2017-2018
Speaker Series
The Digital Humanities Speaker Series highlights pioneering work scholars and artists are doing in digital humanities, and inspires faculty and students to consider, experiment with and collaborate on new research projects or pedagogical methods employing digital technologies.
September 19th, at 4:00 PM
Canisius College, Buffalo NY
In cooperation with The Department of Art at the University at Buffalo, and the Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center, the Canisius Digital Humanites Group welcomed Pittsburgh artist Angela Washko to Canisius College, to discuss her project The Game: The Game 2.0. Washko’s video game is a dating simulator, exploring “the complexity of the construction of social behaviors around dating as well as the experience of being a femme-presenting individual navigating this complicated terrain.”
From Squeaky Wheel’s website, a biography:
Angela Washko is an artist, writer and facilitator devoted to creating new forums for discussions of feminism in spaces frequently hostile toward it. Since 2012, Washko has operated The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft, an ongoing intervention inside the most popular online role-playing game of all time. Washko’s most recent project, The Game: The Game is a video game presenting the practices of several prominent seduction coaches (aka pick-up artists) through the format of a dating simulator. In the game these pick-up gurus attempt to seduce the player using their signature techniques taken verbatim from their instructional books and video materials.
A recent recipient of a Franklin Furnace Performance Fund Grant, a Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art at the Frontier Grant from the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and a Rhizome Internet Art Microgrant, Washko’s practice has been highlighted in Art in America, Frieze Magazine, Time Magazine, The Guardian, ArtForum, ARTnews, The Hairpin, VICE, Hyperallergic, Rhizome, the New York Times, Neural Magazine and more. Her projects have been presented nationally and internationally at venues including Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Milan Design Triennale, the Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennial and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Her writing has been published in Creative Time Reports, FIELD Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism, Copenhagen University Peer Reviewed Journal (NTIK), Neural Magazine, VASA Journal of Images and Culture, .dpi Feminist Magazine of Art and Digital Culture, ANIMAL NY and more.
Visit Squeaky Wheel to see Washko’s solo exhibition and associated events.
Special thanks to our friends at The Squeaky Wheel and The Department of Art at the University at Buffalo, and to Angela Washko for coming to Buffalo to share her creation with us!
On November 14, 2017, Dr. Jonathan Lawrence continued the Digital Humanities Speaker Series, recounted his journey in digital scholarship and his latest project.
What does digital humanities mean and how does it relate to research and teaching in higher education? Professor Lawrence described the impact of changing technology in his experiences as a student, teacher and scholar. He shared examples of how technology allows us to do traditional research activities in new ways as well as examples of new options that are possible with technology. Lawrence’s Religion in Western New York Project examines religious diversity through oral histories, statistical data and archival materials. He also shared some examples of ways he has incorporated digital humanities into course activities.
Jonathan D. Lawrence, PhD, is an associate professor of religious studies at Canisius College. He is currently engaged in an ethnographic study of religious diversity in the Buffalo area. He is an ordained minister serving a small protestant congregation in North Tonawanda and working with Buffalo’s interfaith community.
Ekrem Serdar, Curator, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Arts Center
Critical Mass: The Building of Community Through Screen-Based Art
How do we care for our images? When we gather together, whether live or virtually, to watch videos, films, attend exhibitions, play video games, how can we treat these moments as opportunities to build stronger bonds amongst ourselves, and between the screens and images we see together? In this presentation, Ekrem Serdar will briefly introduce Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center’s recent exhibition efforts, highlighting work by Sondra Perry, Angela Washko, and belit sağ, while looking at how we can treat these events as moments of research, long after the curtains come down and the screens dim.
Ekrem Serdar is the curator at Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center (2015–present), where he is responsible for the organization’s exhibitions, public programming, and artist residencies. Previously, he was a programmer with Experimental Response Cinema (Austin, TX) which he co-founded. He is the recipient of a Curatorial Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (2017). He is an advisory member of Experimental Response Cinema, and the FOL Cinema Society (Istanbul). His writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Millennium Film Journal, INCITE: Journal of Experimental Media, 5harfliler, among others. He completed his B.A. in Critical Studies, and his M.F.A in Media Arts Production at the Department of Media Study at SUNY Buffalo. He is from Ankara, Turkey.
This Digital Humanities Speaker Series Presentation takes place on Thursday, March 15th at 4:00 PM in Lyons Hall 418. Please join us for this special event!
The Canisius College Digital Humanities Speaker Series concluded it’s 2017-2018 series by welcoming Kelly Carpenter, Digital Assets Manager at Albright-Knox Art Gallery to campus. Carpenter’s presentation was entitled Digital Technologies are Transforming the Museum Experience.
Traditionally, museums are seen, to a certain respect, as inherently constraining — where visitors are invited into the space, but kept at a physical distance from cultural objects and artworks. Over the last decade, museums, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, have been incorporating innovative digital approaches, both onsite and online, in order to remove the barrier between the public and their collections. Museums are in a unique position in becoming a leader in the realm of digital culture.
Kelly Carpenter joined the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 2009 and since 2012 has been the museum’s Digital Assets Manager. Carpenter manages the Albright-Knox’s Digital Assets Collection, estimated at over 375,000 born-digital and analog materials. Carpenter also provides content for the museum’s social media and educational outreach online platforms. She received a Bachelor’s Degree at Canisius College, a Master’s Degree in Art History and a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies.