Author: Adrian Miles

Symposium Takeaways

Adrian Miles

Rachel on technology and art and culture. What was unclear I think was whether ‘culture’ was meant as like art, or more broadly in the way it is used in ‘cultural studies’. As I said today, I think the humanities trips over itself foolishy by putting up a fence (between nature and culture, art and technology, and so on) where fences don’t actually exist. Niamh with notes (quick aside, I’ve met Ted twice and am a serious fan boy, just sayin’), so don’t want to give the impression that I think he’s wrong, he’s not. David on transclusion, and the comment about copyright is interesting as in Nelson’s vision copyright is a bit of a non issue. Louis liked the idea of personal web servers (so do I, it is odd that a structure that is decentralised has relied on such a centralised technical/electrical infrastructure). Rebecca wonders what we mean by technology anyway. Good question. Technology is using a tool to do something. That is it. Anything else is complicating through academicspeak something that doesn’t need to be. What technology does, and lets us do, is the point, not what it is.

Marina on what we didn’t get to. Privacy and narcissism. I think exhibitionism is probably a bigger issue than narcissism, and privacy and online is an oxymoron. Rachel revisits Nelson to get a better sense of what hypertext is and why it might matter.

Webs

Adrian Miles

Mia on how the WWW is a ‘web’ and thinking through that a bit more. Jane realises that things are immediately near to hand when writing online, and this makes a difference. More significantly it makes a difference to your own writing in an essay for now any paragraph is as far away from another paragraph as any other. Marina on Landow, hypertext, and usefulness. Interesting question, a part from convenience, what else does hypertext teach us? Angus on blogs and realising that medical research is blogged. I’m an academic, there are a lot of amazing academic blogs out there which are more active than many a book or journal. It’s the same with every area, once you realise that informed time based reflective writing lets experts share, then things change a lot. Monique has intriguing comments picking up the elegance (simplicity) of what lies behind Nelson’s things. 

HTML Beginnings

Adrian Miles

Rebecca is busy getting better at writing HTML, remember your final essay can be written in HTML, even possiby as a hypertext, so you can use these skills if you wish. Kelsey uses HTML at work, and Isabelle does a bit of freestyle. Jane found it simpler and more relevant than expected, and disagrees with Brady, for while things like Dreamweaver make things simpler no one uses it professionally for web development. (There are programs that make it easier to write stories, they automate parts of the process, but if you were serious about writing stories, would you use one? Ditto with web authoring. Pros code, amateurs use WYSIWYG.)

Clumsy Closure

Adrian Miles

The symposium ended in a clatter and rather inelegantly. To the person who’s very good question I was answering, I apologise. It deserved more time and craft, particularly around the idea of intent, than it received. Intent as an idea might turn up again, it might not, Intent is the idea that I mean to say something by saying (writing) something, and that this intent matters. It does, that’s why we try and say things, but intent is fragile and in capable of being attached to what we say, write, or do in any way to ensure its (our intent’s) preservation. Which is why things are always misunderstood. 

Privacy

Adrian Miles

We didn’t get to the privacy question, but take it as a given that the distinctions between public and private are being dramatically changed. Internet combined with mobile telephony is the push there. 

In relation to privacy we have these two gems from Betty:

Symposium Responses

Adrian Miles

Isabelle sees that people who are good at things explore and push their medium, not just the content, and so understanding some things about hypertext matters as it gives us some ways to think about the deeper parts of the medium of the Web. Gemma picks up some of the edu conversations and has a great example from being taught dance. Karlee notices just how much she uses the internet and wonders if her defending books is now compromised. I’d add that there is also the things you don’t see that rely on the internet. Banking, student records at RMIT, results being entered and managed, the information that the library gets from other places. Laura wonders about education and that kids writing HTML is probably unnecessary. I think it is absolutely necessary and as basic as any other sort of learning how to write in primary school. Being in control of what you write and how is the essence of being literate. If you can’t write a platform (eg WordPress), then simple HTML is that control. And kids should know it (and many do). Kelsey finds a brief video from the inestimable Sir Ken Robinson on the same things mentioned in the symposium. Rebecca wonders just how much HTML is changing us.

Reading 07

Adrian Miles

We’ve looked at some earlier history, then the implications of hypertext, and partly based on the things happening in class and the blogs, I think it is useful to read a general survey about technology and culture….

Extracts from Murphie, Andrew, and John Potts. Culture and Technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.

(one, and two, both PDFs)

Hypertext and Stuff

Adrian Miles

Mia on the Landow with a nice observation that blogs aren’t really like blogs, for instance blogs are ‘backwards’, and unlike diaries are public. Tilly pauses on just one thing in there and realises that it inverts 400 years of print. Rebecca writes a post that plays off links (though HTML is a very diluted form of hypertext), and Evan realises hypertext is the name for what has been there all along. Evan realising that perhaps we aren’t readers anymore, a nice realisation, and Gemma wondering if Ted would like choose your own adventure (as hypertext definitely not). Louis realising that linking and joining, deeply, and everything, is a pretty intriguing concept (one that it is still not realised).