topology, more on it

Media space should suggest an ordering of thought, some internal/external sense of shape, depth, surface, and position and pattern. Is it possible to teach students to think about these concepts when it comes to shaping an essay or by manipulating words on the printed page or page printed from digital surface? We know from Kolb that repetition in argumentation is important to the ends of argument, yet if a student is asked to repeat an argument word for word in an essay, they’ll be called on it, yet in hypertext, a link may “cycle” back to a previously encountered criteria to reinforce or remind as a matter of design.

In the essay (those asked for by trained composition teachers) we request a different kind of stylistics: variance of content as it unfolds: repeat but make sure you vary. There’s a marked difference here in the design, the shape, and surface of ideas across the landscape of writing. But is there a base form that should dominate: is this base form the sentence, the paragraph, the essay? Do different disciplines want the same things in their arguments and explications? An underlying logic, but different formal demands? Can the formal demands, the shape of an argument, be removed from concept? Can an excellent idea be read beyond its grammatical bed?

mass moves and strikes

From today’s Post:

Sinclair Broadcast Group of Maryland, owner of the largest chain of television stations in the nation, plans to preempt regular programming two weeks before the Nov. 2 election to air a documentary that accuses Sen. John F. Kerry of betraying American prisoners during the Vietnam War.

Sinclair has ordered its 62 stations, some of which are in the critical swing states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin, to air “Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal” during prime-time hours next week. The Sinclair station group collectively reaches 24 percent of U.S. television households.

Ordered is the key term here, but I also hear that the time is being offered for free. Hundt, FCC Chairman, has apparently sent a letter of inquiry, asking SB what the hell’s going on, given the licensure of american air waves by the Feds.

The old cliche of the liberal media, always a political mouse without a tail, has always been a “clingphrase” for people who wonder why “politics exists” but over the years it seems that the repetition of the idea and other influences have manifested in a climate of faux fairness and false evenhandedness in media. (The idea of a “campaign issue” falls into this category too: Iraq isn’t a “campaign issue,” it’s a matter of real life, even for media managers. “Campaign issue” suggests an issue only important to campaign coverage, thus a manipulation of context, a false context). Over the last couple of years I’ve seen crap that makes me wonder: what the hell will they think of next?

Nobody knows what this move means, but I sense that it’s just what it smells like: shit.

topology

This from John is too interesting to leave in the comments section. He writes:

The term ‘topology’ has always intrigued me since it became a significant aspect of photography in the 1970s. We can think of the word as referring to the narrative of any given space: the effects of time on space. The topology of a story is speaking to the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ it came to be the way it is at the ‘present.’ The Little Red Cap project works at two levels: to remediate it from one form to another and also to record its topological evolution.

Then, while perusing the dictionary, this appeared: “The art of, or method for, assisting the memory by associating the thing or subject to be remembered with some place.” Is it also topology when we ask “*Where* have I known you before?” or “We’ll always have Paris.”?

I’d say that placing someone in time and space is always an “act of topological positioning” and an act of interpretation. Memory is a vast organic and dynamic database, thus also a dynamic storyspace, whose plot waits for the making. Links, paths, strands, and narrative all suggest mental and brain-organ space, I would think.

What does it take to put together a broken pot? No, the answer isn’t glue. In Cadre’s Photopia, readers in Contemporary Fiction fashioned the work according to colors, names, desires, inputs, and “x self.” This is the lingering text, the aura of what stayed in the mind.

Thanks John.

mind maps

Flow, problem, sequence, narrative, organization–all catch words. One of the things that digital space has accomplished is to make people more aware of the progression of tasks and visualizing process (see Novamind, for example, and Mark Bernstein’s Tinderbox, which makes the PC user perhaps wish for a Mac, but the wait will perhaps be worth it). Drawing lines on paper works fine too but lacks flexibility, cross work, digital stitching, and infinity.

Visualizing human action is always complex, such as planning for future assessment at the college level. Where does history meet British Literature, hypertext meet Biology? Consider a story and how it moves from place to place. To isolate the parts isn’t that easy to do because our encounters with them are nearly effortless. The structure disappears into water. In story we’re looking for something else. It’s always an incredible experience teaching Sir Gawain to sophomores because the alienness of the text forces the structure out into the open and we can work into the storyspace slowly.

Mind is spatial and discrete yet wefted, nowhere but everywhere. In poetry we can talk about an image, such as these: “I have seen days when the clouds rolled in / thick and black as the desert night” and “I can remember the stench of stale cigarettes, / Lingering on us from the pub in Boston.” Organized “mind.” Thus the poem is a city, a city a poem.

To put a story onto a page or into Storyspace is an incredible thing. The hypertext story extends the tradition. Now to put the city in hypertext.

reaching out beyond squares

Spinning always impresses with her “reaching” into the unkown. An excellent thing because a lot of what she does is of her own devising, a reaching out of the cube of the classroom.

This leads me back to considering how we make progress. The students are taking the text version of Little Red Cap and manipulating it into a visual version which plays with representation, presentation, and effects. What will they learn is the question. The common concepts we want to know, such as new media’s elements of modularity, media ecology and topology, programming, interactivity, and complex structure are coming along, but one of the more interesting and exciting issues is what the students are teaching each other and teaching themselves. Riveting.

We are working in experimental space. Thinking beyond what’s in line, going behind Milton.

breathing and poetry

Everyone knows that breathing is important, but can reciting poetry increase health? Of course. From October Scientific American

Cardiovascular and respiratory responses are not normally in sync. Rhythmic fluctuations in blood pressure take place naturally in 10-second-long cycles known as Mayer waves, whereas spntaneous breathing normally occurs at a rate of approximately 15 breaths per minute.

Dirk Cysarz of the Herdecke Community Hospital and Institute of Mathematics at the University of Witten/Herdecke wanted to explore the connection between these ocsillating mechanisms, which are known to couple weakly at times. The type of poetry was a key aspect of the study. Cysarz and his colleagues specifically used Homer’s Odyssey translated into German, which maintains the original hexametric pace of the verse–that is, six meters, or rhythmic units, per line. . . .

For this study, healthy subjects practiced three activities: hexameter reading, controlled breathing at six breaths per minute and spontaneous breathing. They recited while walking, breathing and lifting their arms. The researchers found increased synchronization between heart rate and breathing during the poetry readings but not during the spontaneous breathing. Controlled breathing also boosted synchronization, though not to the extent of recitation . . .

narratives 04

Last night’s narratives meeting was a smash hit in terms of workshop and gathering. We had nice numbers and a good planning session. We miss those who weren’t able to make it and those who are at a distance. Hopefully, some of the regulars can get back into the action and that schedules come together. Thanks to Susan and to those who came for the encouragement and the help.