Kress et. al. Post version 1.1

First impressions of Kress and friends (2005 opinions):

On dichotomies:
I have a love/hate relationship with dichotomies (as I’ve made my relationship with them a dichotomy between love and hate…Derrida has ruined my mind). My opinion here extends to categorization and labels in general. Often, to make a point, it’s necessary. I think, though, that we need to be absolutely as clear as possible with our categorization, and not fall into the trap of creating stark dichotomies that cause more problems than they cure.

I have an issue with this: writing vs. image.
For example:

http://www.rafalfedro.com/gfx/gallery/typography/typography03.jpg

This is a visual reproduction of a piece of digital art. But it includes alphabetic text, so is it an image or writing?

What do we call pre-alphabetic texts: writing or images?

http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/study/images/cave_painting_l.jpg

Are hieroglyphs and logographs considered writing or image?

http://k43.pbase.com/g3/93/399693/2/57416695.CRW_3935_01.jpg

http://www.crystalinks.com/hieroglyphs3.jpg

http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/chinese_character_scripts.gif

What I’m trying to explain is that we need to have a clear theory of writing before attaching labels to semiotic devices. This theory doesn’t have to be accepted as the end-all-be-all in our field, but rather, when using these terms, the person doing so must be able to articulate what they “mean” with regards to the argument at hand. A person’s theory of writing should also be flexible and adapted to the social, historical, technological, etc. events of the time. I am still working on my theory of writing, which is probably why I’m so concerned with this.

Some questions I’ve been asking myself in regards to a theory of writing:
1) What does it mean to write today?
2) What does writing as of us?
3) How is writing influenced by new technologies, and vice versa?
4) Etc…etc…etc…

I have come to terms with one thing in regards to my theory of writing: It is a semiotic mode of representation used to communicate. While that is pretty vague, it does help me to guide my theory.

On the book and the screen:
Another dichotomy, but this one seems more explicitly defined than writing and image. A book is just that: a physical collection of paper bound into a book. A screen is the physical surface that expresses complex computer functions, code, etc. onto a flat screen.

Kress argues that the semiotic changes presently occurring takes place in part because of the “centrality of the medium of the book to the medium of the screen” (6). What I find especially interesting about this ‘phenomenon’ is how the screen influences the physical print text.

Take a look at recent newspaper redesigns:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=47&aid=151319

I’ve mentioned this before in a previous post, but it is certainly relevant here. These redesigns are much more dependent on non-alphabetic representation: photographs, color, graphic elements, etc. They also refer directly/indirectly to their respective online editions. The Hartford Courant uses the period at the end of its masthead as the ‘dot’ in ‘hartfordcourant.com’.

Zach Dodson’s book, boring boring boring, is especially interesting when considered alongside Kress’ discussion of design. Kress argues, “Design focuses forward; it assumes that resources are never entirely apt but will need to be transformed in relation to all the contingencies of this environment now and the demands made” (p. 20). Dodson’s book is a deconstruction of the traditional book as well as a multimodal text. According to the web site below, the super bundle includes:

You'll get the perfect bound version. With an unerring, unflinching eye for satire, Zach Plague’s brilliant hybrid of image and text skewers the art world and those boring enough to fall into its traps. This one is built for reading.

For hanging on the walls, or lining the rabbit cage, you'll also have the awesome set of nine double-sided large format posters (25 x 38 inches). They were created on the giant ‘signatures’ that all books are printed on, and true works of art in their own right.

Finally, enjoy the soothing sounds of the boring boring Audio Book Mash-up. A shortened, punched up, music/spoken word version of the book, read by a cast of characters with the craziest voices we could find.

http://www.featherproof.com/Mambo/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=1&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=30&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=45

The text can be read a number of ways: from left to right in the traditional format; linearly or nonlinearly in the signature/poster format; or hear as an audio book. There is also an online edition, which, strangely enough, mimics the traditional book, complete with turning pages:

http://www.zachplague.com/

I will continue on with my discussion in the version 2.0 post after class on Monday…

Kress, Wysocki, McDonagh and Gender

Kress’s notion of transformation made me think of lesbian feminist poet and critic Adrienne Rich, among other feminists, who consider the ways in which the notion of agency can resist a particular kind of “victimhood” and work to transform the power structure that patriarchy has constructed. As I read the responses to Kress, I noticed Wysocki and McDonagh, Goggin, and Squire also bring up feminist issues. Both take issue with the binary distinction Kress makes between print and image. Wysocki demonstrates the visuality of text by considering the spacing and the page layout as well as the order, based on emphasis, foreground, and background, of images. McDonagh et al. argue that images are primarily symbolic, rather than specific contra Kress’s notion that the verbal is a bunch of empty signifiers waiting for readers to fill it with meaning and images are specific. Wysocki makes a really interesting move when she maps the assumptions Kress, and our society, makes about the verbal and the visual—when she maps these onto notions of binary gender identities: “If human practices do entwine, as I have been arguing, to the extent that the spacing of lettershapes on a piece of paper reflects and helps continue unquestioned restrictions on behavior or that a habit of understanding words and images as opposites reflects and helps continue beliefs about relations between men and women, then it is possible that trying new spaces on pages or exploring the visuality of alphabetic text can be seeds for changes in such practices and beliefs” (59). Wow! She offers this new understanding of the visual and verbal as a way to rethink gender relations. This may be seen as a better understanding of the transformation that Kress begins to articulate in his theory. It does seem that the visual has been associated with all the things that women have been associated under a polarized understanding of gender (what feminist and queer theorist Judith Butler calls the heteosexual matrix of gender relations that require there to be opposites). “Common sense” views seem to suggest that the visual is immanent (connected to earth and body), whereas the verbal is abstract (connected to the mind). This is representative of the Cartesian mind/body split. However, as McDonagh explains, it is the emotional and symbolic that has drawn professionals in the visual design field to that line of work (82). Philosopher Ken Wilbur argues that to overcome the mind/body split that we inherit through the Western tradition, we must re-integrate the body, earth, and emotion into our lives. He calls this becoming the centaur—being a hybrid fully connected to mind and body in conscious awareness. Wysocki seems to be suggesting a way to use writing technology to become a centaur. Any thoughts on gender in these pieces??

Design and Rhetoric

Kress argues that authorship must give way to designership. Design, he argues, helps us to deal with the shifting world of technology that has come upon us because of the shift from print to the image. Whereas authorship and print assume a static world, according to Kress, design and the use of multiple modes is more useful in our current sociohistorical moment. With this shift to design he sees a wider capacity for agency, an agency that responds to the world and the modes through transformation rather than acquisition, which he relates to language / literacy acquisition (20). Since the decline of the authority of authorship, Kress argues that the audience has become increasingly important in designing so that modes are chosen for their “aptness of fit” (19). He concludes from this that rhetoric has subsequently “re-emerged” (19).

The shift from print to image / design can be seen in a project put out by Equality Ohio, a statewide organization dedicated to LGBT rights, called Our Stories. They have been doing this project for three years, each year telling the stories of LGBT individuals and straight allies, those who combat heteronormativity. The first year was a book of more than 80 stories from individuals in Ohio who are LGBT or allies. This may be seen as further evidence for Prior’s critique of Kress, as it is a book that allows for multiple entry points (see Prior 25). Nonetheless, there is a shift from print with images to the second-year video interviews and finally to the third year (just released August 20th, 2008) of digital narratives. This is one instance that supports Kress’s notion of agency through design. These eight digital stories use film, voice-overs, still images, and music to convey their messages. This digital ensemble shows a recognition of the affordances the modes allow to the designers. The Center of Digital Storytelling worked with Equality Ohio and these eight participants to help create the videos.

Here is a link to one of them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU5-RFmYnOw. If you search “digital stories equality ohio” on youtube.com you will find all of them. The purpose of these videos is political in that they are meant to convince the (straight) public that LGBT people deserve equality. Equality Ohio was formed and has been shaped by the political context of 2004, where gay marriage exploded onto the national scene. Therefore, many of the videos focus on family. Also, there is a rhetoric of “normality” and “sameness” that underpins the entire project (for critiques of this politics see queer theorists Michael Warner and Judith Butler and LGBT historian John D’Emelio among others). Nonetheless, I selected this video to talk about because of Kress’s argument that rhetoric has re-emerged for designers. This video’s rhetoric is sophitocated, at lest in its use of kairos, timing (and potentially kairos used as metis, cunning), compared to the others.

The video focuses on a lesbian woman’s relationship with her older brother. The logic goes like this: (1) Family is important to LGBT people because we have good relationships with our siblings (a response to “family values” rhetoric that ignores the fact that LGBT peeps are born into the heterosexual matrix of their family of origin and create families of their own—families of choice, involving any of the following: partners, children, and / or friends). (2) There are straight people who are supportive of LGBT issues and you, too, can become one (The message of gay liberation in the 70s—“We are everywhere”—has turned into almost a strange Uncle Sam message--“We want you!”). This message is derived from the portrait of her brother as an ally. (3) LGBT people just want to be “normal” and have a family like straight people do. See, we are just like you (a response to pathological notions of “deviant” sexual identification and gender-variant individuals). By ending the video with her plan that she and her partner will have kids and that they’ll play with her brother’s kids, she is also trying to identify with a straight audience that has similar hopes for their prospective children; although the assumption is that all straight folks want and will have children. The other glaring assumption is that LGBT peeps want to be like straight people. This is simply not the case for many of us.

The video is all about timing! The designer is crafty enough, and understands her audience enough, to start with “family values”—her relationship with her brother. It is something that, presumably the audience will connect with emotionally. Also, the choice of using video clips that have that old-time flickering quality to it (not sure if it is just old film or if that was a manipulation on the part of the designer) also may connect emotionally with the audience through nostalgia for “the good old days.” It is not until half-way through the video that she reveals she is a lesbian. At that point, she believes that she has established a “family values” ethos; evidence of her relationship with her brother stands as her credibility. Furthermore, she locates herself in a place, a topoi??, of “normality” by identifying her commitment ceremony to her partner in the same breath as she outs herself. These choices may be explained through Kress’s notion of “aptness of fit.” She certainly had the audience in mind when creating this video. I wonder how effective it will be. For me, I found the pathos appealing and even got a bit teary-eyed, despite my different political agenda that instead of seeking to normalize LGBT individuals, examines the ways that heterosexuality has been normalized and uproot those built assumptions from our world, especially the very hetero-sexy and “family friendly” public sphere.

Just to give a decidedly different approach to LGBT issues, consider the British organization Stonewall. This organization gets its name from the bar in New York where gay liberation began in 1969. The bar was raided by the police, which was common at the time. However, what was uncommon and what sparked the gay liberation movement (you won’t get this history lesson in high school by the way) were the transgendered individuals of color who protested the raid for days. With that in mind this organization started an education campaign in response to bullying in schools with this billboard: http://wallflowermag.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/get-over-it.jpg. The billboard reads, “Some people are gay. Get over it!”

Critiquing Kress

At the onset of the Iraq war, I found myself feeling very small and helpless. I remember seeing televised images of aerial bombings--vivid depictions of the "shock and awe" phase of the war. At the time, most of the people that I know were interpreting these images in a positive way. They were seeing in these explosions the destruction of an enemy aimed at killing Americans. Meanwhile, I was seeing in these explosions the destruction of communities and the needless killing of Iraqi civilians. They were both impressed and satisfied with the images. I was was depressed and horrified.

Of course, their interpretations were guided by a powerful discourse that had been circulating in the country long before the bombs were actually dropped. Political leadership had been constructing an Iraqi in words (speeches and texts) for over a year. News media had been disseminating these words of political leaders on a mass scale, making it impossible for the public to miss or ignore them. Furthermore, when the News reported what the polticians said, it added words and images of its own, which further suggested that there was a dangerous man in Iraq with connections to terrorists and ambitions to supply them with nuclear weapons. Given this discourse that created an enemy--the discourse of political leaders combined with the metadiscourse of news media outlets--it was really difficult to "read" the image of bombs dropping on Iraq as a bad thing. It seemed like our very lives depended on these bombs being dropped. It seemed like these explosions required our approval.

I share these recollections not just to make a political point, but because they tend to suggest some limits to the arguments posited by Gunther Kress in his C&C article. First, Kress argues that images, unlike words, are full of meaning, and very specific. They show the world, while words merely tell the world (15-16). But the above story illustrates that images, just like words, are open to interpretation. Certainly, the image of bombs were being dropped on Baghdad was concrete and specific. Nevertheless, the meaning attached to the bombs varied from person to person. The meaning of the image was hardly precise.

It is also worth pointing out that the binary the Kress suggests between words and images is, as many other authors have pointed out, a bit misleading. What the above example suggests is that a given image always exists within a universe of words. The image of exploding bombs simply could not be understood without the words that surrounded it. First, there the words on the screen in the news broadcast: the words that said, "Operation Iraqi Freedom Begins: Bombing Baghdad" or some variation on this. These metadiscursive words shape the understanding of the image. Without them we might not know who is dropping the bombs or where. But with them, we know who and where and are able to connect these facts to the already-constructed discourse that talked about an "Iraq War" before these bombs were ever dropped. Thus, the image of the bombs exploding plus the words in the caption connect us to those other words that came before--the speeches, the reports that constructed the enemy in Iraq, that made possible this bombing campaign. Kress notes that communication is always multimodal, but in his piece he seems to separate the word from the depiction--as if they are exclusive categories. In practice, words and images are constantly interacting with each other; moreover words and images in the here and now are easily connected to words and images from the recent past. Meaning is made over time, over weeks, months and years, and across many images and texts. It is not made in single moment through a single image or text. The images of the dropping bombs "meant" only insofar as they were connected to the news reports and speeches leading up to this event.

Finally, I would like to question Kress's notion that we are somehow beyond a project of critique because we have entered into a period when social systems and structures are already in crisis. First, I agree with Kress on the crucial point that the current situation is requires more than critique. It does indeed require action, agency, reform. Still, I stongly dispute Kress's claim that social systems and structures are in crisis. Certainly, in the sphere of communication new media opens up new possibilities and challenges old realities. On the other hand, some old realities are very much stable. The above example shows how power concentrated into the hands of political leaders and news media can influence public understanding. If you ask me, this power, which rests in the assumed authority of the politicians and their access to the means of mass communication, shows no signs of crumbling. Indeed, there is a very secure system in place when it comes to manufacturing enemies, a system that is challenged only a little by the new media revolution. To oversimplify the process--when a President wants a war, s/he constructs an enemy, knowing very well that the news media will report this construction to the public. Thus a powerful political system is intimately tied with a powerful press. The words and images of these conjoined twins reach the ears and eyes of every single American. This is a reality. It is a reality that is not in crisis. It is a reality that does not shake at its foundation because people are using youtube and blogging.

Kress argues that the affordances provided by the screen allow reader to become author--to become designer--and to challenge existing notions of authority. He argues that the individual acquires a kind of agency that allows him or her to act transformationally in the world. Critique, he says, unsettles, but design transforms. I simply do not see how designers are doing anything to transform the extraordinary power of the political-military-industrial-press complex. And as far as I know, the systems that support racism and sexism, the systems that keep two thirds of the world in poverty, that allow half of the world's population (3 billion people) to live on less than 2 dollars a day--these systems are not in crisis and they are not being brought to their knees by designers and their depictions. Is it our western bias--our myopic view of a wealthy, technological society--that allows us to claim that we are redesigning the world? Why do we continue to ignore the global system of social injustice that stands stable as ever, unscathed by our design? Why do we ignore that communication--however it may be changing--can be controlled by powerful actors when they so desire? And what is the actual effect of individual designers and their transformations of the world when compared to the actual effect of these powerful actors and their transformations of the world?

The answer to these questions should trouble us. They should cause us to think critically about what new media really afford individual designers. They should cause us reign in the rhetoric of "transformation" and "revolution". There is still a place for critique. Certainly there needs to be a place for reform. But let's not lose our heads: the system is not in crisis. Transformation of the system has not occured and is not likely to occur just because images are displacing words.

Part 1 Kress et all

One thing that Fortune’s and Moran’s articles made me think about was the role dialects play in images. Throughout most of the articles, there was a discussion about the grammar of images, and a discussion about how we understand word and image (as separate or a dichotomy) and what that means for our classrooms. I was thinking of African American Vernacular English, and the absence of the third person singular, or the habitual be in writings where AAVE speakers are aiming for Standard Written English. How will the grammar of images affect them? Will the use of visuals and images place those who speak non-standard dialects on a more equal playing ground as compared to those who speak Mainstream American English, or will speakers of non-standard English dialects still be at a disadvantage with the addition of images? Kress states “Representation and communication are motivated by the social; its effects are outcomes of the economic and the political. To those or act otherwise is to follow phantoms” (6). So… my thought is that the addition of images is going to make it even harder for non-standard speakers to reach a socially acceptable level of standard written (and visual) English.

When Kress was discussing the IoE, he comments that “the author(s) of this page clearly have in mind that visitors will come to this page from quite different cultural and social spaces, in differeing ways, and with differening interests, not necessarily known to or knowable by the maker(s) of the page” (9). Does this make the multimodal web pages more ideological? More culturally sensitive? I feel as though Kress was discussion more about the gains and losses of the different modes and mediums, but I can’t help but think about who gains accesses to these different modes, mediums, and socially accepted practices, and who loses access. What will become the new dominant mode for the elite? Will it stay as the book? Will it be the web text? Or will the elite discover something different, as others gain more access to the current dominate mode for the elite?

One final thought for the first half of the readings, instead of thinking about word and image as separate, or as a dichotomy, why don’t we think about word and image as a venn diagram?

The joys of Latour, and then some...

This post is a potpourri of info related to what we've been discussing recently:

Bruno Latour's web site:
http://www.bruno-latour.fr/
This includes presentations, articles, etc...both in French and English for all of you bilingualists out there...

Resources page of the Society for Social Studies of Science
http://www.4sonline.org/resources.htm
Journals, movies, and course syllabi on topics in technology, society, science, etc...

TED!!!
http://www.ted.com/
Technology, Entertainment, Design conference web site with loads of videos on various topics ranging from, you guessed it, technology to entertainment to design.

21 Biggest Technology Flops
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9012345
Lists such as this are always entertaining, and do allow us to think about why a technology is considered "failed" or "dead".

Top 30 Failed Technology Predictions
http://listverse.com/history/top-30-failed-technology-predictions/
Predictions from the past...

Wired Gadget Blog
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/
Blog that discusses new gadgets. Enough said.

More PRT excitement!
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/10/personal-pod--1.html
Aramis' death wasn't in vain...

The Aramis Lectures

The Aramis Lectures

I thought it might be helpful to go through Aramis and write out all the first lines of the professor’s lectures—to see if we might glean something from them in terms of shape of the methodology, or at least, to help with the Wikipedia entry:

“How to frame a technological investigation? By sticking to the framework and the limits indicated by the interviewees themselves” (p. 18)

“By definition, a technological project is a fiction, since at the outset, it does not exist, and there is no way it can exist yet because it is in the project phase” (p. 23)

“The difference between dreams and reality is variable” (p.28)

“No technological project is technological first and foremost” (32).

“Justice and young engineers are hard on projects that fail” (35).

“The market forces of the private sector are actors like the others” (41)

“The actors come in varying sizes; this is the whole problem with innovation” (44).

“To translate is to betray: ambiguity is part of translation” (48).

“Innovations have to interest people and things at the same time; that’s really the challenge” (56).

“Men and things exchange properties and replace one another; this is what gives technological properties their full savor” (61)

“The reality, feasibility, and representativeness of a project are progressive concepts, but they are also controversial; that’s why it’s so hard to get a clear idea about the technologies involved.” (66).

“We are never so numerous as we think; this is precisely what makes technological projects so difficult” (71).

“About technological projects, one can only be subjective. Only those projects that turn into objects, institutions, allow for objectivity” (75)

“No on can study a technological project without maintaining the symmetry of explanations” (78).

“To study a technological project, one must move constantly from signs to things, and vice versa” (80).

“A technological project is neither realistic or unrealistic; it takes on reality, or losesit, by degrees” (85).
He time frame for innovations depends on the geometry of the actors, not on the calendar” (88).

“Projects drift; that’s why they’re called research projects” (91)

“The only way to increase a project’s reality is to compromise, to accept sociotechnical compromises” (99).

A project isn’t one project. It’s taken as a whole or as a set of disconnected parts, depending on whether circumstances are favorable or unfavorable” (106).

“The topology of technological projects is as peculiar as their arithmetic” (108).

“What counts in a technological project, is deciding what has to be negotiated, and deciding on an official doctrine that will make it possible to proceed with any negotiation at all” (112).

“There are two models for studying innovations: the linear model and the whirlwind model. Or, if you prefer, the diffusion model and the translation model” (118)

“the more a technological project progresses, the more the role of technology decreases, in relative terms: such is the paradox of development” (126)

“A technological project is not in a context; it gives itself a context, or sometimes does not give itself one” (133).

“The work of contextualizing makes the connection between a context and a project completely unforeseeable” (137).

“Technological projects become reversible or irreversible in relation to the work of contextualization” (142).

“The shortest path between a technological project and its completion might be the crookedest one” (149).

“During a given period, the form, scope, and power of the context change for every techno project” (154).

“The actors don’t have a strategy; they get their battle plans, contradictory ones, form other actors” (162).

“The actors create both their society and their sociology, their language and their meta language” (167).

“TO study technological projects you have to move from as classical sociology—which has fixed frames of reference—to a relativistic sociology—which has fluctuating referents” (169)

“Technological projects are deployed in a variable-ontology world; that’s the result of the interdefinition of actors” (173).

“To survive in a variable-ontology world, the promoters of a technological project have to imagine little bridges that let them temporarily ensure their stability” (175).

“The actors themselves are working to solve the problem raised by the relativist sociology in which they’ve situated one another” ( 179).

“Economics is not the reality principle of technology; technology has to be realized gradually, like the rest of the mechanism for which it paves the way ‘(183).

“Consumer demand and consumer interest are negotiable like everything else, and shaping them constitutes an integral part of the project” (187).

“The interpretation offered by the relativist actors are performatives” (194).

“There are two major sociologies; one is classical, the other relativist (or rather relational)”(199).

“Mechanisms cope wit the contradictions of humans” (206).

“A technological project always gets more complicated because the engineers want to reinscribe in it what threatens to interrupt its course” (209).

“Every technology may be a project, an object, or an exchanger” (212).

“It is in the detours that we recognize a technological act; this has been true since the dawn of time” (215).

“The work of folding in technological mechanisms can go from complication to complexity” (219).

Thanks to computers, we now know that there are only differences of degree between matter and texts” (222).

“Technological mechanisms are not anthromorphs any more than humans are technologists” (225).


Hmmmmm.

writing: is it a black box?

As the Aramis designers did with their project, we too often want writing to stay the same (fit our original ideal), and yet we still don’t see how we change it.

By taking advantage of new writing technologies but wanting to limit our theory of writing to print linguistic text, we follow in the footsteps of the Aramis designers. Take a look at this quote from Van Ittersum’s essay:

As scholars such as Bertram C. Bruce and Andee Rubin (1993) and Christina Haas (1996) have noted, there is no singular “computer,” only situated instantiations of various hardware and software put to different ends by a variety of people. Yet, for the most part, these assorted configurations are taken as one, obscuring the differences that shape the diverse range off literate activity (Prior, 1998) they support. (pp. 143-144)

The connection I’m about to make might be a stretch, but it does seem plausible. As argued above, although we combine various parts for different purposes, we still reduce this collective technology to a black box computer. It seems as though we reduce writing in much the same way. If we look back to Stephen Kline’s essay, a technology can be many things, including a “knowledge, technique, know-how, or methodology,” and “a sociotechnical system of use” (p. 211). By those definitions, writing is very much a technology (as we’ve discussed in class). That much is obvious.

This realization (writing is a technology) helps connect Van Ittersum’s point with our view of writing as a fixed system/black box. Yet, we compose with so many different “parts” for so many different purposes.

There is no singular “writing,” only situated instantiations of various modes of meaning-making put to different ends by a variety of people.

*When I say “we” I mean our friend, society.

Ode to the sentence... Ode to the long sentence...

I am trying to develop some general ideas about “Aramis was an exciting discourse” and “Aramis is one long sentence.” Most, “Aramis is one long sentence” because it seems that no matter what we are working on, new technological development, research paper, lesson plans, etc, we are asked to summarize it in a sentence (article abstracts, program book descriptions, objective for the lesson plan, research question). I have never thought of the idea of one (long) sentence seeming so key to the field of rhet/comp, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that the ability to be concise (in one sentence) or a little more elaborate (one long sentence) is an important component.

[I am writing this in word, and am unable to get online at the moment so I apologize for the lack of page numbers, as my physical book has not come in yet.]

I am thinking about the part of the book where Aramis is a sentence, and each new sentence adds something, until Aramis is one long sentence. It seemed to me that each new addition to the sentence, each new added length, came from some actor – an interview that gave them more information about the history of Aramis, new reports that were filed away, new meeting minutes, each new sentence had an addition from a new actor. The inventor did not sit down and write a long sentence and poof Aramis was a long sentence, but it seemed that as the engineers worked on the project, as those in politics had input, Aramis continue to grown in its sentence length. I feel like this idea should be able to go a step further, outside of the Aramis context and work with other technologies, but I am missing that connection step. I see how language and discourse works to create technologies (concepts of technology, patents seem all language and discourse based, grant paper work, protocol, ect) there is no argument that language/discourse is important, and not only for those working directly on the project, but for those within society, the public authorities, those working on other projects. At one point in the book there was a discussion about it not being a pertain question about technology, not about society, but about sociotechnological compromise – and compromise can’t exist without discourse. Each actor would have their own “Aramis is…” sentence, and how would they, as a group, reconcile those sentences into one long “Aramis is sentence?” I think I may do some prelim- research on the sentence as our sound bites for research, for description, for technology. I am interested to see if there is more out there. There has to be more to the sentence; there just has to be!

Don't step on the ANT! (Part 2-- dichotomies & context)

Post 2 for 10.12-10.17: [To follow up my last post, here I'm continuing to try to work out tenets of ANT. I'm focusing on 2 main points though: the breakdown of geographic and metaphoric dichotomies and the role of context in ANT.]

Breaking geographic and metaphoric dichotomies: Allowing for fluctuation and flexibility seems exceptionally important in ANT. Latour notes that actors’ size, goals and even “isotopy” are all negotiable. Actors are not stable (p. 176). Actors can no longer be viewed as large vs. small, for instance. Instead, they’re constantly in flux due to the ever changing relationships with each other. The scope or frame is inscribed by the actors themselves, not the researchers.The ANT approach observes the acts of inscription, and avoids imposition of a pre-existing context. The imposition of context is a sort of geographical frame which delineates what is and what is not available as an object of study. Latour though, resists this pre-imposition of context and insists instead on an emergent sense of context initiated by the actors.This article was particularly helpful to me in thinking about how ANT works to break down spatial dichotomies: http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9801/msg00019.html In this article, Latour details how ANT disrupts near/far, local/global,small/large, and inside/outside dichotomies.Contexts: Returning to Aramis, I’ve pulled out a couple of quotes to further explain his approach to context.1) “A technological project is not in a context; it gives itself a context, or sometimes does not give itself one” (p. 133) and “Contextualization is fabricated and negotiated like everything else” (p. 143). These two quotes demonstrate resistance to a priori assumptions of context and they help demonstrate Latour’s insistence that we focus on the network itself, not our own scientific/philosophical agendas. Every methodology is imbricated with assumptions. Latour wants us to resist those assumptions. Of course, the challenge here, is even a resistance to those assumptions is filled with its own methodological assumptions and values.2) “Every context is composed of individuals who do or do not decide to connect the fate of a project with the fate of the small or large ambitions they represent” (p. 137). This last quote demonstrates the actors’ role in constituting the context, and it further shows ANT’s intense focus on observing actor-driven research.

Absolutely Tangential...but hey, it's Techne and Technology!

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=26634&post=328235&uid=10337532241#topic_top

This was a discussion on a new feature on the discussion board for a silly FaceBook game that I play, MouseHunt, that turned into a brief discussion of literacy, technology, etc. Makes me happy.

You can ignore all the gibber jabber about alcohol, e-food, and partying in a mousoleam. We are freaks, I openly admit it.

*chuffs on*

Elliot

discourse and language and latour

Following Beth's lead, I'd like to approach another of Pam's points for consideration and attempt to summarize some of what Latour has to say about the role of discourse and language in the development of technologies.

I think pages 80 and 81, as well as 222-223, are helpful. Here Latour makes a telling remark: "To study a technological project, one must constantly move from signs to things, and vice versa." For Latour any technological project starts out as a discourse--usually an "exciting" discourse. People talk about, conceptualize, draw schematics, calculate logistics, produce statistics, create texts, write reports and offer explanations of a project before its ever made. Latour says that a project is first and foremost "a story," "a fiction." Eventually, if a project is well-received, the textual form of it shifts to an objective reality. The calculations and commands are "delegated" to a part of the technological apparatus. A chip, for instance, is compelled to do the work of a person. However, the object is always, and variously, interpreted and understood through discourse. Thus, the thing shifts back to realm of signs. And the signs, in turn, continue to work at creating things. Technologies themselves are texts which carry human inscriptions. An object always begins with signs, is always covered over with signs, and is always inscribed with signs. As Latour says, programs are written and chips are engraved. The interesting thing is that once technologies are written, they do what they say--they act.