John Vallier is Head of Distributed Media Studies and an affiliate assistant professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington.
What is your lab called and where is it?
It’s called Media Arcade (aka mediArcade) and is located in Suzzallo-Allen Library at the University of Washington, Seattle. We landed on “arcade” for a few reasons:
– it provides access to a number of gaming consoles;
– we wanted to draw undergrads into the space (they were primarily the ones who paid for it), so we aimed to make it sound “fun”;
– it’s closed to the public, so it is not a commons;
– we already have a Media Center, which houses our main video collection;
– it’s a roundabout reference to Benjamin’s The Arcades Project.