Craig Dietrich

Craig Dietrich is a digital artist, scholar, and educator who is presently on the faculty of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy, part of the School of Cinematic Arts, at the University of Southern California.

History

Craig began his multimedia career as an Exhibit Engineering Assistant at the The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. In 2008 he was a professor in the University of Maine New Media Department. He continues as a researcher at UMaine's Still Water lab.

Software

Craig was the first lead developer of the Mukurtu Archive, a media content manager based on the Warumungu community Dillybag.^[1] The project sparked discussion on Digital Rights Management and archival support of non-Western cultural protocols.^[2] Lawyer Wendy Seltzer describes, "Rather than fight copyright norms with bad code, we should learn from the Warumungu and build code (and law) to support social practice." ^[3]

In 2005, he authored the Dynamic Backend Generator (DBG) with his team at the Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular. The tool, at its core a MySQL database manager, has been used by a variety of digital humanities projects including Public Secrets, Blue Velvet and Killer Entertainments,^[4] and is described as a scholarly "intellectual sketchpad."^[5]

Craig is the Info Design Director for the Alliance for Networking Visual Culture which produces Scalar, an online publication platform discussed as a project that could "revolutionize" academic publication.^[6] Dietrich has given a number of lectures^[7] where he has positioned Scalar's framework in opposition to prevalient web-based content managers such as Wordpress, whose use, according to Dietrich, equates to "shoving content into rigid frameworks."^[8] Rather, Scalar's foundation is Semantic Web technology which can flexibly store content and bridge Scalar to partner media archives.^[9]

Personal Life

With artist Vanessa Vobis, Craig lives at the John B. Kane Residence in West Adams, Los Angeles, near USC's University Park campus.

Notes

1. ^ The Chronicle (2008-05). "Preserving Indigenous Culture in the Internet Age: Online archive provides access while maintaining traditional values". http://newsletter.wsu.edu/chronicle/08may/christen.html. Retrieved 2010-06-30. 
2. ^ kdawson, Slashdot.org (2008-01-29). "Aboriginal Archive Uses New DRM". http://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/01/29/2253239/Aboriginal-Archive-Uses-New-DRM. Retrieved 2010-06-30. 
3. ^ Wendy Seltzer (2008-01-11). "Mukurtu Contextual Archiving: digital "restrictions" done right". http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/2008/01/11/mukurtu-contextual-archiving-digital-restrictions-done-right.html. Retrieved 2010-06-29. 
4. ^ Adobe Education (2010-03-04). "Q & A with Craig Dietrich". http://www.adobe.com/devnet/edu/articles/craig_dietrich.html. Retrieved 2010-06-29. ^{[dead link]}
5. ^ Svensson, Patrik. "The Landscape of Digital Humanities". Digital Humanities Quarterly (online journal) 4 (1). 
6. ^ Jeff Rogers (2011-07). "Scalar and the Digital Messianism of Scholarly Publishing". http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/thl-administration/lab-blog/scalar-and-digital-messianism-scholarly-publishing. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
7. ^ The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture. "The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture". http://scalar.usc.edu/anvc. 
8. ^ Dale Askey (2011-04). "CNI Spring 2011 notes". http://bibliobrary.net/2011/04/22/cni-spring-2011-notes/. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 
9. ^ Fifth IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing. "Keynotes: Digital Humanities". http://www.ieee-icsc.org/ICSC2011/#. Retrieved 2011-09-30. 

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