The Ambient Literature Symposium is a two day gathering to mark the midway point of the AHRC-funded Ambient Literature research project. It’s a chance to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide variety of fields in order to reflect on and discuss the future of Ambient Literature.
SOLD OUT
Keynotes
Sara Lloyd is Digital and Communications Director at Pan Macmillan. She is an experienced publishing professional and board director with many years working in the areas of digital innovation, strategic planning, change management, marketing and communications. Her career over the last 22 years has spanned newspaper, academic, reference, STM and trade publishing and she has played a key role in transforming many publishing businesses from print to digital. She is a regular presenter and writer on all matters digital and communications, looking to share and inspire others. She has been selected as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Publishing by The Bookseller for the last eight years and was named Digital Leader of the Year in The Bookseller’s Futurebook awards in 2016.
Malcolm McCullough is professor of architecture at Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, where he teaches architecture and media arts. McCullough is the author of three widely read books on digital design: Digital Ground (2004), Abstracting Craft (1996), and Digital Design Media (1991, with William Mitchell). His latest book, Ambient Commons – Attention in the Age of Embodied Information, was published in spring of 2013. Prior to joining Taubman College in 2001, McCullough taught at Carnegie Mellon University, and for ten years at Harvard Graduate School of Design. As his writings are often used in design teaching, McCullough has given invited lectures in more than 15 countries. Currently he is at work on a book about micrograms.
Schedule
All events to take place in in Waterside 1-3.
Thursday 4th May
12.00pm – 2.00pm
Registration
Watershed Lobby
2.00pm – 2.15pm
Welcome
Jon Dovey (UWE Bristol)
2.15pm – 3.00pm
A Manifesto for Ambient Literature
Tom Abba (UWE Bristol)
3.00pm – 4.15pm
Panel: Situated Reading
Chair: Matt Hayler (University of Birmingham)
Bronwen Thomas (Bournemouth University).The literature of the Twittersphere: Issues of context and control in reading spaces on social media.
Ian Gadd (Bath Spa University). “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day”: Recovering the history of situated reading practices.
Anezka Kuzmicova (Stockholm University). Story reading: It matters where it’s done, and who’s around.
4.15pm – 4.45pm
Break
Refreshments in Waterside 2
4.45pm – 5.45pm
Keynote: Sara Lloyd — Publishing’s Roles and Responsibilities in a World Where Content is Everywhere
The original vision for a globally networked generation was founded in dreams of inclusivity and democracy — the reality is a world that is becoming increasingly fragmented with whole communities locked within their own filter bubbles. The impact of this was felt overwhelmingly around the Brexit referendum and the US presidential elections, with blame placed quite squarely on the complacency of the liberal elite, an accusation also often thrown at traditional publishing. With fake news, reduced attention spans, user generated content, and calls for trusted sources, book publishing continues to thrive as a curated marketplace for readers and writers. Where do the responsibilities of the publishing industry begin and end? To understand the rise of populism, driven largely by social media, is to understand the power of the dissemination of all content. As the publishing industry makes the inevitable move out of its traditional confines and into other contexts, what are the implications of it leaving its own publishing bubble, and moreover the confines of traditional formats and extents of books? This keynote will look to understand where publishing will fit into the new ecosystem of content, which is now distributed everywhere, and how it can ensure that it remains relevant, responsible and regenerative in the digital age.
Chair: Kate Pullinger (Bath Spa University)
5.45pm – 6.15pm
Launch of Duncan Speakman’s It Must Have Been Dark by Then
Waterside 1
7.00pm – 8.30pm
Scheduled runs of It Must Have Been Dark by Then
Book your place.
7.00pm – 8.30pm
Dinner with Bizarre Rituals
Tickets and information here.
Waterside 3
Friday 5th May
9.30am – 10.45am
Panel: Ambient Poetics
Chair: Kate Pullinger (Bath Spa University)
JR Carpenter. On difficulties posed by distance: Writing between sites, beyond nations.
Duncan Speakman. From there to here — Arcs of experience and the listening of elsewhere.
David Prior (Falmouth University). Porous listening.
10.45am – 11.00am
Break
Refreshments in Waterside 2
11.00am – 12.15pm
Panel: Ambient Culture
Chair: Jon Dovey (UWE Bristol)
Steve Benford (University of Nottingham). Things that tell Stories.
Phil Smith (University of Plymouth). Situating a reader in the war on subjectivity.
Joanne ‘Bob’ Whalley and Lee Miller (University of Plymouth). We’re no experts…: Affective exchange and interactive media performance.
12.15pm – 2.00pm
Lunch
Duncan Speakman’s It Must Have Been Dark by Then will be available during this time.
Book your place.
2.00pm – 3.00pm
Keynote: Malcolm McCullough — Curating the Ambient Commons
The rise of digital mediation in everyday urban life invites careful cultural response. Augment the city, perhaps, but do not cover it with digital wayshowing. Encourage new kinds of ambient interactivity, but do not forget that physical space also informs. Not all that informs has been sent. Not all all stories should be equally findable, tellable, or knowable just anywhere. For of course physical embodiment, architectural scale, skillful practice, and more effortless kinds of attention contribute to city reading. Attention is not always something to pay, and it should not be so easily stolen. Participation in surroundings can condition sensibilities away from commercially engineered distractions. Thus this talk brings a critical sense of the urban cultural landscape to today’s rampant overconsumption of information. It explores prospects that are not necessarily convenient commercial transactions. In particular, it asks what conditions will encourage playful expeditions into the street-level geographies of local lore. Drawing on notions of ethics and commons, it invites debate on how (or whether) to curate (or even govern) street level effects of today’s urban informational superabundance. And while this talk is but a few more drops in that flood, it may help someone to tell or remember some stories, without drowning. For whatever cool apps appear tomorrow, the city still rewards longer cultural sensibilities. However often it finds new ways to be so, the city remains made of stories. This talk asks not just how to tell stories amid increasingly situated digital media, but also who gets to do so.
Chair: Jon Dovey (UWE Bristol)
It Must Have Been Dark by Then
The first commission arising from the Ambient Literature project is unveiled in Bristol at our May Symposium. Written and produced by Duncan Speakman, It Must Have Been Dark by Then is a generative audio walk, within which each reader is invited to reflect on our fragile relationship with the world around us. Field recordings and stories from the edge of the Sahara, abandoned Latvian villages, and the disappearing swamplands of Louisiana weave into the audience’s drift through a landscape both familiar and foreign.
Registration
Ambient Literature registration opens at 12.00pm on Thursday 4th May at Watershed. Directions to the venue can be found at: http://www.watershed.co.
All that is required at registration is for you to check in and give your name to a member of staff at the desk. Your pass will be waiting for you.
Watershed has a cafe/bar on site where you can grab some lunch, or just a quick coffee. If you feel like exploring, there are plenty of other options close by.
The conference kicks off promptly at 14:00 in Watershed W3.
We encourage you to tweet (#ambientlit @ambientlit), post to your own blogs — and wherever else you feel appropriate.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Email to: amy5.spencer@uwe.ac.uk
Accommodation
If you haven’t booked accommodation yet, for close proximity at a budget price we would recommend the Ibis Bristol Centre, or more upscale — the Bristol Hotel.
There are a number of additional options for accommodation that we can happily recommend — all within walking distance to Watershed. These hotels, as well as other available accommodation are shown on the map at http://bit.ly/2nXsfBd, and cover a range of budgets from Youth Hostel upwards.
In case you are staying through the weekend, we have added some recommendations to a Google Map for nearby places to eat and drink, as well as directions to the hotels, conference venue, taxi ranks, and train stations. Save this to your phone so you have access to it at all times: http://bit.ly/2oBEXZm
Getting here
From Temple Meads Rail Station
Taxis can be found immediately outside the station entrance. A ride to the City Centre will take around 10 minutes or less and should cost about £8/9.
Walking is less than 15 mins — see the map for the most direct route.
From Bristol Bus Station
Take a taxi or walk to the Watershed – less than 10 mins. See the map for a suggested route.
From Bristol Airport
Arriving into Bristol Airport you can take the Airport Flyer A1 bus (timetables at http://bit.ly/1PoojmJ) which will take you to Bristol Bus Station. Walk (10 mins) or take a taxi to Watershed.
You can also just order a cab straight to the City Centre/Watershed. At Bristol airport the taxis are managed by one company (Arrow Cars). Taxis are conveniently located outside the terminal building, simply visit the booking office, where you will be quoted the fixed fare to your destination and you will be allocated a vehicle.
The booking office is located outside the airport terminal at the arrivals end of the building and is open 24/7. At the counter in the office let the attendant know your destination — either post code BS1 5TX or tell them you are going to Watershed/Harbourside on the City Centre. Pay in advance and take the ticket and cab number to the dispatch rank.