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Week 2 Summary

Week 2 Summary

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Week 2 Summary: Jan. 23-29

Week 2 of EDC has been difficult because I’ve been very involved with training for my new job in communications in the nuclear power industry (I know nothing about nuclear power). I’ve had limited time to dedicate to my lifestream blog and am feeling the pressure to produce worthy content to post.
I was glad to participate in Helen W’s Togethertube catch-ups where we discussed the films from the Film Festival. It was great to hear ideas from my peers but was sometimes difficult to follow the film, think about the film and follow the discussion. I also think it was difficult for me since I have no background in these topics (I’ve never seen Bladerunner!).

This week, I’ve also been giving much thought to my visual artefact and expressed some of those ideas in a post HERE, along with thoughts about ‘transhumanism’ from the Bayne (2014) paper.

I also discussed my favourite films from the Film Festival in a post HERE. I loved We Only Attack Ourselves and found the imagery quite impactful and representative of the human-cyborg struggle.

I am lucky to have become friends with Chenée who I chat with quite often on WhatsApp; in this post, I illustrate our discussion through a screenshot and through an image of a sketch I made about culture after hearing Chenée’s thoughts.

Film Festival

Film Festival

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Of all the films in the Film Festival, I was most struck by the films on memory and especially: We Only Attack Ourselves. I loved the image of the purple scarf flying away through the desolate landscape and destructive environment. It was very emotional – the music and the sadness and despair of being forced to become a cyborg. What is the message? Humans and cyborgs don’t mix? Did he lose his identity…did they lose their identity as a couple? They can no longer have a relationship? Or perhaps it was the change in form, from human to hybrid, that drove a wedge between them? Very thought-provoking…

Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (2007) tells us that a cyborg is a “creature in a post-gender world;” I wonder, however, why some cyborgs (today) are depicted as either male or female, as Gumdrop (female) is as in that film because of “her” voice and body. I also love the contrast of past and present in Gumdrop with the futuristic robot and the old school black and white Charlie Chaplin scenes.

References

Haraway, Donna (2007) A cyborg manifesto from Bell, David; Kennedy, Barbara M (eds),  The cybercultures reader pp.34-65, London: Routledge.

 

Togethertube!

Togethertube!

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During this second week of EDC, I participated in a couple of film festival catch-ups on Togethertube, graciously hosted by Helen W. It was great to re-watch the films and engage in discussion with my peers. I am finding it a bit difficult to relate to the topics because I have no background in studying cybercultures so it’s been great to have access to observations and perspectives from my classmates.

Screenshot of my RT of Helen W’s tweet.

 

Thoughts on the visual artefact

Thoughts on the visual artefact

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I keep reading this excerpt from the EDC site:

“This block ends with you creating a visual representation of a theme or themes covered during this first part of the course. The idea here is that you try to represent your knowledge and understanding of the core cybercultures themes we have considered by creating something which is visual rather than textual – an image, a video, or some other kind of digital representation.”

Create a “visual representation of a theme…”

“…visual representation…”

Given that through necessity and experience I have come to enjoy creating videos, I think I will choose to create a video and publish it on YouTube for my EDC visual artefact. 

After reading Bayne (2014), I am intrigued with transhumanism – of how “radical technological modifications to our brains and bodies are needed.” This makes me think about learning, of acquiring knowledge and experience… Are we not modifying our brains through learning – through the acquisition of knowledge? We are, at least, enhancing or building upon our knowledge (perhaps this is referring to Piaget’s constructivism?)…

I must admit that I had to go through Bayne’s (2014) paper a number of times as I found it a lot to grasp. I still think I don’t entirely understand everything. Again, I guess that is what learning is about.

References

Bayne, S. (2014) What’s the matter with ‘Technology Enhanced Learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2014.915851

Brainstorming…on paper.

Brainstorming…on paper.

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I was chatting with Chenée on WhatsApp about her post on culture. It’s great to be able to reach out to friends on the course to discuss topics and to support each other. 

In this quick sketch, I jotted down some key words and thoughts about our first block on Cyberculture. How does online culture relate to internet culture and what is the difference between the two? What relationship will our lifestream blogs have to our Twitter hashtag #mscedc? In which online space will we create these relationships?

Image of my brainstorming sketch.