I'd Rather Live It.

(Pre.Script. I never explain to you what Value P is,

 get curious and do some exploring once in awhile why don’t you) 

Walker Percy’s short essay entitled ‘The Loss Of The Creature’ was a remarkable yet difficult text for me to get through.  While I was enthralled by the points I was able to understand, I was at the same time baffled by things he talked about which didn’t register with me.

What was most intriguing to me was Percy’s notion of how a person’s individual perception about something buried or even lost due to the expectation and organization of preexisting methods of though.  Percy talks about an individual viewing a place for the first time with fresh eyes and dubbing it to be beautiful.  Perhaps the person then goes home and tells everyone how beautiful the place is, or takes photos of it to showcase it’s beauty.  Soon, many people are traveling to this place to see for themselves how beautiful it is.  Percey says that when people do this they are not seeing that place at all and the only way they can truly see it is to recover it.   This concept reminds me of certain places along the interstate that are marked as “scenic views”.  Naturally you will want to pull over because it MUST be a beautiful and scenic sight, especially if it is marked with a sign.

An example of this would be any of the infamous world wonders/sites/landmarks including (but not limited to): The Grand Canyon,
Niagara falls, the Egyptian pyramids, The Statue Of Liberty, The Eiffel Tower, The Golden Gate Bridge, Big Ben, you name it.  Percy argues that tourists will travel to these sights with the intention of viewing it, but because they arrive at the place with a preconceived “approved circumstance” that the place is beautiful, then they are not really seeing it but rather measuring their satisfaction and perception by things like “Why it is every bit as beautiful as a picture postcard!”.

Here is how I relate Percy’s ‘The Loss Of The Creature’ to what we have been learning about/exploring in this New Media Studies class.  People need to change (or relearn) their perceptions of how they look at something.  In our class’s case, people need to approach computers and education in a different and fresh matter of perspective/way of thinking.  Perhaps if we go out of our way to approach a concept differently then we can discover something amazing and beneficial!

Ehmm, by the way I have a slight problem with something that Percy says.  Percy claims that to photograph something is to not experience or confront it in a new way at all. I disagree (most probably because I am photography freak!).  For me, photos give me a fresh way of bringing my own perspective to something I experience.  I like to think that my photos are the way I am seeing something in a way that no one else has seen it before because it is through MY eyes and MY perspective.  Perhaps this is self righteous statement, but it was not my intention for it to be PERCIEVED that way.

***Ok ok so I am breaking my own blog photo rules by once again posting a photo not taken from my cell phone camera and also posting a photo that was taken last summer and not recently.  Anywayy, here is how I photographed the Washington Monument when I visited it last summer.  Just looked straight up at it as a horizon into the forever.****

***Here are some photos that I DID take with my camera phone, from THIS summer.  Here is a bulliten board at the University of Mary Washington that caught my eye***

***I come back a few days later and the same board now looks like this:****

I have become very interested in a point that is mentioned in an article by Sherry Turkle entitled: “Video Games and Computer Holding Power”. In her piece, Turkle discusses the experience you feel when you are playing a video game and are so into it that you can’t tear yourself away from it and you always want more.  In a side note, Turkle also discussed psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s (Mee-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee) philosophy about a sensation he has dubbed to be FLOW.

This is what I understand flow to comprise of(from the combined perspectives of Turkle and Csíkszentmihályi, as well as what was brought up in class discussion): a unified zen state of action and awareness where what you are doing, thinking, and feeling all come together and you lose track of time because you have become so merged with the activity and inside the thing you are doing that the world just melts away because you are in such a hardcore focus of concentration and happiness.

This can all be related back to education in the wonder of discovering something that would give this feeling of FLOW to students so that they couldn’t wait to get to class and learn and read their books because they were in such a wonderful state of FLOW.  Students would be able to learn faster because they just couldn’t stop themselves from learning because they would be so into it.  Dr. C. dubs this mystery thing that has not yet been discovered as EduCrack.  What WOULD educrack be?  I suppose every student has some aspect of educrack (or at least I would hope that they would), and perhaps it is this educrack that allows students to have a desire in a certain field of study.  I found my educrack when I first started taking art courses.

My Educrack: the traditional black and white photography darkroom.  In high school and in college I have never felt a more intense sensation of FLOW then when I have been in the darkroom.  I would spend hours upon hours totally enveloped in the developing process that I would lose complete sense of all time, I was so happy and obsessed with what I was doing that I didn’t want to tear myself away from it (although part of the reason why I may have been SO happy was because I was getting unintentionally high from the long exposure and up close contact I had with the photography chemicals as I hovered above the trays for hours watching my photos take form in the red safety light ambiance of the darkroom).

Ok, this is probably crossing the out of line boundaries of thought BUT, the feeling of FLOW probably is a reaction of the FLOW induced activity triggering some part of the brain to produce a brain chemical (maybe something endorphinish) which in turn gives the body and brain the sensation of FLOW.  If there were a way to harvest this then maybe it could be made into pills or something that students could take.  I don’t really like this idea though because it seems intrusive and also it seems wrong to me and slightly mind controlling for students to be forced to take some sort of pill.  I guess students will just have to discover the FLOW sensation on their own.

***Ok so this photo kind of goes against what I usually do for my blogs because A.) It was not taken with me cell phone’s camera, and B.) It is not completely recent, I took it while I was still in school in New Hampshire.  Anyway, here is a photo of my beloved EduCRACk DEN aka the advanced darkroom where I spent hours getting my fix from developing my photographs*****

**I do realize that ‘Curriculartornessly’ is not a real word.  I was just trying to add some pizzazz to my blog title to grab your attention ok?!?!**

Let us delve into the concept of curriculum, shall we?  The word curriculum has its etymological roots in Latin words related to “course” and “career” (apparently).  This gives me the outstanding visual of a track (like the kind you run on) where there are lanes that you stick to in order to finish the race.  These lanes or “tracks” can in turn, help you towards a career you are interested in for the future.

What would it be like to learn without curriculum (or rather an open curriculum = no requirements).  Would there be chaos and disorder without structure of curriculum?  Do people NEED the type of guided direction that a curriculum provides?  I personally am not fond of running at all, and therefore avoid running tracks whenever possible so perhaps I would be ok without the idea of not having a curriculum to follow.  Although, going off of the dislike for a certain task (i.e. running) that the curriculum/track metaphor instills in me is not nearly grounded enough to provide a good argument so I will think on this further.

I don’t think people in general are responsible enough (for themselves) to not have a curriculum.  Or perhaps maybe a curriculum should be necessary for elementary school and middle school students (because they are so young, I feel they need the guidance of the curriculum to give them a jumping off point for them to explore which subjects appeal to them and make them want to pursue fields in that area). 

Would it be possible for LESS regulated control to lead to MORE learning?  For some reason whenever I try to think of an educational system that is based on a no or open curriculum policy, all I can envision is chaos (unengaged students doing whatever they want, causing riots, breaking things).  Perhaps this is because of that darn QWERTY effect that is so ingrained in my mind (AH!!! Is it really that hard for me to think outside the box about this concept of a society being able to RELEARN a better way to educate its people?).

Here is my main issue with curriculum: how does forcing someone to take a course help them?  I have taken mass amounts of courses that have absolutely zero appeal to me.  I considered it a waste of my time and would much rather have taken courses that were engaging (for me).

SO. AH! Ok.  What if we go back to concepts from Papert to find a way that we can all live happily with curriculum without having to do away with it and completely relearn a new educational system.  If we can find a way for people to become interested in certain courses (courses that they otherwise have no desire to take), then that newly instilled interested can lead to people engaging their imaginations! 

For example: Papert’s turtle.  The turtle was a form of tactile learning that was a transitional object routed in experience.  The turtle allowed students to relate themselves to the turtle which in turn allowed them to think about abstract mathematics.  I think that if turtles had been introduced to my math classes, I would probably have a completely different outlook on math.  Perhaps I would LOVE math, and actually understand it and be interested enough in it to WANT to engage in it.  Perhaps all I needed was some creative tool like the turtle to allow open a portal in my mind that would lead to imaginative engagement in mathematics.

 ***Since I man the cash register at the deli where I work (workk itttt, worrkkk ittt), I have the oppurtunity to meet a lot of interesting people.  There is one guy who comes in quite often, and one day he told me about a feral kitten that he had just seen at Chatham Manor that animal control was trying to catch.  Intrigued, I stopped by Chatham Manor after work (I brought some chicken with me to feed to the cat) to see if I could spot this kitten.  Well, I found him***

*** I wasn’t able to catch the kitten but I did feed her and meow with her for awhile.  Turns out, the guy that had told me about the cat in the first place went back the next day and took her home with him.  She had to learn how to be a “DVORAK” domestic house cat after being born and raised “QWERTY” feral cat (Har Har) but didn’t seem to have a problem with that.***

“Try It Again.” This infamous (or not) line uttered by one fictitious character named Selden Bishop in Clifford D. Simak’s short story entitled “Immigrant”, in which Selden encourages one of his peers to “Try It Again” after she unknowingly uses her mind powers to stop a glass in mid air from shattering onto the floor. What does it mean to be urged/encouraged to try something unknown? Does it shed new light? Does it allow you to see something in a different perspective? Acquire a new skill/knowledge/power within yourself? Follow a path lead by curiosity? Is this what we need in order to make computer/human symbiosis a plausible and actual thing?

Do we need the curiosity to keep on trying to figure out a way where computers and machines can work together to accomplish some greater good, unlock something that will better society? Will we retreat with fright when this idea of human/computer symbiosis begins to fabricate into a reality? To be so on the verge of making the great leap to a certain idea/concept, but then fearing the leap so much that it becomes the last thing we try, being trapped in the comfort zone of fear?

If not encouraged to try something again or take a leap of faith into a new idea or concept will we be unable to reach a grock insight? I am still so afraid that I will not be able to have a moment of grock insight for this class…in the area of my final project. I have a lot of idea but I am unsure of them. I know what I want to do but at the same time I am completely lost.

The intial idea for my project was taken in my interest with J.C.R. Licklider’s concept of human/computer symbiosis.  An idea that involves humans doing humans do best working with computers doing with what computers do best, and in turn accomplishing or unlocking something great.  I want to use a computer (service, such as YouTube) and have it do what it does best (which is to host video clips that are available for sharing or viewing) and combine that with something I do best which is take photos of things.  Those powers combined I will have….(unknown).

I have a lot of information but am unsure how to organize it into a presentable way and make it work for my presentation. For my project I want to use my newfound knowledge and “expert” understanding of YouTube to host my visual exploration of the concept of metaphor and symbiosis (especially related to humans and computers). I have already taken quite a few photos of things that remind me of this concept but I fear that they may be too abstract and therefore elicit reactions of “WTF Mate?!?” …

Maybe I am just taking pictures of obscure things that catch my attention and that have no relation to my project…Although when I take the photos I am thinking “I can use this for my projct” so maybe subconsciously there is a correlation…I don’t want to have to explain my photos to anyone, I just want people to connect to them in whatever way they can and take away from them whatever they want to…Also I know that I only want to use photos that I have captured with my mobile phone…I am still not sure what it is about the mobile phone camera that fascinates me.

*Some number that is unknown to me send me this text message photo today…What does this mean? Who is this perons? and also, Why?*

What does it mean to capture something with a cell phone camera? Instant gratification? Mobility? Convenience? Simplicity? Why am I so fascinated by such a simple camera? (although in theory not quite so simple because I am still baffled as to how digital photography works, I mean really, it is amazing).

Perhaps I enjoy it so much because it is an instantaneous way to capture bits and pieces of moments in time which I can then upload onto my computer and then in turn upload them to a photo sharing/storing website like Flickr so that my memories are preserved in case my brain starts to leak (which it most likely will as time goes by).

But what does it mean to me to have a camera readily at my finger tips?  Do I take photos for purposes solely benefiting myself?  Do I want to share them with others?  What does it mean by putting my photos out on the web for anyone to see?  When I started my Flickr account I was surprised when I got comments from people I had never heard of before because it meant people I didn’t know were actually taking the time to look at and enjoy my photos.  Interesting.

Will there one day be a search engine for images? Kind of like Google, but also like Flickr ‘cause you coupld upload a photo or image for query?  For example, tonight I took a photo of a painting of a man who I had no idea who it was.  If I were to upload one of my photos onto a searchable database, then perhaps it would give me results with photos that are similar to it, which would help me identify the man in the painting.  I suppose this is kind of similar to something Dr. C. was talking about in one of our past classes, how there was a program that can search for similar shapes in an image and find the similar shape groupings in other images.

*George trying to stealth nap during class … naughty, naughty* 

*Escher Stairwell?…Interesting how things can see things from a different aspect when you turn your perspective upside down*

*Untitled painting of a man that hangs above the zerox machine…It kind of reminds me of Ben Franklin, but the clothes don’t seem to fit the era quite right*

There is an idea/concept/speculation trend that I have noticed since the first new media studies class.  What I have picked up on is this: It seems to be that more would get accomplished if we simply worked together by pooling our collective knowledge to figure something out (I am using the word “our” in a general sense).  Let me try to clarify this. 

During the first two classes we discussed how communication was difficult because of field specialization (For example a math teacher trying to explain theories of calculus to a gym teacher in order to accomplish something…there is a lack of communication because a gym teacher isn’t specialized in the field of calculus).  Perhaps greater unimaginable things could happen if we were able to combine two things together to make it work (whether it is to find a solution to something, or to increase efficiency in general).  Instead of having two things oppose one another, why not join forces?

Combinations I have noted that have been discussed in class are as follows:

1.)    The right side of the brain and the left side of the brain: Combining the reasoning and number skills that the left side of the brain is responsible for with the imaginative creative capabilities that the right side of the brain is noted for specializing in.

2.)    Creative thinking and formulative thinking: Are they the same? Do you need both of them to accomplish something greater?  Kind of goes back to the right/left brain thing with the right side being creative and the left side being formulative).

3.)    Brains and Computers: (Especially related to and discussed in J.C.R. Licklider’s Man-Computer Symbiosis Essay).  If we can figure out a way to meld our minds with the machines (aka computers) so that the machines do what machines are good at and brains do what brains are good at then our powers unite we are unstoppable!

Combined forces of knowledge are kind of like peanut butter and jelly working together to make the most badass tasty sandwich known to mankind (or at least to me anyway).   I mean who was it who originally thought of combining those two things?  That was a great idea.  Ok so that metaphor might be a slightly far fetched and doesn’t completely relate the way I wanted it to, but I thought I would put it out there anyway.

I will close with a point that Dr. C keeps stressing is: Something very small could lead to doing things that have never been imagined.

*Upon leaving class on Tuesday night (07/03/07), a man told us that “the dogs outside our friendly”.  Puzzled by this statement we soon discovered there there were in fact friendly dogs awaiting us outside.  The loyal puppy stared intently through the glass door panels for his master*

*P.s. Happy 4th of July…even though now technically it is the 5th of July.  WHERE DOES THE TIME GO!?!?! WHERE?!?!  Anyway, while it was still the 4th of July I tried to grow some balloons in my front lawn but wasn’t too successful*

Really? ‘Cause who eats yogert in bathrooms anyway?

So as usual, my magnificent blogging ideas have sufficiently diminished since returning home from class because most of them have left my head already (which is sad so because I had such high hopes).

I guess the main points that stood out to me the most from class today, centralized around the concepts of insight, and grock. (My father always said I was comma happy, so do, not, mind, all, of, the comas, I use).  As I mentioned in class, it absolutely astonishes me how Vannevar Bush (p.s. sweet name…hold please I am going to go google the name meaning…rarrh! I can not find a name meaning behind Vannevar which makes me even more curious than my initial curiosity…I suppose I will come back to this later)  Anywayyyy back to where what I was talking about…How in this great vast world that we live on did Vannevar ( I will refer to him by his first name as opposed to his last name because his last name makes me think of our current president…boourns!).  WOW THIS IS SO TANGENTY AND MESSY….REMIX! 

In class today we discussed Vannevar Bush and his innovative insights that saw decades into the future for ideas for technological developments that would help us for the future.  Vannevar came up with a machine called a Memex (which has not yet been invented but is similar to our present day internet).  The purpose of the Memex would help solve the faults of human memory and how we get from place to place with ideas and information.  The Memex would be a solution for the flood of information in the world because it would record associations, and keep track of ideas.  My amazement is how someone writing in the 1940’s could have the insight to see enough into the future to think of something like that.  I mean, usually the furthest I think into the future is what I will be doing in the next 5 minutes.  It would be different if Vannevar thought of it during our internet era, because it would be less impressive, but he thought of it BEFORE the internet even existed. HOW DID HE KNOW!?! How could he predict so far into the future of the types of technology we would need?  This brings me to next concept of Grock. 

As defined by Dr. C., the term Grock refers to getting it all at once.  An intuitive grasp of something that allows you to fully understand it, like it hits you and you just get it.  It is hard to explain to others.  I suppose Vannevar experienced a moment of grock when he dreamed up the notion of the Memex (to me, a grock moment reminds me of a eureka moment where the little light bulb switches on over your head).  This grock concept has me worried because will I ever experience a moment of Grock?  Will I be able to make to make that “pole vault” leap that will allow me to have an idea click and allow me to run wild with it?  I like to think that I experience small moments of grock when coming up with ideas for art projects because once I get an idea into my head I just go nuts with it and I pursue it until it is completed.  My hope for this New Media class is that I will experience grock in relation to the project we have to choose to be presented at the class final.  As of now I feel rather helpless at the thought of coming up with a grand idea like Vannevar had.  I am not really familiar with much of the internet language (widget, rss, etc.) so I do not know how I would go about creating something using all of that internet stuff to make a website better or ahhhh I can’t even write what I am trying to say.  I like to think I am an imaginative and creative person but I just feel so stupid that I can’t think of an idea to do for the class project.

 For the project I would like to take influences from things I am passionate about/inspired by/interested in.  For me, this would have to be photography.  Tonight I was introduced to Flickr.  It would be interesting if I could make something in flickr but I don’t really know what that means and how would I do it?  The idea I have been brewing since the first class was to come up with some sort of online critique website (which could come in handy for virtual class rooms or online art courses) where you could combine concepts from SecondLife, and Flickr to have this place where artists could upload their work and have people comment on it with constructive criticism, or there could be a feature that allowed users to draw on the piece to help point out things they would change or do differently…not really such a great idea I guess because there is no way I could ever build something like that.  Hmm until next time, here are some photos from tonight.  CIAO!!

*Somone forgot their hair clip.  I have never seen a hair clip like this before.  It reminded me of a Cicada (you know those insects that make a ton of noise in the summer time)* 

*Mmm nothing like a well balanced meal of artificial preservative glucose crap!  I always feel bad about myself after I eat food like this*

*This could have been ours for the taking!  My brother realized the vending machine door wasn’t shut all the way so he opened it.  Inside we saw the temptations of “free” glorious snacks, and also there was a fat bag of quarters that we could have snagged, but being the upstanding citizens of society that we are, we closed the door without taking anything*

  

  

  

Well let me preface this a little bit by stating that I am not much of a blogger.  I have only written two blogs in my entire life time *gasp* !  Since I am in a sense, a n00b at this blogging business I am not entirely sure what I should be writing about, and how to go about writing it.  I imagine my blogs will be tangenty, and scattered, so there.

While sitting in my New Media class, immersed in a deeply thrilling discussion, multiple thoughts raced through my head along the lines of ‘ohhh remember this for later, it would be good to reflect on in your blog”.  Alas, I am not a memex and therefore I can only remember my most recent thoughts which have nothing to do with my new media class.  My most recent thoughts long for my next day off from work where I hope to catch up on some much needed sleep. Sometimes (often) during class discussions I feel particularly ignorant and therefore unqualified to participate in the discussion because I do not fully understand things until someone else discusses them and sheds a different perspective which allows me to better grasp an idea.  I don’t know if that makes any sense.  It made sense in my head just now.

Oh hey! A thought from class…today I was introduced to the website ‘Second Life’ where you can live in the alternate reality of cyberspace with an avatar that represents you (if not physically then at least personality wise).  This reminded me of Sim City which for me, was a very dangerous game as I would spend hours of my life living in Sim Time without noticing how many hours would fly by in real time (real real time…you know what I mean as in on earth and not in a computer reality).  I am a very curious type of person and so naturally I would like to further investigate this ‘Second Life’ stuff but I am afraid that in doing so I will waste too much time in my real life, and time is what I do not have much of these days.  

In true Sarah fashion, here are a few photographs that I took with my camera phone during the class break/ after class…

*Well I did not actually take this photo, my friend sent it to me in a text message that I recieved during the class break…I was amused because I was visuallizing her walking her leashed cat in her front lawn…if you could see what I visualize, perhaps you would be amused as well.*