Michael Mandiberg Featured in NY Times on 'Printing' Wikipedia

Professor Michael Mandiberg (GC/Staten Island, Interactive Technology and Pedagogy) is featured in the New York Times on his latest project, "From Aaaaa! To ZZZap!," which opens today at the city's Denny Gallery.
 
The exhibition is based on a larger project, 'Print Wikipedia,' in which Mandiberg is transforming the English-language Wikipedia into a 7,600-volume print set.

The article, 'Moving Wikipedia From Computer to Many, Many Bookshelves,' notes Mandiberg's description of his effort as both a data visualization project and a poetic gesture.

"When I started, I wondered, 'What if I took this new thing and made it into that old thing?'" said Mandiberg, an interdisciplinary artist and scholar who has been called a 'leading global thinker.' "'What would it look like?'"

In the exhibition, a computer program will begin uploading 11 gigabytes of compressed data to a print-on-demand website; the upload page will be projected onto a wall. The other walls will be covered with wallpaper showing the spines of the first 1,980 volumes in the set, as well as 106 physical volumes of 700 pages each. Mandiberg does not plan to print the remaining Wikipedia volumes.

This year, Mandiberg will serve as interim Coordinator of the GC's Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate program, which promotes the creative and constructive use of technology in learning and research. He will temporarily replace Professor Stephen Brier (Urban Education), who will be taking a sabbatical leave.