Jonathan is pleased to announce his latest project in partnership GRAIN (The Photography Hub and Network for the West Midlands).

New Landscapes of Photography, a ‘living’ book about the new topography of visual storytelling through lens-based media by Jonathan Shaw and Grant Scott.

The twenty first century has seen the democratization of photography, the birth of the digital native and the evolution of the digital caveman. Today we are all photographers. We are all publishers. We are all visual storytellers. A new visual image making topography has been drawn and a new creative environment built; it has yet to be named and perhaps never should be. It is a topography defined by the tools of mass communication and the open-minded practitioners who are mastering those tools.

The pervasive eye of the world has arisen, new practices have emerged crushing the power of the establishment; the net has amplified our ability to connect and build communities across the globe, the social use of images to communicate has facilitated an exponential growth in picture capture and seamless digital distribution.

New Landscapes of Photography brings a focused eye onto the Twenty First Century photographic landscape through a series of texts and interviews with key stakeholders and influential voices to explore and question what it means to be involved with Photography and Photographic Education in the post digital revolution environment.

Launched as a multi-platform book-project; web, ePub and in print (version 1.0) simultaneously, New Landscapes of Photography seeks to create a space for active dialogue and an exchange of ideas for photo-enthusiasts and photo-communities around the globe.

GRAIN: The Photography Hub and Network for the West Midlands
The Library of Birmingham, supported by Arts Council England and working in collaboration with local, national and international partners is creating a new hub and network for photography in the West Midlands. GRAIN will include research and development projects and a range of ambitious high quality opportunities all aimed at strengthening and sustaining photography in the region and promote the sector nationally and internationally. Click here to find out more…

Jonathan will be presenting “Taking care of business: OER and the bottom line” alongside John Casey from UAL and Shaun Hides on Wednesday 27th March at OER13, hosted this year by Nottingham University, UK.

Details of the paper:

This paper reflects on the experience of two Art, Design and Media (ADM) studies based institutions participating in a short project to explore the international business opportunities that can arise from involvement with OERs and the open education community. It discusses how OER engagement might move forwards from an activity carried out by enthusiasts, supported by short-term external funding. It asks how can a continuing, or even increasing, involvement with OER activity be justified in a climate of economic retrenchment? The paper advances the business case for institutional engagement with OER and the global open educational communities as a good opportunity to help reconfigure our institutions for a changing world educational market. It also explores how approaches to sustainable engagement with OER creation may, in turn, help support institutional and cultural change ‘at home’.

We think that the collaborative nature of the ADM subject base and the related practitioner communities lends itself particularly strongly to international collaborative efforts. This coincides with international policy discussions in the OER community (UNESCO, 2010), that stress the need to move forwards from the earlier north/south and producer/consumer model to a much more collaborative effort. An important aspect for us to explore, are the dual teacher/practitioner links of many ADM teachers and institutions to the international networks of design, production and distribution that comprise the creative industries. This provides a vital context for much of the teaching in the sector and already leads to many international business opportunities.

It is clear that the traditional teaching model as well as a wide range of associated institutional systems needs to change. Educational technology and its many proponents have failed to deliver a breakthrough change, despite constant claims to be on the brink of doing so (Hoel, 2010). A lack of attention to systemic and soft issues (such as tradition, structures and cultures) is often cited as some of the causes for this failure. So, how might engaging with OER engineer a wider cultural change that breaks the current hegemony of classroom and studio-based teaching and aid long-standing and well-articulated aims for the wider reform of higher education (Laurillard, 2002)?

We conclude by looking at the institutional and national ‘value proposition’ for OER engagement (Chow, 2010) and the related shift in thinking that are developing in open education and elsewhere. We identify an emerging challenge to several decades of neo-liberal discourse from policy elites (Harvey, 2007), which have proposed economic competition between institutions as the main organising principle for higher education and conceptions of what a university should be (Barnett, 2003). Hartd and Negri (2010) suggest that such a mind-shift is needed in order to move forwards and advocate what they describe as the ‘entrepreneurship of the commons’. This situation contains all the contradictions and paradoxes that attend any social and economic change and we identify some of its main characteristics, as well as the advantages and risks of being involved in the rapidly evolving open global education ‘economy’.

Authors: John Casey, Jonathan Shaw and Shaun Hides

Apologies for the delay in getting these slides online.

Jonathan’s article is now available online from the Taylor & Francis website. You can see a preview of it if you click here.

Abstract

This article is a reflection on my own practice and its connection to changing representations of time and movement within photography. In my work as an artist and photographer, I have endeavoured to develop a particular perspective on the relation between the heritage of photomechanical tools, new technologies, memory and space. In what follows, I describe a series of pivotal moments in the formation of this perspective as they exemplify a specific strand of photography, showing how they connect to wider transformations in the field of visual cultures.

Many thanks to Stephen Herbert for all of his hard work, patience and boundless knowledge that was required to realise this important publication, in formal recognition for the work of ‘Eadweard Muybridge’.

On March 5th Jonathan will be taking part in the 7th annual edition of INTED2013 (7th International Technology, Education and Development Conference) that will be held in Valencia (Spain) on the 4th, 5th and 6th of March, 2013.

The conference is an excellent opportunity to see and hear about the latest results in the field of Education and Research. Jonathan will be presenting with his colleague Jacqui Bleetman on one of the latest projects he leads at Coventry University The Expanded Classroom: The impact of technology in a connected world.

INTED2013 aim to promote international collaboration in Education and Research in all educational fields and disciplines. They expect attendance of more than 700 delegates from 70 different countries.

The abstract for this paper can be found on Jonathan’s Academia profile here.

Jonathan is delighted to have been invited to present at Video Vortex #9, Lüneburg. He will be talking about his research into open education [Video and Open Source (M)OOCs] with a particular focus on ideas of hybridity and exploratory practices within higher education.
Video Vortex is an international conference series addressing online video for its 9th edition we ask how do new assemblages of video shift mediascapes and affect notions such as that of the user, citizen or spectator?

Video Vortex is a travelling conference series established by Amsterdam based Institute for Network Cultures in 2007.
Video Vortex #9, Re:assemblies of Video, 29/02/13 – 02/03/13. is organized and hosted by the Moving Image Lab and Post-Media Lab of the Innovation Incubator at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany.

The Moving Image Lab researches and experimentally engages with the production, circulation and effects of internet-based moving image formats. It is the core of the Centre for Digital Cultures, which is currently being established at Leuphana University. The Post-Media Lab offers space for the development of collective medial contestations in the age of imploding mass-media. It is centred around a programme of visiting fellows and a series of publications and public events.

http://videovortex9.net

Cahier 03 Images in Motion has at last gone to print!

Over the past year Jonathan has been collaborating with Maarten Vanvolsem, the author of  The Art of Strip Photography: Making Still Images with a Moving Camera on joint piece for Cahier. A more detailed post will be written when the journal is available early in the new year.

Last month a film crew from Ericsson took the time to travel over to the UK and film a short video about the ‘Future of Education’. The company have been really interested in our approach and the work that we have been doing across the breadth of my department at Coventry University. Ericsson are seeking to think ahead and as such believe firmly in the notion of a “Networked Society“. To quote them from their website;

We are on the brink of an extraordinary revolution that will change our world forever. In this new world everyone, everything and everywhere will be connected in real time. We call this the Networked Society, and it will fundamentally change the way we innovate, collaborate, produce, govern and sustain. When one person connects their life changes. With everything connected our world changes.

This video features myself and two other lecturers from Coventry University discussing our ideas and thoughts on how technology is shaping 21st Education.

There is also another great video here on Ericsson’s website with some of the students at the university talking about their experiences. Both Adele Reed and Sean Carroll from the photography course kindly shared their thoughts and inspirations with Ericsson.