My name is Kyle Parry. I write about how people use and understand art, media, and information. I also write about expressive strategies, particularly those that support (or undermine) projects of environmental and social justice.
My first book is called A Theory of Assembly: From Museums to Memes. Judith Butler wrote this about the book: “Kyle Parry's remarkable book offers an eclectic theory of assembly, shifting the focus from political theory to aesthetic and media practices. This is a wide-ranging and original work that keeps shifting angles to produce the sense of vibrant, if problematic, new constellations of the various assemblies that pervade contemporary life.” Ryan Milner wrote, “With an apt balance of sophistication and clarity, Kyle Parry shows why and how ‘assembly’ is the perfect keyword for contemporary cultural production.”
I recently published an essay called “Metadata Is Not Data About Data,” part of the collection Decolonizing Data: Algorithms and Society. Adapting critical perspectives from the study of visual culture and building on Trinh T. Minh-ha’s distinction between speaking about and speaking “nearby,” the chapter explores conceptions of metadata beyond the frame of aboutness, introducing a method of prepositional substitution via the provocation “data near data.” Whether as hashtags, traditional knowledge labels, or other forms, metadata is not—or is not just—data about data. Metadata are also variously expressive, reparative, distributive and extractive.
I co-edited a book called Ubiquity: Photography’s Multitudes. Ubiquity addresses the remarkable abundance of cameras and lens-based images. It also reframes photographic ubiquity as a historical and political fantasy. You can purchase or download it here.
A recent essay rethinks photographic ubiquity through the lens of microbial biogeography: “Dispersal and Denial: Photographic Ubiquity and the Microbial Analogy.”
I reframed data visualization and digital scholarship via queer and feminist performative theory: “Reading for Enactment: A Performative Approach to Digital Scholarship and Data Visualization.”
I mapped the use of an expressive strategy I call “generative assembly” in response to Katrina: “Generative Assembly after Katrina.”
I explored the notion of conceptual scaffolding via Vannevar Bush: “As We May Think: A Note on Vannevar Bush’s Scaffolding Claim.”
I am now working on a few different topics: generativity, aboutness, and metadata. I am also developing a book called Ways of Seeing after Dark.
I teach at UC Santa Cruz in a department called History of Art and Visual Culture, or HAVC. Here’s a list of courses I have taught.
@kyletparry on twitter