Blue Velvet

Blue Velvet is an online digital history project about the city of New Orleans both before and after Hurricane Katrina. The project was published in the fifth issue of Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular, entitled "Difference." The full title is Blue Velvet: Re-dressing New Orleans in Katrina's Wake. Creation and design Blue Velvet was created through the collaboration of David Theo Goldberg, director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), and a graduate research assistant, Stefka Hristova. They were assisted in the implementation of the site by the digital artist and designer Erik Loyer, the creative director of the journal. The project was conceived as a multimedia presentation of a journal article which Goldberg had previously published, "Deva-stating Disasters: Race in the Shadow(s) of New Orleans" and which had been noticed by Tara McPherson, one of the founding editors of Vectors. From the first meeting, the group became aware that "the writing had to be envisaged in a more creative and experimental form," both as a result of the kinds of material they planned to use and the architecture of the site. The design of the site was the result of "intense weekly conversations over something like a year" and includes images, text, video, and sound files. The project is set to the composition "Apparition" by Liu Sola.