The New Mediators

What is arts journalism reimagined through new media forms? That's the question we've been mulling over at USC's Institute for Multimedia, which I cheerfully direct. We're collaborating with USC's Annenberg School for Communication and the Arts Journalism program on The National Summit on Arts Journalism, which will showcase projects that are "cool, relevant and functional, make good sense, and above all, have real promise to provide an alternative to diminishing arts coverage in the traditional news media." If you have an idea, submit it! Deadline? August 17.

Specifically, though, the IML is creating a series of video presentations on the selected projects. We wanted to tackle this kind of assignment because we're interested in methods for conveying information through images, sound and text, and we wanted to create videos that point to these new modes. What are new rhetorical forms appropriate for our culture right now?

In researching the topic, I came across Jonathan Jarvis' newest project, The New Mediators, which he defines as "a design practice that clarifies complicated situations." The practitioners working within this paradigm will pull from design, journalism and narrative analysis, and they're seeking "designed transparency." To some extent, The New Mediators echo the design advocacy of Charles and Ray Eames, the masters of taking complex ideas and, through design, rendering clarity. But Jarvis, a recent Art Center grad, goes father in that he's aware of the implications of pervasive computing and its impact on communication. As objects communicate all around us, how do our own forms of communication shift? How do we sort, curate, collect and process huge amounts of information? And how might "designed writing" help? Anyway, take a look at Jarvis' explanatory video for a glimpse of one possible option for the future of journalism, and check back later - I hope to talk with Jarvis about this provocative direction.