A digital library for the University of York

The University of York has recently launched a project to set-up a multimedia repository service for the University?s research resources, both those produced out of and used within research. This project is being given a kick-start by funding from the JISC repositories and preservation programme start-up and enhancement strand, under the name SAFIR (Sound Archive Film Image Repository). Institutional repositories are growing in number within the UK and offer a variety of services, such as asset management, dissemination, preservation. For multimedia, research data and other resources, institutional-level stewardship is quite new. Often such resources are managed, or mismanaged, on a Departmental or personal level, or alternatively by large data centres and data archives. With the possible demise of the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS), York is among institutions faced with a duty to find a safe, secure and long-term home for a large collection of image materials. We would like to submit a poster to Open Repositories 2008 to cover some of the challenges we face in building a repository for non-text resources

Spectacular narratives: Twister, independence day, and frontier mythology

Big-screen spectacle has become increasingly important to Hollywood in recent decades. It formed a central part of a post-war strategy aimed at tempting lost audiences back to the cinema in the face of demographic changes and the development of television and other domestic leisure activities. More recently, in an age in which the big Hollywood studios have become parts of giant conglomerates, the prevalence of spectacle and special effects has been boosted by a demand to engineer products that can be further exploited in multimedia forms such as computer games and theme-park rides, secondary outlets that can sometimes generate more profits than the films on which they are based. These and other developments have led some commentators to announce, or predict, the imminent demise of narrative as a central component of Hollywood cinema. But the case has been considerably overstated. Narrative is far from being eclipsed, even in the most spectacular and effects-oriented of today’s blockbuster attractions. These films still tend to tell reasonably coherent stories, even if they may sometimes be looser and less well integrated than classical models. More important for my argument, contemporary spectaculars also continue to manifest the kinds of underlying thematic oppositions and reconciliations associated with a broadly ‘structuralist’ analysis of narrative. This very important dimension of narrative has been largely ignored by those who identify, celebrate or more often bemoan a weakening of plot or character development in many spectacular features

The Pop-Pickers Have Picked Decentralised Media: the Fall of Top of the Pops and the Rise of the Second Media Age

The BBC has recently announced that Top of the Pops, the long-running weekly popular music programme, will broadcast its final episode in the summer of 2006. This brief \'rapid response\' article considers how the conclusion of Top of the Pops\' 42 year history may be understood as representative or indicative of broader transformation in musical appropriation. As such it considers the fall of Top of the Pops in relation to the rise of what Mark Poster has described as a \'second media age\' (Poster, 1996). This second media age is defined by the emergence of decentralised and multidimensional media structures that usurp the broadcast models of the first media age. This article argues that the decommissioning of Top of the Pops, and the ongoing expansion of \'social networking\' sites such as MySpace and Bebo, illustrates the movement from a first to a second media age. In light of these transformations I suggest here that there is a pressing need to develop new research initiatives and strategies that critically examine these new digitalised forms of musical appropriation.Music, Digital, Digitalisation, Internet, Capitalism, Social Networking, Rhetoric, Second Media Age, Authenticity, Culture

Art and Fear : an introduction.

Following the controversial reception of ‘La Procedure Silence’ (2000) Virilio felt the English translation of ‘Art and Fear’ needed an introduction to clarify his views on contemporary art, technology and the body. For Continuum, the success of output 1 made Armitage the obvious choice. Output 2 links CARcentre activities to Holocaust research at Northumbria. In 2007, the School of Arts and Social Sciences appointed Konopka-Klus (curator of the Auschwitz Museum) as Visiting Fellow, following a series of highly successful lectures on the role of art at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. This was organised as part of an interdisciplinary project that makes Northumbria the only UK University with formal links to Auschwitz, and with a Holocaust Studies module that offers field trips to Auschwitz as part of the syllabus. Whilst working on this output (and an associated study: ‘The Aesthetics of Auschwitz’, HTV 50, Amsterdam [2003]) Armitage helped Rowe develop a theoretical understanding of the politics of suffering, for an AHRC funded practice-led doctorate entitled: Communicating Pain: Can physical pain, especially gynaecological pain and its associated psychological effects, be communicated and understood through art? Armitage’s introduction complements studies such as Nicholas Zurbrugg’s ‘Hyperviolence and Hypersexuality: Paul Virilio’ (Eyeline, 45, autumn/winter 2001). The output led to Armitage being asked to be keynote speaker at ‘Paul Virilio und die Künste’, an international conference at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, Germany, 2006. Armitage presented a paper entitled ‘Virilio Over Hypermodern America: On the Recent Art of Jordan Crandall, Joy Garnett, and Elin O’Hara Slavick’. The paper will shortly be published in an edited book by Peter Weibel, the Director of ZKM. It will also be entitled ‘Paul Virilio und die Künste’, and will be published in German, by ZKM, in collaboration with publishers Merve Verlag, in Berlin, December 2007

New literacies and future educational culture

The paper draws attention to three developments that are crucial to online education. First, the new literacy required by group discussion in writing, i.e. by computer‐mediated communication ('e‐talk') is discussed Educators are urged to delimit and structure their courses so that online conversations in writing are successfully framed for effective discourse. Second, new literacy arising from the merging of multimedia with text is considered It is maintained that this will enhance communication, not debase it. Third, the way that increasing ease of information retrieval is eroding boundaries between traditional disciplines is discussed It is argued that this may create new difficulties in education. The paper recommends various ways of overcoming the problems that arise from the three developments

Historical Overview: The Parliamentary Library from Past to Present

Parliamentary libraries (also known under various terminologies such as federal libraries, legislative libraries, information resource centers, documentation centers, or reference services) enhance the research and information capacity of parliaments. As their histories show, however, some also came to consider their constituencies as lying beyond the confines of their parent legislature.published or submitted for publicatio

The book an adaptation from the film: technology, narrative, business & how the book industry might adapt the film

This paper proposes that the book, both its form and the book publishing industry that support it can make reference to how the film industry have reacted to technological change since the 1980 's. This can be done in such a way to transform how a book is marketed, published and perhaps read. Epstein (2010) describes how the film industry profited despites its best efforts, from technological advances. The book industry has an opportunity to learn both from the film and record industries using both industries as case studies to support the book's transition to a supporting digital format. There is an opportunity to make the debate not about Kindle versus Ipad, open-source ePub format versus locked down Kindle but about how to use non-linearity, choice vs control, structure and storytelling in a creative fashion. What is the book? It is more than its physical form. It is an experience. Current industry marketing practices, for instance the book review, the audio book, speaking tours all lend themselves to a multimedia approach that can reinforce the position of the book and the reading of the book in today's creative cultural environment

Effects of Celiac Disease on Religion and Language

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that prevents people from digesting gluten. The diagnosis of Celiac impacts more than physical health, it irrevocably alters a person’s conception of self. Ordinary activities like airport travel, staying in hotels, and worship become complicated. For example, receiving Communion in the Roman Catholic faith is one of the ways people maintain their close relationship to God. Because the wafers used are made of gluten, those with Celiac are prevented from partaking in this sacred ritual. This leads to increased feelings of isolation and alienation from both the religious community and God. Another way it alters a person’s self-conception is by changing the very language they use. For instance, they might use new lingo such as the word “glutard.” A contraction of the words “gluten” and “retarded,” many use the term to inject humor into an often grim situation. It is an ironic term of self-reference used on social media when one has been exposed or is pointing out the dark humor that is often a part of life with Celiac disease. Those with Celiac disease often find these kinds of everyday experiences more problematic than those without, who often take these things for granted