Current Research Activity

Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online

A volume to be edited by Rosemary J. Coombe (Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Culture, York University) and Darren Wershler-Henry (Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University)

Digital Media and the Informational Politics of Appropriation

In this essay, David M. Meurer and Rosemary J. Coombe argue that the capacities of digital media to capture, transmit, and enable derivative uses of cultural expressions problematize distinctions between tangible and intangible goods, materiality and immateriality, and the logic of intellectual property regimes.

From Lifting: Theft in Art. Ed. Atopia Projects. Aberdeen, UK: Peacock Visual Arts, 2009.

New Media Collaboration Centre (NMCC) to support Augmented Reality Research, Digital Archives of Canadian Culture and Canadian Digital Policy Initiatives

The initial phase of development for Artmob was provided through a CFI application submitted with Dr. Caitlin Fisher's Augmented Reality Lab.

New Media Collaboration Centre: Canadian Arts Content Management System and Centre for Digital Policy and Cultural Rights Initiatives

The second development phase of Artmob, currently in progress, is funded through a CFI submitted with Dr. Christopher Innes and his www.ModernDrama.ca project.

Performance and Fair Dealing

Video Cabaret as an Example
Video Cabaret is a theatre ensemble that originated in Toronto in 1976, and became known for its cutting-edge, multimedia productions that incorporated videos with live performances. Over the years they have accumulated a large archive of performance-related material. Incorporating this hybrid theatre form with the Internet has many valuable consequences: it can function to preserve and create a record of the performances, and it will also allow for the performances to be studied as an art form.

Mobility and Fair Dealing

Research Questions
Mobile devices (laptops vs. cell phones) each have preferential experiences, e.g. the screen on a cell phone will never be as large as a laptops - How does this impact what you do and how you do it?

How can you use what people know about something but also get them to engage with it in new and different ways?

How would you manage live recording of oral history e.g. [murmur] and immediately upload to a server as a searchable, browsable, acoustic artifact?