Kyle > Recent Status Updates

Technology takes a different tack after Dakers and like-minded colleague Petrina set up their arguments by ruminating on psychological-philosophical assemblages of Deleuze and Guattari, all of them asking to do more with the wealth of information from the Internet than just accessing it quicker. Watson has more of an insider perspective on educational technology, already part of her world, yet taught dispassionately.

Funny how often Gibson writes at length (or with great brevity in the last couple of articles) on topics that seem to be of interest to him only to have him write a postscript explaining how he didn’t quite capture the essence of the city, novel or item of clothing he had set out to describe. On the one hand it is a peek inside the process of an author, on the other makes me wonder what was going on with his editors.

The third part of Bogart’s exploration of theatre and specifically directing practices continues in much the same manner as Director Prepares and And Then You Act: personal anecdotes illuminated by deep thoughts from other authors. Like many third instalments of movies franchises, this book is set on legacy-building; Anne stepping aside to let others, noticeably Ellen Lauren, develop the SITI story.

With an uplinked Pathfinder giving Mark more of a direct link to NASA, the narrative becomes more multifaceted and chatty, much less the meditative self-vs-other-world survival story it had previously been. Even flashes back to Sol 6 to get a POV from the rest of the crew, carefully kept on the story’s sidelines until needed four months later. Weir also subtly weaves into the on-going Sol logs a fabric tear.

A strange polarity, written as two personal magnetic forces, are identified as London and Tokyo. More than just representing the countries and former empires each are capital to, the old world charm of Lud’s town is just one level of strata. The other pole is the commonly imagined futureland Tokyo (despite most of the surrounding country being farmland). Vancouver, Gibson’s home, is merely a mid-point not a location.

Ah an author’s life, being pulled across the planet for various reasons as eager publications print up your thoughts on emerging information-technological Singapore, post-Sept. 11th New York, early otaku Tokyo; all sparking Gibson’s curiosity yet he still remains unaware why these places are the way they are despite his prognosticating profession. And just not to seem too travelogue-y, he includes his Borges preface.

The scenes on Earth are elliptical, much like NASA would be with multimillion dollar decisions made within minutes according to the chain of command. Yet within this institutional structure, low-ranking op Mindy still wins minor victories over bigwig blowhards like Annie and Bruce. Back on Mars, where it is just Mark and random bits of equipment left in various places, he only ever gets such self-contained victories.

Striking home in the last few chapters how hostile the world was for Jung and especially Pauli, ranging from the professional ridicule that kept them from publishing their left-field intuitive beliefs to the wider postwar political landscape where the choice to develop atomic weapons was the make-it-or-break-it point for physicists, as it was for long-time collaborator Heisenberg. And yet, 137 bonds both great minds.

Gibson gets anthropological with his exploration of storytelling, starting at cave painting and early oral tradition around communal campfires, zooming past print and vinyl records to an “endless digital Now” (p. 44) where Johnny X can remake classy films like The Hours with more wire-fu and dog-headed avatars. His gleeful sense of warning publishers, financiers and film moguls was not meant to be prophetic.

At first, Jaron just seemed to be bit too coy and dismissive for the other guy (always Antonin Artaud as the true originator) who coined the term virtual reality, but my misinformed opinion came from reading about Lanier instead of just reading his book. This timely autobiography seems like just the thing to find out who he is, how deep down in the West Coast digisphere VR’s roots go and what to expect next.

As suspected, the selection is a bit random, but each article so far includes his cutting insight into what makes his real-life seem virtual, as if every device he had as a child or movie he has watched (or in Kitano Takeshi's case, not yet watched) has some magical potential to be something greater and more futuristic than others would be willing to see. His postscript notes help orientate me to what made him write.

Things start to change for Esther, who suddenly meets her mother and learns there is nothing to be gained from this link to her past. It somehow makes her a more determined character as opposed to her closest friend Richard, still stubbornly seeking his share of the family fortune. Two more odd characters show signs of change as Caddy’s deportmented father-in-law widen his social circle and Mr Guppy’s circle shrinks.

An amazing peek inside the mind of a self-conscious Jung, literally discovering the unconscious with each page of his illuminated text. Too bad my German (or ability to decipher compressed calligraphy) is not able to keep up - and I will need to return this giant tome to the library before getting to read the translation but the images are epic and pages 80-97 would have been worthy of McLaren’s NFB Animation Studio.

The mystery of Shakespeare’s poems (at least compared to the relatively more familiar plays) opens up a little with Post’s own poetic take on their place in literary history. Not only does he hone in on the alchemical Sonnet 33 in his introductory chapter, but includes many modern points of view in his analysis. Venus and Adonis becomes the author’s debut as he ups the allegorical ante on the mythmaker Ovid.

A widely-respected author and futurist moves out of his comfort zone to create nonfiction for the here and now, Gibson takes a similar approach to his articles, speeches and all-expense paid travels. As much as I feel there will be great insight into how he sees others living in the not-too-distant, it seems like there will be lots of random word generation to unpack, much like his “quantum universe-splitter” (p. 2).

To use the hackneyed expression from pop culture history, both Jung and Pauli met their Yoko Ono, identified variously as anima, I Ching or just Chinese woman, but the die is cast and both men are ready to move on into more experimental phases of their careers. Especially for Pauli who has repented his womanizing Mr. Hyde days (maybe not, Miller suggests with Marie-Louise) to discover synchronicity.

Admittedly a bit skeptical when I started reading this last part of Leavy’s text, assuming that the researcher’s use of visual art simply meant scattering their prose with juxtaposed photos, but was won over by Collage and Comics. A lot can be done with my research into virtual reality, still lacking its necessary visual elements. Perhaps I need to storyboard my dissertation? A sketch per page saves me 137,000 words!

As intriguing as it was to read the trials and errors of the first crop of Martian potatoes, I had a feeling that the Solly logs would not be the whole story. It was a well-timed narrative switch to hear what was happening back at the ranch, in this case NASA, each scene a slow burn discovery of Mark Watney’s survival and projected demise. Without contact to Earth, he is left to execute rovering Sirius solo missions.

There is the push and pull of the two forces behind Buddhism’s progress from its roots in India to its flowering in the many temples in Japan, pollinating to the rest of the world as Zen. The first force is the eponymous meaning of Buddha himself, the wisdom that counters the second force, expressed in this essay as ignorance. Suzuki conjures up the image of the companion of Want from Dickens’ classic Carol.

End on a high note, a reasonable strategy for a postformal paychologist and educator who doesn’t want to scare young minds away from the field of futurism. That’s why there are the two concept maps, the first being all the issues that will effect everyone (or at least everyone aspiring to live in a developed, urbanized country despite decreasing resources) and the second maps how things might turn out better for all.

It is fascinating to learn of Pauli’s rough edges that made him popular among the Max Reinhardt School actresses, one of whom he married, yet his life was a downward spiral that first theorized the neutrino but made him a Mephistopheles (in Copenhagen, at least). His true self was being discovered at Lake Zürich, under the inquiring supervision of Dr. Jung. Even with alchemy and mandalas, Pauli was never fully cured.

Polar opposites of artistic writing on film and video research: Hearing & Jones set up an idyllic establishing shot and immediately forget everything about the screenplay format as they tell (not show) why film has visual validity; it lacks Salvatore’s bounce. Harris conversely writes prose and tips the scales towards over-self-referential, yet she is truly having a conversation with herself and others she had cited.

Looking past the many, many instances of self-referencing (here’s looking at you, Snowber, who even gives herself the epigraph for her own chapter!), there are also many valuable insights on how we can be the research ABRers hope to see. Salvatore takes care to explain how an interview becomes an ethnotheatre script, while Norris emphasizes how icebreakers eliciting laughter can demonstrate when participants open up.

The rose-coloured positivist glasses of techno-utopians are pulled back as Gidley critically examines visions of flying cars, servile robots and chicken pot pie baking in every AI-operated oven. Most daunting observation is how every present-day robotics lab seems only able to build a T-800 Terminator. On the other hand, a transhumanist future includes the spiritual and conscious development our devices have blocked.

Just as I was intrigued yet bewildered by mixed method in my methodology course, this short section featuring team-led research in Norway and Lin-Manuel Mirandized America has art up in the foreground while the -based research seems like a secondary consideration. But perhaps this is my misconception of the research projects being less like old wine in fancy new bottles. Finley’s chapter ends musing on digital media.

After diving into his unconscious and discovering archetypes, it almost seems like Jung invented Pauli as mirror for his own psychoanalytical journey. At least this is how it seems with Miller’s account of the two 20th century alchemists. Pauli struggled with his shadow self, being both a Kepler and a Fludd, to come out of the uncertaint birth of quantum mechanics with an exclusion principle based upon variable spin.

The parallel lives of Jung and Pauli are entangled in the enlightening Prologue, yet drawn out in each of the following chapters as diametrically opposed. Jung was a quiet, awkward child who became the hotshot psychoanalyst able to take on Freud’s talking cure. Meanwhile Pauli started out as a wunderkind who later stumbled around Münich’s red-light district and was brought to near breakdown by his mentor’s discovery.

The future must have seems have seemed quite manageable in the early 20th century, especially for Americans who allegedly won the Second World War by dropping the biggest bombs, yet the post-positivist world was waking up, and many futures were on the horizon for parts of Europe recovering from disastrous 1000-years planning. Most appealing approach is the cultural futures where other countries’ futures are included.

The circle widens away from poets, painters and practicing artists in the educational field, including researchers in sociology, psychology, health sciences, science and business. Each expanding ripple draws attention to the need for artists to create work that speaks to non-artists since it is not too much of a stretch for anthropologists to value the cultural impact of art but makes lots of empty space in business.

The narrative inquirers are preaching to the storytelling choir; as much as I admire all of them and want to become more poetic and arts-based with my research, the one discordant note that would often sound was each time a contributor self-referenced in a chapter. Some rehashing (Freeman, Faulkner) more than others (Sinner, Hasebe-Ludt & Leggo) with editor Leavy finding a good middle ground talking about her novels.