens to both the technical and discursive connotation of the term
"platform." In reality, as Gabriela suspects, the software requires that
we bring a great deal to it - of knowledge, preparedness, and time -
something not all constituencies have.

But what is this dream of a platform, and how might we critique the
desires manifest there in light of history and theory? Is the notion of a
platform another "Terra Nullius" waiting to be conquered, a set of
questions to be explored, or a basic set of conditions and potentials akin
to rights? We could say more here, and others have in the area of Software
Studies at least. For now I just wanted to leave us asking this question
as we prepare to gather in Lima for more reflective conversations on the
potentials of DH as not only transdisciplinary but transnational.

- Kevin



On 4/9/14 12:28 PM, "Diana Taylor" <diana.taylor at nyu.edu> wrote:

>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------