Invention — Workshops

 

 
 
Stage III   Assem­blage Tes­ti­mony
Project: “MemeMo­r­ial”
 
 
M 08-Dec   Project Work­shop — led by groups

  • Review key instructions/method (from notes) & project com­po­nents + pro­pose spe­cific com­pos­ing ideas/techniques (dig­i­tal rhetoric)
  • Main top­ics: Emer­A­gency, net­work wit­ness, assem­blage tes­ti­mo­nial, dis­as­ter (event), memo­r­ial con­sul­ta­tion (for future, decision)
  • For groups lead­ing work­shop: dou­ble par­tic­i­pa­tion creditcom­ment before class what spe­cific com­po­nent reviewing/proposing
    (on-going dis­cus­sion: Q&A before/during/after class in com­ments)

 

      “The term sociopo­etic describes heuretic texts that use social sit­u­a­tions or social net­works as a can­vas; inti­mate bureau­cra­cies being a type of sociopo­etic work. […] an aes­thetic approach that asks to shift the focus from for­mal issues or cul­tural con­texts or social sci­en­tific sur­veys, toward exam­in­ing how sit­u­a­tions func­tion poet­i­cally” — Saper

 
 
 
W 10-Dec   Project Work­shop — led by groups

  • Review key instructions/method (from notes) & project com­po­nents
    + pro­pose spe­cific com­pos­ing ideas/techniques (dig­i­tal rhetoric) with exam­ples
  • Main top­ics: Emblem (con­cetto), Periph­eral, Net­work Inter­face (ora­cle func­tion, indi­vid­ual + col­lec­tive), con­sul­ta­tion design for par­tic­i­pa­tory culture
  • For groups lead­ing work­shop: dou­ble par­tic­i­pa­tion creditcom­mentbefore class what spe­cific com­po­nent reviewing/proposing
    on-going dis­cus­sion: Q&A before/during/after class in com­ments
    — includ­ing replies to stu­dents’ email questions

 

 
 
 
F 12-Dec   Stu­dio Project Work­shop — Works-in-Progress

  • Due project in-progress:
             site re-formatted; assem­blage tes­ti­monal com­posed (10–20 entries + tags); emblem draft (sketch or col­lage images)
     
  • Activ­ity: peer feed­back (dig­i­tal rhetoric: arrangement/organization) & tech sup­port
    — dis­cuss: mul­ti­modal com­pos­ing (nar­ra­tive, infor­ma­tion, expres­sion) + effects; work­ing in Elec­tracy;
    design soft­ware + tech­niques
     
  • Brain­storm: remain­ing com­po­nents (emblem, periph­eral, ora­cle inter­face); par­tic­i­pa­tory poet­ics (MemeMor­ial) & net­work rhetoric (on-going dis­cus­sion: Q&A before/during/after class in com­ments)

 
 
» Due (S 13-Dec) Project 3
— Poet­ics & Reflec­tion due S 14-Dec

 
 
 
 

John Craig Free­man: Oper­a­tion Green­run II Rocky Flats, Col­orado. Novem­ber, 1990


 

chor­ag­ra­phy (cog­ni­tive map­ping):
“The Berlin Wall fell in Novem­ber 1989, the same month Rocky Flats was shut down.“
— Free­man, “Rocky Flats Then & Now
 
method: mate­r­ial link — across pop­cy­cle — via Rte 93 Bill­boards — mood of thought (attune­ment)?

 
 

About GHink

-- Gary Hink, Ph.D. Digital Composition Faculty Program for Writing & Rhetoric
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23 Comments

  1. DISASTER
    Dis­as­ter
    Event (sin­gu­lar, his­toric, spe­cific)
    include infor­ma­tion from research — source (at least one)
    use par­tic­u­lar details as “iconic” → “emblem­atic” (of sit­u­a­tion com­plex­ity: sac­ri­fice, blindness/blindspot, value)
    on-going prob­lem (con­sul­ta­tion for future/decision)
    pub­lic pol­icy (at least one exam­ple, from research — source)
    ref­er­ences to cur­rent rep­re­sen­ta­tions, orga­ni­za­tions, resources, etc.

    Nar­row­ing down the dis­as­ter from the topic cho­sen is a mat­ter of tun­ing into the under­ly­ing issue which has helped to esca­late the prob­lem. For exam­ple, my issue is edu­ca­tion reform and the dis­as­ter I am try­ing to focus my project around is the abuse of stan­dard­ized tests:

    http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_26930017/hundreds-colorado-high-school-students-refuse-take-sate

    1. Sac­ri­fice: the cre­ativ­ity and unique­ness of each indi­vid­u­als learn­ing style, strengths, and ambi­tions or inter­ests.
    2. Blind spot:Overpowering stu­dents with a mul­ti­tude of stan­dard­ized tests, espe­cially dur­ing the high school or pre-college years, has dras­ti­cally decreased the drive to think out­side of the box.
    3. Value:Our soci­ety is los­ing the value of uniqueness.Typically,the peo­ple who are suc­cess­ful are the ones who were able to main­tain their cre­ative think­ing after exit­ing the edu­ca­tion sys­tem, although soci­ety puts strong value on the abil­ity to fit in and con­form to the stan­dards– lead­ing to stan­dard­ized tests.

    Orga­ni­za­tion: http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2014/201401280.asp

  2. I’ll talk about rea­so­neon and disaster

  3. I can talk about how the autobiography/family pop­cy­cle helped me to think the issue with a panoramic lens and how this along with exer­cise 4 ulti­mately led me to under­stand­ing what my emblem needs to embody

  4. I can speak about the emblem

  5. I’ll speak about Wit­ness and how it relates to the Memorial

  6. I’ll talk about the impor­tance of the “traf­fic sphere” and how that relates to our Memeorials.

  7. I will dis­cuss Net­work inter­face — individual

    Notes 12/8/14
    Reasa­neon: Fac­tual + enter­tain­ment
    –Need to have facts
    –Enter­tain­ing + shock­ing com­po­nents
    Punc­tum
    –Want dis­as­ter etc. to have mean­ing
    –Bring it to life rather than try to solve it
    –Evoke emotion/reaction
    –First from me, then the reader, audi­ence
    Tes­ti­mo­nial
    –Link between option and cri­sis
    –Cri­sis links to future dis­courses
    –Use sto­ries, events, inci­dents for project

    –Some­thing speaks to me per­son­ally goes in to the project–

    –You should not make a MEmo­r­ial for ONE event

    Topic = ongo­ing dis­as­ter
    –Pick one inci­dent to an emblem­atic sta­tus
    –Use spe­cific and con­crete mate­r­ial for the tes­ti­mo­nial
    –Assem­blage rather than just evidence

    Spec­ta­cle: Take images and put it on dis­play
    OR
    dis­play the out­rage
    –How to make this serious

    Net­work Wit­ness = Archive
    Tes­ti­mo­nial:
    –What we have been mon­i­tor­ing
    –Old and New
    –Wit­ness­ing –> to com­pos­ing
    10 — 20 posts
    –Don’t use abstract, use spe­cific
    –Pat­tern, link, asso­ci­a­tion
    –Don’t want to look at issues as “unexpected”

    –Start com­pos­ing the testimonial/assemblage even if you don’t know the sacrifice/value

  8. I’ll talk about the peripheral

    Use periph­eral vision to see what’s being over­looked (See the blindspot)
    What value is being over­looked?
    360 Degree view of the issue
    Explore the circuit

  9. What is the dif­fer­ence between nar­ra­tives and auto­bi­og­ra­phy under the tes­ti­mo­nial section?

  10. I can talk about the burn­ing ques­tion and how that can be the means to rec­og­nize the sacrifice.

    - burn­ing ques­tion
    – ora­cle and div­ina­tion (other per­spec­tives on the issue)
    – using (felt) asso­ci­a­tions to cre­ate the pattern

  11. Make a tes­ti­mo­nial out of wit­ness­ing, net­work wit­ness­ing
    We don’t have to worry about the audi­ence understanding/ inter­rupt­ing it
    – Peo­ple will get it (even if it is abstract)
    – It gets clearly dis­tinct as the truth
    – Instead it is a consultation

  12. To cre­ate a MEmo­r­ial for a Dis­as­ter
    –an event that stands in for any event of loss whose mourn­ing helps
    define a com­mu­nity.
    – Using the inter­net to dis­play this MEmo­r­ial, or lan­guage.
    –bring­ing some­thing to life rather than dis­cussing it.
    –evok­ing emo­tion or a reac­tion.
    –Using pic­tures to dis­play evoke these emotions.

    Rock climb­ing acci­dents.
    tes­ti­mo­nial: a spe­cific event where an acci­dent occured.
    spec­ta­cle: dis­play pic­tures, to form a reac­tion. Out­rage, fear.

  13. Ora­cle Func­tion:
    –appeal­ing to both indi­vid­ual ‘prob­lems’ and col­lec­tive dilem­mas
    –Net­work knowl­ege both self and col­lec­tive
    –Ground con­sul­ta­tion in present conditions

    Ques­tion: How to apply pre­sent­ing a per­sonal ques­tion to a pub­lic issue?
    Ten­ta­tive Thought (feed­back?): (Issue of gun vio­lence) intro­duce story of fam­ily who has expe­ri­enced gun vio­lence (their per­sonal experience/ tes­ti­mo­nial) and then present/frame their loss as a loss to the com­mu­nity (from their school, work­place, social group, etc) with media/social net­work posts/images/etc

  14. Indi­vid­ual Vs Col­lec­tive Com­mu­nity
    –Our goal is to turn this into one using Elec­tracy
    • The Inter­net acci­dent– As cit­i­zens and users of the inter­net we have access to so many indi­vid­ual views and issues that the issue of over sat­u­ra­tion has appro­pri­ated. The issue becomes what cit­i­zens pay atten­tion to, and what they care about. “ Today the new tech­nolo­gies con­vey a cer­tain type of acci­dent, one that s no longer local and pre­cisely situated…an acci­dent that affects the entire world.”(xvii) This offers the idea of con­nect­ing the indi­vid­ual self with the col­lec­tive com­mu­nity.
    –use the sphere for civic engage­ment
    – Traf­fic Sphere: a way to visu­al­ize the sac­ri­fice as per­cep­ti­ble, think­able, rec­og­niz­able as sac­ri­fice to shift them from the pri­vae sphere of one at a time indi­vid­ual
    per­sonal loss to the pub­lic sphere of col­lec­tive val­ues.” (43)
    –Sub­lime abuse– we need to tes­tify and wit­ness an event to shift the pri­vate prob­lem to the pub­lic needs to be cumu­la­tive sta­tus rather than an indi­vid­ual status.

  15. Net­work Inter­face
    –We have to look at net­work ecol­ogy and our emblem to find a way to merge the indi­vid­ual with the col­lec­tive while avoid­ing com­pas­sion fatigue and click­tivism.
    –We have to make use of the inter­face we are given to the best of our abil­i­ties since it is limited.

  16. How am I engag­ing with the issue — not affected directly but what is being over­looked
    ○ Why did that hap­pen?
    ○ Tak­ing a Panoramic View

  17.  
    » Reply to student’s email (help­ful reminder for every­one):
     
    [ques­tion about tes­ti­mo­nial assem­blage]
    the 10–20 posts are frag­ments, com­posed using the lessons of Web (dig­i­tal rhetoric) — like economy/speed and variety.

     

    Frag­ments (mate­r­ial selected from entire Popycle)

    » Method: 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).

     
     
    Text (quotes, infor­ma­tion, expla­na­tion) + media (images, videos, audio) can be “sam­pled” with vari­ety, just post­ing in the entry with­out explaining/describing (not need­ing to write about the media or info posted).
    And like I said today, commentary/critique can be added through sub­tle addi­tions like cap­tions and tags.
    The over­all effect of the mul­ti­ple modes (info, story, imagery) will con­vey the topic/theme (dis­as­ter as sac­ri­fice).

    This becomes clearer & more con­crete once you start com­pos­ing — espe­cially the effect of con­nect­ing unre­lated posts with tags.
     

    •  
      » Email to stu­dent about com­pos­ing method + topic/focus
       

      • We talked about need­ing con­crete visu­al­iza­tions (write with sen­sory details) for abstract con­cepts, like val­ues and sac­ri­fice.
      Reflecting/meditating upon (medi­at­ing?) [topic] as sac­ri­fice (to?) ― with impli­ca­tions and con­se­quences. Tes­ti­mo­nial = look­ing ahead to immi­nent disaster…

      • draw­ing upon past events: use past dis­as­ter (spe­cific story?) to illus­trate & con­vey, espe­cially the ideals/values (sac­ri­fice? group blindness?)

       
      • like­wise, use media for sen­sory details & expres­sions & ges­tures ― like your project 1 GIFs (reac­tions, ges­tures, etc.)― to con­vey per­sonal expe­ri­ence (lived dimen­sion).
      What to choose for these? what­ever strikes you per­son­ally, by asso­ci­a­tion, as mean­ing­ful & evoca­tive…
      ― for instance, objective/visible signs of subjective/experienced con­di­tion (aspi­ra­tion? anxiety?)

       
      • in addi­tion to infor­ma­tion & images, story as another mode: nar­ra­tives from any source (news, pop cul­ture, social/autobio), which con­vey some idea of the topic/problem (sac­ri­fice, blindspot, value?)
      The exam­ple I gave was pos­i­tive […] and pro­vides coun­ter­point; I didn’t nar­rate in con­ver­sa­tion, but I would in a frag­ment (post). As well, the story from mem­ory (per­sonal asso­ci­a­tion) pro­vides con­crete details; these mate­ri­als help visualize…

       
      • like the phrase you men­tioned (motto for emblem?), which is also imagery.
      This is the key for the project, using medi­a­tions of con­cepts
       

    •  
      » Email reply about layout/design
       
      see instruc­tions + guide for com­pos­ing, using Word­Press (posts + pages): http://garyhink.net/course/F14/3020/assignments/project-3/project-3-design/

      Also see:
      » Site design
      re-format blog
      → see model site (*note: just example/illustration of lay­out, with par­tial testimonial)

       
      Remem­ber, re-formatting your site should take ~5 min­utes (or less!)
       
      for work-in-progress work­shop Fri­day: site re-formatted; as many of the 10–20 frag­ments as you can post (assem­blage tes­ti­mo­nial), plus emblem (draft/sketch or images)
      //
      — just as we reviewed Wednes­day: the main con­cepts & objec­tives (as elab­o­rated on the Com­po­nents page), appear within and across the 3 main sec­tions: Tes­ti­mo­nial, Emblem, Periph­eral
      (Poet­ics & Reflec­tion sep­a­rate pages and prompts)

      •  
        » reply ques­tion, reminder of project components

        1. “assem­blage tes­ti­mo­nial” through blog entries, arranged by tags and cat­e­gories (chor­ag­ra­phy).
        Not describ­ing “story” (event) nor explic­itly stat­ing (on-disaster = sac­ri­fice); rather, mul­ti­ple modes, as we’ve reviewed this week:
        part sto­ries & col­lec­tive lan­guage (oral­ity); part infor­ma­tion, about prob­lem & pol­icy for instance (lit­er­acy); plus expres­sive ele­ments, evok­ing mood/atmosphere, and ready­made mate­ri­als (emblem­atic details or peo­ple) — re-purposed for per­formed engage­ment (elec­tracy), demon­strat­ing con­sul­ta­tion.
        Using mul­ti­ple media and dig­i­tal rhetoric for all cases.

         
        Addi­tion­ally:
        Con­cetto (emblem: motto + col­lage image + epi­gram) can appear on a page (front page?) — plus in entries (com­po­nent parts?)
        Periph­eral (page) = pro­posal for pro­to­type (with illustration/diagram): loca­tion + Web/network inter­face (and/or dig­i­tal device, like aug­mented real­ity eMo­ri­als by Free­man)
         
        Poet­ics and Reflec­tion = sep­a­rate pages (like past projects; sub-pages under Project 3 menu)
         

        •  
          email reply about the periph­eral
           
          (besides the instal­la­tion added to the sculp­ture at Broad­way and Pearl Street)
          What about the par­tic­i­pa­tory / meme aspect?

          Maybe a replica — if not the actual dig­i­tal mir­ror instal­la­tion, at least dis­played on a mon­i­tor (just look at the size of TVs being sold these days!) — in many towns across the coun­try?
          pro­posal could have instruc­tions for how to choose the place (call­ing for participation)

          and a final thought on the installation’s dig­i­tal tran­si­tion: per­haps a daily occur­rence, or some time-line set by you not arbi­trar­ily but with a cer­tain num­ber (like Ulmer does with the Traf­fic Sphere: the counter/ticker device at mon­u­ment, 40k fatal­i­ties and then high­way sirens go off)
          Maybe not this basic or strict, but some mea­sure to remind of the value and overlooking…

          and as you say, because not reported or iden­ti­fied, good to use another mea­sure:
          exam­ple I showed in class, look at the daily YouTube and Insta­gram coun­ters! http://www.internetlivestats.com/
          (pick a thresh­old num­ber, related to the issue/problem in terms of yearly inci­dents –> esti­mated daily occur­rence?)
           

          •  
            also from Fri­day work­shop:
            your Periph­eral Pro­posal should explain the sig­nif­i­cance (of the place + net­work inter­face or medi­a­tion),
            along with describ­ing your imag­ined imple­men­ta­tion (how­ever hypo­thet­i­cal it is, not to worry about prac­ti­cal cre­ation!)
            and illus­trat­ing with media found or cre­ated
            (image, video, GIF, audio, embed­ded Twit­ter or Insta­gram feed, links, etc.)
             
            it is a descrip­tion & illus­tra­tion (or sim­u­la­tion, with link or embed): the pro­posal chooses a spe­cific loca­tion (sig­nif­i­cant to the com­mu­nity but not nec­es­sar­ily a mon­u­ment) to illus­trate the blindspot of on-going prob­lem (sacrifice/value/disaster),
            using Inter­net device to dis­play (dig­i­tal pro­jec­tion, or what­ever you envi­sion, to bring collective/Web into view at spe­cific loca­tion).
            The pro­posal explains the ratio­nale, sig­nif­i­cance, and intended effect (espe­cially via par­tic­i­pa­tion).
             
            → remem­ber to review exam­ples from Ulmer (3 in book), Pap­pen­heimer, Free­man
            and to go beyond, design­ing for par­tic­i­pa­tory cul­ture (invi­ta­tion from view­ers to inter­act, cre­ate; re-purpose exist­ing Web/Internet behav­iors like hash­tags, uploads, tag­ging…)
             
            Ulmer’s exam­ples (brief; review fur­ther):
            1. “Florida Rush­more” — holo­gram pro­jec­tion over sink­hole, based on user/viewer input
            2. “Traf­fic Sphere” — device at Viet­nam War Memo­r­ial (this is the num­ber of casu­al­ties “accept­able” to nation) with ticker/counter of traf­fic death; once reach­ing thresh­old num­ber, sirens on high­way
            2. “Upsilon Alarm” — using Space Mir­ror, children’s names (deaths from child abuse) illu­mi­nated dur­ing eclipse, along with names of 24 astro­nauts (“heroes” sacrificed)

            Pap­pen­heimer — “Wish­ing Y” (pom-poms from wish web­site, entered by users); Ulmer updated the­o­ret­i­cally to be illu­mi­nated based on the stock mar­ket, to show con­nec­tion between finance and 9/11
            FYI, this is prob­a­bly most instruc­tive for our purposes

            Free­man — aug­mented real­ity dis­plays: Bor­der Memo­r­ial & School-Shooting eMo­r­ial (the back­packs are not arbi­trary but the exact num­ber of Sandy Hook stu­dents killed)

             
            We want to go fur­ther than these instal­la­tions, though, to use net­work inter­faces (as “ora­cle”) and invite par­tic­i­pa­tion, draw­ing upon lessons of par­tic­i­pa­tory cul­ture — pop­u­lar Inter­net behav­iors and cul­tural forms
            (see the most recent image on the course site, the top post; click for “ora­cle effect”…)

      •  
        Basic lay­out tips from in-class trou­bleshoot­ing:
         
        * Sta­tic Home Page with “Entries” sec­tion:
        http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/front-page/

        * Cus­tom Menu
        http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/

        * Tag Cloud Wid­get
        http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/tag-cloud-widget/
        (remem­ber to tag your posts thought­fully with var­i­ous words from project/issue; older posts can/should be tagged too!)
         

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