NMC Online Personal Broadcasting Conference

I took a little break from my Song of Solomon project to work on some curricula and a presentation about "digital creativity".

Last Thursday I gave a presentation for the Online Conference on Personal Broadcasting that is being hosted by the New Media Consortium (NMC). The name of the presentation was Digital Creativity. Click on the slide above to view a portion of the presentation or watch it below. It's a long presentation so you may have to wait a few minutes for it to download.

The presentation is about looking at new ways to create and distribute digital content through text, image, video/audio blogging, podcasting and other similar technologies. It's about exploring non-traditional ways of telling and delivering or distributing personal stories (and art) using new media and methods.

Although I had a cold and was struggling with my voice I was able to deliver a great presentation to nearly 70 participants**. I put an "egg" microphone on a box near my mouth for the 45-minute session and the rest was a blur! One of the things I learned was that not many people are using the tools or techniques I am using, so I wasn't repeating anything. The topic is very new to many college/university faculty. In fact, one of the questions I was asked had to do with how many professors at MassArt are actually using the stuff I'm using. The answer to that is not many. However, this will soon change, especially as more faculty start using blogs to communicate and collaborate. I've set up at least 4 blogs for MassArt faculty this semester and folks have a "wait and see" attitude about the podcasting. A couple are really excited by the possiblities...but I am always impatient when it comes to people adopting new technologies. I am on a very different timeline. Ha!

**On a side note: I just learned that eating raw garlic removes congestion from the body. I chopped up and ate two whole cloves last night and woke up feeling miraculously better. If only I knew about that on Wednesday night!

Digital Creativity

...otherwise called "Stitching together narrative using digital tools."

Beyond just telling a story narrative points to such aspects as who tells the story, the order in which the events are told, the ratio of scene versus summary, etc. In this sense, narrative means the formal apparatus of storytelling.

After presenting on Digital Creativity at the NAMAC conference in Philly last year, I decided to propose a course at MassArt:

You may say, “I have heard of podcasting and blogging, but I have no idea how to tell my own stories using these digital media forms.” Students in this course will explore the concept of stitching together narrative by incorporating the traditional (collage and assemblage) with the new (hypertext and authoring). Students will use digital tools to listen and capture their memories, or write personal stories. They will look at examples of digital collage/assemblage by Shelley Jackson (Patchwork Girl) and Michael Joyce (afternoon). This course is designed as a hands-on, project-based class for people who are interested in learning new ways to create and distribute their own work through photo, video, audio blogging, podcasting and other similar technologies. Only a basic knowledge of computers is required (mouse, keyboard, Web) and some knowledge of multimedia (imaging, Web, video, audio) is helpful but not necessary.

Some related links:
From my blog on Digital Assemblage: Text,
Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girl
Michael Joyce's afternoon
Narrative terminology

This inspired me so much that I decided to work on a project of my own...based on Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. I'm thinking about giving the story a 21st century revision, deconstructing the narrative, using paintings, still images, video...and using rotoscoping as the method to create the work.