Dear all

Please find below the abstract for Lev Manovich's lecture "Scale Effects,
or How to Study Global Digital Culture" which he will deliver in
association with the Goldsmiths Media Research Programme on April 24.
Please contact me if you would like to attend.

With best regards

Guinevere Narraway


Professor Lev Manovich (Visual Arts Department, University of California,
San Diego)

"Scale Effects, or How to Study Global Digital Culture"

 Goldsmiths, University of London, Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre
5pm, April 24, 2008

The exponential growth of a number of both non-professional and
professional media producers over the last decade has created a
fundamentally new cultural situation. Hundreds of millions of people are
routinely creating and sharing cultural content (blogs, photos, videos,
online comments and discussions, etc.). As the number of mobile phones is
projected to grow during 2008 from 2.2 billion to 3 billion, this number
is only going to increase.

At the same time, the rapid growth of professional educational and
cultural institutions in many newly globalized countries along with the
instant availability of cultural news over the web has also dramatically
increased the number of "culture professionals" who participate in global
cultural creation and discussions. Hundreds of thousands of students,
artists, designers now have access to the same ideas, information and
tools. It is no longer possible to talk about centers and provinces, and
students, culture professionals, and governments in newly globalized
countries are often more ready to embrace latest ideas than their
equivalents in "old centers" of world culture.

Before, cultural theorists and historians could generate theories and
histories based on small data sets (for instance, "classical Hollywood
cinema," "Italian Renaissance," etc.) But how can we track "global digital
culture" (or cultures), with its billions of cultural objects, and
hundreds of millions of contributors? Before you could write about culture
by following what was going on in a small number of world capitals and
schools. But how can we follow the developments in tens of thousands of
cities and educational institutions?

Impossible as this may sound, it can actually be done...


Bio: Lev Manovich is the author of Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database
(The MIT Press, 2005), and The Language of New Media (The MIT Press, 2001)
which is hailed as "the most suggestive and broad ranging media history
since Marshall McLuhan." He has also written 90+ articles which have been
reprinted over 300 times in many countries. Manovich is a Professor in
Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego, a Director of
the Software Studies Initiative at California Institute for
Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2), and a Visiting
Researcher at Goldsmith, University of London and College of Fine Arts,
University of New South Wales (Sydney). He is much in demand to lecture
around the world, having delivered 285 lectures, seminars and workshops so
far.




Guinevere Narraway
Research Administrator
Goldsmiths Media Research Programme: Spaces, Connections, Control
(Funded by the Leverhulme Trust)
Department of Media and Communications
Goldsmiths College
University of London
New Cross
London SE14 6NW
tel: +44 (0)20 7919 7893