Panel Statement

Panel: The Madness of Methods: Emerging Arts Research Practices

This pre­sen­ta­tion will ex­am­ine in what ways might so­cial media in the Arab world be unique — both in terms of how the so­ci­ety is op­er­at­ing, tightly woven; and in terms of media’s his­tory in the Arab world, born in print form as an ap­pa­ra­tus of the state since the Ot­toman Em­pire? Using spa­tially de­signed in­for­ma­tion vi­su­al­iza­tions along with other rep­re­sen­ta­tions, this pre­sen­ter will demon­strate live media mix­ing as a re­search method­ol­ogy whereby one can cap­ture tem­po­ral spe­cific con­junc­tures such that oth­ers can wit­ness them. The pur­pose of doing so is to cap­ture the spe­cial some­thing that makes Twit­ter (and other so­cial media sites) so feared that a gov­ern­ment would shut down In­ter­net to an en­tire na­tion dur­ing civil up­ris­ing and protest.

• Laila Shereen Sakr – VJ Um Amel is a media artist whose prac­tices in­clude am­bi­ent vi­sual pro­jec­tion, live cin­ema per­for­mance, game de­sign, data­base de­sign, and in­no­v­a­tive re­search   In her live VJ per­for­mance ti­tled “A VJ Man­i­festo: Arab, Cy­borg, Mother,” she ex­plores the im­pli­ca­tions of jux­ta­pos­ing the iden­tity of “mother” and a techno-fem­i­nist con­struct of cy­borg within local and transna­tional ex­pres­sions of “Arab.”  Her re­search meth­ods un­cover pat­terns of re­cur­sive ac­tion in na­ture where mean­ing emerges from the real-time media mix­ing. In this pre­sen­ta­tion, she will demon­strate VJing as a re­search method­ol­ogy whereby one can cap­ture tem­po­ral spe­cific con­junc­tures such that oth­ers can wit­ness them.