Why Make Things in the Humanities?

Jentery Sayers and Nina Belojevic

University of Victoria

maker@uvic.ca | @UVicMakerLab | maker.uvic.ca

Fork This Slidedeck on GitHub
Image from the Maker Lab in the Humanities Care of Shaun Macpherson

Overview of Today's Talk

Motivations for Making Things

The Practice of Making Things

Spaces for Making Things

Two Example Maker Lab Projects

Image of Jentery Sayers Care of Garnet Hertz

Disclaimer: Our Perspective on Making

What Are the Implications for Humanities Research?

For Teaching in the Humanities?

Image from the Maker Lab in the Humanities Care of Shaun Macpherson

Motivations for Making Things

Media Studies Concepts that Inform the Maker Lab

Image from the Maker Lab Care of Shaun Macpherson + Jon Johnson

Medial Ideology

Pop Representations of Media Eclipse Material Particulars

Complexity of Platforms Reduced to Screens and Symbols

Digital Labor and E-Media Rendered Immaterial

See Kirschenbaum, Mechanisms (2008) | Page Image Care of Kirschenbaum and MIT Press

The Medial Ideology of Hackers (1995)

Video and Image Care of United Artists, Softley, Peyser + Moreu

Programmed Visions

Programming Enables a Sense of Control

Yet Effects of Computation Are Often Unforeseen

All Source Code Is Re-Source (Compiling + Bugs Matter)

See Chun, Programmed Visions (2011) | Image of G-Code by Jentery Sayers

The Wayback Machine

Wayback Machine Care of the Internet Archive

Transduction

How this Material Becomes that Material

Attending to Inscription, Transfer + Playback Mechanisms

Privileging Mediation over Media

See Sterne, The Audible Past (2003) + Fuller, Media Ecologies (2006) | Image Care of Katie McQueston

The Robot-Readable World

Image and Video Care of Timo Arnall

The Eversion

The Internet Turned Inside-Out

The Programmability of the Physical World

"Cyberspace" Is Material + Distributed (Not "Out There")

See Gibson, "Google's Earth" (2010) + Jones, The Emergence of the Digital Humanities
Image by Jentery Sayers

Hybrid Practices

A Call for Knowing + Doing in Media Studies

Enacting Media Criticism through New Media

Stress Importance of Embodiment + Sensory Modalities

See Daniel + McPherson, Cinema Journal (Winter 2009) | Image Care of Daniel, Loyer + Vectors

The Practice of Making Things

A Few Techniques to Consider
(with Images from the Lab)

Image of Jon Johnson Care of Jon Johnson

Physical Computing

Constructing Responsive Objects + Environments

Relies Heavily on Sensors, Actuators + Microcontrollers

Open Source Software + Open Source Hardware

See the Work of Leah Buechley + Hi-Low Tech at MIT | Image Care of Jon Johnson

De- and Re-Manufacturing

Reuse Ostensibly "Dead" or "Old" Media

Ask How Things Are Made + Where They Go

Combine Breaking Things with Making Things

See the Work of Garnet Hertz | Image Care of Katie McQueston + Jon Johnson

Conjectural and Speculative Design

Building "What If" Scenarios for Material History

Underscoring Adjacent (Not Distant) Possibilities

Technologies + Computation Need Not Make Truth Claims

See the Work of Carl DiSalvo, Bethany Nowviskie + Steven Johnson | Image Care of Jon Johnson

Rapid Prototyping

Privilege Design-in-Use over Ideal Use

Think through Desktop Fabrication Technologies

See What Persists + What Breaks

See the Work of Kari Kraus, Devon Elliott + Bill Turkel | Image Care of Alex Christie

Spaces for Making Things

The Place and Culture of Makerspaces

Image Care of Shaun Macpherson

A Makerspace for Graduate Students

Image and Video Care of Shaun Macpherson and the Maker Lab Team

Infrastructure and Materials

Messiness, Discards, and Plenty of Trial + Error

Investment in Access, Production, and Sharing Workflows

Reuse of Materials and Resistance to Planned Obsolescence

Image by Jentery Sayers

Culture First, Technology a Close Second

Social Justice or Community-Based Impulse

Learning Tacitly Alongside Others

Blending Enthusiasm with Skepticism

Image by Jentery Sayers

Two Example Maker Lab Projects

Image Care of Jon Johnson

Project 1: Bending Games

Building Modified Consoles and Peripherals

Hardware- and Electronics-Based Approach to Games

Influenced by kopas + Anthropy + Rodgers

Research Team: Nina Belojevic, Jon Johnson, Shaun Macpherson, and Jentery Sayers
Image care of Jon Johnson

Research by Nina Belojevic

See Belojevic's Forthcoming Article in NANO (2014)

Bending Games for Teaching

How Do We Interact with Arguments?

Who Are Games For? Who Gets to Participate?

How Do We Teach Transduction in the Humanities?

Image care of Jon Johnson

Bending Games as Research

How Does Bending Help Us Think about Labor?

When Does the Non-Diegetic Matter?

What Are the Alternative Histories of Gaming?

Image care of Jon Johnson

Project 2: Kits for Cultural History

Reconstructing Historical Experiments

Emphasis on Old Media and Mechanisms

In Collaboration with Bill Turkel (Supported by SSHRC)

Research Team: Nina Belojevic, Alex Christie, Laura Dosky, Devon Elliott, Jon Johnson, Shaun Macpherson, Katie McQueston, Jentery Sayers, Bill Turkel, and Zaqir Virani
Image Care of Nina Belojevic, Shaun Macpherson + Katie McQueston

Early Wearables Kit

What's the Material History of Wearable Electronics?

See McQueston + Virani | Images Care of Nina Belojevic, Shaun Macpherson + Katie McQueston

Wire Recorder Kit

What's the History of "Failed" Magnetic Recorders?

See Sayers | Images Care of Laura Dosky + Zaqir Virani | Page Image from Quartermaine (1952)

Tennis for Two Kit

What's the Long History of Indie Videogaming?

See Christie + Johnson | Images Care of Jon Johnson | Tennis for Two by Higinbotham (1958)

Kits for Teaching

How to Facilitate Applied Approaches to Archives?

How Is Assembly Intertwined with Reading and Writing?

How to Turn Learning away from the Screen?

Image Care of Jon Johnson

Kits as Research

How Reliable Is the Historical Documentation?

When Do the Technical Particulars Matter for Culture?

How Is Perception Articulated with Technology?

Image Care of Jon Johnson

The Maker Lab Team

Adèle Barclay, Nina Belojevic, Alex Christie, Laura Dosky, Devon Elliott, Jon Johnson, Stefan Krecsy,
Shaun Macpherson, Katie McQueston, Jana Millar Usiskin, Keddy Pavlik, Stephen Ross, Jentery Sayers,
Katie Tanigawa, Zaqir Virani, and Karly Wilson