numérodeux

Anne Harris discusses the idea of creating communities through transformation, which is a result of entanglements. The entanglements she speaks of in relation to a college campus, of Lawrence University, hone in on temporality - the typical student's four year career, 30 + years for tenured faculty, and an even longer duration for alumni. This temporality becomes a part of our environment. The environment that each Lawrence student takes part in and lives in, everyday of his or her numbered days here. McLuhan has something to say about a stagnant environment that passes through the old and new:

"The interplay between the old and the new environments creates many problems and confusions. The main obstacle to a clear understanding of the effects of the new media is our deeply embedded habit of regarding all phenomena from a fixed point of view." (McLuhan, 69)

I won't include the rest of the quote here, but basically he talks about how we exist as people with separate and fixed points of view, and that's the main idea behind this work

Rainy Day. Gustave Caillebotte

and new media necessitates us to leave these fixed perspectives for an exploration into multiple ones, of which characterize the nature of new media.

From Harris and McLuhan, I am struck by the idea of an environment hosting temporality and fixedness. And of how new media plays into this.




we are here at Lawrence and we will graduate soon though some will stay a bit longer, others might cut their time short by dropping out, or transferring.
we are here and so we are fixed but time is passing and we are growing so are we no longer fixed? have we become new media because we gain novel and differing perspectives by going to class and meeting new people from everywhere around the world?

if people don't go to class and hole up in their rooms, they then cannot become the types of new media those who go to class and go out become, but perhaps they learn and interact with a diverse group online, so they become a different type of new media person through the environment of the internet and not Lawrence? despite the fact that they physically reside on campus?

This is what the New Media Institute has to say about new media:
http://www.newmedia.org/what-is-new-media.html

New Media is a 21^st Century catchall term used to define all that is related to the internet and the interplay between technology, images and sound. In fact, the definition of new media changes daily, and will continue to do so.

so the definition of new media changes daily. yet there seems to be an emphasis on the technological, internet-oriented aspect. so who is more new media? the student that goes out and enriches his brain and soul through proper classroom education and social mingling or the one that digs a hole in the corner of his room and fills his world with chat rooms and multi-player gaming sites? does it matter who is more? is there a problem with integrating to the point of abandoning your grounded reality for the virtual? well yeah....
Online Personas Rarely Real-Life Behavior

an emphasis on the technological. i am using technology to describe people. both literally(i am typing on the computer and writing about types of people) and metaphorically(new media becomes an adjective for talking about college students). ok.

soon?? no??^
The Singularity
this is Ray Kurzweil the guy behind this major theoretical???realistic??? stuff

i dunno. new media. it's exciting shit and i guess so is the idea of technology dissipating humanity.