The Stanford Humanities Lab is a Center for
Transdiciplinary/Post-Disciplinary Study. We discover
fascinating futures to be explored in ignoring and crossing disciplinary borders.
SHL believes
that some crucial questions — about what it is to be human, about experience in a connected world, about the boundaries of
culture and nature — transcend old divisions between the arts, sciences and humanities; between the academy, industry and
the cultural sphere.
We engage in experimental projects with a "laboratory" ethos — collaborative, co-creative, team-based — involving a
triangulation of arts practice, commentary/critique, and outreach, merging research, pedagogy, publication and practice. Beyond commentary and discussion, we build: new media, interactive archives,
predictive models of social change, collaborative research workshops, art exhibitions.
The SHL agenda encompasses
• animating archives - regenerating, bringing to life,
and fostering new modes of interaction with the storehouses of human, cultural, artistic, scientific achievement - our focus is on the question of the relationship of the human past to efforts at conservation and preservation
• building bigger pictures - putting specialized in-depth research into the context of big human questions; questions, for example, of rapid social change and innovation, the ethical implications of information technology, the character of distributed digital communities, the politics of digital citizenship, the past, present, and future of intellectual property
• enabling co-creative collaboration - developing successful models of teamwork, learner-centered models of training (thinking through doing), and collaborative authoring tools and processes
• building bridges - establishing innovative partnerships between industry, museums, foundations, and high-level university-based research
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Trip Report – UCLE 07
SHL's Henrik Bennetsen gave the keynote address at Copenhagen University's UCLE 07 conference, exploring Second Life's potential for teaching and research using the Human and the Machine course from the Introduction to the Humanities program and the Life Squared project as two case studies. The talk was recorded and will be made available on the web at a later date. Henrik also conducted a workshop, well-attended by representatives from Danish education, research and government sectors. The interest in spaces such as SL is great in Denmark, and it was interesting to note how they were struggling with many of the issues that SHL have faced and solved. So we can hope that our expertise and experience will help to guide them around some of the bumps in the road ahead.
How and Why Data Disappear
Thursday, May 3, 4:15pm, History Corner, Room 307 The fate of the Royal Library of Alexandria, the incineration of Mayan texts by Fray Diego de Landa, and the mass looting of the Baghdad Museum in modern times all bear witness to the ways in which vast storehouses of knowledge can disappear in the course of single, cataclysmic events. But what about those forms of large-scale loss which take place, not instantaneously, but incrementally and imperceptibly? What about those forms of disappearance which take place, not at the hands of armies or looters, but as the unintentional and unexpected byproducts of everyday life? Launched with a seed grant from the Stanford Humanities Lab, Project Absentia explores the phenomenon of unintentional loss in its myriad forms. With the assistance of the program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and the Suppes Center, Project Absentia is hosting its inaugural session on Thursday, May 3, at 4:15pm. The May 3 session will feature presentations by leading scholars in the fields of Information Studies and STS: Christine Borgman, Chair of Information Studies at UCLA, and Geoffrey Bowker, Executive Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University. During this session, we will examine the phenomenon of unintentional, catastrophic data loss, investigating the processes by which vast collections of information can disappear despite concerted efforts to maintain and preserve them.
SHL/SHC Colloquium: "The past is no longer what it was."
New Thinking About Archives - Because the Past Is No Longer What It Was.Thursday May 3rd 1.00-4.00pm at Stanford Humanities Center The purpose of this colloquium is simple - to find out what others are doing and thinking, to show and tell about projects concerning the future of the archive. Many at Stanford have an interest in the history, structure, use, and future of archives and museums, in collection and documentation, in how we work with organized materials that are the sources for research, learning, historical analysis and narrative, memory practices, and cultural and personal identity. Digital information technologies are the focus of a dynamic mobilization of archives that has prompted some of us to envision a watershed change in the way we relate to archived pasts - towards archives that are architectures of engaging experience - Archive 3.0. Please join us. RSVP Henry Lowood, Matthew Tiews and Michael Shanks. An outline can be found here.
Critical Studies in New Media Workshop - Gilbert Cockton
12 Noon Tuesday 24 April Wallenberg Hall (Building 160) 4th Floor  SHL and the Mellon/Humanities Center workshop " Critical Studies in New Media" invite you to a brown-bag lunch with Gilbert Cockton, Research Chair in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Sunderland UK. As part of our transdisciplinary focus on bridging Design and the Humanities, on connecting socio-cultural themes with media engineering, Prof Cockton will be talking about Value and Values in the Development of Interactive Software and Media: Worth-Centered Design" ... a worth-centred framework aims to create and maintain a focus on value throughout the development of interactive software and media. This focus starts with designers' cognitions about intended desirable value, and moves through the creative design and development of achievable value to the evaluation of achieved worth ..." An outline and forum for the talk can be found here
How They Got Game Workshop #1 with Daniel Huebner
How They Got Game Workshop #2
Please join us on Tuesday the 17th of April 2007 from 3pm - 4:30pm on the 4th floor of Wallenberg Hall at Stanford University for a How They Got Game workshop with Jesper Juul.
Speaker Bio:
Jesper Juul is a video game theorist and assistant professor in video game theory and design at the Centre for Computer Game Research Copenhagen where he also earned his Ph.D. His book Half-Real on video game theory was published by MIT Press in 2005.
Additionally, he works as a multi-user chat systems and casual game developer. His blog, The Ludologist, can be found at http://www.jesperjuul.net /ludologist
Abstract:
In 1977, there were no "hardcore" players of video games: Every video game had to be created with the assumption that players had no understanding of video games, genres, and controllers. Thirty years later, video games are primarily designed for players with extensive knowledge of video game conventions. This is how video games gained a specialized audience, but lost the general public. In this perspective, video games have long ago become a developed "art", created for connoisseurs, by connoisseurs with a deep understanding of the medium. Using examples, I will discuss the rise of the hardcore gamer market, and how video games are once again opening up to new players via new platforms like the Wii, and via casual games.
These workshops are open to all interested parties with a strong interest in topics surrounding new media, technology, and design. They offer the chance to hear talks by industry professionals and seasoned academics, but also offer the rare opportunity for one-on-one questions as well as collaborative work.
How They Got Game is a research project at the Stanford Humanities Lab dedicated to the historical investigation of computer games and other related interactive technologies. Its diverse membership possesses varying academic interests ranging from machinima, virtual worlds and interactive storytelling.
For more information or to show an interest in attending please contact Henrik Bennetsen - bennetsen@gmail.com
2006 Human and Machine Final Project Fair Video
Two of SHL's directors Henry Lowood & Michael Shanks were teaching the IHUM course Human and Machine. Second Life was one of the texts for this course and the students built a final project fair on the island purchased for the course.
Below is a video about this. It runs for about 27 minutes and is narrated by Zena Meadowsong and Alice Petty. Starring their avatars, Penny Proost and Damiqti Seurat. Filmed, directed, and edited at SHL by Henrik Bennetsen, assisted by Zena Meadowsong.
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