AOIR 8.0 Vancouver Conference (2)

I'm way behind on this blog and knowing that many read, but don't post, I apologise. Overall the week in Vancouver was a fascinating one, if not somewhat damp! In terms of conference proceedings after I last posted, it was the group led by Greg Elmer that was particularly interesting. I know Greg's work through his interest in power, discipline, dataveillance and his correct assertions that query the over reliance on Foucault and Benthamite accounts of power. Anyhow, locative media is the buzz term of the moment and this is what he focused on in the second of his presentations. Although writers such as Manovich have written on augmented technology and power, the recent acceleration of handleld devices points to this as a place for theorisation. In particular he drew attention to the need of a wider political/economy examination of mobile interfaces, what is to be located (i.e. known in gridded space).

Although it is mainly students and industry and folk who read this I can't help but highlight John Willinsky's talk on the Public Knowledge Project. Us academics are pretty much strapped over a barrel when it come to publishing our work. Now only do we not get paid for publishing in journals, our work takes months, and at times years, to come out. THIS HAS TO CHANGE for the benefit of students and academic colleagues who want to respond to changes within their own subject of study. Equally as important, as academics it is vital we engage with the wider public. Being stuck an ivory tower (although my building doesn't look much like one (and oddly I used to have long hair)) is no use to anyone so it is imperative our research can be spread as far and as wide as possible without constraints of publishers and journals that slow down the idea turnaround. In UK terms, this is bonkers. In wider terms, it is in part the tax payer who pays for us to research.
As such non-sensitive research should be available to all citizens, without cost.