Coinciding with a HASTAC Scholars Forum taking place this week on the same topic, Vectors is pleased to publish the proceedings of the Critical Code Studies 2010 Conference. The vibrant collection of videos and articles is published using ThoughtMesh, a platform and 2005 Vectors commission that links documents via user-generated tags and meshes.

The conference featured keynote speaker Wendy Chun and a host of prominent scholars, many of whom are present in this conversation. For those who’ve hesitated to join this discussion for lack of familiarity with CCS, these proceedings, featuring text and videos, are the perfect way to get acquainted with the innovative work that laid the foundation for our conversation. (Max Feinstein, HASTAC Scholars Forum)

Proceedings are available at: http://vectorsjournal.org/thoughtmesh/critcode
Critical Code Studies: http://criticalcodestudies.com

We’re excited to announce the CFP for our upcoming Vectors-CTS Summer Institute on Digital Approaches to American Studies.

“The Institute will offer scholars the opportunity to explore the benefits of interactive media for scholarly analysis and authorship, illustrating the possibilities of multimodal media for humanities investigation within the context of American Studies.”

For more information, please visit our submissions page.

Update: the CFP has been extended to February 15th, 2011. More information at from USC’s Center for Transformative Scholarship: Broadening the Digital Humanities: The Vectors-CTS Summer Institute on the Digital Approaches to American Studies.

Colin Kloecker from Works Progress has described ThoughtMesh as a “Tool for a Healthy Commons,” arguing that “a healthy commons needs tools that facilitate, connect, and nurture its inhabitants.” Colin’s post was in preparation for the kickoff event of the Walker Art Center’s “Open Field” initiative, which invites members of the online and local community to program the green space adjoining the museum.

ThoughtMesh is a tool for publishing online that began to materialize when Jon [Ippolito] and Craig Dietrich started thinking about what their ideal publishing software would look like, if they could build it from the ground up. What they came up with is a tool that allows published articles to live socially on the web, articles can be distributed and published on any website online. At the same time, every essay, article, and document are connected to each other. And of course, it’s easy to use, easy to share, and works as a non-linear presentation tool to boot!

Colin and his collaborator Shanai Matteson liked ThoughtMesh enough that they used it to organize the online version of the presenter’s talks.

Click on one of the keywords in the tag cloud to see which blog posts have been tagged similarly. If you click on “excerpts out,” you’re still searching with the same keywords, but now you’re searching through every single document in the ThoughtMesh database. This is a great way to connect to other articles and essays you might be interested in.

You can find more about the Walker’s Open Field initiative–over 100 events and counting–here.

We’re excited to relay the launch of Precision Targets, a sequel to Caren Kaplans’s 2007 Vectors commission Dead Reckoning.  In Precision Targets, Kaplan teams with Vectors Creative Director Erik Loyer and illustrator Ezra Claytan Daniels to extend research into birds-eye views and targets. Constructing an innovative 3-dimensional sequential art immersive space, the project juxtaposes GPS use by the military,  law enforcement and general public.

For more information, please visit http://precisiontargets.com