deuxlits

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….