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Access Space

Just added some photos on Access Space, a media lab in Sheffield UK which I visited last week. Access Space has been running ten years and is primarily concerned with increasing critical engagement with technology: learning how best we can use it but also thinking about where it comes from, where it goes. They recycle and responsible dispose of unwanted computers and are keen that every city should have such facilities.When I visited the space was well used by a diverse range of people. There…See More

Jun 26, 2010

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Greetings / Research dissemination / Media Arts Orgs

Hi all!Belated thanks again to all at W2, I had a fantastic time when I visited and appreciate everyone's kindness. Lots of the events were really useful for filling in gaps in my contextual knowledge about the DTES and sparking new ideas for my research. Will update properley soon on how the writing up process is going.I'm currently writing a proposal to try and get some funding for a project that focuses on PhD research as a practice/work in progress and how we might find creative methods of…See More

Mar 12, 2010

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Rachel Walls's blog post was featured

A few initial thoughts about 'Breaking the Ice'

‘Breaking the Ice’: communication vs. surveillance and advertising.On Tuesday (February 16 2010) I had the entertaining and educational experience of encouraging interaction through the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) Montreal installation ‘Breaking the Ice / Briser la glace.’ This installation uses technology to link Vancouver’s Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE) at Great Northern Way with the foyer of the Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal. Through ‘Breaking the Ice’ over 4800 km of…See More

Mar 2, 2010

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Profile Information

Website:: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rachelwalls www.twitter.com/rewalls

About:: Careers Advisers. Did a PhD on Vancouver, surveillance, media, culture, TA in Canadian film, lit & culture

Interest in W2:: On a research trip (funded by Universitas 21) Feb-March 2009 I attended Fearless City meetings and events and learnt about about W2. Fearless had caught my eye when browsing the web because I wanted to write about grassroots new media representations of the Downtown Eastside. I returned in February 2010 for the first twelve days of the Olympics. This was a short, hectic but enjoyable trip and I was grateful for the hospitality of W2 and impressed by the range and frequency of events and facilities on offer.

Originally my PhD was going to be a more general study of how Vancouver is mapped in contemporary literature, then it evolved into a multimedia study, and in the end I focused on the Downtown Eastside because there was such a wealth and diversity of cultural representations. Most of these representations (in film, fiction and television) are by outsiders so I wanted to have a chapter about grassroots representations, which is how I ended up become interested in Fearless.

I have left academia to be a Careers Adviser although I am still interested in many of the things I was before, such as how we experience the city through media, in the blurred boundaries between documentation or representation of a place and the surveillance of it. What are the pros and cons of visibility? I'm also interested in screen culture, how the contemporary city is represented in images on televisions, cinema screens, computer screens, large urban screens. How do screen representations (the media city) intersect with the real city and its physical landscape? How do images of the city change the physical city? If image-making and distribution becomes more democratic, how does this change power relationships in the city? And how are such questions brought to the fore during mega events like the 2010 Winter Olympics?

New media / creative commons / surveillance links

Cory Doctorow's open source novel about youth, technology, and surveillance:
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/

New NFB documentary about copyright and remix culture (showing at the Ridge Cinema, Vancouver now).
http://www3.nfb.ca/webextension/rip-a-remix-manifesto/

Open source publications by Ron Van Kranenberg and others:
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/network-notebooks/

Blog of activist/writer on copyright and political corruption Laurence Lessig:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/

U.K. blogger interested in practical uses of social media in recession:
http://otherexcuses.blogspot.com/2009/01/social-media-vs-recession.html

Details of recent U.K event on wireless technology and surveillance (and links to PSCO Watch Blog):
http://www.radiator-festival.org/

Ongoing debate over recent 'anti-photography' translink poster campaign:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/511073@N24/discuss/72157615505511301/

2007 fiction Spook Country by Van author William Gibson. First of his novels to be (partially) set in Vancouver. Lots of technology, surveillance, intrigue and some representation of (unnamed) DTES technology. http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/spook.asp

Steve Mann, Jason Nolan and Barry Wellman: article on souveillance www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1(3)/sousveillance.pdf

Haggerty and Doyle: article on surveillance, security and Olympics
http://www.sscqueens.org/sites/default/files/Privacy%20Games.pdf

2009 non-fiction about surveillance, urban planning and public space in UK http://www.annaminton.com/Ground_Control.htm

Mapping of Surveillance cams in Vancouver
http://www.vancouverpublicspace.ca/index.php?page=cctv

Rina Liddle's We Are Watching, One of MANY Vancouver art projects about surveillance exhibited during the Olympics
http://liddlethought.blogspot.com/2009/11/introducting-we-are-watching.html

Presentation on art, film, CCTV and neuroscience by Patricia Pister http://bit.ly/9aHOGz

U.K. community media / media labs
http://www.commedia.org.uk/
http://www.communitytvtrust.org/

Liverpool: http://www.tenantspin.org/
Bristol: http://www.firstborn-creatives.co.uk/community-media/index.htm
London: http://www.furtherfieldpal.org/
http://smartlab.uel.ac.uk/new2009/
Ipswich: http://www.ictv.org.uk/
Sheffield: http://www.access-space.org/

Innovations in mobile data for social action: http://mobiledatainnovations.tumblr.com/

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Rachel Walls's Blog

Counter Olympic Network march, London, Sat 28th July

I was in Vancouver for the 2012 Olympics where I was impressed by the community activism, media and arts activities that I witnessed. Today, after watching (and enjoying) the 2012 opening ceremony last night, but also being saddened by the news of police kettling and arrests of critical mass members, I went along to the Counter Olympic March against the corporate and militarised Olympic games.

I have been on the Counter Olympic Network's mailing list for some years, and they do…

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Posted on July 29, 2012 at 2:01pm

Access Space

When I visited the space was well used by a diverse range…

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Posted on June 23, 2010 at 1:34pm

So what is my thesis about anyway?

My thesis is a multimedia study of representations of the Downtown Eastside, focusing on the theme of surveillance and the idea of 'screen stories' as a means of resisting/rewriting/subverting/exploring surveillance. I chose this topic because there were so many 'screen stories' about the Downtown Eastside, a fair few of which engaged with themes of surveillance. I'm interested in the particularities of different 'popular' media by 'insiders' and 'outsiders', and how they are implicated in… Continue

Posted on April 11, 2010 at 2:00pm

ContainR--a wee piece I wrote (for my School's newsletter, AMCAS) after 2009 trip to Vancouver.

Containers, Cameras and the Cultural Olympiad: Rethinking

cities in the approach to Vancouver 2010 (and London 2012).Rachel Walls February 2009.

containR exhibition, Cultural Olympiad Vancouver 2010. W. Georgia at Homer, taken

by R. Walls 18.2.09

On… Continue

Posted on April 11, 2010 at 12:30pm

Greetings / Research dissemination / Media Arts Orgs

Hi all!

Belated thanks again to all at W2, I had a fantastic time when I visited and appreciate everyone's kindness. Lots of the events were really useful for filling in gaps in my contextual knowledge about the DTES and sparking new ideas for my research. Will update properley soon on how the writing up process is going.

I'm currently writing a proposal to try and get some funding for a project…

Continue

Posted on March 12, 2010 at 4:12am

Comment Wall (2 comments)

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At 11:07am on February 17, 2010, Paco Segura said…: fancy seeing you here :) though I prefer the real world.

At 9:53am on February 21, 2009, Honey Mae said…: welcome to W2! it was lovely to meet you at the W Stories Projection/Remix last night. talk to you soon.