digital – loriemerson

Future Histories of the Internet Syllabus

Below is a syllabus for a sophomore-level class I hope to teach in Fall 2021. This class is a reflection of my ongoing work on a cluster projects I call “Other Networks“–attempts to uncover and document the technical specs and functionalities of pre-internet networks (particularly from the 1970s and early 1980s) as well as artistic […]

by Lori Emerson

Towards a Variantology of Hands On Practice

Thanks to the hard work of co-editors Patrick Ellison and Collin Williamson, a special issue of Early Popular Visual Culture is now out – “Object Lessons, Old and New: Experimental Media Archaeology in the Classroom.” Below is the final draft of the Afterword I wrote, in which I outline six opportunities provided by hands-on practice, […]

by Lori Emerson

Interfaced

Thanks to the hard work of Matthew Rubery and Leah Price, Further Reading: Oxford Twenty-first Century Approaches to Literature (Oxford UP) has just been published with an incredible line-up of people. I revisited and expanded on some ideas I wrote about in Reading Writing Interfaces via my piece “Interfaced” – a draft version of which […]

by Lori Emerson

now out: “Anarchive as technique in the Media Archaeology Lab | building a one Laptop Per Child mesh network”

I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to co-author a paper, titled “Anarchive as technique in the Media Archaeology Lab | building a one Laptop Per Child mesh network,” with a remarkable PhD student I work with, libi striegl. It is now out as open access in the inaugural issue of The International Journal […]

by Lori Emerson

What and Where is the Interface in Virtual Reality? An Interview with Illya Szilak on Queerskins

It’s been four years since the publication of Reading Writing Interfaces (University of Minnesota Press 2014) and admittedly, to my ears and eyes, the first chapter on gestural and multitouch interfaces already seems outdated – at least outdated in terms of specific tech if not in terms of the general principles. If I were going […]

by Lori Emerson

selling the future at the MIT Media Lab

The following is the text of a talk I gave at Transmediale on February 5, 2016 as part of a panel with Jussi Parikka, Ryan Bishop, and John Beck on “The Persistence of the Lab.” The text of the talk will eventually find its way into THE LAB BOOK. * What follows are some of my […]

by Lori Emerson

the Canon Cat // processing advanced work

Below is an essay Finn Brunton and I wrote for the latest/last issue of VLAK: Contemporary Poetics & the Arts. Many thanks to Louis Armand for publishing this piece.

by Lori Emerson

What’s Wrong With the Internet and How We Can Fix It: Interview With Internet Pioneer John Day

I appreciate very much the willingness of the editors at Ctrl-Z: New Media Philosophy to publish an updated, revised version of an interview I conducted with the computer scientist and Internet pioneer John Day via email. The published version is available at the link above and the original version is below. The interview came about as a result […]

by Lori Emerson

Glitch Aesthetics

Below is the entry on “Glitch Aesthetics” I wrote for the Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media. As always, so much more could have been and should be written… * Glitch Aesthetics ‘Glitch’ was first used in the early 1960s to describe either a change in voltage in an electrical circuit or any kind of interference […]

by Lori Emerson

how bibliographic description & interface creates users and objects

I’m very pleased I have the opportunity to visit the University of Cincinnati’s English Department on Saturday, April 5th to give a workshop on some of my work in critical work on interface and archives as well as the Media Archaeology Lab as a way to help them think about their growing audio archive of poetry […]