Dynamic Media Network

Dynamic media network is a group of researchers Anna Munster (College of Fine Arts, UNSW), Andrew Murphie (Media, Film & Theatre, UNSW), Brian Massumi (University of Montreal) and Adrian Mackenzie (Lancaster University). Interested in the ways in which contemporary media change, co-evolve, mutate and converge as a result of social and aesthetic experimentation. The research partnerships and practices are supported by the Australian Research Council of Australia’s Discovery Project’s funding of: Dynamic Media: Innovative social and artistic uses of dynamic media in Australia, Britain, Canada and Scandinavia since 1990

This database is an experiment in tracking and contributing to the dynamism of new media; an experiment in how contemporary media forms shape, and are shaped by, inventions in thought, art and social relations.

The Dynamic Media database design forges connections between media that have emerged since the 1990s such as embodied human-computer interaction, VJing, tagging and online participatory media practices and dynamic web scholarship. The connections are created through the uploading, structuring and tagging of database content so that the database itself evolves temporally as a form. Its content is delimited by the geographical regions of Australia, Canada, UK and Scandinavia although there are of course many connections to be made that stretch beyond these regions. From time to time, entries from other regions make their way into the database as the connections across media determine new directions for the research.

In focusing upon the social and aesthetic contributions to media change, this project signals a shift in thinking about new media and new technologies. During the 1990s, the underlying technologies of new media were celebrated as the determinants of change. During the 2000s, much theoretical work on new media instead emphasised user interaction and generated content as responsible for the growth of media such as the internet.

However, this project proposes that the technical experience of interacting with new media is deeply imbricated in new sensory, affective and social experience. It is the dynamics of interaction and relation between technicity, aesthesia and sociality that constitute the conditions for media innovation. And this database documents these conditions at work in new media invention by artists, thinkers and social experimenters. It is hoped that through its dynamic form and its networking of researchers, it too will contribute to media experimentation and innovation.

Research contributions to this project have also been made by: Mat Wall-Smith, Xavier Fijac , Margaret Borschke , Tim Maybury and Estee Wah.