Humanities in the European Research Area

Shortly before Christmas, we received some excellent news from the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) review panel. Our project “Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice” has been recommended for funding, pending final contract negotiations with the European Science Foundation to be completed in January 2010. Scott Rettberg, of the University of Bergen Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic department’s Digital Culture Group, will be the Project Leader. The total budget for the project as a whole will be just under 1.000.000 Euros.

“Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice” (ELMCIP) is a 3-year collaborative research project which will run from 2010-2013. The project will be funded under HERA joint research project theme: ’Humanities as a Source of Creativity and Innovation’.

ELMCIP involves seven European academic research partners and one non-academic partner who will investigate how creative communities of practitioners form within a transnational and transcultural context in a globalized and distributed communication environment. Focusing on the electronic literature community in Europe as a model of networked creativity and innovation in practice, ELMCIP is intended both to study the formation and interactions of that community and also to further electronic literature research and practice in Europe.

The partners include: The University of Bergen, Norway (PL Scott Rettberg, Co-I Jill Walker Rettberg), the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland (PI Simon Biggs, Co-I Penny Travlou), Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden (PI Maria Engberg, Co-I Talan Memmott), The University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (PI Yra Van Dijk), The University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (PI Janez Strechovec), The University of Jyväskylä, Finland (PI Raine Koskimaa), and Univerity College Falmouth at Dartington, England (PI Jerome Fletcher), and New Media Scotland.

The project will fund three post-docs and one PhD. The positions that will be advertised include: a 20-month post-doc in electronic literature bibliography at the University of Bergen, a 12-month post-doc focused on electronic literature publication and education at Blekinge Institute of Technology, and a three year PhD in electronic literature and design at the Edinburgh College of Art. The project also funds a three-year post-doc in ethnography of digital culture at the Edinburgh College of Art (Penny Travlou).

The research outcomes of the project will include: a series of case studies and research papers on electronic literature, a series of public seminars on electronic literature in different cultural contexts, the production of an extensive online knowledge including papers and presentations from the seminars, project information and bibliographic records of works of electronic literature, a workshop on electronic literature and education and a companion anthology of electronic literature including pedagogical materials, a major international conference, a public exhibition of electronic literature artworks and performances. All publications resulting from the project, including conference proceedings, exhibition catalog, project documentation and the DVD anthology, will be made available on an open access basis.

As the lead partner, the University of Bergen will be responsible for overall project administration, for research and a seminar on electronic literature communities to take place in 2010, for the production of the project’s online knowledge base, and for the production of the project’s final report. UiB’s share of the project budget, pending ESF approval, is 298.625 Euros.

More information, including a website for the project, details of planned public events, and calls for projects and positions associated with ELMCIP, will be forthcoming soon.

Ulriken from our porch, originally uploaded by srett.

The sun peeked out this morning on a clear sky, revealing Bergen blanketed in winter splendor, a day after the winter solstice.

1) Email at implementationphotos at gmail dot com with your postal mailing address, and we will send you an installment of stickers from the novel.

2) Choose interesting places to put the stickers up in public environments and stick them there.

3) Photograph the sticker, attempting to get photos of the sticker both at a close/legible view and from some distance, showing the placement of the sticker in its environment.

3) Standard or high photo resolution on most contemporary digital cameras will work for this — we are trying to get photos that would be of suitable resolution for a book project.

4) Send the photographs to implementationphotos at gmail dot com — in the subject of the email include the location (City, State/Region, Country – you can be more specific if you like) where the photograph was taken and the installment number, which will be indicated on the back of the sticker sheets. Please also indicate if you would like the photo to be attributed to you, or if you would prefer to remain anonymous.

For the purposes of the book project, photos received over the course of the next month (returned before 15 January 2010) will be most useful. By submitting the photos, you agree to grant us the rights to use the photos for the book project and online versions of the project.

Gmail takes up to 25MB attachments per email message.

If you enjoy the experience and would like to put up more stickers, let us know and we will send you another installment.

Happy implementing!

Cybraphon Demo Song from Cybraphon on Vimeo.

Binary Katwalk is an online exhibition space for experimental digital work, edited by Jeremy Hight. Each edition will feature artists from around the world and from different points in the spectrum of new media. This edition features five new mini-stories created for Pullinger’s Flight Paths project which is a mixed media communal net based narrative on a large scale, along with three artists she has selected. The next edition of BK will feature codework auteur Mez.

Ingredients
———
3 portions leftover grilled salmon, diced
3 cobs grilled sweet corn
10 new potatoes
1 red onion, diced
sprig of rosemary
handful of fresh basil
olive oil, salt, pepper, tabasco, quarter lemon

Serves 4-6 for breakfast or lunch.

Dice up the salmon and drizzle with lemon juice. Boil the potatoes for about 10/15 minutes until cooked through but still firm. Cool them in a bath of cold water. Whittle the kernels off the cob, dice the onion, and chop up the herbs. Sweat the onions in a bit of olive oil. Halve and then quarter the potatoes. I leave the skins on, though others may not like that. When the onions are translucent, add the potatoes and the corn and enough olive oil so that the potatoes are glistening. Add sea salt, pepper and a drizzle of tabasco and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, then add the salmon and herbs and cook for another 5 minutes. Serve hot. It’s a nice dish because while the flavors complement each other, each ingredient also maintains its own distinctive taste.

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico “Venus In Furs” from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.