MetaMedia Symposium

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MetaMedia
Friday, October 29, 1-4pm
Virtual symposium, registration required

“MetaMedia” is an online symposium at the University of Chicago that revisits the question of self-reference and self-criticism in both old and new media. Across three presentations, we ask: What does it mean to think of “medium specificity” in our twenty-first century transmedia ecology? How do media evolve? What is their relation to technology, social conditions, and political movements? And then, more precisely, what can we learn from media about media? What happens with the “nesting” and “braiding” of media in transitional and hybrid forms that cross-fertilize the channels of visual, auditory, and textual forms? This symposium seeks to identify ways that media hold up mirrors (or stethoscopes, or DNA samples) to themselves.

Three presentations will offer examples from comics and graphic narrative (Hillary Chute, Northeastern University), video games and digital media (Patrick Jagoda, University of Chicago), and verbal-visual images (W.J.T. Mitchell, University of Chicago) with the discussion ranging across an even broader range of arts and media. Discussants include Bill Brown and Ashlyn Sparrow from the University of Chicago.
This event is free as well as online, and will take place in a Zoom Webinar format. Please register to receive the Zoom details.

Schedule:

  • Introduction by W.J.T. Mitchell
  • Hillary Chute on "MetaComics"
  • Response by Bill Brown
  • Patrick Jagoda on "MetaGames"
  • Response by Ashlyn Sparrow

[Break]

  • W.J.T. Mitchell on "MetaMedia"
  • Response from Hillary Chute and Patrick Jagoda

Learn more about the event and speakers here.

This symposium is presented by the Weston Game Lab at the University of Chicago