Creative media and digital culture evolve from the constantly shifting intersections between digital technology, art, science, and the humanities. My own research, scholarship, and teaching evolves from this intersection as well and is demonstrated across three broad areas: digital humanities, sound arts, and technology studies. This portfolio provides examples of my research and creative endeavors in these areas. See the "Research Advising/Mentoring" portion of my curriculum vita for information about my efforts to mentor and/or advise the research activities of others.
Digital Humanities
Digital humanities is an area of research, teaching, and creativity informed by the intersection of computer technology (data visualization, information architecture, and digital publishing, for example) and the disciplines of the humanities (art, cultural studies, history, and literature, for example)
My work in digital humanities focuses on data collection, management, and presentation and is largely guided by the research question "How might digital technologies facilitate the collection, organization, and presentation of information and narrative structures?" I have pursued this question primarily in the areas of digital archiving and curating with a focus on content and interface design. Information about example research projects is provided below.
The Brautigan Library
Curator
2010-present
Clark County Historical Museum
Vancouver, Washington
Inspired by Washington-born author Richard Brautigan, The Brautigan Library is an experiment in archiving unpublished manuscripts by authors keen to share their narratives but with no real hope of seeing them published through traditional channels. I led the negotiations to move this library of nearly 300 manuscripts and associated papers to the Clark County Historical Museum where it became a permanent, interactive exhibit. Currently, I am working with community and university volunteers to develop literacy outreach efforts centered on The Brautigan Library and to develop plans for accepting and sharing submissions of digital narratives.
An actively curated, comprehensive, interactive information structure noted as the preeminent bio-bibliographic resource on the life and work of American writer Richard Gary Brautigan (1935-1984).
Begun in 1984, this body of work attempts to collect, connect, and overlay the scrambled, disparate, and hard to find scholarship and other assessments of Brautigan's literary bibliography and continuing legacy.
My methodology in developing and curating this project is largely topographical in that I conceptualize information as horizontal, spread thinly across a broad, flat surface. Knowledge, on the other hand, is the ability to structure, from this information, something more hierarchical and dimensional. The secret is to stretch or extend the body of information by making connections, or providing additional insight, throughout. The result is protusions in the flat surface. More protusions increases the opportunity for more connections, the development of a larger knowledge base, and enhanced understanding or appreciation of the subject.
As an online three dimensional information resource, Brautigan Bibliography and Archive collects, connects and overlays disparate information sources with ethnographic research to provide an accurate, cross referenced accounting of Brautigan's life and his many novels, short story collections, poetry collections, spoken voice recordings, and non-fiction writing.
Sound arts is an interdisciplinary practice that widely considers sound, listening, and hearing as real and concrete participatory practices. In this sense, digital sound arts may engage, among others, performance, found and/or environmental sound, and purposefully created sounds, augmented by digital audio media and technology, to create aural experiences across a wide range of contemporary theory and practice. My work with sound arts is largely guided by the research question "How might digital affordances facilitate the production and sharing of aural immersive / interactive narrative opportunities?" I am particularly interested in opportunities afforded by Internet radio and television; transmission arts: analog and digital audio, video, performance, installation, and other source materials in an intermingled, intermedia framework often broadcast over the airwaves or via wireless technology; and geo-locative audio-based interactive experiences, especially as they might promote aural compositions / performances / installations as the basis for engaged narrative. Examples of my various sound arts projects are provided below.
Mobile narratives
A current research project is "Walking-Talking" which envisions a mobile audio narrative experience of discovery and connection throughout a network of site-specific locations of historic and/or cultural interest. At each location, participants may listen to and/or create audio recordings (and other online, digital media content) playable via a mobile telephone application (app). These audio recordings may focus on human voice, or natural and mechanical sounds. The "Walking-Talking" project envisions three outcomes: 1). A thoughtful creation and consumption of social collaborative mobile narratives that consider historical, social, and cultural issues connected to specific locations; 2). Enhanced ability for participants to think imaginatively and critically about the world in which they live, and to share their thoughts through a new range of mobile narrative possibilities; and, 3). An expansion of current concepts and artifacts associated with mobile, locative, digital narratives.
Acousmatic narratives
Acousmatic refers to a sound one hears without being able to visualize its source. Acousmatic listening focuses on the act of hearing, and makes the "sonorous object" what we hear, not what is playing the sound (Pierre Schaeffer. "Acousmatics." Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, eds. New York: Continuum, 2004. 76-81). With acousmatic listening we take interest in sounds for their own merit, refining our listening. Repeated listenings make us aware of our listening variations and our own subjectivity.
"Granular Ambience" (2:21)
An experiment combining multiple sounds with regard to their aural qualities, not their meaning(s), to create a harmonious whole.
"Singing Bowls" (1:03)
An experiment with the sonorous object. What narrative can the unseen sound source provide if we listen carefully?
Audio narratives, in my thinking, develop and sustain immersive narrative contexts using natural, human, and/or mechanical sounds OTHER than voice. Within this context, stories can be told. Some examples of my exploration in this area are below.
"Dance with Tweeks and Whistles" (1:04)
A narrative counterpoint between an early example of computer-generated music (1951) and radio telescope recordings of very low frequency audio signals from outer space.
"Interlude" (6:03)
An experiment for my submission to the 2010 Radio Futura broadcast, part of the international Future Places: Digital Media and Local Culture (see below).
"Meditation" (23:16)
A narrative about the diversity of mediation, especially as it might be practiced through thoughtful listening. The human voices in this piece are used for their sound quality and context, rather than as the origin of a particular sound.
"Tunnel to another world" (6:21)
A narrative about parallel worlds, accessed via a tunnel. Or is it?
Found sound
Found Sound describes audio objects created from modified sound files that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function. A good example is home recorded tapes or messages from telephone answering machines that often turn up in garage sales and thrift stores. Found sound provides an opportunity for both the artist and the audience to contemplate the original sound file(s), as well as their recombination. Much of the identity of found sound as an art form comes from the designation placed upon it by the individual artist.
"Ghost Story" (1:30)
Combines found sound sources to provide a narrative about "Charlie, the ghost."
Remix/Sampling/Appropriation
As DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid tells us, "lay one metaphor onto the other, remix, and press play. The sampling machine can handle any sound, and any expression. You just have to find the right edit points in the sound envelope—it's that structure thing come back as downloadable shareware for the information perplexed. . . . The remix becomes 'faction'" ("In through the Out Door." Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture. Paul Miller, ed. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008. 6, 9). And, as Mark Amerika told me, "it's art about the future using the materials of now; people making up their lives, shape shifting, borrowing, moving through and around the bits of information, learning to navigate the virtual." (personal conversation).
"Amen Air Raid" (2:09)
An apocalyptic narrative created by sampling culturally significant sound sources. Remixes the "Amen Break," an air raid siren, and Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain." The iconic amen break (the 6 second drum break from "Amen, Brother" by The Winstons, 1966) was sampled extensively in early hip-hop and sample-based music and is the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music. It exists in multiple forms and versions today. This is the original. The air raid siren is also a cultural icon, especially for those who lived through World War II in Europe, or the Cold War in America. Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain" features African American pentecostal preacher Brother Walter recorded January 1965 in San Francisco's Union Square. Walter begins with the story of Noah. Reich repeats and loops the phrase "it's gonna rain" throughout the original tape recording.
"Doo Wap Weather Report" (9:25)
An experiment for my submission to the 2010 RadiaLx International Festival of Radio Art (see below).
"Voices and Spaces" (10:17)
An ambient narrative constructed from samples of live performances.
Soundscapes
Soundscapes are layered audio recordings that attempt to present the multiple sounds one might hear in a particular immersive acoustic environment, real or imagined.
"Alien Operating Room" (:52)
An aural narrative of what we might hear in such an imaginary soundscape.
"Soundscape 1" (1:34)
Combines field recordings of natural sounds and animal vocalizations to create a narrative about a natural environment.
"Symphony for Antique Tractors" (1:04)
A soundscape/sound collage using mechanical sounds from antique tractors and farm machinery.
"Voice of the Fair" (1:26)
Combines field recordings to create a narrative about a county fair.
"Sounds of My Life :: A Sixties Radio Narrative" (9' 04")
This sound art work, consisting of a 1960s portable radio outfitted with an Arduino sound player, seeks to provide a personal narrative of the politics, civil rights, space exploration, counterculture movement, and popular culture during "The Sixties," a time of intense social, political, and cultural change. Rather than an authoritative narrator's voice, this work is constructed from recordings of the persons or events depicted, edited to focus attention on the liminal moment. Combines oral history, field recordings, soundscapes, found sounds, appropriation, cut ups, sound effects, and historical recordings. Aural elements simulate the passage of years or changing radio stations / chapters in the overall narrative. Not a typical radio documentary, nor a narrated history, the result is instead a narrative that remixes the medium of its original telling, empowering listeners to combine the sounds heard with their personal lived experience to create a meaningful experience. Part of a project to document/describe each decade of the author's life in a similar aural narrative fashion. When completed, and taken as a whole, this project will represent a personal, biographical narrative of lived experience. The research question behind this work is, "How can digital communication technologies effectively combine oral history, field recordings, and voice samples with additional sound events to create an immersive digital narrative experience?"
History of showings The ELO 2012 Media Art Show
The Monongalia Arts Center
Morgantown, West Virginia
13-23 June 2012
Juried gallery exhibit themed "Electrifying Literature: Affordances and Constraints" in conjunction with The Electronic Literature Organization international conference. Seeks to provide listeners / participants a chronological acousmatic context in which to consider the literary relevance of historical, political, rhetorical, and cultural experiences seemingly, at first glance, far removed from traditionally accepted aspects / definition(s) of literature, but, upon closer examination / listening / reading, quite evocative of a multivalent, emerging electronic literature.
IDEAS10
Emily Carr University of Art and Design
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2-7 November 2010
Juried gallery exhibit themed "Art and Digital Narrative" in conjunction with the International Digital Media Arts Association conference.
"Analog Memories :: Digital Futures" (28' 0") Radio Futura
Porto, Portugal
14 and 15 October 2010
Invited broadcast performances as part of the Future Places: Digital Media and Local Culture international conference, a collaboration between the Science and Technology Foundation of Portugal and the University of Texas at Austin with a focus on interdisciplinary research, education, and capacity building in advanced digital media addressing the potential and impact of digital media on local culture. The invitation for this performance resulted from the performance of "Sounds of My Life" (see below). The research question behind this project is, "How might digital remediation of analog memories affect their use in immersive narratives or iReportage?"
Juried broadcast performance as part of the 2010 International Festival of Radio Art with 100 radio artists. A sound art work comprised of oral history, field recordings, soundscapes, found sound, and appropriations. The research question behind this project is, "How can one use sound samples to tell a complicated and compelling story?"
Visual narratives
Digital visual narratives incorporate multiple forms of digital media to enhance or augment storytelling opportunities, both for entertainment and serious purposes. Text and/or images alone, as well as text and images combined have long been used as the basis for visual narrative. Using the affordances of digital technology, how can we leverage digital text and images, and other froms of digital media, to augment storytelling capabilities? Two experiments in this regard are below.
"Cartographies of Place"
28 September - 17 November 2011
Washington State University Vancouver Library
A two-part digital visual narrative depicting the interconnectedness between Native Americans and their natural environment and the ability of natural places to evoke narrative impressions.
This project began with analog black and white transparencies of portraits of Native Americans rephotographed from historic archives using a copy stand camera and color landscapes taken with a hand-held Nikon FM SLR camera. Any enlargement of the landscape backgrounds was achieved by rephotographing the original image at a closer focus using a macro lens normally associated with extreme close up photography. These transparencies were physically overlain and rephotographed. The results, achieved entirely in camera and not through any image manipulation software, is that both original images appear on the same plane of focus, effectively blending one image with another. This hands-on, analog creative process reinforces the narrative regarding the interconnectedness between these Native Americans and their physical environment. Originally, this visual narrative was an installation using three slide projectors remotely controlled so as to allow the display of up to three images simultaneously. Additionally, a sound track featuring Native American chants and voice over narration was included. A sampling of the images is provided here as a slideshow to simulate the original effect. The sound track is not included.
A digital narrative using panoramic images so as to surround the viewer/interactor in an immersive environment that requires active engagement to both evoke and explore. The creative process involved capturing multiple digital images while moving the camera along a plane at right angles to the original scene. The resulting images were then combined in order to create panoramic vistas not normally captured by cameras or consciously attended by the human eye. Note: Each example image shown here is substantially reduced in size in order to facilitate its fit within the context of this webpage.
As I envision technology studies, it is the use of computer technology to enhance or augment our abilities to exercise skills associated with a body of knowledge. My work in technology studies is largely guided by the research question "How might digital technologies foster creativity, presentation, and communication skills?" With these projects, I am specifically interested in how computers might facilitate the teaching and learning of writing. Example research projects are discussed below.
Experimental, web-based, award-winning tutorials developed in the 1990s, as the HTML programming language and standards for designing and developing web pages were first evolving. I have not changed them much since their inception, allowing them, like their author, to assume an historical "look and feel." The content is still very valid, however, and useful for someone seeking to improve their skills in writing, research, HTML, public speaking, and creative thinking.
Dr. John's Eazy-Peazy Guide to Creative Ideas was included in 101 Best Websites for Secondary Teachers (James Lerman. New York: International Society for Technology in Education, 2005); was featured in The Help Desk (1(6) June 21, 2002), an online newsletter supporting Kentucky education; and was selected by Encyclopedia Britannica as one of its "100 Best Websites for Teachers." Although the page is no longer available, The United Kingdom's Good Web Guide called Dr. John "perhaps the internet's most helpful lecturer."
A hypertext essay examining preliminary theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications of cybernetic ecology, interpreted here as a productive interaction between people and computers.
A hypertext essay exploring using problem solving computer games like Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? to involve intermediate and advanced second language learners in reading, listening, researching, and decision making exercises – all of which can provide challenging, interesting, and meaningful contexts for improving second-language writing skills.
A hypertext essay with Dene Grigar critiquing and analyzing the Town Hall Meetings at the Computers and Writing 1999 Conference. Builds on complex and disparate attitudes from multiple conference participants to build a multilayered, multivocal work consisting of three embedded webtexts: "Sequential Writing with Hyperlinks," "Interactive Webtext," and "Randomly Generated Text." Each offers a unique lens through which to view the Town Hall Meetings, while at the same time presenting the same information in different ways.
A hypertext essay with Dene Grigar and Becky Rickley reporting on the first ever Town Hall Meetings at the Computers and Writing 1998 Conference. The purpose of this meeting was to explore the future of the computers and writing community, a pioneering group of academics who experimented with computers for research and teaching.
"Barber speculates about the future directions of the Web—specifically the wireless Web—and the skills that technical communicators will need to develop content for such communication modes. . . . According to Barber, our curricula will need to help technical communicators learn to adapt information for delivery to a variety of wireless devices, with different interfaces and constraints. . . . Technical communicators will need to learn to adapt and repurpose content across platforms for a multiplicity of targeted audiences and users. . . . Barber suggests that technical communicators may need to learn computer and scripting languages as well as a variety of wireless scripting languages. His analysis suggests that technical communicators should also be given backgrounds in visual design and art history, video and audio production, as well as technologies that enable their incorporation with text."
"Hackers, Cyberpunks, and Cyberians: Texts Detailing Human Intertwining with Technology." TnT: Texts and Technology. Eds. Ollie Oviedo and Janice Walker. Hampton Press, 2003. 57-88.
"Barber delves into the topic of why and how hackers, cyberpunks, and cyberians—the people who frequent cyberspace, a notional place created through the use of computer technology—in their exploratory and evolutionary efforts (while often seen as countercultural, radical, or antisocial) may in fact produce a wide variety of cultural and social forms and phenomena that can help shape new expressions of self, community, culture, and reality that both preserve old values and embrace new opportunities. Barber maintains that living amphibiously—one foot in the physical world, the other in the electronic sphere—these hackers, cyberpunks, and cyberians are 'texts' detailing the implications the rest of us might face as our lives become increasingly intertwined with technology."
"In venturing thoughts, ideas, and scenarios about what will have become of the modalities and issues of writing about and in electronic spaces, we hope to stimulate further discussion regarding the exploration of these environments."
"These new electronic, cyber-contexts will be protean. Reacting as well as responding, they will encourage dense, demanding, expressive narratives from authors/composers, subtle responses from readers/interactors. They will promote a move from reading and then interacting in different environments to reading and interacting in the same environment. From sequential to merged experience. From simulation to immersion. A more believable sense of participation, interaction, reality through utilization of oral, written, and visual literacies."
"Effective Teaching in the Online Classroom: Thoughts and Ideas." The Online Writing Classroom. Eds. Michael Day, Becky Rickly, and Susanmarie Harrington. New York: Hampton Press, 2000. 243-264.
"Synthesizes ongoing participant-observer ethnographic studies of university-level writing teachers making the transition from the traditional to the online classroom to address questions of how they can effectively and productively utilize the online classroom for teaching and support for their pedagogies and curricula."
"Based on Grigar's history-making online dissertation defense, held at LinguaMOO in 1995, the essay analyzes the event and its implications for future scholarship, in an innovative format, a collage of MOO dialogue, MOO slides, ASCII maps of the MOOspace, emails, and multivocal sections. As Grigar and Barber conclude, there can be problems with the use of this medium at the highest levels of academic work, which have to date resisted the integration of technology. They invite members of the academy to step out onto an 'electronic edge' where technology and the university offer unlimited resources for making and marking new technologies."
"Composition Teachers and Computer Conferences: Finding a Productive Fit." Studies in Technical Communication: Selected Papers of the 1994 1995 CCCC and NCTE Meetings. Ed. Brenda Sims. Denton: University of North Texas, 1997. 77-92.
"Insights gained from ongoing ethnographical studies of writing teachers using computer conferences for teaching and learning composition. Discusses theoretical relevance, methodology, and context of studies. Elaborates on insights from these studies. Provides recommendations for teachers considering utilizing computer conferences as sites for teaching and learning."
Brautigan Bibliography and Archive
"Sounds of My Life :: A Sixties Radio Narrative" (9' 04")
"Analog Memories :: Digital Futures" (28' 0")
"Sounds of My Life" (28' 0")
Dr. John's Eazy-Peazy Guides
"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: Promoting Cybernetic Ecology in Writing Classrooms"
"Idealism, Pragmatism, Skepticism in 'Computers and Writing' at the Fin de Siècle"
"The Way We Will Have Become: The Future (Histories) of Computers and Writing"
