Writing and the Digital Life

iPod crazy?

I'm in Toronto at the moment and it seems that the local area is going "new media" crazy. In the Arts & Life section of the Toronto Star Sunday newspaper there is a full page spread dedicated to the "iPod age." There are various ways to listen to new music, the example in the paper cites a trade between two unlikey candidates: Jeanne Lamon of Toronto's Tafelmusik (classically trained musician and world authority on music from the 17th and 18th ceturies) and Maestro (Scarborough's - i.e. Toronto - very own rapper-turned-actor). If you are unlucky and have no such friends there is the "iPodiatrist" who "cheerfully offers replacement songs to provide new (improved) music for tired ears.  Instead of Norah Jones one might listen to Corrinne Bailey Rae, instead of Elvis why not try Campell Brothers.  Also, for those interested in using their iPod for fuctions other than listening to music why not "pimp my iPod?" This article lists ten (possibly risky) uses for your iPod.  Some of the most curious ideas include adding 300 gigs of memory (risking an entire reformat of course is things go wrong) to create the "all-in-one dream device." (why not just buy a new version Blackberry?) You can also log in to ipodwizard.net to change fonts, graphics, and text so that you can personlise the display. If you're (hrm...what's the technical term, ah yes), silly, you can also turn your iPod into an (admittedly very pricey) ashtray or create your very own amp. Is this the "new wave" in digital life?

Myspace - creative space or Hobbesian morass?

The ever-interesting Nicholas Carr adds his $.02 to the increasing controversy over MySpace. He complains that:

When I look around MySpace I don't see much that's "strange and wonderful" - or "deeply disturbing," either. I wish I did. What I see is a dreary sameness, a vast assembly of interchangeable parts.

Of course this is not surprising - not everyone has the skills to express themselves in a creative and interesting fashion and if they don't, of course they will fall back on pre-digested tropes and the 'content' that requires the least effort for the largest potential effect - the display of their own bodies. But the interesting point I feel is that at least these people are being encouraged to try to express themselves and that this may at least encourage and enable a small minority of those that try to hone and refine their skills and become genuinely creative (or at least more self-aware).

English teachers have tried to encourage this sort of thing with diaries and self-reflective fiction for years but this arena (unlike the classroom) has peer pressure behind it and offers the producers the potential for peer reinforcement if they can produce something compelling.

Not to say that there aren't considerable dangers as well, of course!

transliteracies

I posted this on my blog yesterday but thought I'd add it here as it seems to fit with the current blogussions:

According to UNESCO, in the world today there are about 1 billion non-literate adults.
This 1 billion is approximately 26 percent of the world's adult population.
Women make up two-thirds of all non-literates.
98 percent of all non-literates live in developing countries.
In the least developed countries, the overall illiteracy rate is 49 percent.
52 percent of all non-literates live in India and China.
Africa as a continent has a literacy rate of less than 60 percent.

Right. So what are we doing about this? Well for one UNESCO has launched a Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE) while others are developing country/province specific initiatives. In other words the world has recognised the extreme importance of being able to read and write. Literacy is an indispensable prerequisite to gain access to information about health, environment, education and employment.

ENTER TECHNOLOGY. With almost everything existing online (banks, clothing, food, shelter - buying and letting, friends, family,etc...) one must be technologically literate. Without this new literacy there is no access to this world. In Professor Sue Thomas's talk (yesterday at DMU) she discussed the (alarming for some) speed at which web technology is progressing. Unfortunately, although technologies are converging at breakneck pace, research about them has not followed suit. Universities and some (can we say most?) academics seem to "fear" the progress of the internet. Perhaps they are worried that what is available is not academic...but that of course is the case for print as well. Good researchers recognise academic sources whether they exist online or offline. Perhaps the problem with the web (at least the new web, web 2.0) are the myriad of connections which abound. So universities retreat into what Thomas calls "gated communities;" communities where academics might feel protected from the wilderness but isn't collaboration and aren't connections central to any strong research? The question becomes how to "manage" the information (overload) which exists in the ether. There are all sorts of platforms and tagging devices but I think it comes down to each person being aware of what they want (subjective view, social view, academic view) and looking for sources which provide that.

If universities don't get involved now we'll have what Epic depicts - an internet where there is no "truth" to be found as newspapers have gone "offline" in protest and blogs become the news and, on top of it, each "news" story is tailored to each individual reader so the question of what really happened becomes impossible to answer. With universities not afraid to add to the "stone soup" of power and potential that is inherent in such a connective tissue the key words for information management will become "filtering," "ordering," and "delivering." In one word: we all need to be transliterate.

Call for Interactive/Animated Art About Hunger

This call is from Isabel Aranda at yto.cl.  I am reposting it with her permission.  Click on "Continue Reading" to see the call in Spanish and Portugese (original language is Spanish).  --Millie Niss

The Hunger's Pulses
yto.cl

http://www.pulses.yto.cl

The Hunger's Pulses is a work in progress which intends to focus the hunger
theme in its wider sense.

The Hunger's Pulses  is a collective project  created by yto.cl. It is an
invitation to artists to  reflect on one of the most painful subjects in our
current world.

Digital artists are invited to send animated and interactive web works .
Please, visit:  http://www.pulses.yto.cl .

Send the works to ytoaranda@lycos.es ; ytoaranda@gmail.com .

Isabel Aranda

Images

Haunting Images from the harrowing events of the past fortnight

People waving in vain from the roofs of drowned houses
A swamp of sewage in an  ill-prepared shelter
A tsunami created from the tears of mothers grieving year-dead children
A river of sandals flowing from the feet of people fleeing reasonable rumour

Gulf Coast disaster

Just to say that people in the UK are thinking of you in America at this time.  Not much practical use I know Too far away even for sending of jigsaws and coloutring pencils, as requested by Coffee cup Software,  to be of immediate use,  Sometimes being so virtually close makes the physical distance more frustrating