The 2017 Public Archaeology Twitter Conference is running this Thursday and Friday, the 27th and 28th of April. A Twitter conference is a social media event that occurs from the comfort of your desk/sofa/bed/bus/whatever. This event is meant to bring together public archaeologists from around the world in an online setting to encourage communication and collaboration, which also happens to be free, easy to follow and allows for multi-stranded communications, without the hassle of flights, accommodation and canapés.
There will be over 50 papers presented, from a wide variety of locations across the world, and paper timings will run all day so that the conference can cover multiple time zones. The conference will be taking place on Twitter, so you don’t need to be anywhere, or travel, or even get out of bed! Even if you don’t have a Twitter account, just go to https://twitter.com/search?q=%23patc&src=typd
There will be two key note presentations from Professor Shawn Graham (@electricarchaeo) from Carleton University and Dr Colleen Morgan (@clmorgan) from York University. Both are active and very well respected researchers, teachers, and authors on numerous publications related to the subject of digital archaeology.
Each ‘speaker’ will get a 15 minute slot allocated under one of 7 thematic strands, outlined below. During this time, they can tweet between 6-12 tweets using the relevant hashtag about their paper. Themes include:
- Public sector archaeology (politics, museums, policy etc)
- Archaeology by the public (local archaeology societies, independent scholars etc)
- Professionally-led community archaeology
- Open Archaeology (open access, use of Wikipedia etc)
- Academic public archaeology (theory etc)
- Archaeology & education (informal and formal education)
- Archaeology & media (digital media, film, TV, archaeogaming etc)
The first keynote is at 11.30am EST on April 27th by Dr Colleen Morgan
Truth & Beauty Bombs: The personal/political/poetics of online communication in archaeology
Abstract: In the theatre of howling outrage that is post-Trump-Brexit-Erdogan-etc social media can we hope to create and communicate meaningful interventions in archaeology?
The second keynote is at 12 noon EST by Dr Shawn Graham
Can public archaeology be ‘done’ by a machine?
Abstract: Is it still public archaeology if it’s written by a machine? With a machine? For a machine? In this piece, my bots and I wonder about the way we are ensnared online and off in meshworks and correspondences, juxtapositions and transductions, of power and data, and what this might mean. Where does the human end and the machine begin? We wonder about creativity and procedural generation and the essentially algorithmic nature of archaeology. We offer no answers, but maybe, pose the right questions.
For the full program then takes place on April 28th. Full schedule here: https://publicarchaeologyconference.wordpress.com/welcome/timetable/