I just stumbled on this quotation (used as the pre-script for an article entitled, "Introduction: monsters, machines and sociotechnical relations"):
"I said 'I think they might also be what are called "hopeful monsters.".'
She said 'What are hopeful monsters?'
I said 'They are things born perhaps slightly before their time; when it's not known if the environment is quite ready for them.'" (Nicholas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters, p. 71).
Such a lovely concept.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Play
Lately, I've been thinking about the nature of play. We agree to some extent that play is a part of our nature. We think abstractly. We tinker. We devise more efficient ways of accomplishing tasks. Sometimes we simply devise different ways of doing the same tasks over and over again.
Yet my classes treat the concept of play as if all humans hold the same privilege to access it. I buy the premise of the importance of play (though I would maintain that all mammals possess our capacity/inclination for it). My objection is subtle, but it nags at me whenever a class discussion turns to the subject. Play takes place all the time, and yet, it seems undeniable that people who have access to more leisure time in general also have more access to the time and space in which to tinker, to do puzzles and crack codes.
I went to a lecture today about the marriage of collective social action and communication technologies. An example is the 2003 presidential election in Spain during which a massive student protest was organized via text message. Not only did thousands of students descend on the same square at the same time (all wearing black shirts), but their movement arguably turned the tide of the election.
Online collective projects of today -- Wikipedia, Linux, etc. -- tap into this human inclination for play. People steal moments during their workday or before they go to sleep in order to work on these social puzzles. When we study these movements in school, we pretend like anyone can join in. All it takes, after all, is access to a computer, and a few minutes in your schedule. But how many people are left out of that scenario? A lot.
We study how these initiatives are reshaping the production/consumption cycle in our society, and how wonderful it is that so many people can contribute to so many different areas of discourse that used to belong solely to the white guys at the top. But I guess I'm just more interested in the people who get left behind. They're the same ones who get left behind in most technology narratives... but for some reason, this one bothers me an awful lot more.
Yet my classes treat the concept of play as if all humans hold the same privilege to access it. I buy the premise of the importance of play (though I would maintain that all mammals possess our capacity/inclination for it). My objection is subtle, but it nags at me whenever a class discussion turns to the subject. Play takes place all the time, and yet, it seems undeniable that people who have access to more leisure time in general also have more access to the time and space in which to tinker, to do puzzles and crack codes.
I went to a lecture today about the marriage of collective social action and communication technologies. An example is the 2003 presidential election in Spain during which a massive student protest was organized via text message. Not only did thousands of students descend on the same square at the same time (all wearing black shirts), but their movement arguably turned the tide of the election.
Online collective projects of today -- Wikipedia, Linux, etc. -- tap into this human inclination for play. People steal moments during their workday or before they go to sleep in order to work on these social puzzles. When we study these movements in school, we pretend like anyone can join in. All it takes, after all, is access to a computer, and a few minutes in your schedule. But how many people are left out of that scenario? A lot.
We study how these initiatives are reshaping the production/consumption cycle in our society, and how wonderful it is that so many people can contribute to so many different areas of discourse that used to belong solely to the white guys at the top. But I guess I'm just more interested in the people who get left behind. They're the same ones who get left behind in most technology narratives... but for some reason, this one bothers me an awful lot more.
Filtered.
So, first I should probably tell you my idea for this little project, including the source of its name.
A terministic screen is the great Kenneth Burke's notion that we all possess our own frame of reference (symbols) for interpreting the world. Well, duh. But I like the palpability of the phrase, and also its implication that words/thoughts can never be objective because their strength relies on interpretation, and that interpretation is always entirely subjective. The terministic screen, "directs our attention to particular aspects of reality rather than others."
Let me acknowledge that I am fairly consumed by school. From time to time, the wonderful people in my life ask me what I'm studying, and it seems that I almost never have a good way of explaining it. Inexcusable at worst, unfortunate at best.
More to the point, I want to be able to share my thoughts with people who aren't in my program, and to make connections between the things I'm learning. It would also be nice to have a record of this learning because most of the time, thoughts slide off my brain like a greased cat in a vacuum cleaner (um, or something...).
This is not to say that I want to write exclusively about school. Once upon a time, I wrote a different blog that quickly turned into a drippy, maudlin, brain-masturbatory exercise, so I gave it up. I hope not to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction with this one by producing something esoteric (read: boring). But I'll aim for something in the middle, and we'll see where we end up, ok?
A terministic screen is the great Kenneth Burke's notion that we all possess our own frame of reference (symbols) for interpreting the world. Well, duh. But I like the palpability of the phrase, and also its implication that words/thoughts can never be objective because their strength relies on interpretation, and that interpretation is always entirely subjective. The terministic screen, "directs our attention to particular aspects of reality rather than others."
Let me acknowledge that I am fairly consumed by school. From time to time, the wonderful people in my life ask me what I'm studying, and it seems that I almost never have a good way of explaining it. Inexcusable at worst, unfortunate at best.
More to the point, I want to be able to share my thoughts with people who aren't in my program, and to make connections between the things I'm learning. It would also be nice to have a record of this learning because most of the time, thoughts slide off my brain like a greased cat in a vacuum cleaner (um, or something...).
This is not to say that I want to write exclusively about school. Once upon a time, I wrote a different blog that quickly turned into a drippy, maudlin, brain-masturbatory exercise, so I gave it up. I hope not to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction with this one by producing something esoteric (read: boring). But I'll aim for something in the middle, and we'll see where we end up, ok?
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