Chronicling the vernacular and the middlebrow in post-digital culture.

Blog

Digital Humanities Conference at UBC

November 2, 2020
Frederik Lesage

I really enjoyed this workshop as part of the Digital Humanities Conference at UBC; a great opportunity to work with my colleagues at the Digital Humanities Innovation Lab.

The presentation examined a variety of considerations, issues, and challenges associated with active and on-going Digital Humanities projects by drawing on the experiences of researchers and staff involved in the Digital Humanities Innovation Lab (DHIL) at Simon Fraser University. How do we sustain engagement with, allocate resources for, and support collaboration within mid-stage projects? The aim of the presentation is to explore the shifting nature of DH project’s needs over time, how projects might transition from active development to other stages such as data analysis and maintenance, and how best to meet the opportunities and challenges that arise during these transitions.

DHIL Interview for the Photoshop Inscription Project

August 17, 2020
Frederik Lesage
skills

I recently had the chance to sit down (virtually) with Sophia Han of the Digital Humanities Innovation Lab at SFU to talk about the Photoshop Inscriptions project. We had an excellent time covering a whole range of topics including how to define something as amorphous as "creative practice". The first half of the interview is posted on the DHIL blog and the second half should be up on the blog eventually.

I really appreciated the opportunity to respond to Sophia's insightful questions - they really helped me reflect on a number of things about the project I hadn't yet considered. It was also a great opportunity to prepare for an upcoming talk at the Digital Humanities Conference at the University of British Columbia hosted by the Public Humanities Hub where I will be presenting the project with the DHIL.

IAMCR conference presentation on "Searching for Tasks"

July 21, 2020
Frederik Lesage
skills

Due to the pandemic, this year's IAMCR conference had to move not once, but twice. It was first shifted from China to Finland in order to deal with the initial outbreak. When the outbreak reached Europe, the Tampere team shifted its entire program to an online format. The team did a wonderful job considering these exceptional circumstances. Sadly, this meant the conference presentations took place entirely through a webportal.

Frederik Lesage and Nicole Stewart presented some of their early findings for the "Searching for Tasks" project in a panel titled "Politics of Platforms, Platforms as Politics" as part of the Communication Policy & Technology section. You can access the abstract here and a link to the paper here (although the latter seems to be password protected). We were very lucky to be a part of this international panel chaired by Julia Pohle of WZB Berlin Social Sciences. The discussant was the, as always, fantastic Professor Robin Mansell from the Department of Media and Communications at LSE whose questions and comments proved extremely insightful.