The last conference of this week (I hope), the bi-annual meeting of cultural studies in Finland takes place today and tomorrow in the University of Tampere. Aki Järvinen gave an interesting Goffman-inspired talk exploring the concept of ‘context’ from within the framework of his thesis-in-progress. Listening, it occurred to me that we need a theory of insignification, as much, or more, than we need signification theories. Among infinite polysemy, you need to know where not to watch.
Month: December 2005
pot of honey?
Lagavulin is one hard whisky to find, for some reason. Similarly, it appears that a mobile data application that actually works is a rare beast indeed. This is sent with a Nokia 6600 cameraphone with its internal email client, via Saunalahti (operator), into Flickr mail-to-blog service, which automatically posts it into Blogger, which uploads these pages into my personal server via SFTP. Still cannot really believe the damned thing works…
home again
Today is 6th of December, Day of Independence and public holiday in Finland. It feels really good just to be home, see the snow-covered landscape. We even have a small christmas tree already. There are also some pictures from the IPerG Commission review in Bonn, and DAC 2005 in Copenhagen that are now online.
documented life
-720220.jpg)
This is sort of characteristically ‘post’-style game, taking photo of a photo, documenting someone documenting themselves. Sitting here, listening to Jill Walker talking about digital photographs, and about portraying oneself with modern technology. Of course, a blog is a way of self-representation, too, but also a way of documenting the life, and world. It is sort of easy see this a a gratuitous and endless self-reference, but there are alternative traditions of perceiving these practices of reflection. And that is all the talk is all about, of course. 
stopping for a moment in dac
Another busy travel week: trains, airports, cars. Lecture halls, computers, sudden flash of blue sky and then again, underground. Sounds of trains, receding.
Some thoughts were passing by, around mid-week. Now there is flu, ache in joints. Articulations never really fully meeting with their function.
Digital Arts and Culture 2005 conference in Copenhagen has its own wiki, it is interesting to sit here in this event, and see it being adapted (translated) into words and images, collectively, as moments pass.
Very fitting to the themes of the conference, digital aesthetics, experience, design and practice. But I found myself thinking about how this kind of developments will lead into increasing multitasking. Already, many are reading their emails in meetings rather than sharing the same thought-space (even if nominally the physical space). But I am also hopeful, paradoxically, as people not interacting with each other in face-to-face level might actually learn about something about each other in these alternative layers of (non-)presence with these familiar strangers. After all, blogging or making wiki notes during an event might create a larger collaborative space, make some links between interests, ideas, individuals and institutions more visible than would otherwise be likely. Or not?
frans goes blog 