Filed under: booklists
Digital Freedom, N.D. Batra
Tyranny of the Moment, Thomas Eriksen
Genesis, Michel Serres
Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time, Michel Serres with Bruno Latour
Virtual Ethnography, Christine Hine
Filed under: booklists, disorder, information culture, information theory, noise
so here is yet another installment of my booklists. i have been mulling over issues of disorder and noise over the past summer, looking mainly to literature in information theory and postmodern theories which has helped to contextualize things for me, but i have been horribly dissatisfied with translating these issues into the digital information landscape.
cybernetic information theory feels inappropriate for so many reasons: a hyperlinear model of communication (sender-receiver), an emphasis on transmission to the detriment of meaning, and systems framework that is too teleological in its orientation. my emphasis on noise and disorder is predicated on an assumption that there is an aspect of networked digital practice is predicated on fun, play, chaos, sillyness…and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good frameworks and theories that address this dimension.
i started thinking about problems of information overload to try and tap into a body of literature that would bring me closer to other dimensions of messiness and was initially disappointed as the term itself –information overload– has been used primarily by those in the information systems management literature that, again, conceive of information use and practice in relation to defined tasks and goals.
it seems that there is a growing body of work that looks at play and fun in digital culture, but what about boredom? as someone who is interested in digital practice and everyday life, how do we begin to conceptualize those quiet boring moments that make up the crux of our lives? what does being bored mean and look like now? is this different than previously? this line of questioning led me directly to Overload and Boredom by Orrin Klapp. I haven’t read it, but I’m damn excited to. I’m not quite sure what the relationships are between the disorder, noise, boredom, and banality, but there is something there….
…and we’re back! in school that is.
today was the first day of classes, as ucla is on the quarter system, and it was such a treat to be back on campus, seeing the gaggle of freshmen roaming around. after the initial confusion and overload of my first year, i’m wholly excited to start the second round and delve more deeply into the ideas i’ve been toying with so far. i was back in san francisco last week visiting friends and someone asked me “how’s school going?” i stopped to think for a second, beamed, and replied “it’s going great!” that’s not to say that there aren’t frustrations, but after having taking time off from academia for several years, being back in this environment feels like being a kid in a candy store…albeit with many more deadlines and insecurities.
those of you who know me, know that i have struggled quite a bit: panicking about tight deadlines, getting a slightly (ahem) neurotic about my abilities for innovative ideas but no matter what i’ve always been able to genuinely appreciate the fact that this is a time of experimentation and curiosity. during bitchfests with other students, i think it’s easy to forget why and how we ended up here in the process. i’ve known of other students who go through this whole process with tunnel vision, fixated on hyper-specific tasks and goals and my heart always sinks a little only because i really do feel really lucky and privileged to be an academia where we have the freedom and choice to make of it what we will. perhaps for most people this kind of freedom can be paralyzing, but i sincerely believe that academia is one of the last places where you’re encouraged to think creatively and wrestle with difficult questions. it’s true that the bureaucratic elements can be ghastly and i have yet to contend with the challenges with being a professor and the pressures of tenureship, but i’m really enjoying this time where i’ve been able to carve out space for myself to just try things out. it’s pretty damn fun.
a professor once complained to me that nowadays, people forget that education was in large part an experience rather than just a process of information delivery and i’ve taken this statement to heart. in the near future, i will have to start conceptually committing myself which seems so difficult to do when i’m so genuinely curious so many varied aspects of everyday digital life. part of me resists this only because it smacks of academia’s insistence on boundary demarcation. i know that i can’t just play like this forever but so for the time being i’m just going to stay in my candy store frame of mind until i really have to.
Filed under: education
I am mightily “chuffed” as the English would say.
I previously worked for ISKME, a non-profit education research group, where one of our projects was the development of an open education content site, the Open Education Resources (OER) Commons. I recently found out that the OER Commons has been nominated as an Education Award Laureate by the San Jose Tech Museum, which was a real honor. Check out all the other nominees and other categories here.
There is such an amazing variety of online education materials, we wanted to construct a space where anyone interested in learning –whether it be educators, students, or just curious individuals– could create and share, especially as everyone involved in education is struggling to meet the challenges of finding new curricula, new pedagogies, and new literacies in our current digital landscape. While the OER Commons was never viewed as the panacea for education, we really felt that the concept of an open education commons would be a good first step reconfiguring the educational paradigm by marrying community and content in the spirit of openness.
Filed under: booklists
Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music
Stuart Sim (Ed.) The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism (I feel like such a cheat when I buy these edited volumes that have critiques, but seriously folks. When you’re reading dense po-mo theory on your own, you need to have a support squad to guide you through)
Geert Lovink, Zero Commones: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture
