This week has been spent focusing on the essay. It is great to begin to draw the ideas out. There is still a way to go and it isn’t a process that comes naturally, but like I said last week, it is a process that I am enjoying.
In Tuesday’s online chat we had individual chats with Andy, so I was able to discuss the essay. Andy was asking when a photograph became a photograph: When you push the shutter button, when its stored in the camera or when it is printed.
From reading an article by Cathy Weis on ageism, I am beginning to question if my understanding of embodiment. I have been thinking of embodiment in a linear way, time based due to our biological nature, and if in fact the notion of embodiment is far more diverse, and possibly more like a tag cloud.
I have read recently that can be argued is that rather than disembodying us cyberspace has in fact has embodied us.
This week I also managed to spend a little time on jotting down some notes for a prototype for the final show. Below is a 1st draft for the final piece prototype:
Prototype draft 1
But having shown it to a couple of friends and discussed the options with them, they advised me against trying to travel down to Camberwell and create an installation. Their feedback was the ideas in the presentation were too ambitious in relation to my resources and situation.
So had a good think through options and am going to look in to making a non linear narrative piece with Korsakow. That way all my recourses will be directed to a focused and contained piece and the time frame will be more realistic.
So the next step will be to spend a bit of time going back over Korsakow with my sister who knows more about the programming than I do and get up to speed and aim to put another draft presentation for the prototype together in a week or so.
I am comfortable with proceeding with a more contained project, a lot of my worries for the final piece have been based on options of getting down to London.
Korsakow is a structure that feels appropriate as it allows for interaction and the non linear narrative structure is representative of the way digital media has opened up choices and changed familiar processes. It feels as if it may echo some of the ideas above about the cyber world freeing us from a linear time biological lead understanding.
Appreciating why some of the questions we were posed in the early part of this course matter so profoundly, such as who controls the net and the sharing of information. Given how societies have structured and controlled themselves with biological based hierarchies that are in many ways obsolete in cyber space. (These some how are often found re asserting themselves. Like the sexual stereotyping of many avatars).
Just to end on an exciting piece of news about Mail Art One. At the end of last week I was contacted by the gallery director for the DLI gallery who wished to contact one of the contributors with a view to working with them.
I am really pleased about this as it was one of the things I hoped might be achieved through the publication. Its aim was to be eclectic, democratic open to any one who wanted to could be included. I am glad I stuck at producing it. It feels really good to have facilitated that introduction.
Abstract
October 27, 2009
Here is my abstract. It is really a draft that needs a lot of work but I wanted to post it and ‘own’ the essay.
Walking.
Abstract:
How may the act of walking be seen to reflect the position of the lived body in post human culture?
My current practice centres on examining the link between our identities and our unconsidered daily physical movements such as walking, an activity most of us take for granted.
The act of walking and its constant importance to us can be found built into our consciousness, in everyday phrases such as ‘walk like a man’, ‘walking to hell and back’; in folklore and fairy stories, e.g.: the Little Mermaid and Cinderella.
Historically cultural practices and ideologies surrounding walking have been used as a tool to reinforce gender, social roles, stereotypes; the rights and what it has meant for a man to walk freely have not been matched by those surrounding a woman’s to walk freely.
Projects are currently being undertaken that enable us to become cyborgs and walk in virtual realities. The sociological, political and psychological context of walking is constantly being redrawn in the face of our rapidly developing technological society. Walking is an activity that can be seen to reflect the predicament of the human body in a society that frequently seeks to renounce the unpredictable biological nature of the lived body in post human society.
Through this essay I will attempt to:
1. Outline a brief historical and sociological context of walking.
2. Examine the role of walking as understood in the context of embodiment theories.
3. Consider the role walking may posses in the post human cyber age.
5 key words:
Lived Body
Walking
Embodiment
Cyber
Post human
U1 essay and assignment
March 15, 2008
Please click the above link to view the revised essay.
Please see below for learning out comes out line:
Learning outcomes assesment
March 15, 2008
Please see the following entries for examples.
u1 w11
November 25, 2007
u1 january 6th 2008
u1 w20
January 31, 2008
u1 w24
February 19, 2008
u1 w28
March 9, 2008
Criteria 2:
An ability to debate and evaluate the work:
I have tried to understand the process required for MADA and debated it in some of the following reflections:
project proposal
January 27, 2008
u1 w20
January 31, 2008
Criteria 3:
Ability to identify , anaylize and address the contextual implications of the work.
The reflective process has provided a platform to identify,anaylize and address the contextual implications.
