Project 3

 
Stage III   Net­work Engage­ment
Project: MemeMo­r­ial

• 30 points total (includ­ing Poet­ics & Reflection)

• see com­po­nent parts/tasks below and on com­po­nents page

 

» Required Pages & Project Components:

 

• Assem­blage Tes­ti­mony (10 points; 10–20 frag­ments [as blog entries])
  Con­cetto (5 points; emblem = motto + com­pos­ite image + epi­gram)
  Periph­eral (5 points; image + description/proposal, ~200–400 words)
  • fol­low­ing Ulmer/FRE exam­ples plus updat­ing (like Arroyo & Saper pro­pose):
    “MemeMo­r­ial” for par­tic­i­pa­tory cul­ture in net­work media ecol­ogy (dig­i­tal rhetoric applied)

Poet­ics (5 points; 300–500 words)
Reflec­tion (5 points; 400–600 words)

 
 
» Design Page (Tech/Layout guide)

» Project Com­po­nents
 

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Chal­lenge: “The goal of cumu­la­tive MEmo­ri­als is col­lec­tive self-knowledge.” (EM p.140)

“The Medi­ated Wit­ness”: “design an elec­trate commemoration—a Memorial—for a dis­as­ter” (xxxiii)

• “The MEmo­r­ial is a prac­tice devel­oped for a new insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of civic life online (begin­ning with the Inter­net as a vir­tual pub­lic sphere).” — “an inter­face by means of which cit­i­zens could con­sult the col­lec­tive wis­dom of Inter­net data­bases.” (xxxiv-v)
• “a prac­tice for con­sul­tants with only medi­ated access to the data of prob­lems. A pre­lim­i­nary ques­tion con­cerns how to adapt the lived, direct expe­ri­ence (as vic­tim, eye­wit­ness, or bystander) of dis­as­ter to a prac­tice treat­ing medi­ated expe­ri­ence.” (xxix)

 
 

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• Chal­lenge: “The goal of cumu­la­tive MEmo­ri­als is col­lec­tive self-knowledge.”
  

  “The chal­lenge for the Emer­A­gency is to develop an approach to pol­icy for­ma­tion that opens a new per­spec­tive on lit­er­ate soci­ety by means of a cat­e­gory for­ma­tion native to the image appa­ra­tus of elec­tracy.” (xxi)
  “Elec­tracy makes it pos­si­ble to revisit our rela­tion­ship to dis­as­ter, our rela­tion­ship to events that resist every effort of problem-solution. To write the dis­as­ter is to find the group sub­ject in me.” (140)

   

• Goal: Enable the poten­tial for mourn­ing and con­sul­ta­tion in Elec­tracy — through form unique to and appro­pri­ate for new appa­ra­tus — for a dis­as­ter and on-going prob­lem.
   
  

  “The MEmo­r­ial is a prac­tice devel­oped for a new insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of civic life online (begin­ning with the Inter­net as a vir­tual pub­lic sphere.” (xxxiv)

   

• Task: Cre­ate a mul­ti­me­dia and mul­ti­modal web­site, using Word­Press blog, to accom­plish key goals; work in Elec­tracy to com­pose by syn­cretism and con­duc­tion.
   
  “The appro­pri­ate site for mourn­ing these ‘unre­mark­able’ dis­as­ters is the Inter­net as liv­ing mon­u­ment.” (xv)

 

• Reflex­ive knowl­edge: implicit (in project);
  — explic­itly stated in required Poet­ics and Reflec­tion discussions.

 
 

 
» Assem­blage Tes­ti­mony details:

“Medi­ated Wit­ness” — Frag­ments in mul­ti­ple modes
(mate­r­ials selected from entire Popy­cle + Disaster/Event/Issue)
• » The “assem­blage tes­ti­mony” dig­i­tal com­po­si­tion will include het­ero­ge­neous ele­ments, using cul­tural & expe­ri­en­tial mate­ri­als from entire par­a­digm:
  nar­ra­tives (2 min.), “schol­arly dis­course” (2 sources), auto­bi­og­ra­phy, and mul­ti­me­dia (e.g. found & orig­i­nal con­tent, such as videos & digitally-manipulated images).
• Net­work Inter­face — Ora­cle Func­tion (Col­lec­tive Blindspot, Abject/Sacrifice)
• Par­tic­i­pa­tory Cul­ture — Pro­mote engage­ment in new media ecol­ogy
  (dig­i­tal rhetoric applied)

 

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» Site design

— re-format
→ see model site

• “Home” page (dis­tinct con­tent from Project)
• “Entries” (or “Posts”) page
• “About” page
  Updated, briefly intro­duc­ing your­self and the pur­pose of this blog host­ing your project for course exper­i­ment (Emer­A­gency) for public/civic sphere.
• Project 3 page
  • links to rel­e­vant project pages

 
 
 

Mate­ri­als page (required, in addi­tion to com­ment citations)

This is essen­tially a “Bib­li­og­ra­phy,” the web ana­logue to an essay’s “Works Cited” page: pro­vide source info. about the “mate­ri­als” that appear within your project. Specif­i­cally: cul­ture / enter­tain­ment sources; schol­arly doc­u­ments and info; media and ref­er­ences from pop cul­ture. This sec­tion iden­ti­fies the com­po­nent mate­ri­als that you’ve used to cre­ate the assem­blage testimonial.

 
 
 
Poet­ics page (5 pts; 300–500 words)

Two-fold pur­pose:
(1) as with pre­vi­ous projects, describe the process of com­pos­ing, your method (chor­ag­ra­phy) and ratio­nale for employ­ing the spe­cific lessons from the­ory (read­ings) and from relays (sociopo­et­ics); pre­cise & con­cise, directly address­ing spe­cific aspects of project rel­a­tive to assign­ment objec­tives (and gen­eral course goals?).
 
(2) Addi­tion­ally, and most impor­tantly: with your project as exem­plar, dis­cuss “guide for uncon­ven­tional dis­course” (new mode of think­ing and expres­sion). Ide­ally, some­one else could emu­late your poet­ics, want­ing to com­pose a work of engaged com­mem­o­ra­tion or con­sul­ta­tion through “assem­blage expres­sion”: an alter­na­tive to “click­tivism” and spec­ta­cle, over­com­ing com­pas­sion fatigue in dro­mos­phere.
More directly: describe your method of think­ing and com­pos­ing with entire par­a­digm, as an engaged pro­ducer under­tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for medi­ated wit­ness and tes­ti­mony (using your emblem as your “com­pass”?) Be spe­cific, rel­a­tive to your project com­po­si­tion in terms of dig­i­tal rhetoric and appa­ra­tus theory.
— Note that this sec­ond objec­tive should be main focus, with sim­ple poet­ics tasks (first instruc­tions above) inte­grated within dis­cus­sion as exam­ple (ref­er­enc­ing spe­cific deci­sions and ele­ments of final work).

 
 
 

Reflec­tion page (5 pts; 500–600 words)

 

— note: need not address all ques­tions, and should not answer in “list” fash­ion; con­sider as many of these ele­ments as you can address in reflex­ive fashion.

1) Eval­u­ate your project (briefly), from per­spec­tive of class topics/issues and terms:

• new/innovative type of dis­course? as civic engage­ment suit­able to Inter­net pub­lic sphere? mul­ti­ple modes, includ­ing aes­thetic expres­sion (chora), rather than strictly doc­u­ment­ing? (how so?) any short­com­ings, par­tic­u­larly if con­ven­tional in terms of lit­er­acy or argu­ment (or click­tivism, or spectacle)?

• Unique results of con­sul­ta­tion through MemeMo­r­ial using emblem and of tes­ti­mo­nial? (spec­ify; also, to what extent suc­cess­fully com­poses with entire par­a­digm?) Suc­cess­ful com­mem­o­ra­tion (abject loss, sac­ri­fice, col­lec­tive blindspot)?
• Com­po­si­tion suit­able for con­tem­po­rary net­work media ecol­ogy (dro­mos­phere)? Spe­cific prop­er­ties of “assem­blage expres­sion” that demon­strate elec­tracy? (in terms of cul­tural forms and social prac­tices)
  Prospects for periph­eral, espe­cially toward civic engage­ment — ora­cle func­tion? par­tic­i­pa­tory cul­ture? — and con­sul­ta­tion of problem?

 

2) “Self-reflexive” knowl­edge, from com­pos­ing and read­ing your project (most important).

• Results of our exper­i­ment? (semester-long; consider/review — espe­cially against/beyond “click­tivism” in dromosphere)

• New insights? Impli­ca­tions of your/our work?
  (about “media engage­ment” per­spec­tive; appa­ra­tus the­ory, elec­tracy; civic dis­course, Inter­net pub­lic sphere, net­work ecol­ogy, “com­pas­sion fatigue,” infor­ma­tion over­load; dig­i­tal rhetoric, aes­thetic modes of thought & expression)

• Advan­tages or lim­i­ta­tions of this type of work? Impli­ca­tions?
  Prospec­tive appli­ca­tion, ben­e­fits, and/or poten­tial?
  — of “assem­blage expres­sion” com­po­si­tion? (for com­mem­o­ra­tion, con­sul­ta­tion, and/or col­lec­tive self-knowledge)
  — of “attune­ment” (“Pop­cy­cle”) self-knowledge / per­spec­tive for yourself?