A SKETCHED OVERVIEW: SPECS, INSTRUCTIONS, GUIDE LINES
Above is a schematic drawing I made of the ideas in the class. Rather than using a linear format, I based the layout on the folds of paper that produce a “quarto” book (drawing inspiration from Philip Gaskell’s illustrations in A New Introduction to Bibliography). The idea was to show how words, pictures, and more material or active dimensions all work together to produce ideas (“associations”). Dr. Guerra asked that I think of myself as an “embedded journalist” in the class. (You can find a syllabus here.) This exhibit reflects on what I learned. This outline hits the major beats.
- A major point of attention in this course is the act of noticing differently. The actions of this are anchored in the workings of Prownian Analysis and in the vein of this course, processes like this are used to move past surface presentations. We do the work of challenging superficial recognitions in order to uncover new potential for social and cultural objects/elements. This sort of exploration weaves its way through works of literature and its collaborative analysis, social/cultural material experiments, ideas of classification, the broader worlds of technology, and discussions of social identity.
- We ask questions about wonder (theory) and encourage curiosities in the things that we have yet to explore/explore differently. We ask questions about how society and culture are settled through stories and technologies (history). We investigate the ways in which we recognize (genre) and, in some cases, challenge the strength and depth of the rules of our methods. We do not do this with the intention of meeting ends with a clear, indisputable answer that sums up our exploration, rather we ask these types of questions with the intention of expanding the conversation. The moves we make here are to uncover the value in unsettling things, to make new settlements and to begin new avenues of understanding among different people moving through different worlds.
- Ideas always unfold in materials, and following the work necessary to produce these materials helps understand how some ideas happen or don’t. The interface I used for this exhibit is an example of this. Omeka is structured to display items, collections, and exhibits in a very rigid way for the purpose of consistency, clarity, and ease of access to the data attached to them. In creating this exhibit, the stylistic choices that I made were limited to the variants of the interworkings of Omeka and Dublin Core. The presentation of the items as well as the data associated with them is, in some cases, the result of my judgment when faced with the challenges of an inflexible filing system.
As you browse this exhibit, I hope you’ll see, as I did, how these ideas, technologies, and work practices fold together.