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A unique conference that brings together scholars, artists, critics, designers, screenwriters, producers, architects, programmers, and business leaders to share their view of contemporary entertainment and its future. Presented by the UC Santa Barbara Public Humanities Initiative. Free admission to the public.
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All sessions are free to the public and will be held in the McCune Room, 6020 HSSB (Humanities and Social Sciences Building), UCSB [directions]

Friday, May 3rd
I: "Killing Time" 10-12 am May 3
What is the meaning of entertainment today? If entertainment is a way of "killing time," does it need to be so violent? What would entertainment be as a "living time"? [fuller description]

Speakers

  • L. O. Aranye Fradenburg (Professor, English Dept., UCSB), "So Bored I Could Die"

  • Harold Marcuse (Associate Professor, History Dept., UCSB), "Killing Time at the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance"

  • Karin delaPeña (Artistic Director, "Speaking of Stories," Santa Barbara), "Speaking of Stories and Word Up!–Welcome Murderers of Time"

  • John Sacret Young (writer, director, producer; executive producer China Beach)

  • Respondent: Dick Hebdige (Director of UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and Prof. of Art Studio and Film Studies, UCSB)

Moderators Julie Carlson (Associate Professor, English Dept., UCSB), Susan Derwin (Associate Professor, Germanic, Slavic, & Semitic Studies Dept., and Chair, Comparative Literature Program, UCSB)

II: "Gaming Culture Inside and Outside the Academy" 2-4 pm May 3
What is the future of digital gaming? Where is it headed as a technology, industry, entertainment form, and social influence? In an age when students are as likely to game as to study, what does gaming teach us? [fuller description]

Speakers

  • David Koenig (co-founder and chief games programmer, Gigawatt Studios, Hollywood)

  • Robert Nideffer (Assistant Professor, Studio Art Dept. & Information and Computer Science Dept., UC Irvine), "Game Grids"

  • Anna Everett (Associate Professor, Film Studies Dept., UCSB), "Serious Play: Playing with Race and Computer/Video Games"

  • Marsha Kinder (Professor and Chair, Division of Critical Studies, USC), "Expanding the Rules of the Game"

  • Bruce Lyon (General Manager, Global Media and Entertainment Markets Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

Moderators Anna Everett (Associate Professor, Film Studies Dept., UCSB) and Alan Liu (Professor, English Dept., UCSB)

Special Event
"Talking Television: A Conversation with Buffy Writer Jane Espenson" 5-6 pm 		May 3
Jane Espenson is a television writer/producer whose credits include Star Trek: DS9, Ellen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Buffy: The Animated Series. For this special event, she will be interviewed before the audience by Professors Lisa Parks.

Speakers

Friday, May 3rd

III: "Entertaining Environments" 9:30-11:30 am May 4
How are entire post-Disney environments of entertainment being created today with advances in digital technologies, architecture, design, cultural narrative, and economics? Where are the geographical centers of "pleasure" and "entertainment value" in the world? And how are they built to radiate that value outwards? [fuller description]

Speakers

  • Christian Möller (Professor, UCLA Design|Media Arts Department)

  • Lynn Spigel (Professor, School of Cinema/Television, USC)

  • Helmut Draxler (Professor, Merz-Akademie School of Visual Communication, Stuttgart)

  • Respondent: Victoria Vesna (Professor and Chair, Design|Media Arts Department, UCLA)

Moderators George Legrady (Professor, Art Studio Dept. and Media Arts & Technology Program, UCSB) and Lisa Parks (Assistant Professor, Film Studies Department, UCSB)

Special Event
"Electronic Wall to Accommodate Science,
Art, & Community via Communication: A Conversation with Robert Venturi"
11:45 am - 12:45 pm 		May 4
World-renowned architect Robert Venturi will present his design for the California Nanosystems Institute to be built at UCSB. Venturi and George Legrady will discuss the building's proposed Electronic Outdoor Architectural Mural. The Electronic Mural addresses the transformation of architecture from container and surface environment to a spatial, time-based construct. It demonstrates the relation of contemporary architecture to the automobile (Venturi's Learning from Las Vegas) and to the influence of digital technology on the design and conceptualization of architectonic spaces.

Whitehall Ferry Building

Venturi design for Whitehall Ferry Building, Staten Island, NY, with "electronic LED images" that "change and move, and can include ornament, pattern, information and color, through the predominant image of a waving fragment of a flag, perceived from far across the bay" (more info)

Speakers

  • Robert Venturi (Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc.)

  • George Legrady (Professor, UCSB Art Studio and Media Arts & Technology Program)

IV: "Hacking, Slashing, Poaching, Jamming:
Re-valuing Entertainment" 2:30-4:30 pm 		May 4
How can artists, scholars, and ordinary people (that is, non-owners of the media and corporate world) capitalize on the porosity of power? The panel consists of members of RTMark and the GALA Committee, two collective groups that have tactically inserted themselves into existing media and entertainment franchises to produce new ideas and meanings for audiences around the world.

Speakers

Moderators Constance Penley (Professor, Film Studies, UCSB)

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