Postdigitalism

"Imagine that you have before you a flagon of wine. You may choose your own favourite vintage for this imaginary demonstration, so that it be a deep shimmering crimson in colour. You have two goblets before you. One is of solid gold, wrought in the most exquisite patterns. The other is of crystal-clear glass, thin as a bubble, and as transparent. Pour and drink; and according to your choice of goblet, I shall know whether or not you are a connoisseur of wine. For if you have no feelings about wine one way or the other, you will want the sensation of drinking the stuff out of a vessel that may have cost thousands of pounds; but if you are a member of that vanishing tribe, the amateurs of fine vintages, you will choose the crystal, because everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain."
The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde (1900 -- 1969)

The 'postdigital' is not a new term or concept, but it is a term and a concept that has been forcibly re-appropriated by the 52group, in a draft paper that seeks to refocus our attention, particularly in relation to education. The basic premise is that 'digital' is becoming increasingly meaningless, as technology becomes crystal-clear, thin as a bubble, and transparent. Being fooled into mistaking the 'digital' for a thing in itself, rather than seeing it purely as an enabler (and just one alongside many other non-digital enablers), is a mistake that I make all the time. I have been more guilty than most of gaining more pleasure from the exquisitely patterned golden goblet than from the wine.

However, absorbing and accepting postdigitalism has brought clarity to my thinking, and I have already found myself responding to everyday work related issues from a postdigitalist viewpoint. I have spontaneously and effortlessly argued that 'it's not really about the technology', whereas in the past I might have happily argued that is was. That's not to say that I have suddenly become anti-digital. Far from it. It's just that anti or pro digital is not the issue. 'The canvas of the digital' provides me with an ever changing medium from which I can tap creative potential, but the canvas itself is not the art. More importantly, this digital canvas is not the only one in my studio. From a postdigitalist perspective, to dwell on the canvas misses the point. It is about the idea, the intention, the expression, the interpretation. It is about the conversations and the arguments. It is about the spirit of the artist and the success of the artwork. The skill with which the artist manipulates the paint on the canvas is crucial and should not be undervalued or rejected, just as we should not undervalue or reject the digital, but the art is not created by the canvas or the paint. It is created by the artist.

The Urge

There's something in the air. I can feel the urge returning. The creative hunger is making my belly rumble. I know there is a really big thing that, at the moment, I can only call a micro-reflection-conversation-engagement engine. I'm sure there's something even bigger hidden somewhere here in the murk. Where's my torch?

Curvy knowledge. Curved like a saddle. Like the shape of the Universe. And it smells of pie.

Forgive me blogosphere, for I have been a-tweeting at my blog's expense. That, and the fact the Open Habitat has finished, I've have 300 students bothering me, I've been planning the move to our new art school building and I've got a bit bored of virtual worlds.

However, my shackles have been shaken by a blog post that I have just read by Dave Cormier about open educational resources, which introduces the term 'curvy knowledge'. Dave's had quite a bit of flack about this term, but I like it, mainly because it sounds friendly and fun. Not like serious old flat knowledge, all precise and logical. Curvy knowledge (I'm largely imagining) is less certain, and has the convenience of not being right or wrong. It's the sort of knowledge that my colleagues and students generate and mediate on our arts courses. Maybe the flat of objectivity is curved by subjectivity. Curved like a saddle, I think. Like the shape of the Universe. Traversing curvy knowledge sometimes means sliding down a slippery slope, sometime climbing up a slippery incline. Sometimes it's grabbing flat knowledge and curving up to make someone else slide down to somewhere they weren't indenting to go, or making them climb up a previously straightforward route. I like curvy knowledge. It smells like a nice pie.

Emerged

Emerge, the Open Habitat project and the JISC Users & Innovation strand officially ended yesterday. For evidence of how great these projects have been, look at: http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/ and http://magazine.openhabitat.org/

But this is not the last blog post of the project. I stopped blogging for Open Habitat when I reached my 100th post last month.

This is the first post the new project.

Not sure exactly what the new project is yet. Here are a list of possible ingredients:

OpenSim for all my students.
OpenSim for the ex-Emergers
OpenSim for Leeds Met.
The 2D Virtual Studio Environment
The 3D Virtual Studio Environment
The 2D+3D Virtual Studio Environment
Fractal tree based course management
Digital identity
Art & technology
Non-linear, associational portfolios.
Mobile computing
iPhone & Android
QR Codes
Augmented reality.

Binary course management:
Connectivism & Control.
Formative feedback & stimulation
Subject specialists & coaches
White weeks & Yellow weeks.
Public & private.
Accredited & free.
Staff responsibility & student responsibility
Blended & distance.
Here & there.

Horizontal Meme transfer.

Bit of a thought in progress, this post. Also a tribute to Darwin, who was born 200 years ago today.

I read this article about horizontal gene transfer, and it got me thinking about how this might apply to creative thinking and ideas generation. The article reveals that the tree of life isn't really a tree, but a bit of tangled old mess, as genes keep getting transplanted from one species to another by viruses and hybridisation and the like. Apparently, there's a bit of snake DNA in the cow genome. The other really fascinating thing in this article is the section about species with larval stages, like caterpillars/butterflies. Some researchers think that this is the result of the amalgamation of the genomes of two different species into one functioning genome. The idea is that the genomes are expressed sequentially, with one organism's original life-code doing the business first, with a metamorphosis leading to the second species DNA taking over to finish the job off. This seems quite reasonable. If an alien landed on earth and looked at a caterpillar and a butterfly, they would assume they were different species. If you find all of this hard to swallow, read the bit about the starfish.

Anyway, if memes are idea genes, then what if we embrace horizontal transfer, hybridisation and dual genomes to enrich the evolution of strong ideas? If the right two jokes got stuck together, would they become one dominant joke? Would we eventually forget that it ever existed as two separate jokes? If we took other persistent memes and swapped chunks of them, would new, more successful memes emerge? How might this process work in a shorter time frame, like the course of an ideas generation workshop or student project? How might it apply to social software? Can I think of a way of using Twitter to test this hypothesis?

The Butterfly Effect.

I've blogged about 'abductive reasoning' a couple of times before. This is a sort of action focussed speculative analysis, reasoning what might be, and is a common trait in designers.

After group heckling the atrocious film 'The Butterfly Effect' during the Emerge event in York last week, my mind has been full of time travel ideas, and I started wondering how abductive reasoning might be applied at the end of a research project, in a giant 'What if?' exercise. At the start of Open Habitat, I spent a lot of time applying abductive reasoning to the construction of project scenarios. Now that we have the benefit of experience behind us, what might we have done differently, and how catastrophically good or bad might that have been for the project? If we travel back in time to key points in the Open Habitat project, and imagine that we had made a different choice, where might we be now?

False Dichotomy

I love the potential for serendipitous moment when in public. As an avid fan of public transport I enjoy the excitement, and the dangers, and the opportunities for mental stimulation that mixing with all sort of strangers brings. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with nutters who happened to sit next to me on the train. I also recognise the value of closed communities, like a University degree course. When I'm at Uni, I have conversations with people that I automatically have something in common with. I know who they are, and they know who I am.

I love the potential for serendipitous moment when in Second Life. As an avid fan of random double clicking on the mainland map, I enjoy the excitement, and the dangers, and the opportunities for mental stimulation that mixing with all sort of strangers brings. Some of the best conversations I have ever had have been with nutters who happened to stand next to me on a sim. I also recognise the value of closed communities, like a University degree course's private OpenSim grid. If I had a Uni MUVE, I could have conversations with people that I automatically have something in common with. I would also know who they were, and they would know who I am.

It would be pretty sad if my students and I stayed inside Uni all the time, but it would be pretty pointless having a degree course if we spent all our time outside. Private is good. Public is good. Similarly, the public space of Second Life provides amazing opportunities for deep learning through role-play and engagement with worldwide communities, but a private OpenSim grid would give all of our students a safe space to inhabit. Authentic identities would enable a blending of the virtual and the real, and once hooked, the students would possess the necessary skills and confidence to stride out into Second Life as whoever they choose to be.