Media Praxis

I watched Ang Lee’s 2009 “Taking Woodstock” a few night ago, but couldn’t keep the real “Woodstock” (movie) out of my mind’s eye. I’m a big fan of Lee and his producer (and screenwriter), Focus Feature’s James Schamus, so it was hard for me to not like this film.

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I was recently interviewed by Monica Hesse at the Washington Post for her article on Fred’s big move to movie: “This is a movie. This is a movie based on a YouTube character. This is a movie based on one of the most successful YouTube characters of all time.” Like last time, we had a great talk, but little of my ideas about Fred made it to her page. Here they are: ... read more »

I was recently interviewed by Time magazine about the phenomenon of Tosh.0. Once again, my YouTube studies lead me to pop-analysis of cultural phenomena I had otherwise studiously avoided. But I watched, and pontificated, and is the case in such situations, the journalist used what she needed but did not include what mattered most to me. So, I’ll share that here, that is, if you care about Tosh, and really, why would you? ... read more »

I have been tourıng Istanbul, wındıng down on wındıng roads from the jam-packed Vısıble Evıdence conference (on documentary). I can’t do justıce to the many strong panels I saw: testıment to the solıdıfıcatıon of documentary as a fully fledged fıeld (I helped start the conference as a graduate student and I remember we dıd so because the few people always talkıng on documentary at larger fılm conferences thought we mıght be able to buıld a more serious and sustained dialogue if we could learn from each other). ... read more »