Multimedia Scholarship
The historical archives at the heart of my research and teaching include advertisements, illustrations, maps, user manuals, printed ephemera, photographs, and film. They act as windows into vibrant, complex cultures of communication that prefigure contemporary media ecosystems.
I practice multimedia scholarship when reading a serialized novel in its original image-strewn periodical, and when splicing film clips, geocoding, or creating a 3D model.
Video Argument
Clip from a video essay titled “On the Origins of Gaslighting”
The full video appears in the multimedia portion of my dissertation project.
Digital mapping
In his essay “The Secrets of the Gas” (1854) journalist George Augustus Sala tries out a new persona. He writes as if London’s gaslight network carries secrets and as if winking, blinking gas lamps have something to tell. Sala professes to commune with these lamps and to be privy, accordingly, to hidden knowledge throughout London.
The following images are from a project that geolocates the places mentioned in Sala’s essay. In order to identify locations based on his descriptions, I geo-referenced an 1846 map of the Gas Light & Coke Company’s supply areas. In a forthcoming exhibit, users will be able to move back and forth between Sala’s text and the map via media-rich annotations.
Images
Collage plays an integral role in my scholarship and teaching. As a teacher, I encourage collage-work during the early, ideas-generation phase of a project or writing assignment. Collages may fall away as the work gets going, though I often find myself returning to mine as a reference point or source of inspiration.
I created these images for Virginia Kuhn’s graduate seminar, Digital Media Authorship and the Archive (IML 501) at USC.
Design like Barbara Kruger, Photoshop, Spring 2019
Collage in the vein of Hannah Hoch, mixed media on paper, including text from Zadie Smith’s essay “Fences,” Spring 2019
In addition to digital mapping, and video, audio, and image editing, I have training in 3D-modeling, drone capture, Python, markup languages, and experiential argument using Scalar, an open-source platform for born-digital scholarship supported by USC.
