FCAT faculty members receive tri-council grants to support their research

Wrapped in the Cloud: An Anthropology of the Multimodal between the Physical and the Virtual (Dr. Hannah Turner, co-Applicant) applies theory through practice to critically engage the concept of multimodal anthropology from a decolonial perspective. Since 2018, our team of interdisciplinary scholars, artists and curators (Hennessy, Turner, Jaimie Isaac (Winnipeg Art Gallery), Conrad Sly, and Reese Muntean) have collaborated with artist Jaad Kuujus Meghann O'Brien (Haida-Kwakwaka'wakw) in creative exploration of digital imaging to support the return of her original woven artwork, Sky Blanket, from circulation in contemporary art contexts back to her community for ceremony. Through our close collaboration in digital imaging and 3D scanning, we produced a model and animation of Sky Blanket called Wrapped in the Cloud so that the artwork could be present in two contexts at the same time--the digital animation of the blanket in the gallery and the physical blanket in community. Wrapped in the Cloud helps to show Sky Blanket's connections to Haida and Kwakwaka'wakw origin stories, material qualities of mountain goat wool, and relationships between data infrastructures and land based practices. We will continue to explore the potential of research creation as a method for engagement with multimodal tools in anthropology and expanding public understanding of repatriation of cultural property and decolonial approaches to curation.

The proposed program broadens the foundation for the critical development of an anthropology of multimodal practices. An investigation will be undertaken into the potential of research creation as multimodal method, exhibitions of Jaad Kujuus Meghann O’Brien’s work at the Haida Gwaii Museum and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and museum ethnography in physical and virtual exhibition spaces. Using these methods, Dr. Hennessy hopes to critically explore the role of multimodal tools in decolonial curatorial work in galleries and museums, increasing understanding of how researchers, artists, and practitioners can support the repatriation of cultural property more broadly.

The recent reach of Korean storytelling and cultural content has become a new, transnational source that differentiates with cultural content of Western media. Dr. Dal Yong’s project hopes to determine the significant role of Korean storytelling, in particular transmedia storytelling and digital storytelling in the global era. This project investigates the ways in which Korean digital storytelling like webtoons, an integral component of Korean popular culture, has transformed into big screen culture like film and television dramas. It discusses how digital technology has further shaped the development of Korea’s digital culture–particularly youth culture. Finally, it articulates how global cultural creators take advantage of the emergence of Korean culture embedded in storytelling through transnational digital media.

This project hopes to employ media convergence and transmedia storytelling as theoretical frameworks and conduct interviews and observant participation in Korea and Canada. A monograph will be published, as well as articles in scholarly journals, that will enhance curriculum and teaching materials in relation to the growth and use of locally-produced and transmedia storytelling in different courses, such as Korean studies, cultural anthropology, new media and society, East Asian studies, and globalization. The results will provide tangible knowledge, information, and new materials to develop Korea’s storytelling as a major part of cultural studies and media studies.

Dr. Marks’ project focuses on audiovisual media and supports technologies that are human-centric, environmentally sustainable and socially desirable, taking a de-Westernized perspective. Streaming media contributes significantly to the rising carbon footprint of information and communication technology, which is estimated to consume 7% of global electricity and contribute 3.3% to 3.9% of global greenhouse gases. The project integrates Dr. Marks' three research teams and expands projects funded through other sources. They will investigate solutions to the environmental impact of energy-intensive audiovisual media by researching alternatives in "small-footprint" media, low-tech solutions within and beyond Western countries, and media practices drawn from non-Western media histories and philosophies. Examples include enjoying movies of under 5 MB, saving high-resolution movies for public screenings, and creative hacks, as in the Indian media ecology of "jugaad", and the Islamicate heritage of the talisman, a small medium that can reorganize the environment. 

This research program includes literature reviews in ICT engineering and field research in Lebanon, Cairo and India. It incorporates knowledge creation and exchange between students, academics, artists, and other experts along four themes: healing media practices in global Indigenous cultures, embodied, disruptive algorithmic media drawn from Islamicate art, technologies of breath, and talismanic media. The results of this research will be disseminated broadly through scholarly publications, curricula for small-footprint media and teaching, the annual Small File Media Festival, media artworks, and curated exhibitions.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic led to disruptions and lockdowns around the world, remote education has become increasingly ubiquitous, the subject of heated policy discussion and public debate. While the current crisis has highlighted the potential of technology to reshape the delivery and experience of education, the use of televisual platforms for education extends back prior to broadcast television. In fact, widespread perceptions of the novelty of Zoom demonstrate just how much research is needed to tie current experiences to the 20th century's entangled histories of cybernetics and education. The project hopes to explore the media archaeologies of educational TV in Canada and expand the received history of postwar (1945-1975) media platforms in Canada.

Dr. Druick and her multi-university team will aim to develop richly elaborated inventories, case studies and close readings of the distributed networks of this history. Taking a media archaeological approach that investigates the past in order to unsettle linear narratives of progress and help us rethink the novelty of the present, Dr. Druick and her team will attend to the material practices and technical operations of media devices, systems, and institutions -- particularly those typically overlooked in conventional approaches to media and technology history. The study's endpoint marks a moment when the promise and perils of TV for education were absorbed into the precursors to digital networks and the establishment of the first Communication Studies departments across Canada. The project traces educational TV and cybernetics as parallel histories beginning in the years after WWII and investigates the degree to which the two informed the development of educational policy and practice.

During COVID-19, physical distancing measures were imposed all around the world to curb the spread. Communication technologies of the 21st century have allowed people to maintain connection with family and friends despite said distance. Yet communication needs have changed during and after societal restrictions and the interactions within families and friends. A strong corollary need has simultaneously emerged to re-envision how family communication technologies are designed. Dr. Neustaedter will focus on home artifacts that can inform how family and friends are doing remotely, and futuristic video communication systems that support shared experiences online. His lab will investigate the needs of Canadian families and friends to connect over distance through existing technologies, how they achieve this and limitations they experience. This research will help identify shifts in technological design preferences and needs that may persist beyond COVID-19 in relation to social changes.

Significant research outcomes will contribute knowledge on new scientific and technical methods for building advanced communication systems that are responsive to user needs. Students and HQP will be highly involved in this work at the forefront of a societal and generational technological shift that can improve the way that family and friends connect over distance. It will also inform companies on the creation of communication technologies that present new genres of interaction and information sharing.