Office: CJ 4.329
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Office Hours:

By appointment.

Courses

Fall

COMS642L – Cultures of Production and the Production of Culture

Year

COMS374 – Intermedia II

Links

The Korsakow System
In July 2009 we launched version 5 of the Korsakow System, an easy-to-use software application for creating database narratives. Korsakow is free and open source. The ‘vernissage’ section of the website features several k-films, including my own Almost Architecture, a database documentary about highrise signs in Montreal. (Almost Architecture was also part of a show titled New Media Visible Evidence, curated by Steve Anderson, at the 2009 Visible Evidence conference held at USC, August 13-16. With the participation of Comm Studies grad student Maude Michaud and undergrad alum Gabriel Gosselin.

Farine Five Roses art project
A participatory art project centring on the Farine Five Roses neon sign in Montreal. Love it or hate it, it’s been a feature of the city’s skyline for over 60 years and its days are numbered. With the participation of Comm Studies grad student Katja Philipp and senior undergrad AJ Korkidakis.

Brand Hype (since 2004)
Brand Hype was officially launched in March 2006, to coincide with the Oscars. It presents a critical perspective on product placement in the movies. The site is intended as an educational resource and information exchange for students, media literacy advocates, media researchers, and community members. On Brand Hype, product placement is understood as a symptom of a ‘hypercommercial’ culture in which marketing practices dominate everyday life and advertisers increasingly colonize all kinds of visual space with their brandname products and services. The main feature of the site is Movie Mapper, a searchable, collaborative database of movies (200 and counting!) and placements. Brand Hype also includes news, articles, video clips, and an annotated bibliography. With the participation of Comm Studies grad students Lesley Husbands, AnneMarie Ennis, Danielle Devereaux and Fernando Aloise. Database programming and web support provided by Computer Science grad student Stuart Thiel.

Matt Soar

Associate Professor

BSc, Building, Nottingham Trent University

MA, Communication, Simon Fraser University

PhD, Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst

My scholarly background is in media and cultural studies; I am also an intermedia artist, graphic designer and writer. My research/ creation activities centre on design, visual culture, cultural production, the politics of representation, and media literacy.

Latest News I have just completed an audiobook recording of Jack London’s 1908 novel The Iron Heel which is now available on Librivox, and recently oversaw a complete redesign of the Canadian Journal of Communication. Mistral in Montreal has been relaunched. I am a collaborator on a FQRSC grant called Writing Complex: New Models for Computational Typography, New Genres of Digital Writing. The Principal Investigator is Professor Jason Lewis (Design & Computation Arts).

Digital media and interactivity I am the Principal Investigator on a FQRSC-funded project exploring the creative possibilities of interactive narrative in the digital humanities and applied arts. Dubbed CINER-G (the Concordia Interactive Narrative Experimentation and Research Group – pronounced “synergy”), the team comprises: Monika Kin Gagnon and Tim Schwab (Comm Studies), Jason Lewis (Design & Computation Arts), and Elena Razlogova (History). In July 2009, we launched version 5 of the Korsakow System. In August 2009 I ran a workshop on the Korsakow System at Visible Evidence. We are currently in the early stages of putting together a symposium on interactive narrative to be held in May 2011.

Graphic design In March I wrote a brief review of the new animated short Logorama for Eye magazine. I recently guest-edited a special issue of Design and Culture, titled ‘Signs and the City’. An unedited version of my rather polemical review of Kalle Lasn’s book Design Anarchy for Eye magazine is available right here.

Last update: July 19, 2010 – 10:31