Monthly Archives: June 2008

Notes from Berkman Luncheon w/ Anne Balsamo

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As soon as I saw a derivative of the term “culture” in Anne Balsamo’s bio linked to from the Berkman website, I knew I wanted to attend this luncheon. Ironically, there was only mention of cultural reproduction (though it’s apparently present in her book, soon to be released), with much of the discussion focused around the future of libraries and museums (still interesting). The initial idea that jumped out at me from Anne’s presentation was her point about media as reproduction, specifically alluding to biological functions, and how this metaphoric/literal process defines and reworks our notions of gender online. Three other points were brought up that I want to discuss in future articles:
- Memory, remembering, and the evolution of stories and their telling in the move to the digital environment
- The future of the meritocracy of professorships in relation to publications
- The potential importance of Harvard’s Houghton Library after digital literary curation/publication and the hypothetical revolution of personal paper-based printing & publication

For now, the notes:

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Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work: Anne Balsamo

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book: transmedia project

addresses 3 points:

technological innovation: transform what is known to what is possible
technological imagination: engage materiality of world to create conditions for future world making
cultural reproduction: development of new narratives, myths, rituals;

technology, the world, culture: created anew
training of technological imagination: necessary

designers: work scene of technological emergence

ch. 1 – culture in the age of innovation

polemic of book: need to train imaginations to take seriously technological innovations: responsibility of educators across curriculum
how humanities can serve as resources: to engage new technologies

ch. 2 – gendering the technological imagination

always gendered, but we didn’t recognize it as such
biological reproductive technologies: connects to media technologies as premier reproductive technologies of our age: draws from feminist criticism on reproduction

ch. 3 – the performance of innovation

work on future of reading: w/ embryonic technologies

ch. – public interactives and technological literacies
designed to communicate history that is all of ours
future of literacies

ch. – working the paradigm shift
focus on literal labor: participatory culture: call people to the hard work required by the paradigm shift

ch. – the work of the book in a digital age
Q: why are you writing a print-based book?

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transmedia project: relates to other previous projects:

interactive multimedia documentary (“women of the world talk back”) on women’s rights held by UN in Beijing

practices on new media journalism

museum exhibit: designed to probe how we might read in the future: not abandon but rethink the print-based book

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we need to do something different to bridge the two cultures
need to create new institutional places: multidisciplinary research/projects

new participants: women, underrepresented participants
new commitments: requires everyone to be learners again
collaborative teams: from early work in feminist organizing
new spaces: where people can work together on technological things

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distributed research network: in UC Irvine, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago
scholarship in a digital age: will look different: local and distributed
understanding technological infrastructure to support distributed research network

digital research & learning @ McArthur: funded: museums, libraries, schools, recreation, home, after-school
claim: learning is changing in a digital age: eg. learning occurs in distributed environment, not just one local place
think about how museums/libraries will function in distributed learning environment

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What’s next?

XFR: Take 2
Digital Learning Objects: Open Education
MIxed Reality Learning Environments: Morse’s Law, Nintendo Wii (gesture-based interface)
Thinking with Objects: DIY movement, makers culture movement (making things with your hands; virtual: only simulations of what we used to do with our hands)

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Q: what has everyone been thinking about futures of museums/libraries

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Q&A:

Q: what is the future of designing librarians; how do you design professionals to adapt to new changes?

A: information designers: need standardization of metadata; also need people to understand how (meta-)information also has narrative, cultural effectivity; when we get to semantic web: it can’t be stupid

Q: Weinberger: future of paper-based books?

A: many genres of paper-based books that will migrate to the digital space; other genres: that aren’t going to disappear, because of physicality: paper-based: will long outlive human lives: part of case history; have to maintain digital archive
libraries: becoming museums of books that have ‘collections’

Q: Weinberger: in future w/ electronic readers: publishers won’t actually print books: will want to move directly to digital

A: things that are slipping away in a digital age: we will want to preserve

Q: humanities in the future: esp. w/ focus on publication

A: rethink scholarly publication, but I’m not the one to take on such a project;
have to learn to read again
UChicago: thinking about new paradigm of peer-review process for publication
tenure cases for those w/ digital scholarship

Q: printing a book: just output form; talk about crafting in digital environment: you: on laptop, w/ word processor

A: these kind of questions are critical, esp. w/ close reading of electronic text
authoring backwards
designer parallels with author

discussion:
libraries: providing ACCESS to books, etc.; cost of maintaining digital libraries: low, but not zero; decisions will always need to be made about curation
assumption: possibility of a canon: where all the ‘good’ books are

Q: “science fiction: the mythology of the industrial age”

Q: what do you think might be lost?

A: course: history of literacy: ongoing question of why is it important to remember?: disturbing: youth: just-in-time learners/rememberers
we haven’t taught value of remembering
culturally: remembering was more valuable to the other generation: ties to why history is important: ties to “future of the past”

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digital divide: the other way: economic/social reasons
need to have interdisciplinary places of learning

Digesting Intarwebs

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At Berkman@10 during the Language of Openness breakout session, someone in the audience complained about the too frequent use of the word “consumer” when discussing the Internet and media in general. Ever since, consumer has also irked me and yet I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s the English major coming out in me. Clearly the word has been contextualized and habitualized enough so that those familiar with the area of study understand and will employ the term. The association of consuming with eating, drinking, or generally ingesting, I believe, is what irritates the word’s users. I would go further to say that by utilizing the word consume in its gustatory fashion, we must also consider its consequences, thus alluding to digestion. And unless we’re speaking about the Internet strictly on academic grounds (where it would be mentally assimilated), I do not care for the WWW to pass through my bowel.

I will propose, then, that the use of consume came about because of adults. Yes, Generation X, I’m blaming you. Power to the Millennials! (I’ll discuss my intentional evasion of the phrase “digital native” in a later article. In fact, I don’t put faith in the term millennial either, but for the sake of brevity, it will remain for now.) I blame the older folk who grew up with television and commercials, spent money to go to the movie theater, and customarily lived in a pecuniary society. They are living, breathing customers. As customers, the adults of today matured regarding the world with an eye bent on finances rather than fervor. Therefore, it follows that they would approach the Internet with fiscal perspectives and intentions. Consuming digital media, specifically media inherent to the Web, then evolved from a money-hungry stomach.

And us kids are just, well, different. We’re not online to make money or use money (at least not all the time, though I do not deny calling the Internet the new teenager’s shopping-mall-turned-after-school-hangout). I’ll even go far enough to accuse adults and their outdated perspectives as the cause of the dot-com crash way back when, because they simply approached the Internet in an ignorant manner (I commend them for taking risks). My hypothesis reflects what David Weinberger and Jonathan Zittrain discussed at the final discursive session of Berkman@10, Onward!. Weinberger said, “It occurred to me that what does hold Berkman together and probably for everyone here is that we really really love the internet, just love the internet. How many people were at ROFLCon? The atmosphere at ROFLCon (an internet pop culture conference) was very different type of love of the internet. So in 10 years, how are we going to love the internet?” He expounds that the youth approach to the Internet is one of curiosity, intimacy, and passion. Youth are developing a culture online because they are not consuming the Web, acidically digesting its content and defecating LOLcats, but instead embracing the Internet creatively and living inside it, rather than using it as a tool while remaining outside its realm. In response to Weinberger, Zittrain stated, “I was struck by David Weinberger’s description of ROFLCon. I wasn’t there, but I can’t help but think that some of the goofiness, and the wonderful inanity of it, is exactly the spirit of the Internet that we celebrate here that I am continually amazed and amused by. … It’s the ability not to take ourselves so god damn seriously, while doing serious things and worrying about things like billions of people who are about to join the club, digitally speaking.” Charlie Nesson’s final words echo a similar response: “The question in shorter term for me really is, can we figure out how to engage kids of all ages in an open integrated media educational environment in a way that has them learning critical, algorithmic, strategic, thinking skills, in a form that we can measure — and that can be used as a meaningful credential.” Both professors identify the Internet as a space of informal learning, just like the neighborhood streets where adults grew up. Kids are just doing it online these days.

So how do youth engage with the digital space, strategically thinking and processing the culture that they unconsciously create? Certainly not through consumption. It’s simply by maturing, growing up, experiencing.