[ madeleine clare elish ]

contact

mcelish (at) mit (dot) edu

c.v.

// projects

:: current ::

"The Evolution of Intimacy: Constructing the Personal Computer as an Object for the Home

My Masters Thesis examines mass media representations (including advertising, TV and movies) of personal computers in the mid-1980s in order to explore the cultural influences and the social imaginary in which personal computers came to inhabit the home.

Re-Imagining the Archive: The Role of Process and Documentation in Creative Work:
A Case Study of MIT Act's Future Archive Project

Process is both iterative and emergent. The work of a scholar, or in this case, an artist, is a series of connections, accidents and arrivals. Whether the final product is a work of art or scholarship, it is valuable – and sometimes crucial – to examine the work that led up to the final culmination. Seeing this context, the process of work and creation, can be a means to teach, demonstrate or more fully examine creative practices. This paper is, itself, also an exploration of process: the research process and conceptual planning of a Digital Humanities platform. The research undertaken for this case study was conducted under the auspices of HyperStudio’s research agenda. The hope is that a coherent and focused assessment of the current dimensions and potential of the Future Archive Project will be of benefit to ACT as well as to other similar projects in the stages of early development.

Visual Interpretations: Aesthetics, Methods, and Critiques of Information Visualization
Conference organized by HyperStudio at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 20 - May 22, 2010

How do visual representations of complex data help humanities scholars ask new questions? How does visual rhetoric shape the way we relate to documents and artifacts? And, can we recompose the field of digital humanities to integrate more dynamic analytical methods into humanities research?

HyperStudio’s Visual Interpretations conference will bring digital practitioners and humanities scholars together with experts in art and design to consider the past, present, and future of visual epistemology in digital humanities. The goal is to get beyond the notion that information exists independently of visual presentation, and to rethink visualization as an integrated analytical method in humanities scholarship.

If you're interested in attending or submitting a paper, see the conference website or feel free to contact me directly.

Reviewer for FurtherField

Furtherfield.org provides platforms for creating, viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change.

Representing Labor: Ten Thousand Cents and Amazon's Mechanical Turk

0892457004.tumblr

a scrapbook

:: not as current ::

Collaboration, Innovation and Creation @ Medialab-Prado, Madrid, Spain

My research project focused on the community and organizational structures of the Medialab-Prado, as well as the artifacts of collaboration, including workshops, art projects, papers, and presentations. I am interested in focusing on the modes of collaboration that enable production and dissemination of techno-scientific creative work through non-traditional organization structures.

Acts of Translations: Digital Humanities and the Archive Interface

A paper and presentation presented at MIT6 in April 2009, co-written with Whitney Trettien. We examined the importance of visual representations of information in digital environments through a series of case studies.

Cybercorrespondant for Boston Cyberarts Festival

The 2009 Boston Cyberarts Festival took place in April 24-May 10 at museums, galleries, theatres, universities, and public spaces in and around the Boston area. The Festival is the first and largest collaboration of artists working in new technologies in all media in North America, encompassing visual arts, dance, music, electronic literature, web art, and public art.