Inaugural talk by Annette Hill, Ander Visiting Professor in Geomedia studies

Imagining Infrastructures

How do we imagine media infrastructures? The balance of research in media imaginaries weights more towards how media imagines us, prioritizing the visions of media industries, political actors and an imagined infrastructure-audience matrix. This talk focuses on on the act of imagining streaming platforms as a creative and relational process.

There are three acts explored in the talk. There is the act of imagining, referring to visual and creative processes for streaming platforms like Netflix or YouTube. There is the act of layering, referring to the multilayered experience of platform infrastructures as technical, lifestyle and environmental elements. And there is the act of streaming, referring to audience orientations in commodified media infrastructures. Together, the three acts of imagining, layering and streaming suggest contra positions of actors, cultural forms and meanings for envisioning infrastructures.

By using visual methods, including drawing streaming platform maps and reflective interviews, the research explores how images enable audiences to show what is on their minds when imagining the current state of play for platform infrastructures now and in the near the future.

• 16 April, 14:00-15:30
• 11D121, Karlstad University
• Registration (Register no later than April 8)