I’m in Los Angeles right now taking part in the DIY video conference at USC.
The panels have been pretty incredible so far.
I wanted to get here for the first one called “State of Research,” but I realized late last night that I wasn’t realistically going to be able to drive all night. I hope the videos from those panels are posted online later.
Right now I’m at the “State of the Art” panel.
Here are my ROUGH notes from Alex Juhasz’s talk:
Alexandra Juhasz:
She taught a class that went viral, and for her presentation she created a tour of this class… called Tour#1 Education, Introduction
She talked about “how we handled youtube… [in an academic context]”
6 binaries that radically affected her ability to teach in youtube…
1. public private
2. cyber vs. real
3. oral vs. visual
4. entertainment and education
5. amateur and expert
6. control and chaos…
This vid/class is attempt to regain some control… to participate as a community together.
She said this tour is “my attempt to re-stablize”… she talks about the kind of low-brow entertainment emphasis of the popular youtube videos.
(My thoughts: Interesting to think about the relationship between what’s happening now and Tom Gunning’s Cinema of Attraction–i.e. how much what’s going on in youtube right now mirrors what was happening in film culture during the nickelodeon era).
Update: I talked to Alexandra and she had a lot to say about this issue. She remarked it was surprising that we’re rehashing this kind of aesthetic that was existing 100 yrs ago.
There seems to be a lament about youtube not being an intellectual forum… how does youtube raise these sorts of expectations in the first place?