I don’t think I’m very good at it and I want to get better.

There are loads of books and websites and quotes about writing and story-telling, but right now I’m allowing myself to be guided by one piece of advice from Ernest Hemingway:

“Good writing is true writing.” (By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, p. 215)

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” (A Moveable Feast, p. 22)

I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean “true” in the sense of being completely factual or correct, as much as he meant it in the sense of being honest and faithful enough to actual experience, actions, knowledge and emotions that a reader could not help but be moved. And that kind of “true” is really hard–especially when you’re making things up.

“I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing truly what you really felt, rather than what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced.” (Death in the Afternoon, p. 2)

Death in the Afternoon is non-fiction, but Hemingway turned a lot of what he actually experienced into fiction, and this resonates with my interest in ethnographic fiction. But, again, doing this is hard.

When asked how a writer can train, Hemingway responded:

“Watch what happens today. If we get into a fish see exactly what it is that everyone does. If you get a kick out of it while he is jumping remember back until you see exactly what the action was that gave you the emotion. Whether it was the rising of the line from the water and the way it tightened like a fiddle string until drops started from it, or the way he smashed into the water when he jumped. Remember what the noises were and what was said. Find what gave you the emotion; what the action was that gave you the excitement. Then write it down making it clear so the reader will see it too and have the same feeling that you have.” (By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, p. 219-220)

I like the value he places on observation and description; these are the same two things upon which all good social and cultural research is built. But mostly I like his explicit recognition that the point of writing is to affect a reader.

The lesson I take here is that this doesn’t happen by telling the reader what the writer thinks. And it doesn’t happen by telling the reader what to think, either. A good story gives a reader something else to think about.

“Some days it went so well that you could make the country so that you could walk into it through the timber to come out into the clearing and work up onto the high ground and see the hills beyond the arm of the lake.” (A Moveable Feast, p. 91)

“What I’ve been doing is trying to do country so you don’t remember the words after you read it but actually have the Country.” (to Edward O’Brien, 1924, Selected Letters, p. 123)

“[Y]ou are beginning to get what you are trying for which is to make the story so real beyond any reality that it will become a part of the reader’s experience and part of his memory. There must be things he did not notice when he read the story or the novel which without his knowing it, enter into his memory and experience so that they are a part of his life.” (unpublished manuscript from the Kennedy Library collection, Roll 19, T 178)

“That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best–make it all up–but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.” (to F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1934, Selected Letters, p.407)

There’s plenty going on in these quotes, but I’m most struck by the possibility that a story’s capacity to affect a reader depends on how successfully a writer can bring people, places and things to life. And what I take from Hemingway here is that this requires a writer to blur the line between fact and fiction, to write truly without writing the Truth.

In any case, I want my writing to inhabit, and evoke, this space–and moving in this direction is, I think, the key to merging researcher and writer to create good ethnographic fiction.

Now I know there’s a lot more I need to think about, and a lot more that could be said, but I want to end with a speculative fiction quote (via Jeffrey Callen) that suggests one way we can go about making up true stories:

“He was engaged in a serious search for the meaning of his own existence…. To do that, Cinnamon had to fill in those blank spots in the past that he could not reach with his own hands. By using those hands to make a story, he was trying to supply the missing links. From the stories, he had heard repeatedly from his mother, he derived further stories in an attempt to re-create the enigmatic character of his grandfather in a new setting. He inherited from his mother’s stories the fundamental style he used, unaltered, in his own stories: namely, the assumption that fact may not be truth, and truth may not be factual. The question of which parts of a story were factual and which parts were not was probably not a very important one for Cinnamon. The important question for Cinnamon was not what his grandfather did but what his grandfather might have done. He learned the answer to this question as soon as he succeeded in telling the story.” (Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, p. 525)

Oddly enough, I think Hemingway would have approved.

Course description
Original and world-changing design was long considered the product of solitary geniuses, masters and heroes, but recent research has argued that cultural innovation is often the result of everyday actions by ordinary people. This course critically and creatively examines the dynamic and collaborative networks that characterise professional and amateur design today, and prepares students to face the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

Course aims
Building on multi-disciplinary approaches explored in CCDN 231 and CCDN 271, this course aims to situate creativity, design and innovation within everyday lived experience. With a focus on critical practice and practical criticism, students will be introduced to social and cultural theories of everyday life and ethnographic methods that can help them understand and explain design in a variety of ordinary cultural contexts. Lectures will introduce students to important concepts in design and cultural studies, and a variety of films, readings, discussions and activities will support further exploration and engagement. Ultimately, students will learn to apply this knowledge through the research and presentation of three artefact ethnographies that critically and creatively evaluate material, visual and discursive culture.

Course content
The course comprises eight interconnected topics of study:

• practices of everyday life;
• object culture;
• aesthetics and ethics;
• creativity and innovation;
• professionals and amateurs;
• technology and media;
• speculative design; and
• possible futures for co-creation.

Each topic will introduce theoretical concepts and related methodological approaches to understanding, doing and explaining design in cultural context. Assignments will require the application of this knowledge to the critical and creative assessment of design in everyday life, and design as everyday life.

Course assignments
To complete this course, students are required to submit and present three original artefact ethnographies, as well as one revised artefact ethnography.

Ethnography involves the systematic exploration, examination and presentation of social and cultural phenomena that make up the lives of people across space and time. Artefacts—objects designed and created by people—have always been central to the expression and experience of everyday life, and can be used as platforms for social and cultural commentary. Artefact ethnographies combine analytical and creative work to explain the social and cultural dimensions of designed objects in everyday life.

Assignment 1: Something Past
For this assignment, each student will select an individual artefact, a class of artefacts, or a single collection of artefacts in order to critically and creatively engage PAST social and cultural phenomena, and how they relate to people, places, objects and/or ideas that exist now or may exist in the future.

Assignment 2: Something Present
For this assignment, each student will select an individual artefact, a class of artefacts, or a single collection of artefacts in order to critically and creatively engage PRESENT social and cultural phenomena, and how they relate to people, places, objects and/or ideas that existed in the past or may exist in the future.

Assignment 3: Something Future
For this assignment, each student will imagine an individual artefact, a class of artefacts, or a single collection of artefacts in order to critically and creatively engage FUTURE social and cultural phenomena, and how they relate to people, places, objects and/or ideas that existed in the past or exist in the present.

Assignment 4: Revised Artefact Ethnography
For this assignment, each student is required to revise and resubmit their favourite artefact ethnography. With student permission, the Course Coordinator and tutors will select up to five artefact ethnographies for submission to the Material World blog.

The submission format is open, but each artefact ethnography must include a 1000-1250 word written component based on a relevant and appropriate combination of academic literature review, observation, creative writing, photography, drawing, video-making, web design, audio recording and/or object creation.

To get started, students are required to complete the following task (adapted from The Exercise Book) for the first tutorial:

1) Go for a walk with a notebook and pay close attention to what’s going on around you.

2) Compose one written page with three sections. Start the first section with “I see…”, the second section with “I remember…” and the third section with “I imagine…”.

Image credits: “Remade” household objects by Jennifer Collier

First, I’ve been reading a bunch of young adult speculative fiction. I started with Susanne Collins’ epic Hunger Games trilogy (guess where you’ll find me on 23 March ;)), then I blazed through two more wonderful books: Neal Shusterman’s Unwind and Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion, and now I’m working my way into Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy. Despite covering a wide range of content and character types, all these books are examples of incredibly compelling story-telling. (Unwind had one of the most disturbing chapters I’ve ever read.) I’ve also watched a wonderfully cheesy urban fantasy TV series called Lost Girl, which is full of mythical creatures and hott sex, mystery and adventure, good fights and bad jokes, and I’ve started re-watching Joss Whedon’s classic show, Firefly, because I bought a blu-ray copy of Serenity. Like the books above, these stories aren’t focussed on scientific plausibility, but they sure are emotionally resonant.

Second, I’ve become completely obsessed with contemporary country/bluegrass which continues to provide deeply emotional soundtracks for–and poignant stories of–everyday life. For example, I really enjoy Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet, whose Chinese folk-music inflected bluegrass could serve as a soundtrack for Firefly. Listen to the beautifully hectic “Tai Yang Chu Lai Xi Yang Yang” for a taste, or “City of Refuge” for Washburn’s most recent work. I also totally dig Gob Iron’s Death Songs for the Living, which brings an almost unbearable sadness to old classics like “Wayside Tavern” and “Hard Times,” and is worth buying just for their devastating cover of “The Little Girl and The Dreadful Snake.” And if you like weird and dark music as much as I do then you also can’t go wrong with Neko Case‘s “Furnace Room Lullaby.” Then there’s the stunning Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile–check out this half-hour gig they played at Google. Or if you prefer more traditional, and also incredibly moving, Appalachian bluegrass, I’ve fallen in love with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings‘ music, including “Caleb Meyer,” “Orphan Girl,” “The Devil had a Hold of Me,” “Tear My Stillhouse Down” and “Miner’s Refrain.”

***

Cultural and aesthetic taste is a funny thing: Bourdieu taught us that it is strategic and competitive; we use it to claim or demonstrate our superiority over others.

My own biases in this regard become evident when I say that few things perplex me more than when people completely dismiss popular culture. For example, each time I hear someone say to me that they have no interest in pop culture or that they have nothing in common with people who like it, I feel uncomfortable and maybe, if I detected any pride or smugness in their statement, even offended.

I wonder: What, exactly, do they think pop culture is? Who, exactly, do they think likes it and why?

I also wonder: If they dislike pop culture, what do they think of me? If they want to be distanced from it, how can we ever come together?

***

I appreciate everyday life.

It’s where I feel the warmth of the sun on my bare skin or the softness of my cat’s fur. Where I hear the voices of the people I love or the sounds a cello makes. Where I smell old books or the grass after a heavy rain. Where I see the infinite shapes that snowflakes take or the curious faces of strangers. Where I taste the sweetness of a ripe mango or the difference between rock, ceramic and bone.

Everyday life has provided the setting for my greatest joys and deepest sorrows, my most rewarding accomplishments and most crushing losses–and all the things that happened in between.

It is everything I have ever been and will ever be.

Everyday life holds my stories. All our stories.

***

The story-telling capacities of popular culture can be incredibly powerful social binders if they capture some of these aspects of everyday life.

Mass culture doesn’t need to be associated with the lowest common denominator, but it can represent some of the broadest common denominators.

Shared culture doesn’t need to mean agreed-upon culture.

We don’t need to see ourselves in pop culture as much as we need to situate ourselves through pop culture.

***

Cat breading

“Forget planking. All the cool kids are putting their cats in bread and taking pictures of them looking like little yeasty lions.” – Gawker

“This is why the Internet exists. The long march of human progress has finally ended; we have reached our destination. Rest and rejoice in our accomplishments.” – Neatorama

“The concept is so wonderful it seems shocking that no one thought of cat breading before and many are questioning how they failed to spot the potential of placing their pets head into a slice of bread.” – TNT Magazine

“Some observers believe placing bread around animals is cruel…So far, no cat breaders are replying to allegations of animal cruelty.” – Digital Journal

“The whole thing seemed like an elaborate inside joke, spoofing the nature of short-lived crazes which are more likely to be talked about than actually participated in.” – The Daily Mail

The deadline for submission of applications has been extended to 7 February 2012 and you can apply now.

CCI’s 2012 Winter School (coinciding with summer in the northern hemisphere) offers selected doctoral students and early career researchers a week-long program of interdisciplinary study, collaboration and social interaction in the broad area of creative industries and innovation research, drawing on the Centre’s expertise in media, cultural and communication studies, economics, education, policy and law, in relation to the creative economy.

We welcome applications from emerging scholars working on related topics including, but not limited to:

• Cultural, media and creative industries policy
• Digital society
• Community arts and media
• New business models in the creative economy
• Innovation studies
• Economics of the creative industries
• The creative industries in Asia
• Transmedia
• Internet studies
• Copyright and intellectual property
• The challenges of ‘big data’
• Creative careers and creative labour

Participants will work with leading researchers, engage in intensive workshop activities and receive direct feedback and individual mentoring on their own work. Social activities will provide additional opportunities for participants to get to know each other and form collaborative relationships that will last for years to come.

Emerging Methods for Digital Media Research

With the rise of ‘big data’, locative media, and smartphones, existing media and communication studies methods are being recombined, reconfigured and replaced alongside their objects of study. This special issue of JOBEM seeks to expose new research methods for understanding the changing nature of the content industries, the impact of digital media on the practices of creative workers, and the experiences and practices of everyday users of digital media technologies.

We welcome papers based in the humanities and social sciences that reflect on, discuss or critique current methodological trends in digital media research, shedding light on the following questions:

1. Where are the emerging methodological gaps – are there pressing research problems that require the development of new methods, techniques and tools?
2. Where are there needs for new combinations of methods, within or across disciplines?
3. What are the implications for future pedagogical models in internet, media and communication studies, including doctoral education and other forms of research training?

We especially welcome papers grounded in the experience of conducting empirical digital media research. However we will give preference to papers that contextualise, historicise, and reflect on current methodological trends; rather than simply report on the applications or results of new methods.

Abstracts of 250 words are due by 31 March, 2012. Depending on the number of abstracts received, we may shortlist submissions at this stage. Please email your abstract and a list of 3 or 4 suggested peer reviewers to: jobem.edm@gmail.com.

Full articles of no more than 7000 words should be submitted on or before 1 August, 2012 at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hbem (select “Special Issue: Emerging Digital Methods” as a manuscript type). Manuscripts should conform to the guidelines of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.

Guest Editors: Jean Burgess (QUT), Axel Bruns (QUT), Larissa Hjorth (RMIT), ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation (http://cci.edu.au/)

Editor: Zizi Papacharissi

This fully-funded 2 year position in the new Master of Design Innovation programme supports Dr Anne Galloway’s Counting Sheep: NZ Merino in an Internet of Things research project.

Purpose of award
The Counting Sheep project aims to create near-future digital media and/or physical computing scenarios that can support public debate on the use of pervasive computing in agriculture, and the future of merino production and consumption.

The student will form part of a small team led by Dr Galloway and will conduct design research in the area of human-animal-computer interaction.

Selection criteria
Applicants require a Bachelors degree in design or computer science, with a focus on digital media production and/or pervasive computing.

In addition to the scholarship application form (pdf), applicants are required to submit a one-page statement of interest that:

1. identifies potential research areas or questions that are compatible with the larger project;
2. describes any relevant experience that supports the successful completion of this research.

Preference will be given to projects dealing with pervasive computing and NZ merino sheep, but other animal-based agriculture topics will be considered. An interest in the cultural contexts of new technologies and experience with ethnographic research methods would be considered an asset.

Number of awards offered
One.

Value
NZ16,000 annual stipend.

Tenure of award
Up to two years.

Closing dates for applications
Monday 27 February 2012.

Applications will be reviewed as they come in and the start date is 5 March, 2012.

How do students apply?
Please submit a completed application form (pdf) plus a one-page statement of interest to:

The Scholarships Office
Victoria University of Wellington
PO Box 600
Wellington
New Zealand
Phone: (04) 463 5113 or (04)463 5557
Email: scholarships-office@vuw.ac.nz

Additional information
Please contact Dr Galloway (anne.galloway@vuw.ac.nz) with any questions.

Jonny Wan – Dragon

Happy Chinese (Lunar) New Year!

2012 is the Year of the Dragon, traditionally associated with energy and change, good luck and good health.

Given a rather inauspicious start to the calendar year–two long-haul flights in two weeks, followed by almost immediate and prolonged immobilisation due to my dislocated kneecap, ended up causing a couple of large and scary pulmonary emboli–I’m really looking forward to what the mythical dragon will bring.

It’s Chinese tradition to sweep away any bad fortune from last year to make room for the good, and in doing this I’d like to acknowledge the good I’ve already seen emerge from the bad:

PE is a life-threatening condition that will involve at least six months recuperation and a lifetime of watchfulness, and I want to thank Dr Cookson at City GPs, who promptly turned a routine check-up into a trip to the emergency ward; Dr Eberhardt and Dr Perrin at Wellington Hospital, who diagnosed me and started treatment so quickly; the incomparable nursing staff who took such good care of me during my first-ever stay in hospital; and all the medical staff who continue to help me recover. I’m thankful that my body, mind and spirit weren’t ready to give up, but without the dedicated efforts of all these people, it’s possible that I wouldn’t have lived to see another day, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

I also consider myself fortunate to have experienced the extraordinary kindness and generosity of spirit that some people so naturally and freely share. I’m grateful to have learned the difference between fair-weather friends and soul-mates, and for the chance to let the people I love, both old and new, know how much they mean to me. I also appreciate the opportunity to prioritise my own values and desires–instead of too often doing what others expect of me. For example, I actually enjoy doing less, this is the only kind of fame to which I genuinely aspire, and I honestly believe that it’s the little things that are most important. This year, I want to read and write more–and not for work. I want to listen to music without doing anything else at the same time. I want to grow strange little plants and practice abstract embroidery. And I want to swim in the ocean and walk in the sun.

Best wishes for the Year of the Dragon everyone!

Baaa by Cyriak (Thx Adam!)

2011 was a busy and rewarding year for us. I had the pleasure of learning about farm tech at Fieldays in Hamilton, shearing and woolhandling at the Merino Championships in Alexandra, and sheep breeding and judging at the Canterbury A&P Show in Christchurch. I presented a remote lecture at the Edinburgh School of Art and a live seminar at the Royal College of Art in London. Ben Kraal and I led a workshop at Communities & Technologies 2011 in Brisbane, I gave the opening keynote at Web Directions South in Sydney, and I presented our research at Critically Making the Internet of Things in Umeå. In addition, Sam Carew and I made a couple of educational videos, and Hamish McPhail, Peggy Russell and I designed a fictional farm.

2012 promises more fieldwork, a few articles, and a really fun design project I’ve been working on with Jonathon Toon. Unfortunately, I dislocated my kneecap just before Christmas and have weeks of rehab to look forward to, so there won’t be any travel for a bit. On the upside, my lack of mobility means I should have more time to read and write–so stay tuned for more frequent updates here.

Cheers!

My presentation was the last one in the last session. I’ll put my slides online as soon as possible, but this was the set-up:

Why study animals? In an era of “smart” cities and things, Donna Haraway reminds us that “animals enrich our ignorance.”

Sheep and humans have lived together for more than 10,000 years, but sheep have rarely been “brought into the open with their people.”

(Haraway: “‘the open’ is where what is to come is not yet—is not fixed by teleology or function, whether malignant or benign—and might still be otherwise…” i.e. a space of potentiality)

Our cultural and design research explores human + animal + computer interaction, or how we (can) be/come together.

I also think it’s fair to say that the audience’s favourite image was this one, taken during last month’s Canterbury A&P Show merino judging, where I learned that flipping a merino onto its back makes it go limp like a noodle.

And, actually, the difference between this image and the majestic Icebreaker merino ram on my first slide offers a way into design fiction that I didn’t talk about in my presentation but should follow up on….

Thanks to everyone at the Critically Making the Internet of Things conference. I had a great time!

Social Memory within the ‘Internet of Things’
Chris Speed, Edinburgh College of Art

Real-time is deeply contingent. The space between where we are and where we think we are is open for discussion. For example, Google Maps was only two weeks behind during the Beijing Olympics rather than 12-18 months behind normally; and it is never an agreed upon “now.”

So what happens when you start to place things across this temporally contingent landscape? Ghosts and hauntings can serve as metaphor or example.

“When you scratch or mark-up a surface, be prepared for ghosts and traumas to surface.”

The Orphanage (2007)

Poltergeist (1982)

So. What does this have to do with the IoT?

Tales of Things - but the website is only an archive; tagged objects in second-hand stores allow people to hear the objects’ stories or past lives. “Listen to the pink jumper … It’s good for short-turn love affairs.”

Washington, DC Ghost Bikes – when the original bike was removed by the city, it was replaced with 22 more bikes by citizens. Is the lesson that when you scratch the surface, be prepared for ghosts?

A slip and a rub.

Very nice!

Good audience comment about how tagging objects might actually devalue them by providing too much information. Chris responded that it points to how buying is under stress. Sweet.

Narrative and Agency in PostSecret Postcards
Stephanie Hendrick, HUMlab

PostSecret postcards as physical things re-presented on/in the internet.

Narratives by, and about, victims of domestic violence.

“Until someone abuses me, I can’t love them.” (Image: Tina & Ike Turner.)

“I accepted my childhood molester’s friend request.” (Image: Two happy girls holding hands.)

“Every time a childhood friend of mine posts to Facebook, I have an urge to message them and ask if they had ever had any idea that I was being abused.” (Image: Baby with confused expression but no signs of physical harm.)

Collage as juxtaposition of image and text changes and extends the definition of abuse and violence.

Transformational agency. The postcards transform the person and their experience.

Interesting. But no questioning of whether these secrets are “true” or “simply” public performances of self.