...cannot be adequately accounted for either by nature (climate, site) or by its previous history…Mediations and mediators have to be taken into consideration: the action of groups, factors within knowledge, within ideology or within the domain of representations. Social space contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the networks and pathways which facilitate the exchange of material things and information.
(Lefebvre, 1991)
News & Information | All Posts
April 2010 -- Irina, Tom, and Giorgia published their chapter in a book edited by UW Professor of Landscape Architecture Jeffrey Hou. Their chapter discussed the Urban Archives project as well as larger ideas about digital archiving and the use of new media to document public space and to teach about it.
The book is available from Routledge.
posted by tomd on 2010-07-27 at 11:50 GMT in News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
July 14th, 2010 -- Tom spoke with KING5 reporter Michael King about some of Seattle's ghost signs, as well as these types of historic advertisements in general. Some of the ghost signs found in the segment, as well as others in Seattle's Pioneer Square, can be found here.
posted by tomd on 2010-07-14 at 11:47 GMT in Media, News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
Spring 2009 --Students at Colorado State University create visual research projects on Flickr about different aspects of the city of Fort Collins, CO, such as the rich presence of ghost signs, the renovation and regulation of downtown alleyways, the local bicycling culture reflected in the bike racks that come in all shapes and sizes across town, the difference between residential and student housing as communicated by the front yards found in different neighborhoods and the culture of outdoor seating for restaurants and bars.
posted by tomd on 2009-06-01 at 08:24 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
Summer 2008--Students at SMU create Visual Essays about Olympia and Lacey, WA using Google MyMaps and Flickr.
posted by tomd on 2008-08-01 at 08:43 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
[Link to the iSchool's events calendar]
March 2008--Giorgia and Tom presented the Urban Archives project at the Information School's Research Conversation, a colloquium and discussion. The presentation addressed our project's multiple aspects: a teaching tool, a resource and vehicle for research, a repository of public memory, and an interdisciplinary collaboration and technology.
Some questions that we addressed: How can researchers and scholars across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and information technology fieldsenable better productive and generative forms of collaboration? How can these collaborations involve and engage non-academic as well as academic communities of inquiry? What forms of professional and institutional development are necessary to support and sustain such generative cross-sectoral collaborations?
posted by tomd on 2008-03-29 at 08:52 GMT in News & Information, Presentations. [ link ] [ reply ]
Thursday, November 1, 2007
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Odegaard Library, Room 220
Tom and Giorgia will join a panel of UW instructors to discuss how we have incorporated student-created content into the learning experience. Spark discussion and presentation points will address:
posted by tomd on 2007-11-01 at 08:56 GMT in News & Information, Presentations. [ link ] [ reply ]
Irina appeared on local public radio station KUOW's Weekday program, hosted by Steve Scher. Previously, Weekday producer David Hyde took a walking tour of University District graffiti with the Urban Archives.
Listen to the program in MP3 or RealAudio.
posted by tomd on 2007-07-16 at 10:35 GMT in Media, News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
During the Spring Quarter of 2007, Jessie Shulman, an Informatics major at the UW's Information School worked with us to research, design, and implement a new, custom interface to search our Digital Collections housed at the University of Washington Libraries. Check out this new feature here or click on the Search button in the navigation bar at the top right corner.
Thank you, Jessie, for your excellent work!
posted by tomd on 2007-06-02 at 09:32 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
Spring 2007--This quarter students researched the histories of Seattle's Central District
One project, for example, focused on the history of the the people whose names were used in naming the parks and streets in Seattle's Central District. Communication senior Jordan M.Tanasse conducted archival research, took photographs and mapped the stories and images in Google's MyMaps.
In another project, senior Desiree Wilson researched the history of Central District's parks and organized her images for the project in Flickr.
We have also continued to build an annotated bibliography on our wiki.
posted by tomd on 2007-06-01 at 09:35 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
by Richard Seven, March 18, 2007
"FREMONT BUSTLES at its odd Bohemian-yuppie pace, but Tom Dobrowolsky, a University of Washington graduate student rapt by how we communicate in, and with, public space, stops to regard a metal door. Set back in a foot-deep alcove, it has become a temporary bulletin board, a chat room of sorts, of spray-painted scribbles we call graffiti tags.
"These marks can't be confused with graffiti art. They are labels, brands, and unreadable to those outside the subculture. It's a private conversation in public, like that cellphone yakker on the bus.
"Who left marks on the door? Which came first? Do they reply directly to one another? Are they part of the same group? How long have they been there, and why are they still?
"'The city is a library,' says Dobrowolsky, who co-directs the UW's Urban Archives project, which catalogs examples of ephemeral street communication..."
read more in thisSeattle Times article
posted by tomd on 2007-03-18 at 11:05 GMT in Media, News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
February 2007 --Seattle University Professor of Communication Mara Adelman, editor of Pike Place Market News Megan Lee and Urban Archivists Irina Gendelman and Giorgia Aiello participated in a panel about Pike Place Market (one of the most iconic sites of the city of Seattle) at the WSCA's annual conference in Seattle.
... 
Giorgia and Irina presented their research about The Pike Place Market as a subject of representation in institutional (travel guides) and popular (personal tourist photography) narratives about the market. Great discussion followed about commodification of authenticity, markets as vital spaces, collective memory, historical landmarks and the future of public spaces.
posted by tomd on 2007-02-02 at 09:41 GMT in News & Information, Presentations. [ link ] [ reply ]
Giorgia and Irina held a panel on working with undergraduates as research collaborators at the 2006 POD Network Conference in Portland, on October 26th.
Tom presented an audiovisual display of the Urban Archives at the Diversity Research Institute's first annual conference, Place Matters: Seeking Equity in a Diverse Society on October 27-28, 2006 at the UW.
posted by tomd on 2006-11-01 at 10:02 GMT in News & Information, Presentations. [ link ] [ reply ]
posted by tomd on 2006-10-13 at 11:49 GMT in Media, News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
Photo by Ethan Welty
posted by tomd on 2006-10-01 at 10:07 GMT in Media, News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
We received a shout-out from Columns, the magazine of the UW alumni association.
posted by tomd on 2006-09-23 at 11:41 GMT in Media, News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
We collected images in the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Paris and Russia! New data is being edited and will be added to the Digital Collections shortly.
Photo: Graffiti in St. Petersburg, Russia one week before the G8 Summit.
posted by tomd on 2006-09-15 at 10:12 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
posted by tomd on 2006-07-07 at 03:54 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
Congratulations to all our smart and inspired students. We're proud of you!!
posted by tomd on 2006-06-15 at 10:15 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
Photos: Ashley presents her poster on graffiti, Thera and Annaliese present their work on tourism in Fremont.
posted by tomd on 2006-06-01 at 10:17 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
April 25th UA presented at the 2006 UW Teaching and Learning Symposium.
April 8th , UA collaborated with the Americorps Young Heroes project. Together with their 9-13 year old participants, we hunted for visual elements of cultural identity in Seattle streets.
posted by tomd on 2006-04-29 at 10:23 GMT in News & Information, Presentations. [ link ] [ reply ]
We completed our Winter Quarter data collection on the following topics:
posted by tomd on 2006-03-29 at 10:50 GMT in News & Information, Student Projects. [ link ] [ reply ]
The Urban Archives was profiled in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer today in an article exploring graffiti and digital collections. Much to our great surprise, the article appeared on the front page, above the fold.
The full article appears here . A short video accompanies the article.
posted by tomd on 2005-12-08 at 11:25 GMT in Media, News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
December 2005--We have begun to make our research data available through the University of Washington Libraries' Digital Collections.
posted by tomd on 2005-12-01 at 10:51 GMT in News & Information. [ link ] [ reply ]
Research Seattle (lib. resources)
Please send any feedback or questions to Urban Archives.