Politics of Virtuality and Indexicality
Thanks to Anne and rhizome.org, I was reminded about the CATH conference on Virtuality and Indexicality. I had seen it and lamented not being able to be there and at Sinues of the Present in Montreal. Yes, I eke out a meagre intellectual life on the crumbs found in old conference programmes, hallucinating about which papers might have been really worth it…
Last conference I went to another speaker in my session leaned over and suggested that for the 10 people in that audience, and the 15 minutes we each got to present, the $2000 Canadian spent in fees and travel added up to $130+ per minute - I was in a great mood after that.
After that, I figured out the 17K worth of videoconf. equipment will pay for itself in travel savings for me alone in just 2 years. But I can get nostalgic for jet lag when I’m conferencing to the UK and its 3:30am my time - although I’ll take the funny smells of an academic building over an airbus cabin anyday.
Speaking of the virtual, you can drop in via netmeeting or whatever you run and see an academic’s office - IP 129.128.114.15 I can do like a historic interpretation of the early C21.