June 28, 2008
SoftWhere 2008 videos
Last month UCSD hosted SoftWhere 2008 — the first software studies workshop in North America. It was a great experience compressed into a short time period, with one afternoon for an overview of the broad variety of work being done by participants and one morning for a set of focused discussions on the state of the field and possible future projects.
Now there are online videos available for a number of the presentations, each in a punchy “Pecha Kucha” style (under 7 minutes). They can be downloaded in QuickTime form at the workshop page and are becoming available on YouTube and in other forms.
Some videos are from our off-campus visitors: Ian Bogost, Geoff Bowker, Benjamin Bratton, Anne Helmond, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Peter Lunenfeld, Mark Marino, Michael Mateas, Nick Montfort, Warren Sack, Phoebe Sengers, Cicero Silva, and Tristan Thielmann. Others are from UCSD folk Amy Alexander, Jordan Crandall, Kelly Gates, William Huber, and Stefan Tanaka. And, of course, there are three from the organizers: Lev Manovich, Jeremy Douglass, and yours truly. I hope you enjoy watching us try to work in this constrained form — I enjoyed engaging with it!