DIGAREC Lecture April 22, 2010 with Lev Manovich

Lev Manovich

“Visualization as a New Language of Cultural Theory”

22.04.2010, 18 – 20h

Location:
University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469 Potsdam, house 08, Audimax, room 145

The language will be English and the entry is free.

Any changes of the programme or locations etc. will be published first on http://www.digarec.org. This lecture is funded by Medienboard Berlin Brandenburg. Following lectures: schedule.

[only English version available]

Abstract:

Over the last 20 years, information visualization became a common tool in science and also a growing presence in the arts and culture at large.
However, the use of visualization in cultural research is still in its infancy. Based on the work in the analysis of video games, cinema, TV, animation, Manga and other media carried out in Software Studies Initiative at University of California, San Diego over last two years, I will present a number of visualization techniques and methods particularly useful for cultural and media research. The talks will be illustrated by example from our current work including visualizations of 100 hours of game play and 1 million Manga pages.

Software studies initiative: http://softwarestudies.com Examples of media visualizations: http://www.flickr.com/photos/culturevis.

Bio:

Lev Manovich is Director of Software Studies Initiative, Calit2 http://softwarestudies.com, Professor at Visual Arts Department, UCSD http://visarts.ucsd.edu, Professor, European Graduate School http://www.egs.edu and Visiting Professor at De Montfort University. Lev Manovich’s books include Software Takes Command (released under CC license, 2008), Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database (The MIT Press, 2005), and The Language of New Media (The MIT Press, 2001) which is hailed as “the most suggestive and broad ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan.” He has written 90+ articles which have been reprinted over 300 times in 30+ countries. More: http://www.manovich.net