Filed under: information culture
So, I’ve already started reading for classes and such and general soaking in the overall academic culture and one thing that has struck me so far is this emphasis of museums as sites of cultural heritage and memory. While i would never full out disagree with this statement, what I find troubling is that this view is not juxtaposed about the other ways in which cultural is articulated in everyday spaces. I’ve always been uncomfortable with museums in general because they more or less act as cultural gatekeepers with defined boundaries between low and high art/culture. Maybe I’m just a populist. Maybe it’s the old punk-rock coming out in me. Maybe I’m too American. Whatever.
But my biggest problem with this whole museums and digital preservation conundrum is that this view upholds the notion of culture as embodied in objects and should thus be preserved like pickles. As somone who views processes, contexts, and environments as social and cultural fabric, this view is just too simplistic. But how do you begin to embed this idea with the task of having to maintain some kind historical view? Dunno.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Just when you thought he was gone forever. Behold Weird Al’s latest. The fact that anyone can drop references to:
DnD
ROTFL
Bubble Wrap
HTML
Monty Python
MC Escsher
Stephen Hawking
Earl Grey Tea
Happy Days
Solder Gun
Clingon
Wikipedia
Myspace
Java Script
All in one song…DOPE!
Who knew he was so Web 2.21?
Link: YouTube – White & Nerdy.
Filed under: academia
so today has been the first brainy day of sinking my head into everything, of wrapping my head around the pragmatics of getting situated and getting started, of engaging with new ideas and readings and the fissures in my insecurities are starting to crop up as i embark on…"setting out a research agenda" for myself. i know i’m psyching myself out so early on, but at this point i feel like i’m a pretty solid researcher: i know the drill, i know how it’s done, i know how to organize the process. i mean ISKME was academic trade school for me and so i’m pretty confident about my skills as a researcher. pat.
however, i am viewing these next two years as an opportunity to re-engage myself at that higher level: what theories, models and frameworks resonate? at this point, all of this discussion around privacy, learning, social networks, adaptation, transparency, mediation, institutional arrangements, "everyday life," community, identity, sharing, exchange, education, organizational change, cultural expression…all of these are swimming in my head without any sense coherent disctinction. i feel like you could take these bag of terms and find a host of people all talking about them in different ways. and because my interests can be quite fleeting, i want to make a real effort to start pinning them down with some kind of weight so that i can start engaging with them with a better sence conceptual elegance and coherence. over the past few years, i’ve gotten quite good a discussing and evaluating all of these terms in with some level of sophistication — but how to start bringing it all together? am i being too ambitious? maybe that’s what the next several years is for.
Filed under: the day to day
…is a never-ending quest for myself. with this whole school shenanigans, all of my previous systems and methods of organization have really come into question, as my main organization structure has evolved around a lot of work-related activities. however as a student, what constitutes "work" and "non-work" start to blend into one another. during this whole summer, i’ve run into a lot of interesting articles and blogposts that don’t necessarily fit within this binary distinction. i’ve spent the larger half of today going over my email folders, setting up pop accounts, doing a destop overhaul, etc. does anyone have a personal system that they are actually happy with?
