Academic Homework: Blogging and Lectures

In the Fall 2008 NEA Higher Education Journal Thought and Action, there is an excellent article entitled "Scholarly Voice and Professional Identity in the Internet Age" by Douglas Harrison. For anyone in Academia who writes a blog, or is in academia, or writes a blog, you should read this article. A few quotes:

"The conflicts that the blogademic faces, after all, are-as the term "blogademic" itself suggest-a product of being a citizen of both worlds and their cultures, not a partisan combatant in a culture clash."

"Blogging also creatively converges a set of related writing styles and habits of mind that would otherwise remain artificially segregated for me as a scholar-or-in a few cases, unavailable altogether."

In early January I did a presentation on sLowlife for the class Context, Collaboration, and Installation at the University of Washington. It was an interesting opportunity to present sLowlife within the context of a 7 year project now. Below is a brief outline of the project to date:

Slowlife overview and timeline

Spring 2003-Roger Hangarter and Dennis DeHart meet and Indiana University and begin discussing art and science concepts. They decide to collaborate on a project too be synthesized in an installation at IU’s SOFA gallery.

Summer 2003-DeHart takes a job in Arizona. Hangarter and DeHart continue to collaborate from afar. The exhibit design and installation is conceived and worked on.

Fall 2003-The sLowlife exhibit is installed over 3 days. The exhibit is well received by the IU academic community as well as the local community. Several articles and press is generated on a regional level.

2004-Hangarter begins shopping around the idea of turning sLowlife into a larger travelling exhibit. He eventually connects with the Chicago Botanic Gardens who offer to design and fabricate a travelling version of sLowlife. Major funding for the project is secured by the National Science Foundation.

2004/2005-sLowlife is designed and fabricated by a production team in Chicago.

Summer 2005-Hangarter, DeHart, and the design team meet in Washington DC to review initial installation site, jury a photo exhibit to accompany the exhibition, and hammer out details including content and design. Musician John Gibson also becomes involved with the project and creates original sounds.

Fall 2005-sLowlife opens at the US Botanic Gardens at the base of the Capital building in Washington, DC.

Spring 2006- A report is generated by the Institute for Learning Innovation evaluating the sLowlife exhibit. The exhibit is deemed successful, with an estimated 900,000 viewers.

Fall 2006-sLowlife open at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY. The exhibit is sponsored by Cornell University. DeHart and Hangarter also make presentations at the Science Cabaret in Ithaca.

Spring 2007-sLowlife opens at the Chicago Botanic Gardens in Glencoe, Illinois

Spring 2009-Slowlife will open at the Chemical Heritage Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . Hangarter and DeHart collaborate on writing captions for the catalog