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New Book: Digital Photography and Everyday Life: Empirical studies on material visual practices explores the role that digital photography plays within everyday life

RMIT's very own Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Edgar Gomez has co-edited a book "Digital Photography and Everyday Life: Empirical studies on material visual practices explores the role that digital photography plays within everyday life".

About the Book

With contributors from ten different countries and backgrounds in a range of academic disciplines - including anthropology, media studies and visual culture - this collection takes a uniquely broad perspective on photography by situating the image-making process in wider discussions on the materiality and visuality of photographic practices and explores these through empirical case studies.

By focusing on material visual practices, the book presents a comprehensive overview of some of the main challenges digital photography is bringing to everyday life. It explores how the digitization of photography has a wide-reaching impact on the use of the medium, as well as on the kinds of images that can be produced and the ways in which camera technology is developed. The exploration goes beyond mere images to think about cameras, mediations and technologies as key elements in the development of visual digital cultures.

Digital Photography and Everyday Life will be of great interest to students and scholars of Photography, Contemporary Art, Visual Culture and Media Studies, as well as those studying Communication, Cultural Anthropology, and Science and Technology Studies.

Editors: Edgar Gómez Cruz, Asko Lehmuskallio

New Book: Screen Ecologies: Art, Media, and the Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region

New Book! Larissa Hjorth, Sarah Pink, Kristen Sharp and Linda Williams have co-published a book titled 'Screen Ecologies: Art, Media, and the Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region'.

About the Book

Images of environmental disaster and degradation have become part of our everyday media diet. This visual culture focusing on environmental deterioration represents a wider recognition of the political, economic, and cultural forces that are responsible for our ongoing environmental crisis. And yet efforts to raise awareness about environmental issues through digital and visual media are riddled with irony, because the resource extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and waste associated with digital devices contribute to environmental damage and climate change. Screen Ecologies examines the relationship of media, art, and climate change in the Asia-Pacific region—a key site of both environmental degradation and the production and consumption of climate-aware screen art and media.

Screen Ecologies shows how new media and visual artists provide alternative ways for understanding the entanglements of media and the environment in the Asia-Pacific. It investigates such topics as artists’ exploration of alternative ways to represent the environment; regional stories of media innovation and climate change; the tensions between amateur and professional art; the emergence of biennials, triennials, and new arts organizations; the theme of water in regional art; new models for networked collaboration; and social media’s move from private to public realms. A generous selection of illustrations shows a range of artist’s projects.

About the Authors

Larissa Hjorth, an artist ethnographer, is Professor in the School of Media and Communication at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Sarah Pink is Professor in the School of Media and Communications at RMIT.

Kristen Sharp is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art at RMIT.

Linda Williams is Associate Professor in the School of Art at RMIT.

New Book: Digital Ethnography Principles and Practice

Authored by Sarah Pink, Heather Horst, John Postill, Larissa Hjorth, Tania Lewis, Jo Tacchi 'Digital Ethnography Principles and Practice' is a resource that contextualises digital and pre-digital ethnographic research - available in Australia at theBrunswick Street Bookstore About the Book

This sharp, innovative book champions the rising significance of ethnographic research on the use of digital resources around the world. It contextualises digital and pre-digital ethnographic research and demonstrates how the methodological, practical and theoretical dimensions are increasingly intertwined. Digital ethnography is central to our understanding of the social world; it can shape methodology and methods, and provides the technological tools needed to research society. The authoritative team of authors clearly set out how to research localities, objects and events as well as providing insights into exploring individuals’ or communities’ lived experiences, practices and relationships. The book: Defines a series of central concepts in this new branch of social and cultural research Challenges existing conceptual and analytical categories Showcases new and innovative methods Theorises the digital world in new ways Encourages us to rethink pre-digital practices, media and environments This is the ideal introduction for anyone intending to conduct ethnographic research in today’s digital society.