Friends recently sent me a link to an Instagram video posted by David Choe:
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHQr3zfhEET/
Crop crop crop it out !
The cropping tool saved my life
This tool used properly can save any image - @photoshop is a tool I use everyday to communicate and get closer to gawd @adobe
To me, this promotional video perfectly encapsulates how Adobe embraces Photoshop's middlebrow status as a popular commercial tool for creative production. In a paper for Fibreculture, I dubbed these kinds of tools "middlebroware" — a portemanteau that combines "middlebrow" and "middleware".
"[...] just as middleware serves as a kind of ‘software glue’ (Wikipedia, 2014), software for cultural production can serve as a similar type of ‘glue’ for cultural work – enabling and constraining the production, circulation, and appreciation of cultural content."
What I find particularly fascinating about this video is how Choe leans into the middlebroware argument by weaving together elements of irony and a straight, unapologetic populism.
Nicole Stewart and I recently had the opportunity to present at AoIR 2020 on some of the work we completed as part of the Searching for Tasks.
Although the format was a bit constraining, it was an excellent opportunity to highlight some of the amazing work produced by Song Tang who has been working with us as a visualization expert and graphic artists. You can find more of his work on his website here: https://artofsongtang.com/
The image for this blog post is only a sample of the great work he has done with us. We are in the final stages of preparing a report based on our findings in which Song's work will be central.
You can find a summary of the early stages of the research on the AoIR 2020 conference website here: https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/1133
More to come soon!
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.