Category: Networked Media Musings

Modernist Thinking v. Design Fiction (thoughts on the symposium)

So the first official symposium kicked off this week. I thought it went very well.

 

A few things stood out for me.  When Brian deemed a lot of sci-fi to be representative of American Imperialism my ears pricked up.  I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the difference between Modernist Thinking versus Design Fiction.

 

What I took away from that discussion was that modernist thinking thinks BIG. It has a top-down assumption about the nature of societal constructions. It is impersonal and sees itself as a way of “improving”, “fixing”. It has an almost authoritative presence.

 

On the other hand, Design Fiction thinks smaller in the sense that it localizes its thoughts. It acknowledges and understands that people are various not singular.  Furthermore it embraces speculative practice and credits non-linear thinking.

 

Found some awesome examples of design fiction here =)

On “How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer”

Elliot recommended the documentary “How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer” to anyone wishing to understand networks and how they functioned.

I watched it and was pretty astounded. I love documentaries particularly ones on space, human biology and wildlife. I am currently working through Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”.

“How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer” starts off with trying to establish the “6 degrees of separation” theory as plausible or and urban myth. However it goes from exploring the connection of people through networks to making discoveries about how so many things like the spread of diseases, sexual activity, communications and genetic material all follow patterns along networks of their connections and interactions.

I’m struggling to articulate the research undertaken in the documentary but it all made sense and is so worth a watch. Essentially, all the different types of networks explored in the doco acted in a similar way, suggesting that they all adhere to the same mathematical calculations. And if those calculations are worked out, if the behavior of networks can be predicted, there are boundless possibilities of the good that could come of it.

Fascinating stuff.

 

“You dip an oar, seeking something over there”

 Some thoughts on Adrian’s purposefully vague metaphor

I understood the ocean as holding every single idea in existence. Except that there can never be a finite number of ideas because water evaporates and there is precipitation and ideas are constantly being added or made obsolete.

 

The boat appears to me as a bit of a lifesaver. But maybe that’s because I have a fear of deep water.

 

Here is where my train (or boat) of thoughts is taking me…

 

When you’re on a boat (or a canoe or a raft or a kayak) you can only ever see the surface of the body of water you are floating on. Underneath you, the expanse remains dank and unexposed.  For me, the element of fear is present.  You peer through the surface, trying to make out the shapes underneath for comfort, that solid surface of surety.  But you can only really imagine what may be there; you can only speculate.

 

Much like the “speculative learning” this course is said to consist of. (Well that was an unintentional discovery).