cyped address

http://cyberpedaogogylabspring2013.blogspot.com

The use of "written words" in the internet world

 

Image: Web-camera capture of my Korean homepage

The experience of reading something online is multisensual experience. In reading online, we have much more freedom and space to alter the experience.
We could change the size of the text, or read it while we are checking our email on the same screen. When we encounter certain information in the text we want to know more about, we can research about it instantly, and come back to the original text with enhanced background knowledge.

We could play music in the background, if that helps one concentrate. We could take that text to other places, or check the comments to see how other people found the reading.
In this end reading becomes not a private, introspective experience, but a kind of shared experience with others.
Reading a news article often leads to open conversation built up by the comments left on the page by people from various places.

Personally my experience of reading online often gave me the impression of certain lightness. It could have been caused by the efficiency that internet offers, but I think it was also caused by the limitation of the information that is available. -Almost like touching the surface of the water lightly with the big toe, before breaking into the water. Just a light touch, and no more.

When I get into the moment when I get completely absorbed in the article, I find myself writing it down on a piece of paper, while I am reading it. When I feel the need to keep the words, I have to write it down, so I can carry it, or store it somewhere, where I can go and take it out with my hands.

I find it interesting when my friends take out a Macbook instead of a notebook when they need to make a note of something. A friend who is studying composing, found it delightful and useful, that his Macbook in fact let him take a note of 'melodies' when he is outdoor, using a program that tranforms keyboard into different instruments. Or else, he could simply hum the melody to his Macbook and it will record it into musical notes.

Reading and writing have for a long time became chiseling tools for carving human culture and history. For a long time reading and writing required specific places and specific objects. Now the text we read and the tools we write with exists out there, in the world of internet(think about Googledoc, Dropbox, Blogs and emails).
We could resume reading the same text today at home tomorrow at work.

What does it mean? This newly created freedom in reading and writing?

I will write more about it during next week, with the help of the book 'The History of Reading' by Alberto Manguel.

"...If you are brave enough"

 

Tara Donovan's artwork, built by layering

 white buttons on top of each other

 

 

 

 

Artworks like this, reminds me of the experience of reading poetry.

 

The words building up the poem are familiar words, letter I make use of everyday.

But suddenly, organized and grouped under a enigmatic spell, the familiarity opens up the

world of uncanny images and meanings.

 

I appreciate Tara Donovan's work in such a way. It presents itself with a smile of a blue fairy from Pinochio, all knowing and somewhat light hearted.

 

Her work also reminds me of something that my old university tutor told me.

 

That you will be able to make something that was never before, ...if you are brave enough.

 

Arranging one piece of button on top of each other, is a motion that is more like playing than creating. Donovan must have went through the same movement repeatedly in order to create her work. There is even a sense of ridicule in it. A fool, obsessed with a meaningless task.

 

Perhaps in the act of creating something new, one experiences something that is very akin to feeling rediculed. Artist has to bear the sense of meaninglessness while she's in the process of weaving out a new meaning out of it.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

New Damagochi

 

 

 

* Image of a Chick Damagochi. A cyber pet that was

popular among teens in Japan and Korea. Imported

from Japan.

 

 

 

 

Keeping a homepage is a lot like raising your cyber pet using Damagochi.

You have to constantly care for it, think about it and plan things you want to do with it,

when you have time again to be with it.

 

 

I remember how my palms sweated when I was holding my damagochi as a ten year old, who

never had a chance to have a real animal as a pet.

 

I don't remember whether I cared for it enough. Although I remember inkling of the tenderness I have felt for that being that lived inside the small and somewhat roughly built structure of a world.

A wee thing that was always there when I looked for it.

 

 

I think tactile element is important for me to form a long lasting relationship with it, let it be a person or an object. I suppose that is because I believe the ability to touch something, gives me a better chance of not being fooled-that tactile contact reveals things that are true and revealed.

 

That is why I always spend a long time considering what kind of notebook I need to get. The texture of the paper, the colour of it and the size matter greatly.

 

I am unsure at this moment of the possibility of myself building a enjoyable relationship with my blog.

 

Should I call it tactile though, because my hands are moving constantly while I am looking into the screen, even now? I don't know. I shall have to try it out, my new damagochi.