Review by Christian Smith “How am I obligated to remember? What am I obligated to remember? And with whom?” Bookended by these questions, Anne Wysocki’s keynote speech on Friday evening offered a multimedia meditation on how the Western tradition has engaged memory from Simonides of Ceos to Gordon Bell’s MyLifeBits while introducing the audience to her current book length digital project concerning memory and technology. Precipitated by the death of her father and the recent union struggles in Wisconsin, Wysocki’s keynote focused on the obligation of memory as an open question and the technologies that have historically been used to…
Author: Sweetland DRC
Review by Mariana Grohowski Alex Reid’s visually and intellectually stimulating keynote address “Composing Objects: Prospects for a Digital Rhetoric,” called the field of computers and writing to turn its investigation of composing objects to how composing objects as we engage in future investigations and “constructions.” (You can read or watch Reid’s keynote address.) Standing in front of a screen composed of four quadrants of visual stimulation (Top left: were various images of “composing objects” from the new aesthetic // top right: GoogleDoc slideshow-like presentation of still images including important quotations from his talk // Low left: TweetDeck live feed of #cwcon…
Review by Sarah Spring Panelists Doug Eyman, George Mason University Emi Bunner, UNC-Chapel Hill Cynthia Haynes, Clemson University Mary Karcher, Wayne State University Jill Morris, Frostburg State University Scott Reed, Georgia Gwinnett College Jan Holmevik, Clemson University During this roundtable, presenters reflected on their experiences as gamers and scholars of gaming. Doug Eyman opened by reminiscing about his own technology autobiography. His experience with computers began in the sixth grade with floppy disks that started the operating system; he used to play a computer game in the school library, and this moment is how he came to see the connection…
Review by Scott Reed Consider the following: Pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers-Squibb sells an antiretroviral drug, like many drugs, at rates that most people who really need the drug can’t afford. It sounds like standard-issue market capitalism on its surface: a company selling a profit at whatever price the market can afford. The problem, though, is that this company faces no competition. By holding the patent on the drug, Bristol Myers Squibb creates a condition of artificial scarcity. They are ultimately, as David Parry argued in his keynote, a “knowledge cartel” because of the way they wield control over information. The…