News about projects of the Still Water lab at the University of Maine
You are currently browsing the archive for the Craig category.
Demand for professionals who can manage collections of digital heritage and data continues to climb rapidly as related job postings rose by 130% in 2022, according to an analysis by UMaine’s Digital Curation program. This is a dramatic surge compared to the 61% increase over the pandemic years between 2019 and 2021.
Tags: digital curation, economics, study
COVID-19 came suddenly and with a wallop, forcing classes to operate remotely, canceling sports events, and leaving campuses empty last spring. Fortunately, New Media faculty and students have already been experimenting with digital tools for collaboration, like e-portfolios, web-based F2F classes, videoconferencing and discussion platforms like Slack. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: app, COVID19, Maine, New Media, publication, sharing, Still Water, story, students
At Yale’s May 11th symposium “Is This Permanence?”, Still Water’s John Bell and Jon Ippolito help curators and historians plan for a digital future in which “archival material” could be a contradiction in terms.
Tags: art, indigenous, LongHouse, memory, New Media, New Media and Social Memory, presentation, preservation, Still Water, University of Maine, variable media
While the maker movement continues to gather publicity, one of its most critical dynamics seldom makes the headlines: the right to unmake. Now the College Art Association has published a call for presentations on unmaking and “Lego-like” creativity for its next annual conference in Los Angeles in February 2018.
Tags: art, fun, hardware, presentation, sharing, software, variable media
As visiting luminary for the UMaine Digital Curation graduate program’s fall 2015 teleconference, Craig Dietrich challenged its students to consider how culturally sensitive archives and linked data can break the monoculture of one-size-fits-all paradigms for access and publication.
Tags: archive, collection, database, digital curation, digital humanities, indigenous
Scalar is an online platform built by the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture (ANVC) centered at USC that facilitates the creation of media-rich scholarly publications. The software has only recently entered public beta, however versions have been operational since 2010 that have led to a number of works, many sponsored by scholarly organizations and academic presses. Last month’s public launch has garnered new attention to the platform, and this week PCMag marked Scalar as an Editors’ Choice along with a 4.5/5 star “excellent rating.”
Tags: education, network, New Media, publication, sharing, software, Thoughtmesh
According to Streetsblog Los Angeles‘ Sahra Sulaiman, Still Water Fellows Vanessa Vobis, Craig Dietrich, and collaborators are “saving the world, one garden at a time.” Their project LA Green Grounds continues to dig up both lawns and publicity on its mission to turn Los Angelenos into gardeners.
Tags: activism, food, GreenHouse, LongGreenHouse, permaculture, press, sharing, Still Water, sustainability
Screengrab of Debra Levine’s DEMONSTRATING ACT UP Scalar projectAre footnotes obsolete? At this month’s Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, Craig Dietrich suggests crediting other scholars is still necessary, but it’s no longer enough.
The Still Water Senior Researcher and USC digital studies professor argues that run-of-the-mill citation methods don’t cut it in today’s connected world, where technologies like RDF can provide a far richer context and encourage reuse of online scholarship.
Tags: education, media, network, presentation, scholarship, sharing, software, Still Water, Thoughtmesh
 Figure 1. Vanessa Vobis, Crystal World (2008), Legion Arts-CSPS, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA |
 Figure 2. Vanessa Vobis, Mars Attacks Fragonard (2009), (106) Gallery, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA |
 Figure 3. Julian Epps, The Cave (2008), FreesePop, Bangor, Maine, USA |
Still Water Fellow Vanessa Vobis has a history of combining installation art and ecology. In 2007 she filled sandwich bags with tap water and after a couple weeks they burst with algae growth under natural light. This discovery led to her MFA thesis show, Nitpickers, at Legion Arts-CSPS in 2008 (Figure 1) and gallery shows including Mars Attacks Fragonard at Grand Rapids’ (106) Gallery (Figure 2). Later in 2008 she taught the inaugural installation class at UMaine’s Intermedia graduate program, prompting a student show at Bangor’s historic Freeses Building featuring a community theme and materials including pancakes, wheatgrass, and projections inspired by bioluminescence (Figure 3).
After moving to Los Angeles in 2009, Vanessa is continuing to connect people and natural resources, helping found the volunteer corps LA Green Grounds, working as a gallery interpreter and Master Gardener at LA County’s Natural History Museum, and creating an edible and native garden in her South LA backyard. Vanessa’s activities were toured last week by Still Water co-founders Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, in Los Angeles for an ecology-themed set of activities at nearby University of Southern California.
Tags: education, Los Angeles, permaculture, research, sharing
This week Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito join forces for a series of presentations at USC organized by Craig Dietrich, Still Water Senior Researcher and co-creator of Scalar.
The week culminates on Friday 2 March at the School of Cinematic Arts with Redesigning Reality, a hands-on session in hacking the “scripts” that govern us to make everyday life more sustaining and sustainable.
Workshop participants redesign their favorite foods and Web sites, looking to nature as a model for the victual and virtual.
Tags: Craig Dietrich, education, GreenHouse, hacking, LongHouse, Los Angeles, network, New Media, permaculture, presentation, sharing, software, Still Water, sustainability