Academics Material Digital Culture Politics & Economics Real Life
by Justin
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Goldsmiths: Autumn’s Final Fortnight
Really need to get this post finished before heading back up to London for the ice-encrusted start of Spring Term. So, here’s a compressed summary of Weeks Eleven (30/11 – 4/12) and Twelve (7/12 – 11/12).
Notes, as ever, under the cut.
34 nested browser tabs open on their frontal lobes
“What new species of books, then, have proved themselves fit to survive in the attentional ecosystem of the aughts? What kind of novel, if any, can appeal to readers who read with 34 nested browser tabs open simultaneously on their frontal lobes? And, for that matter, what kind of novel gets written by novelists who spend increasing chunks of their own time reading words off screens?”
- Sam Anderson, ‘When Lit Blew into Bits’, New York Magazine
Goldsmiths: The Ninth Week
In the real world, it’s January 2010, and I really need to finish typing these up before I go back – allowed a massive backlog to build up over the last few weeks of term, so forgive the multi-week delay.
In the Ninth Week (23/11 – 27/11), I ventured out into London, with events at the RSA and Hackney’s SPACE. As the week drew to a close, attempts to pull myself back into some kind of life structure & emotion balance were destabilised by a (as it turned out, relatively minor) health issue … which I dramatically overanalysed, sending my mind spiralling inwards … leading to my abandonment of Friday’s classes in favour of a flight back to rural Sussex & the solace of family.
From before then, though, a photo of the most enjoyable part of the week – the epic quest to Hackney for Usman Haque & Adam Greenfield (on which, more below), and the surreal return via Canary Wharf. It’s always good to get out of New Cross, and check out different bits of London – keeps me sane!
This week’s notes follow, under the cut.
Goldsmiths: The … uh, Eighth Week?
Rapidly losing grip on reality. Reading week disrupted normal time and space, propelling me into a whole world of messed-up circadian rythmns and academic guilt. I’ve was told the week after (the week before the one that’s just gone – confused yet?) was the Eighth Week (16/11 – 20/11), but I’m not so sure …
This week, one of my friends from undergrad was down in London. She’s studying for a PhD on the mating behaviour of massive scary ants, and was learning how to radio-tag insects as a guest of ZSL. Having been woken by the fire alarm test an hour after the start of my Wednesday morning American Lit seminar, I needed exciting animals and zoological facts to cheer me up – so legged it across town to meet her at London Zoo. Hence the photo, which is sufficiently odd to stand as an illustration of Week 8:
Course notes follow, below the cut.
Backchat, some thoughts
Having penned a short definition of ‘the backchannel’ for December’s Wired UK (see subsequent celebratory arm-flailing), it was with a tightening stomach that I read this blog post from web researcher danah boyd:
“… I walked off stage and immediately went to Brady and asked what on earth was happening. And he gave me a brief rundown. The Twitter stream was initially upset that I was talking too fast. My first response to this was: OMG, seriously? That was it? Cuz that’s not how I read the situation on stage. So rather than getting through to me that I should slow down, I was hearing the audience as saying that I sucked. And responding the exact opposite way the audience wanted me to. This pushed the audience to actually start critiquing me in the way that I was imagining it was …”
An interesting discussion of the way an audience can rapidly become a mob, in all it’s pitchfork-waving, windmill-burning glory – full kudos to danah for being so open and honest about the whole thing. There’s also something interesting (and faintly disturbing) about the journalistic/political side of this.
We dwell in possibility
“My focus is on habits, practices and opportunities, not a limited set of concerns or visceral reactions to our changing world. ‘I dwell in possibility’, not a mere assessment of digital spaces’ less perfect or less savoury aspects. I will leave that to others more concerned than I. Change is not disconcerting to me. People do some messed up things when cloaked in anonymity. We will live.”
- Lisa Galarneau, ‘I dwell in possibility’
A spirited defense of techno-optimism, from digital anthropologist (?) Lisa Galarneau.
Goldsmiths: The Sixth & Seventh Weeks
What’s up internets? It’s been a while …
Week Six (2/11 – 6/11) was a reading week, so no timetabled classes. Instead, a bit of frolicking in London, a trip back to the Sussex countryside to see the parents, the peculiar voyeurism of watching novels being penned (keyboarded?) in real-time on Google Wave, and a concerted effort to finish the bulk of a diagnostic essay for my Digital Media course.
M&M at the Tate Modern, with Joseph Beuys‘ installation, (The Pack):
Goldsmiths: The Fifth Week
Fifth Week (26/10 – 30/10)
I’ve fallen a bit behind with these, but this week is reading week (half-term), which gives me a bit of a window to catch up. In retrospect, I seemed to spend a significant chunk of week five in pubs and flat kitchens, hanging out with other MA students. Great fun, but – outside of timetabled workshops & seminars – not particularly conducive to productivity. Also managed to fit in a couple of trips to London town, and an aborted attempt at research training.
Ooh, look – it’s Canary Wharf:
Goldsmiths: The Fourth Week
Fourth Week (19/10 – 23/10)
First tentative forays in student radio. 15 minutes of cheese. Nic Clear (of The Bartlett) talking about his ‘Architectures of the Near Future‘ project. Insomnia. Successful NHS registration. Mouse in the Matrix. My continuing inability to buy a winter jacket. How Like a Leaf, an excellent book-length interview with Donna Haraway.
Photo of the Richard Hoggart Quad:
Goldsmiths: The Third Week
So, I’m shifting these MA updates from a fortnightly to a weekly format. The ideas and theories are coming thick and fast, and – frankly – I’m struggling to hold them in my mind. Here, blogging & note-taking are tools to pin down the vague and the evasive … forcing permanence, turning thought-processes into texts …
There’s a need to trace the trajectories of meaning, the superimposition of ideas, as you can mark the trail of a star in long exposure photography. Highlighting the unexpected links and parallels, I can hope to trace the genealogies of resonance // the ideas I find myself returning to (unconsciously), time after time … invariably, the things in which I’m most interested.
Strong with the photography metaphors, this week. As a loosely linked aside, here’s a photo of Deptford Town Hall, from my increasingly temperamental Nikon camera:
Ace. So, what happened in this, the third week (12/10 – 16/10)?