I am Jay to lot the current chair for
el-Sisi and I don't think you need to

worry about my my loquaciousness
is even more before the Tories for

not being loquacious but
I do have a few things that probably need

to be said by way of looking back and
looking forward.

Certainly by way of

putting a cap on this
the coming together for

the rededication of the Wesley center and
I like to thank you all for

being part of that that moment of
rededication that moment of looking back

and taking stock of where we are right now
as we've also looked toward the present

the Wesley center certainly marked

a major shift in the school's
literature communication culture.

It's a shift that recently
has been marked by our

voting as a faculty to change
the very name of the school so

that we will become next year
the school of literature of Media and

Communications a shift that
underscores the Centrale of any

of media to all things
that we are doing it also

marks the work of some key
faculty who need to be mentioned

and applauded for
their contributions foremost among them.

Jay Bulger and Janet Mori for helping
to build this digital media program but

also some of our are of
administrators who gave

a tremendous amount of support and
that would be especially our predecessors

Bob Kolker in Cancun us for
without their pushing for fund.

We might not.

Well have the program of the stature
of that we have today and

the summer is also just signal day and
important Coming of Age of

this school with the with the center.

We were able to build a graduate
programs graduate programs

that have been successful
in in graduating some top

notch students students who are already
out there of students like skiing and

Klara who are already out there
helping to build other programs and

helping to replicate what we do here.

So expanding the Georgia Tech brand.

We've also managed to establish reporting
connections with other units and

you know we've you've heard
about the problems and

siloing as we as we described earlier.

Well one of the great things
about our program is that it's

burst the boundaries of those silos every
time they've tried to put them up and

so we have important connections with
a variety of other units here like

the college of computing that G.V.
you but also units elsewhere as well.

And then the other thing
I like to point to and I

know this might have a a might be a some

sour innocent attaches to this for some
but but it is an important development and

that is of with the was Lee center and
with the the Digital Media program.

It's also enable us to build
a grant writing a research

group that is the equal of
what we see in science and

engineering at Georgia Tech and
therefore allows us to stand as equals.

And to speak as equals and
argue for resources.

These are all important
things that has been

essential to to the whole school success.

Finally and perhaps just as significantly

the center has allowed us to attract
some of the best students and

faculty in the world and

that's something you just we just can't
downplay it is it is you great thing.

It is a great thing is going to ensure
it is already making our school success.

It's already contributing to
the success of the college

but increasingly it just it is redounds to
the great success of Georgia Tech as well.

And those students and
the faculty they're going to continue to

contribute to that to that success.

So for all these sell this impact.

I want to express the the gratitude
of the entire school.

Thank you.

OK I want to close by by talking about

four four things that we are trying
to work on the concerned us

as we move into the next ten years of
the center and the and the program

and the first of these
you've hardly heard mention

of in the last panel and
that is this this notion of focus.

So ten years ago.

Certainly fifteen sixteen years ago
when the when the first Masters

degree started but.

And even ten years ago when
the Wesley center was established

the idea of doing what we do here in
the of studying and researching and

making digital media artifacts and and

research in the in the context
of a liberal arts college

at a technical institute that was enough
kind of didn't have to say anything else.

There wasn't a lot of competition and we
could we can we can find ways of getting

things done that couldn't
be done anywhere else and

that's not really the case anymore there
are more and more programs like us that we

consider our competitors and more and
more industrial sinks for our for

graduates to go into that are then feeding
questions back into the work that we do

here which is a net benefit of course
not only because it creates a cycle

of of employment and new students but
more so because it moves moves all of us

forward it's going to have it's good to
have competitors but without competition.

We've been forced to rethink
exactly what order of the world

of digital media we occupy and in many
ways just the idea of choosing a corner.

The idea that we have we would have to
choose a space within that broader space

that would be not only a necessity but

even a benefit is
something relatively new.

I think so as we've been rethinking and

redefining the digital media
program over the last couple years.

There are some things
that haven't changed and

one of the the lines that we're using as
a kind of mission statement is that we

invent the future of digital media based
on a firm understanding of its past and

I think that is a real distinguishing
factor for our program is looking back and

not just looking back for the sake
of relishing something that happened

decades or centuries ago but to look
back in order in order to take lessons

from from different media from things
that we already know in the context of a.

Puting and this is not very common
in the broader world of computing so

we have something unique to offer there
but that's still that's still too big.

That's not that's not specific
enough to move us forward.

So again in the last two years
as we've been deliberating and

moving forward with some
new curricular plans and

kind of you know reestablishing ourselves
in this in this great new facility.

We've identified three areas of focus that
we're going to use for you know the next.

Let's say three to five years.

This is about as far as anybody can
possibly think to see in in this field in

order to guide our decisions are the kinds
of students that we think we can help and

the sorts of industrial partnerships and
research partnerships that we're best

suited for so you know one of those
areas is arts and entertainment and

I don't think that's any surprise to
hear that we would continue to focus on

the domains of creative
culture that computing

touches to treat the computer as a as
a medium people goal of of expression

to continue our commitment to fields like

narrative games and and related matters.

A second and
Karl mentioned this explicitly and

the last is the Civic Media and
specific media I think it's a is a great

phrase because it's generally
at that specific in for us.

It refers to the ways that digital media
fits into the the fabric of of culture and

daily life in particular things
like community activism and

the technological support
of different populations or

what we have in mind here and then we're
also you know interested in the local

communities the the local Atlanta
community the community in Georgia.

We are a part of the state
university infrastructure and

I think we have always taken that
seriously but want to continue doing so

and also the southeast in general and
I think implicit in this in this idea.

Intension to local communities also we've
heard a bit about this earlier as well.

Also a kind of implicit resistance or

at least a susceptibility to resistance
to whatever trends are coming out of

Silicon Valley that we don't have to
feel like we just received a copy.

So looking Valerie.

That's a second area and then and then the
third we call knowledge and creativity and

this includes the rule of digital media
and in education in the production

of knowledge in the creative process
understanding the creative process and

developing new kinds of of tools and
methods for that creative process

of things like educational applications
of media certainly take a role here but

also interventions in the design
process and not just interventions like

you know new tools or new techniques but
even new communities and

there you can also see the connection I
think between all three of these areas

certainly Civic Media but also arts and
entertainment how do we think

about new ways of doing the things that
we are thinking about doing that are new.

So that's one that's one
punctuating point that I wanted

to make it squeezed the need to focus
somewhat and in the field of digital media

the second has to do with our
place in in the community and

here I'm thinking not of the local
community not of the geographic community

but the academic and just real community
and some of the challenges that we face

in in the near future in negotiating
that those relationships.

I think you know one of those was really
well captured by the smore name and

that and then by Mary too and that's this
this tension between you know humanism and

a humanistic approach to problem
solving or I think the note

I made from Clara's talk was digital
humanism versus the digital humanities.

You know this this trend in
the humanities that's become quite popular

that relates to and forgive me for

the to do to the digital humanists in the
room but with the digital humanities me.

Seems to me the way that I fear
it is let's use computers to

do the same things that
we've always been doing.

Whereas what what what Clara
was was underscoring and

I think that we're interested in doing
here is taking a broadly humanistic

approach to digital media which
I would argue actually includes

the idea of using
computing to do traditional

humanistic endeavors It's not that I
scorn that I think we shouldn't bother.

But then it's too small a vision it's
just it's just not big enough but

that's just one example of a broader
question in the academic community which

is kind of we're we're do we
fit in in those communities and

I think we heard a little of this
expressed just in the last in the last

panel as we talked about
the the issue of siloing and.

Kind of the bureaucratic structure of
institutions and here you know I would

also note that all of us who teach
in this program have I think I don't

think I don't think we're in a situation
ever would have Ph D. in a different field

that may not be the case anymore but it's
almost the case and they're very broad

right to song in Classics literature
of computer science architecture and

you put us all together and
we don't even doesn't even really matter.

We can figure out a way of working on
the things that we work on together but

that is not still still
that is not the norm.

That's not the way that
the academic world works and and

you've heard the tree some particular
noting that she felt like she would have

to kind of invents a place for herself and
I think she's exactly right and

that's what all of us did essentially and
that our students since particularly those

in the scholarly track will have to do is
find a place for them invent a place for

themselves which is very different in
the middle kind of being very smart and

saying something moderately new
about an archive that's very old so

you know in that respect I sort of
see in what our students can top

some of them are getting and
I'm thinking of our students getting act.

DEMICK tribes some of them
are getting getting positions in new

programs that are similar to ours
perhaps even modeled after ours but

many of them are also finding themselves
in quote unquote traditional programs and

I see them as as kind of a it's almost
like a kind of academic terrorism.

Right.
Look we're sending these sleeper agents

interviews into these traditional
programs and then and then you know after

a few years during their time their bombs
are going to go off and we're sort of like

slowly slowly taking apart the academic
infrastructure not just locally but but

everywhere in relation to the industry I
think that same thing is kind of true that

is to say that we are inventing new ways
of doing things rather than just training

our our master students in particular
to take of the jobs that exist so

even if they are taking the jobs
that exist they're doing so

in order to reinvent a way of doing
something here in a media industry for

example or
in many cases starting new businesses and

been particularly encouraged over the last
few years that many of our students have

started up companies in the local area
rather than going off and trying to

have to make themselves after model
themselves after Silicon Valley startups.

So that's that's that's that's another I
guess I really have some real instead of

four areas because I was originally
thinking of the academic and

industrial arenas as two different ones
but really that this kind of the same

problem isn't it that of of making
making this kind of grassroots change

inside of actual organisations and
realising how difficult it is to alter

the bureaucratic infrastructure and it's
very boring to talk about bureaucracy and

an organisational politics been in a lot
of ways that's where much of this work

lies we can do all the innovation
we want technically or creatively.

But so much of that is
trapped within the structure

of organisations that have to be
dismantled bit by bit year by year.

And so that is going to my final point
talking quite the final thing that

I'm concerned about.

And that's the internet so
I'm not going to make one of these kind

of you know Nicholas Carr arguments that
the Internet is bad or that it is good but

rather that I think there is a very
strong tension between what we do.

We've always done what we want to do and

this is the broader the broader trend
of the Internet as a social force.

So when we talk about digital media
when you talk about digital media

with ordinary people in the world.

I think they assume what you mean is the
thing that they encounter on a day to day

basis which is some kind of Internet
connected media you know on using your i

Pad to watch videos or just you know to
stream movies or to look at a news website

or if you're you know if you're very lucky
to actually interact with with one of

those one of those systems we have kind
of turned these incredibly powerful

processing machines into dumb
terminals that we used to look at data

that someone else made and we stream
that back and forth across the Internet.

That's that's our lives these days.

And while that's not good or

bad it is I think very different
except in that state of

affairs is very different from asking well
how do we treat competition as a medium.

So that you know the difference between
taking everything that we've already done

all of the media that have existed
that have been digitized and

remediated to use one of one of G. and J.
Voltron and the comparisons terms and

delivered via computer technology to you
know really using the processing power of

the machine along with its capacity for
networking and storage and so forth to do

something new and I'm still not sure that
we've really made much progress there.

I think that is that is an area that
we've mistakenly convinced ourselves at

the cultural scale that we have
overcome and we in fact have not done.

Really we're just using
the same old familiar media but

we're moving them around with computers.

So those are the.

Things that are on my mind.

And I hope we can we can
put them on yours as well.

I just want to close by thanking all
of you for coming for your support or

over the years to acknowledge again
the contribution of the Wesley family and

establishing the Wesley Center
ten years ago and

I want to hurt you to take a look
at the demos that we have ready for

you now both in the the E.G.L.
on the first floor here and

in the third for labs and we have to have
signs of everything that is more food and

we hope you'll stick around for
another couple hours and more.

Thanks thanks so much for
your free tendency to eat.