MoMLA: From Panel to Gallery
Victor Vitanza and Virginia Kuhn, Eds.
2013
Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. 17.2
The work presented here was originally produced for and shown on January 6th, 2012, at the Modern Language Association Conference in Seattle, Washington. The panel was arranged by the Committee for the Teaching of Writing and was curated by Victor J. Vitanza.
This panel-turned-webtext follows on the Panel to Gallery session that Victor curated at the 2006 Conference on College Composition and Communication Convention (Arroyo et al). Those presentations, revised as From Gallery to Webtext, can be found online in the Kairos 12.3 Manifesto Issue. Watching these earlier webtexts first will give readers a sense of the then and now. No one is suggesting linear progress or increased sophistication. Rather, we (Victor Vitanza and Virginia Kuhn) are suggesting that you be on the lookout for video/s that simultaneously imp/lode and exp/lode. Rhythmically.
The purpose of the the 2012 Gallery setting was, once again, to show and demonstrate how digital technologies are reshaping our views of conferences, of presentations, and in a wider scope of writings. This Panel to Gallery session set aside the traditional diachronic set of presentations for a synchronic set, in an art e-gallery format, with each writing arranged separately as conceptual art installations. There were eight different tables, widely separated with four tables on each side of the large room, comparable to MoMA's "MediaLounge."
As visitors walked into the Gallery (hotel ballroom), each was handed a one-page press release. Once visitors had a sense of the possibilities, each mixed as if at a gallery opening, speaking of the works with the artists and among themselves. The most asked question, of course, was What does all this work have to do with the teaching of writing? Each presenter, when asked, invited the questioner to reconsider what the word writing might variously mean today. The conversations were lively.
So as to continue with that purpose in mind—making writing e-lively—the seven artists have revised-reworked-replayed their presentations for Kairos on the Web. Some have even changed their titles, while others have re-envisioned their whole presentation.
Virginia Kuhn (2013) Metonymy, MoMLA: From Panel to Gallery, Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. 17.2
