When the world becomes art

Artist Rodrigo Derteano's robot constructed Ciudad Nazca in the deserts of Peru.

Via Coudal Partners

Assessment from a Poetic Perspective

My wife today sent me a link to Heather K. Phillips MFA thesis project. Heather is a recent graduate of RISD; her project speaks to the legitimation of critique and the ubiquity of assessment at all levels of education. Here's a great paragraph from her abstract:

In my work, I co-opt the vocabulary of critique, cloaked in niceties and reinforced by repetition, to demonstrate its limitations. Using a hyperbolic approach, I identify and mirror the language back to expose the veneer of objectivity and test the limits of subjectivity. I replay feedback in exaggerated form, to challenge the perception that critique is an infallible process.

Last night my Contemporary Rhetorics course focused on Lyotard's Postmodern Condition. One of the student presentations highlighted an interview with Lyotard in a 1996 issue of JAC in which Lyotard declares PMC an abysmal failure and expresses extreme regret for every having written it. In a response to the interview, one of my colleagues, Deborah Jacobs, argued that Lyotard's regret stems from his aversion to definition and "theory" (as Lyotard defines the term) in favor of philosophy and questions. She also notes that Lyotard's dismissal of his writing "unsays" what was "said"--calls it into question, challenges its being. PMC, after all, is a book that attempts to define a particular movement, catalogue a series of transformations, and offer a possible (paralogical) response. It all sounds quite positivist. But it is also a slippery book that defies promises and undermines a few of its own pretensions (last night we discussed whether paralogy can exist as its own meta-narrative, or whether it is a parasitic operation, orientation, or attunement brought to an existing narrative-game). Lyotard jests in his introduction:

It remains to be said that the author of the report is a philosopher, not an expert. The latter knows what he knows and what he does not know: the former does not. One concludes, the other questions--two very different latter games. I combine them here with the result that neither quite succeeds. (xxv)

The passage reminds me of a saying of one of my more sardonic friends from graduate school: "you are always failing at something." Phillips' project speaks to this lingering postmodern challenge to the ideals of human autonomy and truth, particularly her "Stamps of Disapproval." I'm pretty sure I gave Casey one of these stamps not so long ago (but in my defense, his argument was entirely tautological).

This is Much Better than a Flying Car

Remember Geordi Laforge from Star Trek?

Well there's an article in the Guardian.uk on a device that translates impulses on the tongue into visual data, effectively allowing blind people to see. Seriously, sometimes science rocks.

New Ok Go Video

Honestly, I'm not really a big fan of this band. I thought their first hit, "Here it Goes Again," was catchy but borderline annoying. The video was engaging. That said, the single extended shot chicanery in their new video is quite cool:

And I appreciate the self-referential jab at the success of "Here it Goes Again" around 2:40.

Old meets New - Ze Frank on Time.com

I've been enjoying Ze Frank's new posts over at Time.com. You should too.

He's got two up that I could find, this one on the Iranian election and this one on "Black and White."

As if the interactivity of The Show wasn't enough to make me love Ze Frank, now we have a commentary on the implicit repressive impulse of seeing the world in black and white. Cause, hey, sophistic rhetoric feeds off of grey.

Proof the Web3.0 will be a smashing success:

Like customization? How about personalized beer bottles (via SILYP).

Visual Metaphor: Walmart as a Disease

As if the choice of green was innocuous. In the previous century, when I was a snobbish New Englander, Walmart was an unholy place--a store chocking the life out of small, friendly businesses and full of the kind of people that hindered social progress.

Now, as a snobby, academic Floridian, I take Rowan to Walmart for fun. And for cheap coffee (they sell the Starbucks for like 6 bucks).

Anyway, go watch FlowingData's map of Walmart's growth. Via ZeFrank.

OMG...

This is worth the time:

Chance
Uploaded by titounetsan

Auditorium

Via ZeFrank, a great flash game called auditorium. I'm stuck on 3.4. I'm not one for flash games, but this is very well done.

Someone Tell Me If I Like This...

Something bugs me about this video. I watch a lot of the "times-they-are-a-changin'" videos, but don't know what to make of this. But my Blink sense is tingling...

Since I'm teaching my digital citizenship course next semester, I think I'll use this in class.

Funny Doesn't Belong There

I often find myself trying to come to terms with my love of rhetoric; to the point that I try to find traces of this love littered throughout my entire life's narrative. One such trace, I tell myself, is my lifelong love of the cover song and the remix. Since I was a kid, I have always enjoyed the playful cover or parody--like the Lemonhead's "My Name is Luka," Dynamic Hack's "Boyz in tha Hood," or even Alien Ant Farm's "Smooth Criminal."

So, I tell myself, this clearly expresses an early appreciation for the kairotic dimensions of context. I appreciate a playful re-appropriation. I also can appreciate it as a deconstructionist--something that alerts us to silent norms, to expectations. Such an alert must be respectful, even while playful. For instance: laughing at a funeral. The laugh at a funeral might defy social convention, but it does so (hopefully) as light-hearted remembrance and as painfully playful nostalgia. It manifests the often neglected cliche: a proper funeral celebrates a life rather than mourns a death. So, you can laugh at a funeral. You cannot order a pizza.

I think the playful cover song, one self-conscious of its recontextualization, represents this kind of properly un-kairotic laughter (to borrow DDD's term). This laughter attempts a self-consciousness tempered by obligation--to the original, to the moment, to something other. All this came to mind today thanks to Mxrk's sharing the Jim Lehrer piece:

Steve Jobs Rocks

What rocks more than Jobs' 90 minute talk? This great 60 second remix of his 90 minute talk.

I love how the entire world seems willing and able to accommodate my growing attention deficit disorder.

Nintendo needs to hire Johnny Chung Lee

I've spent the last couple of days playing the online mode of Medal of Honor Heroes 2. Nothing special (it really suffers from a lack of player communication--no voice plus grenades equals frustration. But the immersive wii interface makes the game fun. Now imagine if the good people at Nintendo paid more attention to Mr. Lee's newest hack (I posted Lee's motion sensor hack a few months back):

Another Quick One

I don't think we can be friends if you don't like this one:

Powerthirst Sports Drink Spoof - Watch more free videos

Oh, one more thing: the Celtics are in such a dismal place that Kevin Garnett, who hasn't sniffed the playoffs in recent memory, is refusing what (in theory) would be a pretty good trade. Paul Pierce would be the talented wingman that Garnett's never really had in Minnesota. Those two players would make the Celtics a legitimate contender in the East. Oh well. I still think we'll end up trading our #5 pick to the Blazers for Randolf (that way Conley can be united with Oden and the Celtics get another low post player to match up with Jefferson).

Way back machine

I spent most of my blogging brain cells responding to Casey's question on yesterday's post, so here's a breather:

This ranks high in the hall of awesomeness. "Give him ze uppercut!"