Plenary Speaker Interview: Laura Marks interviewed by Michael Hedges, BAAS 2021 Annual Conference
Laura U. Marks is the Principal Investigator of Tackling the Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media, a research group at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. This interdisciplinary project brings together researchers from the university’s School for the Contemporary arts (Laura U. Marks and Radek Przedpełski) and the School of Engineering Science (Stephen Makonin and Alejandro Rodriguez-Silva). The project is funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Its aim is clear: to address the high and rising electricity consumption of information communication technologies. As the group sets out on its website, ‘[s]treaming media is calculated to contribute to a surprising 1% of global greenhouse gases, because most regions of the world obtain electricity from fossil fuels to power their data centers, networks, and devices. Streaming large files in large quantities, then, ethically implicates spectators in the warming of the planet.’ I sat down with Laura (over Zoom) to discuss the necessary […]
Plenary Review: Dr Laura Marks, BAAS Annual Conference 2021 (Online)
‘Conference Review: ‘British Association for American Studies 2021’, Plenary Address: ‘Streaming Media, Online Conferences, and the Jevons Paradox’, 5th April 2021. Dr Laura U. Marks’ opening plenary at the 66th British Association for American Studies (BAAS) came after a year during which many of us have organised, attended, or presented at an online conference. Some will have tallied up an impressive combination of all three. We have grown accustomed to addressing an audience of dozens through the webcams on our computers, taking it on trust that the delegates are there at all. Posing questions to eminent researchers from our kitchen tables in semi-formal attire – from the waist up, at least – is now second nature. The benefits of moving conferences online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic soon racked up. It has hugely improved accessibility, particularly for the d/Deaf community. Online conferencing has brought increased opportunities for […]