M/C Journal 'jam' Issue Launched

We've just published issue 9.6 of M/C Journal (December 2006)... This means that in 2007, M/C enters its tenth volume - wow. I don't think any one of us would have foreseen such longevity when we founded the journal. Anyway, here it is - and a great selection of interesting topics lined up for 2007 as well!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 4 January 2007

M/C - Media and Culture
is proud to present issue six in volume nine of

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

'jam' - Edited by Jo Tacchi and Lawrence English

What is Jam? How can we understand this cultural and culinary condiment? How does it exist on its own right? Can it exist without attachment, without some form of boundary giving this amorphous blob some understood form and shape?

As a condiment, the notion of jam exists attached to a more solid form -wedged between two pieces of bread or contained within a jar. Its creation (via various processes and transformations from raw material into something consumable, even desirable), housing, marketing and consumption all shape our understanding of this widely used, yet somewhat 'formless' term. Is it through this series of conditions (and many more not noted above) that we understand the ideas of 'jam' - that is, by association? Equally, the term applies to a variety of artistic procedures and situations - from work with sound and visual arts to online applications and a broader 'cultural' application. These are the experiences and conditions of 'jam' and 'jamming' that this issue aims to uncover and explore. Is jamming always underprepared and underdefined in advance? Ironically, if one 'preserves' it, can it still be considered 'jam'?

Is there still a currency for this term? Have the popular uses of 'jam' in a cultural, musical and art setting rendered it less effective? How might it be reinvigorated and where does the future path of jam potentially lie? This issue of M/C Journal offers a variety of answers to that question.

Feature Article

"Jammed in an Unknown Device" - David Toop

According to David Toop, "jamming is associated predominantly with a known form, the participants play in order to exercise their skill, even to the point of competitiveness, but also for the pleasure of interaction without the need for perfection". UK based writer, sound artist and curator Toop questions the notions of what contemporary improvisation may share with the ideas traditionally associated with 'Jam' in the musical setting. How does technology shape the interactions of concurrent layers of sound in space? Does the flexibility of the interface bring with it inherent qualities and furthermore how might those be resolved as a means of creating meaningful interaction?

Articles

"Boulevard of Broken Songs": Mash-ups as Textual Re-appropriation of Popular Music Culture - Em McAvan

Code Jamming - Andrew R. Brown

Jam2jam: Networked Jamming - Steve Dillon

Sensory Jam: How the Victoria Preserving Company Pushed Australian Cinema Space into the New Millennium - Leanne Downing

Putting Up with "Putting Up": A Cultural Analysis of Making Homemade Jam in the Twenty-First Century - Lynn Houston

'Irigaray Makes Jam' - Alison Bartlett

Weblogs as Personal Narratives: Displacing History and Temporality - Yasmin Ibrahim

Theory-Jamming: Uses of Eclectic Method in an Ontological Spiral - Stephen Stockwell

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Further M/C Journal issues scheduled for 2007:

'mobile': article deadline 17 January 2007, release date 14 March 2007
'adapt': article deadline 9 March 2007, release date 2 May 2007
'complex': article deadline 4 May 2007, release date 27 June 2007
'home': article deadline 29 June 2007, release date 22 August 2007
'error': article deadline 24 August 2007, release date 17 October 2007
'vote': article deadline 19 October 2007, release date 12 December 2007

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M/C Journal 9.6 is now online: <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/>.
Previous issues of M/C Journal on various topics are also still available.

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Visit all four M/C publications at <http://www.media-culture.org.au/>.

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All contributors are available for media contacts: mc@media-culture.org.au.

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