Destination Dissertation

I haven’t posted in quite some time (wasn’t sure who was still reading). I think I will begin writing again on here, whether or not anyone is still reading. I’ve turned in several dissertation ideas to my advisor and we will be settling on a topic this Thursday. I’m excited to see what will come of this process.

The purpose of this space will be to try out some ideas I will develop. Taking Jeff Rice’s advice, I will try to post on other blogs to get a greater readership and hopefully a greater of responses. So if you are still reading, let me know you’re here. Of course, you can lurk, but it’d be nice to know who’s out there.

Continuing

I suppose at some point I’d like to write more on this blog. I’ve discovered though that although there are upwards of 25 views of my page per day, I do not get any comments on my ideas. Thus, I’m not even sure if writing my ideas on my dissertation or life are worthwhile at all. It seems to me blogging is a space where disclosing information allows one to think through ideas for people to read. It has the potential for (limited) interaction, but it mostly for voyeurism. Blogs seem to be able exposing yourself to another point of view with no real interaction. Why then would I post again? I have no need to expose ideas for the sake of exposition.

A drunken History

New ideas

As I sit here playing with Adobe Flash I cannot help but feel that new ideas (or combinations of ideas) are hard to come by. I’m trying to prepare a presentation to justify the final project for this class, but I’m not certain I truly grasp the ideas of “play” by the authors read below, nor the idea of what constitutes knowing. My idea has been from the beginning to create a flash program that requires users to interact in order to be able to hear/see other parts of a video on a “drunken history of knowledge.” How does this all come together? I’m not exactly sure. However, the first part should be to get my friends intoxicated on my home brewed mead and then get them discussing the current state of knowledge. From here I can dismember/create/distort the video and have users interact from here. Flash can insert links to some of the ideas explored or create games to see the next part of the video. Who knows….

get this

Camera Lucida

This rather short essay provides an intersting look into the “magic” of photographs. Although Barthes was writing in a time before digital photography, development of the Internet, and  Adobe Photoshop, Barthes seems to believe that photographs are a sort of evidence. Evidence that is “extended” and “loaded” (p. 115). The fact that photography “arrests” a point in time (p. 91; 107) is important to Barthes because it destroys memory (p. 91). This violence forces the “spectator” to either reject or accept the image before him or her.

However, there is also a sense of invention that Barthes provides for his readers. Barthes writes about the studium, which is defined as an “application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acutity” (p. 26) or a “kind of education (knowledge and civility, ‘politeness’), which allows me to discover the Operator” (p. 28). The punctum “break[s] (or punctuate) the studium” (p. 26). He eventually breaks up the punctum into two kinds; one of intensity and one of time (p. 96). The former suggests the “prick” that awakens the spectator to the image, whereas the latter emphasizes the noeme or “that-has-been” (pure representation). Although we may privately “glance over” (p. 106) the photograph and generate the likeness or aura of teh image (such as Barthes’ fondness of his mother’s childhood photo), we also could have a more public reading that emphasizes the studium of the photo.

His discussion of surprises is also interesting on p. 32. I wonder what Barthes would have to say in today’s world where photographs are constantly being questioned for validity. Was that Image photoshopped? Does Photoshop give us the space to invent, as we tend to combine painting (removal of red eyes) with the capturing of a moment in Time?

Getting ready for Barthes

I always liked this song and the band’s name is quite appropriate for our upcoming reading.

Back into the collective

Collective intelligence: Levy writes,”no one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity” (p. 27).

New forms of community are emerging (p. 27)

Spoilers engage in a sort of play (p. 29)

Levy’s vacilates between fully knowledge sharing communities and stable ones (p. 38).

Game played between media conglomerates and viewers (p. 48); as well as between posters (p. 50) [also in the matrix, p. 97]

Expert paradigm is comprised of bounded knowledge achieved through particular processes, which one can master (those that are on the inside), whereas collective intelligence is open ended and interdisciplinary in a space in which everyone can participate  in a undisciplined manner. Experts also need credentials, whereas the collective needs to prove itself (p. 52-53).

“because they are voluntary, people do not remain in the communities that no longer meet their emotional or intellectual needs (p. 57).

interests of producers and consumers are not the same (p. 58)

difference in “real-time interaction” and “asynchronous participation” (p. 59)

trans-media franchise (p. 61)

affective economics “a new configuration of marketing theory, still somewhat on the fringes but gaining ground within the media industry, which seeks to understand the emotional underpinnings of consumer decision-making as a driving force behind viewing and purchasing decisions” (p. 61-62).

new marketing efforts seek to establish a long term relationship with the consumer (p. 63)

“impress me” (p. 64); McLUhanist engagement

“expression charts” (P. 68); engagement and loyalty to a TV program (p. 68)

brand extension should not be contained within a single media platform (p. 69). Media + Vine

Zappers, Loyals, and Casuals (p. 74).

Serialization (p. 78)

consumption communities work like Levy’s knowledge communities (p. 80)

gossip in communities is way of connecting with others (p. 84)

link between advertising and content (p. 88)

develop communities strategies to ensure fairness (p. 91).

Filmmakers provide clues that “won’t make sense until we play the computer game” (p. 96)

cultural activators prevent closure too quickly; matrix as transmedia storytelling (p. 97)

Eco and cultural artifacts (p. 99)

Tribal Play (Masks up!)

Well again this week Maffesoli suggests that we should engage in some sort of play. This is precisely what I intend to do with my semester project. Although I do not yet know the end product, which is not the point for me, I intend to compile a flash program (Which may be just a game or a site with a game?) to explore the relation between theory and practice. I will have to wait till after comprehensive exams to explore this further, my indoctrination practice according to Ulmer, as I’m running short on time. However, I’ve signed up for some free Flash classes (assuming I attend, otherwise $80) and hope to find inspiration there between what I can do and what I should do.

Things to discuss tonight:

History versus collective memory (p. 13)

the “aura” of a tribe (p. 18, 23, etc.)

“Tide of experience” p. 25

“social square footage” (p. 37)

Puissance and the tribe (p. 31, 59)

“affinity groups” (p. 85)

My Theory Brings all the Praxis to the yard (Or vice versa)

One of the veins of Flusser’s Writings is the links between theory and praxis. The part of my notes I will share here stems from page 20 where he writes, “And, as in medicine, the should be, in the theory of communication, no neat distinction between theory and praxis.” The rest of his book, and the parts that precede this quote, demonstrate how Flusser observes the differences and similarities between theory and practice.

For instance, on the preceding page (19) Flusser notes, “Now, the theory of communication can show that, although mass media are being used almost exclusively for discourse, they could be changed in a way that would allow for dialogue as well.” Essentially, if we can dream it, it can be so no matter how fantastic the idea. He enumerates this point quite clearly in the essay “Designing cities.” Here he illustrates that although those who sketch out cities based on “Fantasies” or projections may be living in a land of illusion, their predictions tend to be more realistic than those offered by pessimists. Although city builder may start with a base of “current codes,” they continue to build up on the codes in the ever expanding network, which creates no forms of living. Consequently, those that desire to see the future, although imagining a fantastical world, are more likely to predict the evolution of the city. This is because the city builders create a theory of how contemporary society exists, not only as a static entity, but also how it exists through human practices, which are not likely to remain static with the continued creation of the network.

Furthermore, Flusser’s examination of Kafka’s work shows a relationship of the complex relationship between theory and practice. Flusser writes, “The message cannot be reduced to these thoughts. Instead, it contains an unarticulated and unarticulable dimension, which does not allow a flight into religious belief in the traditional sense, because it includes and overtakes belief” (p. 157). More simply, Kafka writing about religious undertones of society cannot fully articulate a denotative meaning of the phenomenon, but rather his message gets distorted and refined through the practice of his analysis. For instance, we cannot fully know K’s experience in The Trial without relating his experience to our own practice in reality. Essentially, our created codes (8-20) and their related systems of explanation (denotative and connotative meanings) can never replicate practice of our knowledge. Any reflection provides a glimpse of our created system of meaning, but never fully investigates the lived experience of created understanding.

I <3 Huckabees provides an excellent example of the interrelatedness of theory and praxis. Although we may know we're all connected, we can never get past our "natural" lived experiences and the codes we lie over them. I <3 Huckabees