Snurb's blog

We've now finalised the M/C Journal issue line-up for 2006, and posted the first call for papers for the 'transmit' issue. I'll be editing 'collaborate' with my friend and colleague Donna Lee Brien at the University of New England in Armidale early in 2006 as well, and I think we've got a number of other interesting issue topics and editors planned for the rest of the year as well. Start writing your articles!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 9 November 2005

M/C - Media and Culture
http://www.media-culture.org.au/
is calling for contributors to the 'transmit' issue of

Phew - another day spent editing the Uses of Blogs book with Jo Jacobs; we're now very close to sending off the manuscript to Peter Lang for editorial comments and proofreading. This has turned out to be a very strong collection of essays on blogs and blogging from a wide range of perspectives, and I think it will do very well. And nothing against our original cast of contributors, but we've added a few more authors in the last few months, and they've made quite an impact as well.

Forgot to mention this earlier - I published the 'review' issue of M/C Journal the other week:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 30 October 2005

M/C - Media and Culture
is proud to present issue five in volume eight of

M/C Journal
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/

'review' - Edited by Emma Nelms, Kate Cuthbert, and Tim Milfull

Amidst all sorts of other work, including last-ditch editorial work on Uses of Blogs with Jo Jacobs, end-of-semester assignment marking and moderating for various units, the development of new research projects, and my emerging role as conference chair for the 2006 Association of Internet Researchers conference in Brisbane, I've finally managed to write a first introductory piece on produsers and produsage. This follows on from my residency at the Institute for Distributed Creativity last month (where I also recorded a video statement on produsage), and has also been posted on the iDC site itself (and will probably make its way through various mailing-lists soon).

The piece, "Some Exploratory Notes on Produsers and Produsage", maps out some of the key areas of interest in my research for the next few years, so it's something of a mission statement for me. It's also very much an exploratory piece - there are many more gaps to be filled in, there is much research to be done, and many researchers to be collaborated with. So, such as it is, I'm very keen on comments...

(Brisbane) Well, I'm home again, more or less - after a week here I still feel somewhat jetlagged and generally mushy. Work needs to be done, though, so I'm trying my best to keep up with things. Speaking of which, I hadn't flagged this yet: as part of my residency at the Institute for Distributed Creativity Trebor Scholz and I recorded a brief video statement outlining the produser idea - here it is in all its glory:

(Singapore) I've been travelling for around 24 hours straight now, and the end is in sight - currently I'm enjoying the free Internet connections at Singapore's Changi Airport, before the last flight leg into Brisbane in a couple of hours. Strictly speaking, when I arrive in Brisbane I'll have been underway for more than the 34 hours of plane travel over these last couple of days, though - my last day in the U.S. was taken up with another day trip, another guest lecture, this time at Temple University in Philadelphia. Of the four times I've now done the 'Understanding the Produser' lecture, this one was my favourite, I think - I had enough time to expand on some of the key ideas, there were great questions throughout, and some very nice comments afterwards (a close second was the first time, at SUNY Buffalo). Many thanks to Hana Iverson and her group for inviting me in (and shouting me dinner afterwards).

Well, I can't say New York City exactly put its best face forward for me - it's been alternately drizzly, rainy, windy, or just plain miserable here at least as far as the weather was concerned. With the talks on Tuesday and the Boston/Providence and Philadelphia trips on Wednesday and Friday, Thursday was my only 'off' day here, but it wasn't exactly great for sightseeing. In fact, around mid-day it rained so hard that I had to buy a pair of jeans because my other trousers were soaking wet... (Well, the other reason was that on the flight to the U.S. my old jeans developed what here they'd probably call a 'wardrobe malfunction', putting me in danger of mooning people each time I bent over.)

Well, after a long day's travelling I've now made it back to rainy New York City again. It's been a great day - very good debate at the panel at Northeastern University in Boston, great to catch up again with David Marshall at NEU, and a nice evening lecture at Brown University. I managed to record both events and will post up some audio once I've had a chance to edit it. My thanks to everyone who's helped set up these events, and particularly also to Mark Tribe who was my host at Brown (and accompanied me back to NYC on the train). A quick T train trip in Boston also reminded me that this city has far and away some of the best subway station names in the world. I mean, wouldn't you want to get on the subway to 'Alewife'? 'Wonderland'? 'Braintree'? Or my favourite, NEU's local station 'Ruggles'?

Right now I'm on an Amtrak train to Boston (currently stopping in a town called Mystic), where I'll take part in a panel on "Public/Private Intersections in New Media" with David Marshall and others. David has asked the panellists to prepare some brief points to address a set of questions we will be discussing - here are mine:

0. What do I think about new media?

Well, the New School talk on produsers and produsage went pretty well, I think - my thanks again to my hosts here, and to Trebor Scholz from the Institute for Distributed Creativity for setting it up. Unfortunately, once again I forgot to record the talk, but I guess I have another couple of chances to do so when I present it at Brown and at Temple. Afterwards, I also caught up with Shekhar Deshpande from Arcadia University to discuss what's happening in Creative Industries at QUT at the moment, and Shekhar was nice enough to show me through a little bit of East Village as well. Currently I'm enjoying the free wireless Internet access available at the New School, and then it's on to The Thing for the next talk - hope my voice holds up...