Technology | Department of Alchemy

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

Anime Boston just ended a few days ago, but I had a good weekend, given that I only spent the equivalent of one day inside the Hynes Convention Center. I signed up for a blues dancing workshop over at the MIT Student Center for the majority of Saturday, but the lack of time spent at the con was supplanted by my participation in a couple panels. Then again, I still can’t believe I convinced myself to skip the Pillows concert. I mean, c’mon, it’s The Pillows, second only to The Seatbelts. I’ll definitely be on top of my game next year and actually attend for the entire weekend (and of course do a bunch more panels).

I picked up my badge on Thursday night — luckily. The nametag appeared in my hand after only about an hour’s wait, unlike those unfortunate souls that had to retrieve theirs on Friday. Walking along the con, I ran into a line stretching from one end of the center to the other. Thinking it was simply a popular autograph signing, I followed it down to the front, only to find that it led into the registration room. I heard a few rumors that people who hadn’t preregistered waited for up to nine hours (and a few were turned away from registering even after standing in line). Quite a bit of failure there, but I expect the AB staff will be on top of that issue next year.

Since I wasn’t on site for most of the convention, I didn’t attend many events, but I did get a chance to attend the newly-annual formal ball. This year exceeded my expectations compared to last year (AB 2007), and the ticketing system certainly helped speed up the line that kept a lot of people out of 2007′s dance. Not sure if many people realized that MC Frontalot was on stage DJing the event, but there he was (and seemed a bit lonely too). There weren’t as many people dancing this year, and I wonder how the dance staff will try to ameliorate that next year (I think 2007 excelled in terms of people on the dance floor, but maybe that’s because attendees were just psyched for it).

I got to walk around the Artists’ Alley for about an hour and, although I definitely didn’t spend as much on schwag compared to 2007, I picked up one $10 print. It’s such an arresting picture, though, so when I glanced it the drawing stopped me in my tracks, mesmerized for a good fifteen minutes before I decided to purchase it. The artist is Peter Chan (of Toronto, Canada), and you can see a glimpse of the print here. I love the anachronistic quality (which reminds me of the blend that Shinichiro Watanabe makes in Samurai Champloo.

Most of my other time was spent on panels. I was given permission to host three panels, but I only decided to go through with two of them (Learning Japanese Through Anime was cancelled). Kent, Alicia, and I hosted one panel called Trescaflowgun on Saturday night, at which we did a comparison-contrast of Trigun with Escaflowne, focusing on art designs, narrative styles, and plot devices. I guess you could call it a Comparative Literature take on anime. Overall, we had a surprisingly medium turnout, since we were slotted against the Masquerade, but there were a number of people that came in thinking we were going to present a fan parody. Ultimately, I view this first panel of ours as a practice round for the success that would be Sunday’s panel.

On Sunday afternoon, I presented a talk (again, with Kent and Alicia) entitled Globalization, Technology, and the American Otaku to an audience of about forty people. Borrowing and applying ideas from Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat and a number of the blogs, scholarly articles, and podcasts ingested from MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, I discussed the past, current, and future state of the Japanese animation culture in America and primarily how it has been influenced by the Internet and international convergence and collaboration. Thanks to Alicia and Kent who provided some good commentary on club fandom, the Cosplay.com community, and particularly the reception of texts while access is easy and the diversity large. The panel lasted only an hour, and we spent a good amount of time fielding solid questions from the audience, so I had to omit a few items due to the time constraints. We actually had a pretty good write-up of the panel over at Pop Culture Shock, so check it out. It’s a good thumbs-up for anyone interested in attending my panels next year, hint hint!

Definitely going to plan to 1) be at the convention for the entire weekend next year, 2) submit more panels and hopefully present them, and 3) try to go for a Press Pass, because I’d like to snag a few interviews and conduct a bit of formal research, which I might be able to get funded by my university. But I still have Otakon and Connecticon on the list for this summer, so let’s get to those first!

Tag Archives: technology

Notes from Berkman Luncheon w/ Anne Balsamo

Aftermath of Anime Boston 2008