Bricolage: The construction or creation from a diverse range of available things. French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss introduces us to the bricoleur and contrasts the bricoleur with the engineer or craftsman in that the ‘bricoleur’s means cannot be defined in terms of a project. The bricoleur is adept at performing a large number of diverse … [Read more…]
Teletheory by Greg Ulmer By Stacy Cacciatore Questions for Stacy to bring up Technology – why do we always devalue the value new technology brings to society? Memorization –He brings up that this has changed, I wonder, will it go away? If we don’t exercise this muscle, will it atrophy? Will that matter? (pp 19-20) … [Read more…]
Heuretics – Ulmer Analogy. The method becomes an invention when it relies on analogy and chance (Buchler, 14). If methods tend to be practiced as algorithms, their invention is heuristic (heuretics is a heuristic approach to theory). To help invent the dialectic, Plato relies on “The Manifesto of Surrealism,” and for that matter all of the manifestos of the avant-garde, belong to the tradition of the discourse on method. A comparison of Breton’s manifesto with the various classics of the method reveals that they tend to include a common set of elements, which are representable for mnemonic reference by the acronym CATTt (Ulmer, 1991b). The CATTt includes the following operations: C = Contrast (opposition, inversion, differentiation) A Analogy (figuration, displacement) T = Theory (repetition, literalization) T Target (application, purpose) t = Tale (secondary elaboration, representability) Writing as technology is a memory machine, with each apparatus finding different means to collect, store, and retrieve information outside of any one individual mind (in rituals, habits, libraries, or databases). Part of the contribution of hypermedia as The target for my method is the models of memory developed for it, inasmuch as individuals and societies tend to internalize as forms of reasoning the operations of their tools. The current state of computer interface design, then, may hold some valuable lessons for Derridean heuretics. What is our relationship with technology, language and memory – writing in the margins, taking notes on the computer, blog, evernote… r grammatology, hypermedia is the technological aspect of an ele~tronic apparatus (referring to an i~teractive matrix of technology, institutional practices, and ideological subject formation). My interest is not only in the technology itself but also in the problem of inventing the practices that may institutionalize electronics in terms of schooling. These practices are not medium specific: rather, they entail a revision of the liberal arts trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) open to writing on a screen as well_ as on paper. It may be that eventually, the screen will replace the page (and the database replace the library) as the support of all academic work. Used to not allow Google, now – source data, The practice of inventing … [Read more…]