I began my lifestream with a sense that I would be saving ephemera.  In my early blog posts I played with the ‘why?’ of the activity.  Was I creating commonplace book, a scrapbook of nostalgia, the virtual clippings and travel stubs to remind me of my journey? Or a bower bird, attracting a mate?  If so who was I flirting with – my tutor, my classmates or a wider public?

As the course progressed and the group bonded we looked more seriously at our role, were we curators creating our own cabinet of curiosities or wunderkammer.  I enjoyed Jen and Tony’s discussion, particularly Tony’s articulation of his concerns, in that it set the collector apart from the collection, not with appropriate academic detachment but a tinge of imperialistic superiority.  This was further explored in the ethnography project – should we observe, or engage?  Here I began to see the emergence of a more useful position on lifestreaming: as a record of engagement.  Much of the internet is ephemeral – I don’t see the point in saving your tweets and Gordon Bell’s decision to digitally archive every detail of his life disturbs me. Yet the experience of creating a lifestream helped me understand how maintaining a selective record of your engagement is a very valuable academic or developmental act that has a performative value.

Interestingly the lifestream did not for me contribute to the social aspect of the course.  As a group we interacted well, but primarily through the blogs and Twitter.  I visited other students lifestreams initially to get a sense of which feeds they were using, but once I felt satisfied with the balance of my own feeds my visits to others’ pages was limited to their blogs.  For this reason lifestreaming for me was a personal act (albeit in a public space) which relieved me of having to worry about the appropriacy of what I was selecting.  I chose to link not only websites, images and quotes directly relevant to my work, but also more tangential associations; blog posts which examined how the net and digital technology is changing who we are – social media’s contribution to the emergence of a posthuman population.

Finally, as I moved towards choosing the topic of a final assignment I looked out how disconcerting online spaces can be for both teachers and students.  In a Second Life talk Nik Peachey discussed how in a virtual world a teacher was often left wondering what their students were doing.  Were they paying attention or reading emails?

Usher (1998) talks of (dis)location:

a space and a non-space; a (dis)location – something that is both positioned and not positioned, (dis)placed but not re-placed, a diaspora space of hybridity and flows where one and many locations are simultaneously possible.

Similarly Bayne (forthcoming 2010) notes:

At the same time, the ontological blurring of being and not-being, presence and absence online, are crucial in considering how distance modes re-position the ‘thereness’ of learners and teachers, rendering us in a sense ghost‐like

The lifestream is a response to this enigma of absence/presence.  We become present through our streams.  This is why I noted that the act of selecting gained for me a performative value.  It represented my engagement.  Initially I was concerned with populating my lifestream in order to prove I existed (and was doing valuable work), but as I grew more comfortable with it I allowed it to give voice to my absence.  When mystified by Haraway (2000) I avoided the stream for a few days  as a way of expressing my confusion and need to retreat and resolve myself as a learner.  Similarly, I allowed myself to be playful – to add threads of whimsy: my personal skepticism towards the skill of multi-tasking for instance.

In this way my lifestream became another form of embodiment, and presumably a way for my tutor to gauge my presence and engagement in a non-threatening way.  It gave a little solidity to my phantom self as I haunted our virtual spaces.

Bayne, S. (forthcoming, March 2010). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education. [revised version uploaded 10 November 09]

Haraway, D. (2000). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. in D Bell and A Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge.

Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1998). Lost and found: ‘cyberspace’ and the (dis)location of teaching, learning and research. SCUTREA 1998, Exeter.

After speaking with Jen I decided to do my final assessment on authority, in particular how we sometimes feel that authority is compromised in digital spaces and what if anything we (should?) do to assert our authority.  I first noticed this theme in Hine’s account of digital ethnography:

Along with travel comes the notion of translation (Turner, 1980). It is not sufficient merely to travel, but necessary also
to come back, and to bring back an account. That account gains much of its authoritative effect with the contrast that it constructs between author and reader: the ethnographer has been where the reader cannot or did not go.

and is a feature in the later readings on critical perspectives and even – now I reflect back – in the very first dystopian weeks.

I won’t give away all my ideas in this post – just give you a visual introduction:

Our new pedagogies may be uncanny but it was with a sigh of relief I returned to the familiar realm of education.  The jaunt through cultural studies has been extremely interesting, but I was getting a little lost without a peg to hang it all on.  It was the readings for this block (especially Bayne and Usher) that made everything fit into place.

I understand the dislocation of online learning, and it is the strangeness that draws me.  I find it liberating – the lack of fixed rules that melt away with the disappearance of classroom walls and chalkboards.  I am interested how this uncanny nature disconcerts some and exhilarates others.  I have never been convinced the the native / immigrant divide that we explored way back in the days of IDEL – if it is that simple then why do I feel so at home in this virtual world, when I didn’t have an email address until my boss begged me to get one in 1997 (the same guy who took me shopping to buy my first computer in 2000 – I think he knew I would never get my Dip TESOL finished without one)?  As I was pondering these issues I kept coming back to Bayne’s paper on smooth and striated learning spaces, which we studied in the Course Design module.  Maybe a posthuman student (and indeed teacher) must be a little in love with chaos, and strange learning.  We have to get comfortable with alternate democratic sources of knowledge.  I remember when it was announced (on the internet of course) that Wikipedia was as reliable as the Encyclopedia Britannica – I have no idea if it was true and no intention of researching it’s veracity – other than googling it (here, see? 2005 – it must be EVEN more accurate now) but I got a thrill of smug vindication when I first read it.  Maybe this is what makes us cyborgs – becoming posthuman is a leap of faith, not technology.

Bayne, S. (2004). Smoothness and striation in digital learning spaces. E-learning 1(2): pp. 302-316.

Bayne, S. (forthcoming, March 2010). Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies. London Review of Education. [revised version uploaded 10 November 09]

Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1998). Lost and found: ‘cyberspace’ and the (dis)location of teaching, learning and research. SCUTREA 1998, Exeter.

I was getting quite frustrated with the readings on cyborgs and posthumans, not that they weren’t interesting, but they were so embedded in western ideas of self and being and what it is to human (and therefore cease to be human) that I was beginning to think that mandatory courses in Eastern philosophy might be a good idea for anyone wishing to put font to pixels.  Then at last week 9, I got to Hayles (2006) and at last, something I could identify with, the potential for our relationship with a computational universe to reveal to us a deeper truth:

What we make and what (we think) we are co-evolve together.

and

The cognisphere takes up where the cyborg left off. No longer bound in a binary with the goddess but rather emblem and instantiation of dynamic cognitive flows between human, animal and machine, the cognisphere, like the world itself, is not binary but multiple, not a split creature but a co-evolving and densely interconnected complex system.

From a Buddhist belief system (via wikipedia) we have:

Some consider that the concept of the unreality of “reality” is confusing. They posit that, in Buddhism, the perceived reality is considered illusory not in the sense that reality is a fantasy or unreal, but that our perceptions and preconditions mislead us to believe that we are separate from the elements that we are made of. Reality, in Buddhist thought, would be described as the manifestation of karma.

The Buddhist concept of dependant origination states that any phenomenon exists only because of the existence of other phenomena in an incredibly complex web of cause and effect covering time past, time present and time future. Stated in another way, everything depends on everything else. A human being’s existence in any given moment is dependent on the condition of everything else in the world at that moment, but in an equally significant way, the condition of everything in the world in that moment depends conversely on the character and condition of that human being. Everything in the Universe is interconnected through the web of cause and effect such that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and condition of all other entities that superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated.

Because all things are thus conditioned and transient, they have no real independent identity and thus do not truly exist, though to ordinary minds this appears to be the case. All phenomena are therefore fundamentally insubstantial and empty.

Is it possible that our relationship with technology and our understanding of a ‘computational universe’ might lead us to a more instinctive and essential understanding of reality? Quantum physics has already done this in the field of theoretical science, but maybe we will make the experiential connection through the ever decresing membrane of our interface with our computers and through them the world – the real world, that is… not the illusiory one we percieve with our senses.

To quote John Eccles (the neurophysiologist)

I want you to realize that there exists no color in the natural world, and no sound – nothing of this kind; no textures, no patterns, no beauty, no scent.

What is left then, but energy, information and flow? Tat Tvam Asi.

Hayles, N.K. (2006). Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere. Theory Culture Society, 23/7-8.
Usher, R. and Edwards, R. (1998). Lost and found: ‘cyberspace’ and the (dis)location of teaching, learning and research. SCUTREA 1998, Exeter.
.

I prefer the term posthuman to cyborg.  I think as the digital world we see today was emerging in the ’90s and early 00’s we misunderstood the effects of the relationship between ‘us’ and technology.  Much of this misunderstanding was idealistic and hopeful – Haraway anticipated we would be cleansed of gender and bias for example.  I enjoyed Muri’s interpretation – that we veered towards using technology as an imagined escape from the scatological and reproductive messiness of being human.

This encourages me to look for a more realistic relationship as seen through popular culture and blogs – while technology is not about to liberate us from the need to buy toilet paper anytime soon – we do seem on the brink of being liberated from the need to buy computers (phones and online storage are the way froward).  Our use of the net will change the way we think, and relate to the world – we will be connected 24/7, cloud computing and real-time searches will take the integration with technology further.  I think we will feel more cyborg as the human / digital interface becomes more transparent – as the gadgets we use to access information become smaller and less obviously intrusive (although ironically more literally intrusive – with implants and discrete accessories replacing the clunky laptop).

Once again Buddhist doctrine makes for an interesting parallel.  Once we come across something with our senses, we experience either fear and aversion or desire and craving (kleshas).  The readings so far have made me realise our approach to digital experience is no exception.  The potential of being successfully posthuman is for me, finding the middle way.

Aimee Mullins was the guest editor for Gizmodo’s current theme This Cyborg Life.  The weekly theme explored many areas, but stuck mainly with the focus on medical / physical prosthesis.  I found it while looking for cyborg related content and have been following their updates avidly for the last week.  What was interesting about Aimee is how she, using cutting edge prosthesis technology was able to turn a disability into a strength.  What was even more notable was how this divided her audience.  Looking into the back ground of her posts it seems that disabled athletes are acceptable in the context of the para-olympics but once they start to get good enough to beat conventionally bodied athletes then fur and feathers start to fly and claims are made that their ‘enhancements’ are giving them an ‘unfair’ advantage.

Aimee uses the example of Oscar Pistorius who is still fighting to be allowed into the main (not para) Olympic team in 2012.   I found it shocking that we are so determined to give diversely abled people the chance to live a ‘normal’ life but then when they take that chance and run with it (pun intended) we fight just as hard to force them to remain in their disabled pigeon hole.

It places our discussion into an interesting context, and suggests we are not quite ready to allow cyborg technology to liberate us from the shackles of massive identity issues such as race and gender when we can’t even let it free us of our more obvious bigotry.

Aimee however has hope for the future specifically with respect to how children build their identity through the internet and video games:

The generation of children growing up today has a distinct advantage in this realm of identity, thanks to their daily interaction with the internet and video games. It’s commonplace for them to create avatars and parallel representations of themselves, and they see their ability to change, transform, and augment those bodies to best suit their surroundings as beneficial.

That kind of fluid thinking was once solely the domain of those whose imaginations were heavily influenced by both technology and science fiction. Talk about seeing evolution speed up before your eyes. My being able to embrace the art in my artifice, to change my identities—how I perceive myself and how others respond to that perception — has profoundly changed the way I see the world and my opportunities in it. But I didn’t possess that ability at age six.

I keep thinking of how long it takes for most of us to go through the process of first accepting ourselves as we are, strengths and weaknesses, then celebrating that self and starting to have fun with your strengths and weaknesses, then transforming ourselves as architects of own our identities, redefining what our strengths and weaknesses actually are. I think kids today are able to do this faster than previous generations.

Here are some links to Aimee’s articles for Gizmodo:

Is choosing a prosthesis so different than picking a pair of glasses

Racing on Carbon Fiber Legs: How Abled Should We Be?

Normal Was Never Cool: Inception of Perception

This week was taken up with recovering from my ethnographic experience and viewing those of others.  Thus my lifestream got a bit neglected.  Pity the hard work of ploughing through Haraway doesn’t show up on it.  I have to admit  reading this text, ironically, made me regret for the first time not having face to face tutorials.  I could really do with help, the kind of intense help you get with a face to face discussion.  While I understand the overall message there is so much I just don’t get.  It is like a treasure chest of ideas that are meaningless to me.  So many of her statements left me crying “Why? What do you mean by that?”

Anyway, I will leave deeper ponderings to another post, in the meantime – check out your cyborg name:

Get Your Cyborg Name

Anyway, here is an explanation of how it was done, pretty cool too.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that make you feel lucky to be here and now.  Must open my tweetdeck.

I feel like I am getting a little behind (this always seems to happen in the middle of a course) I get distracted by stuff.  Stuff in this case being two rather different things.

Firstly (and this is the good news) my chosen focus for my digital ethnography – role-playing, which means of course I have got back into ROLEPLAYING and filling my lifestream with Dungeons and Dragons related links and quotes, and 20 sided dice references which just makes me want to blow the dust off my tired old Goddess of The Underworld and give her a new look.

Secondly the Fluff Friends Trick-or-Treat 2009 Halloween Hunt, which is addictive cos I have to Trick and Treat on lots of people’s fluff pages to get candy points (and actual virtual candy which I can feed my fluff) and then I can convert my candy points into candles, which also give me golden candle points.  And If I get enough golden candle points… I get a scarecrow with which I can scare the crows off my pumpkin patch – and something about a lantern, and a haunted house and a candy bowl.  Anyway I am addicted but not sufficiently addicted to make the grade so this is another Fluff contest I failed at.  Just like the egg hunt – but at least I don’t have blisters on my clicking finger this time.

This was a week 6 update wasn’t it?

In a sense it is.  Fluff friends may look like a bunch of adults, who should know better, petting cartoon animals, but it is a great community.  Very warm and supportive, full off the spirit of sharing and gifting; which is rare in large communities like this.  I have never seen a flaming or spamming post on a Fluff page – just lots of thanks and praise.  It like Little House on the Prairie digitized.

Of course when it comes to digital ethnography we get nervous around words like ‘community‘  how do we define our terms.  How do we prove that what we are observing (or participating in – another kettle of fish) a community if the members never meet?

“an online community is a community if participants imagine themselves as a community” (Baym, 1998 via Bell, 2001)

I think self-definition is important, but one thing I have learned this week is we are in a dodgy branch of a dodgy science.  Ethnographists get sneered at when they are knee deep in their meatself muddy ethnographic experience and have the mosquito bites to proove it, and even they sneer at virtual ethnographers (in between recurring bouts of malaria probably).  The question of community on the internet reminds me of the question of personal authenticity on the internet.  I think we are only discussing these issues (and the discussion is important) because we are relative new to this medium of… communication? Communication seems such a small word for what happens when we get online these days, I would prefer to call it medium of being.

I like Hine’s (2000) take on authenticity:

A search for truly authentic knowledge about people or phenomena is doomed to be ultimately irresolvable. The point for the ethnographer is not to bring some exernal criterion for judging whether it is safe to believe what informants say, but rather to come to understand how it is that informants judge authenticity.

You get frauds, liars and false communities in face to face environments and yes the internet makes it easier for them to operate – but you are soon able to sense a genuine community as you can a genuine person, through sustained contact, whether that contact be meeting them over dinner, reading their posts, or petting their unicorn (yes we are back to Fluff Friends again). The question of whether or not an online community is invalid because of their lack of face to face contact will I am sure become invalid soon enough.

In the meantime I imagine Fluff friends is a community because:

• When I am busy my neighbours drop by to feed and pet my wallaby.
• If I give someone’s lecoon a cinnamon roll they leave a thank you note in my letterbox.
• There are rules and if I break them I will be cast out (temporarily or permanently depending on the severity of my crime).
• It has informal standards of acceptable behavior (more subtle than the rules) and if I don’t follow this I will be scorned by my neighbours.
• If I work hard, am generous and mindful of others I am rewarded with success and approval.
• But, most importantly… because a friend gave me a little blue werewolf despite the fact I couldn’t give her my golden candle points, because she knew I loved him and I couldn’t afford him.

Here he is (with my baby wallaby and my regular wolf):

Just a quick post to let you all know hubby and I are mounting the trusty Phantom (if only we had bought the Steed like he wanted that sentence would have been so much funnier) and heading for the hills and dales of Northern Thailand once more.  I won’t be gone long – just 5 days, but I will miss the beginning of the enthographic brainstorming (I am taking the netbook but don’t hold out hopes of much net access).  Hopefully I will be able to grab the ends of the discussion, by which time I will be as well read as a person who has had nothing to do all day but soak in hot springs and read pdfs.  I have loved, and I mean LOVED this first block of our cultural journey together and can’t wait to see (in a multimodal sense) what the next segment brings.

See ya’ll on Thursday *hugs*