DigitalCritic

I am really excited to announce that the first book in the Arts Future Book series (rather, the first line in the conversation about the digital future of academic publishing in the arts that Arts Future Book represents) will be mine!

Over the next year I will be researching and writing my book Art History Online: Mailing Lists, Digital Forums and the Future of Criticism. It will provide an account of the use of the email-based discussion list in the arts in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I am interested in the list because I believe it represents, among other things, the transition in art history from knowledge that can be comfortably described through a book and a different type of knowledge that can’t. I want to write about the list not only to reclaim its unique history in terms of the way it offered artists a new discursive space, but also because it problematises art historical systems – like the book – and allows me to ask after future models for art critical pursuits.

And as is the Arts Future Book way, I’ll also be finding ways of expanding the discussion the series and my book represent, as well as looking into new publishing technologies to support today’s art critical and contextual acts. For more information, there is currently a great post about Arts Future Book by Gylphi’s editor, Anthony Levings, on PhD2Published right now, where he discusses some of the issues the series taps into. He explains:

“…given that so much digital art is now produced, works of art criticism also need to respond to the restrictions placed on them by print especially when their subject matter is electronic. Out of this dilemma has been born the ‘Art Future Book’ project with the aim of bringing shape and form to the loose and unpredictable art book of the future. The subject is something ideally suited to the ‘book’ series format, even though it paradoxically challenges the whole notion of the very objects it seeks to collect together.”

I’m super excited to announce: Arts Future Book, a research project and academic book series investigating the future of academic publishing in the arts, led by me!

The research project brings together experts in the creative and technological development of publishing to discover what the literally and theoretically book-bound art critical disciplines might absorb from online information networks and emergent publishing systems.

Current project partners are:

• Dr Jussi Parikka, Director of the Cultures of the Digital Economy Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, a digital humanities specialist unit.
• Gylphi an academic arts and humanities publisher focusing on the twentieth century and beyond.
• HUMlab, Umeå University, Sweden, a dedicated laboratory for research into the digital humanities.
• if:book a think-and-do tank investigating the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts from printed pages to networked screens.
• Open Mute/Progressive Publishing Service an organisation supporting cultural practice in the information age, building knowledge architectures and new publishing tools for cross-platform content.
• PhD2Published an organisation offering academic book publishing advice to early career academics while investigating technical developments in systems for distributing academic research.
• Proboscis/Bookleteer/Story Cubes an organisation developing online tools and offline models that challenge the physical format of the book.

The academic book series, published by Gylphi, seeks to foster new scholarship in the arts, and publish unique works that rethink contemporary visual culture and establish new systems for considering art. It will exploit recent technological advances in publishing to better disseminate such bodies of arts knowledge and develop wider readership and new reader experiences. Each book published within the series will respect established academic standards, while redefining what an academic text might be and how it might be used.

You can keep up to date with the project and the book series through our Facebook page and of course I’ll be blogging some updates here too…

My latest Digital Practices news installment is out in a-n magazine. This time I reported on an Art of Digital London event helping develop RFOs’ knowledge of digital publishing.

It starts like this:

“Art of Digital London is an Arts Council England programme designed to help London Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) develop strong strategies for connecting with audiences via technology. It features ten Digital Strategy Salons and Surgeries organised by OpenMute, IT4Arts and IT4Communities. So far, these have looked at: project planning, revenue generation and innovation, with the latest, entitled ‘Publishing – The Digital Word and the Arts’, taking on the evolution of arts publishing platforms.

The morning’s presentations included Chris Meade from ‘think and do tank’ Institute for the Future of the Book (if:book) who asked what ‘bookiness’ is in the information age, and looked at how digital technologies can reinvigorate the reading experience (after showing some all-too familiar images of people napping in libraries).”….read more

At a basic level I thought, if I need to learn about academic publishing (in order to get my first academic book published) and there isn’t a free resource out there to help me, I’ll build one!

I shared the idea with friends as I worked out how to create a set of informative components for the site while getting a designer (Sam Beddoes) to help me visualise the whole thing. And eventually every second of leisure time had been swallowed by the project as I established the information core (with Sam and I having our best brainstorming sessions online after midnight). So far the site includes:

• A series of Top Tips from publishing houses and authors alike on how to pitch/get published
• Well researched and hopefully highly informative posts on the pitching process,
• Guest blogging from related experts,
• Weekly Wisdom sound bite,
• My own video blog entries detailing my practical application of all I’m learning.

I got publicity straight away from a-n magazine and Ashgate Press and a flood of emails raving about what a great idea the site is and how useful it’s going to be. Then came phone calls from friends wanting my advice; it seems I’ve turned into a publishing guru without having had time to do much more than send out one (quickly rejected) pitch myself. Although obviously I planned for my first pitch to fail just so I’d have more material for the site!

And all this happened before I’d really launched the project! Before I’d collected together an email list or even begun to let fellow post-PhD’ers know I’m out here, hunting and gathering for them and their future publishing successes!

So, finally, with the help of my intern Ellina, it is with great pleasure that I can crack open the Champagne (or perhaps a double espresso) and invite everyone to join me in toasting the official launch of:

PhD2Published: ‘academic book publishing advice for first timers’…