Dr Joel McKim
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Overview
Overview
Biography
My work focuses on the study of digital images and the impact of digital technologies on architecture, art and design. I'm the Director of the Vasari Research Centre for Art and Technology and I'm currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the V&A Research Institute where I'm working on a project entitled "A Prehistory of Machine Vision: Exploring the V&A Computer Art Collection."
My first book Architecture, Media and Memory: Confronting Complexity in Post-9/11 New York was published last year by Bloomsbury. I'm currently working on a second book entitled Rendered: Digital Animation in Art, Architecture and Design, which draws from an ongoing investigation of the rapidly expanding field of digital animation, undertaken in collaboration with Esther Leslie. This animation project has thus far included the BIH sponsored Life Remade: Politics of Animation Symposium, an ongoing BIMI/Vasari sponsored digital animation screening series, and a 2017 special issue of the journal animation entitled "Life Remade: Critical Animation in the Digital Age."
I am currently the co-director of the MA Digital Media.
My previous professional experience includes web design and internet analytics.
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Research
Research
Research overview
My research focuses on spaces of political communication in the urban environment and the intersection of media technologies and architectural design. I am broadly interested in tracing lines of communication across human, material and ecological systems. The research I undertake is, therefore, quite inter-disciplinary and draws together such fields as architectural and urban studies, digital media theory, memory studies, philosophy of aesthetics and communication theory.
More specifically, I am completing a book entitled Memory Complex: Competing Visions for a Post-9/11 New York, which questions the relationship between architecture, media and politics in the aftermath of September 11. The book discusses the cultural and political significance of architectural sites ranging in size from the Reflecting Absence memorial at Ground Zero, to the redevelopment of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island (the final resting place of World Trade Center debris) into a public park and wetlands conservation area.
I am also completing research on the "mediatic infrastructure" that is increasingly underpinning our urban environments, examining the emergence of public screen technologies, creative economy initiatives and digital design practices.
Before taking up my current position at Birkbeck, I was a Kenneth P. Dietrich Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and an FQRSC Post-Doctoral Fellow at McGill University in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, where I participated in the Media and Urban Life research group. I have also been a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
Current doctoral researchers
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ALAN WARBURTON
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HEATHER GOODMAN
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HELENA WEE
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KATHERINE MITCHELL
Doctoral alumni since 2013-14
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RICARDO DOMIZIO
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HANNAH BARTON
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AARON VANSINTJAN
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MARC GARRETT
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MILOS KOSEC
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GUNES TAVMEN
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Screen Media: History, Technology and Culture (AHVM031S7)
- Digital Culture (ARMC222S7)
- Digital Design Thinking (ARMC245S7)
- Final Project MA Digital Media (ARMC248D7)
- Critical and Creative AI (SC04023S7)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- McKim, Joel and Arrigoni, G. (2022) Experimentation and collecting practice: balancing flexible policies and accountability in developing born-digital museum collections. Museum Management and Curatorship ISSN 0964-7775.
- McKim, Joel (2021) Oscillons and cathode rays: photographic hybrids in early computer art. Photographies 14 (3), pp. 459-479. ISSN 1754-0763.
- McKim, Joel (2019) Into the universe of rendered architectural images. Unthinking Photography
- Mckim, Joel (2017) Speculative animation: digital projections of urban past and future. Animation 12 (3), pp. 287-305. ISSN 1746-8477.
- Mckim, Joel and Myers, N. (2017) Animating molecular life: an interview with Natasha Myers. Animation 12 (3), pp. 350-359. ISSN 1746-8477.
- Barton, Hannah and McKim, Joel and Eve, Martin Paul (2017) Open Cultural Data: Discussing Digitisation. Birkbeck Events Blog
- McKim, Joel (2016) The digital anachronisms of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England. Critical Quarterly 58 (1), pp. 46-51. ISSN 0011-1562.
- Barnard-Wills, D. and Moore, C. and McKim, Joel (2012) Introduction: spaces of terror and risk. Space and Culture 15 (2), pp. 92-97. ISSN 1206-3312.
- McKim, Joel (2012) Spectacular infrastructure: the mediatic space of Montreal’s ‘Quartier des spectacles’. Public 23 (45), pp. 128-138. ISSN 0845-4450.
- McKim, Joel (2012) Structural failure: the threat of contemporary architecture. Oxford Art Journal 35 (2), pp. 301-304. ISSN 0142-6540.
- McKim, Joel (2010) New York’s spontaneous 9/11 memorials and the politics of ambivalence. Borderlands 9 (2), ISSN 1447-0810.
- McKim, Joel (2009) Of microperceptions and micropolitics. Inflexions 3,
- McKim, Joel (2008) Agamben at ground zero: a memorial without content. Theory, Culture & Society 25 (5), pp. 83-103. ISSN 0263-2764.
- McKim, Joel (2008) Expressions of memory in Canadian photographic art. TOPIA: The Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 20, pp. 231-234. ISSN 1916-0194.
Book
- Mckim, Joel (2018) Architecture, media, and memory: facing complexity in Post-9/11 New York. London, UK: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781350037663.
Book Section
- McKim, Joel (2022) Deep learning the city: the spatial imaginaries of AI. In: Rose, G. (ed.) Seeing the City Digitally: Processing Urban Space and Time. Cities and Culture. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 35-56. ISBN 9789463727037.
- McKim, Joel (2020) Stan Douglas and the animation of Vancouver's urban past. In: van Gageldonk, M. and Munteán, L. and Shobeiri, A. (eds.) Animation and Memory. Palgrave Animation (PAANI). London: Palgrave MacMillan. pp. 163-179. ISBN 9783030348885.
- McKim, Joel (2016) Structures of experience: media, phenomenology, architecture. In: Rodgers, Scott and Markham, Tim (eds.) Conditions of Mediation. Peter Lang. pp. 149-159. ISBN 9781433137297.
- Mckim, Joel (2014) Radical infrastructure? A new realism and materialism in philosophy and architecture. In: The Missed Encounter of Radical Philosophy and Architecture. Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy. London, UK: Bloomsbury. pp. 133-149. ISBN 9781472512185.
- McKim, Joel (2014) Distributed design: media technologies and the architecture of participation. In: Boler, Megan and Ratto, Matt (eds.) DIY Citizenship. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262026819.
- McKim, Joel (2012) The ground zero mosque that wasn’t one: media and architecture in America. In: Lydén, K. and Wallenstein, S.-O. and West, K. (eds.) Site 31-32: Remake Remodel. Stockholm, Sweden: Axl Books. ISBN 9789186883072.
- McKim, Joel (2010) Creative recall: contemporary memorial practices and Deleuze’s concept of memory. In: Burke, L. and Faulkner, S. and Aulich, J. (eds.) The Politics of Cultural Memory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 62-75. ISBN 9781847189349.
- McKim, Joel (2008) Landfills and lifescapes: the transformation of New York’s fresh kills. In: Kiendl, A. (ed.) Informal Architectures: Space and Contemporary Culture. London, UK: Black Dog Publishing. pp. 190-195. ISBN 9781906155339.
Conference Item
- Mckim, Joel (2016) Authentically Digital? Considering art knowledge in a technological age. Christie's Education Conference 2016: Creating Markets, Collecting Art, 2016, London, UK
- McKim, Joel (2011) Suspicious politics: cultural studies and conspiracy theories post-9/11. Cultural Studies Association Conference, 2011, Columbia College, Chicago, USA
- McKim, Joel (2011) The global aesthetics of ground zero. Association of the Study of the Arts of the Present Conference, 2011, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA
- McKim, Joel (2010) Creative infrastructure: media and architecture at Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles. Montreal Festival City Symposium, 2010, Montreal, Canada
- McKim, Joel (2010) Distributed design: media technologies and the architecture of participation. DIY Citizenship Conference, 2010, University of Toronto
- McKim, Joel (2009) All that is solid? considering a cultural studies of finance. Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Conference, 2009, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
- McKim, Joel (2001) Landscapes of immunity: the transformation of New York’s Fresh Kills. Concordia, 2001, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Editorial
- McKim, Joel and Leslie, Esther (2017) Life remade: critical animation in the digital age. Animation 12 (3), pp. 207-213. Sage. ISSN 1746-8477.
Monograph
- McKim, Joel and Arrigoni, G. and Kane, N. and McConnachie, S. (2022) Preserving and sharing born-digital and hybrid objects from and across the National Collection. London, UK: V&A Research Institute.
Other
- McKim, Joel (2022) Animation without animators: from motion capture to MetaHumans. Animation Studies 2.0 Animation Studies 2.0.