Tag: amsterdam

Tue, August
26th

Amsterdam: "Oh my God, everything is Helvetica!"

Posted by clint
on August 26, 2008

On 27 July, 2008, I left Seattle to go to Amsterdam for a month-long study abroad program hosted by the University of Washington Honors Program, the International School for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and the Virtual Knowledge Studio. I now sit at Amsterdam-Schipol airport, typing a small series of articles detailing some of the more interesting points of the trip; I will refrain from speaking about the program itself, however – on that subject, suffice it to say that it was at times and alternately exciting, interesting, frustrating, tiring, and confusing. With that said –– Amsterdam!

Upon touching down at Amsterdam-Schipol nearly a month ago, my immediate thought was "oh my God, everything is Helvetica!" Schipol is a very impressive airport, even if it lacks the huge glass façades of Sea-Tac or the immense scale of O'Hare; it's quite simply very modern, with a reasonable layout and cozy lounge areas. And everything is in Helvetica.

Not just Helvetica the font, however – the overall design and aesthetics of the airport reflects strongly the Helvetica mentality: bold, vibrant, and modern, but not forceful. Cheerful yellow signs point you around the rather inviting lounge areas, which were substantial, even in the international terminal alone. And that wasn't the only thing that was cheerful: the customs official let me through within ten seconds. After buying a ticket, I wandered downstairs to wait for a train to Amsterdam Centraal Station, which was about a 6 minute wait. The train was similarly nice; the sneltrains are almost all fairly new, and run fairly smoothly and pretty much completely quietly.

And along the way, that same Helvetica impression held. Building after building was modern, with shameless "look at me!" type architecture-for-architecture's-sake. Cubes on top of cubes at ridiculous angles, glass panelling, and a curious combination of unique buildings juxtaposed with lines of identical condominium towers proceeded to interest, and almost even impress me. Sadly, I'm not a terribly huge fan of architecture that doesn't have a point, and so "almost even" was about as close as it got.

As an aside, that train ride was also the first point at which I became very annoyed at tourists – and my own home country. I had the distinct pleasure of sitting in front of a woman on the train, who absolutely could not cease babbling about how incredibly terrible and disgusting that honestly nice and clean train was. Her husband sat across the aisle – I gave him what I hoped was a sympathetic glance.

Ah, but at last I arrived at glorious Amsterdam Centraal... and proceeded to walk out the back exit by accident.

Let me tell you about this back exit.

It's bad. There used to be doors. Now, there very clearly aren't – and the exit opens up to a wide concrete path surrounded on both lateral sides by chain-link fence struggling to hold in abandoned construction, and on the top by a crumbling overpass. I can see why they're redoing Oosterdokeiland. I ventured out into the semi-putrid air past the homeless people staggering about for about half a minute before determining that something was amiss and wandering back into the station, through the doors that were striving so hard to be.

Somewhere along the line, Helvetica wandered off and committed a sad, silent suicide.

But not to fear! After wandering back through the train station, I found the main exit. Happily, excitedly, I stepped out the sliding glass doors and into fresh ai––

––into a huge whiff of marijuana smoke?

"That bad?"

I should qualify my use of the word "bad." I have absolutely no problems with pot: stoned people generally don't get into cars and kill people (and themselves), and are also usually quite a bit quieter. But the first bit of proper air I breathe in Amsterdam and it's a huge whiff of it? That's a bit unexpected, for sure. I'm now fairly convinced that someone just stands in front of Centraal and smokes weed just to catch people like me off guard... this was pretty much the only such occurrence.

I then walked the mile and a bit to our dorms, failed to locate Albert Heijn to buy food (which I hadn't consumed in about 14 hours), and collapsed. Go international travel.

More to follow...


Thu, August
14th

Collaborative Work for the Future

Posted by clint
on August 14, 2008
Communication has long been the most-touted invention of the modern era – first telecommunications, then the Internet spawned a society where people are not only able to communicate instantaneously, they are able to do so with complete ease and near ubiquity. Services like Facebook, Twitter, and the various Instant Messaging protocols connect us to each other at nearly every breathing minute.

A byproduct of communication – the one I'd like to focus on today – is collaboration. While communication and communication technologies provide the inroads to facilitate collaboration, the ability to transmit data of any form to one another instantaneously is not enough to genuinely collaborate. As network technologies, then web technologies, then rich media technologies began to grow, however, we have seen increasingly frequent attempts to provide a complete system for collaboration. Videoconferencing packages, for instance, provide unique features such as shared whiteboards or screens, allowing for work to happen across the globe in ways never before imaginable. However, this is still a fundamentally communication-oriented development, which while immensely beneficial to collaborative efforts, doesn't necessarily address the ultimate goal of building a single product, paper, or project.

So, how do we better use technology to facilitate direct collaboration?

There are several bits of software that attempt to address this issue head-on, but being by developers, they largely address developers' own needs – the rest of the world hasn't necessarily woken up to technology's potential in this regard, and so very little attention and effort have been raised towards furthering these projects in other directions.

These pieces of software are known as VCSs, or Version Control Systems. Several prominent examples are CVS, SVN, Git, and TFS. Three-lettered length aside, they all tout a number of core features – the ability to keep track of revisions and who made them, the ability to view or roll back to any of these revisions, and the ability to merge two versions of a file if, say, they were both being worked on at once. While very efficient, useful, and relatively simple for people working on software, these systems are on the difficult side for even moderately technologically proficient users, and setting them up is a nearly insurmountable task, one even seasoned experts tend to dread.

So, what's out there that's easier for the general public to use? The solution that my Amsterdam study abroad class appears to have chosen is to repurpose a wiki for the task. And at first glance, it appears to be a fitting choice – wikis generally feature user and revision tracking, and at least a rudimentary form of diff merging. However, they are also a very restrictive medium – one wouldn't be able to build a trifold brochure, or a technical manual on them with any sort of practicality: while it may be possible to format the wiki to look properly in these regards, these things tend to be done with real desktop software, with real formatting tools and rich output. Adobe has a solution for its Creative Suite that's slowly evolving, but what of the rest of the business and academic market?

Wed, May
21st

On Public Knowledge

Posted by clint
on May 21, 2008
The point was brought up to me by a good friend a short while ago: once we learn all there is to know about the universe, what will be our purpose in life? What will be the point of existence?

While I disagree with his topical point since part of the essence of humanity is creativity, which knows no bounds, the question does bring to light another essence of our being: our progress as a society is driven largely by knowledge. Ever since we became a collective society, we have constantly been pushed, for various reasons, to seek out new knowledge. The core of these reasons is, of course, to make our own lives easier.

However, our research is not conducted by all of humanity at once, but rather by small communities of people. This presents a problem because while personal knowledge will benefit that person, no benefit will come from research and scholarship until it is made part of society as a whole – until it is made public. Thus, a key component to scholarship and academics is in fact the impartation of the new knowledge to society as a whole.

A different set of problems is associated with this new revelatory goal. The primary method of disseminating knowledge to the public in our modern society is that of the media. The media is remarkably effective at this task, but it is also unfortunately a commercial outfit keen first and foremost on preserving and increasing profit margins – hence, rather than hearing about topics that the public needs to discuss, or freshly discovered gaps in our knowledge, we learn all about what the latest celebrity gossip is: the kind of material that dumbs the public and brings in money. One incredibly public scholarship issue that has been victimized by the media is the incredibly important topic of global warming. Even a Google search on the topic reveals people on both sides of the issue screaming of media injustice.

This has interesting implications on the research I am attempting to do, given that the focus of my research is on the media. This scenario does, however, bring to mind another situation I have previously written about: Mike Wesch's Web 2.0 video. The video is actually an excellent example of exactly the sort of public scholarship we need to hear about the [new] media, as it bypasses the normal and conventional means of information dissemination and public discourse, instead leveraging the very mechanisms it means to critique. This is, then, perhaps a model to follow in the months to come.

Sun, May
18th

Readme.txt

Posted by clint
on May 18, 2008
As previously seen on Sunil Garg's blog, here is a bit of an exercise in self-reflection.

He leaves the building in a rush, with a rather battered black Eastpak backpack with what appears to be a staple holding together the right strap. It would immediately appear that perhaps to this person is either unwilling to spend much money, or else does not care about the image he projects. The backpack is worn very low, perhaps in an attempt to fit in with the many others who exhibit this behavior around him. He does not appear to be wearing any accessories, instead sporting a black t-shirt with an Apple logo and the text "Southcenter" centered upon it in cracked white lettering. This suggests that perhaps the person used to be under the employ of Apple at the retail store in the popular Southcenter shopping mall, and perhaps even resides there. Looking on, we find that he is wearing a pair of grey cargo pants. This is striking given the prevalence of jeans in American society, and also because it completes an entirely greyscale ensemble, suggesting this person's favorite color. Two glints of metal draw the eye to one of the cargo pockets - one is clearly the clip of a pen or pencil; it would seem that our subject requires the use of a pen or pencil very often. The other bit of metal is difficult to see and impossible to identify, though the fact that it is clipped to the upper fold of the pocket indicates that it is often needed.

I'm a bit of a boring person when it comes to clothing. I always wear (cargo) shorts or cargo pants out, a remnant habit from my high school days, when I used to carry around quite a few electronic devices with me - an iPod, a PDA, and cell phone to be specific, and cargo pockets proved handy for these reasons. These days, my laptop is almost always with me in my backpack, so most of these devices are unnecessary. My backpack is also a bit of a remnant - I have had it many years, and it has served me very faithfully. Ignoring the snapped strap buckle, it is in perfectly serviceable shape, and I suppose it may even have sentimental value at this point, having been brought so many places with me. Finally, I have a menagerie of random t-shirts which I wear, a growing majority of which were obtained for free, and the Apple shirt I wore today was no exception. I in fact have never worked for an Apple store, and do not reside in Southcenter, but instead got the shirt for free from a friend who had gone to the grand opening of the store in question. The truth is often disappointingly simple, I suppose.

Wed, May
14th

On Media Consumption and Production

Posted by clint
on May 14, 2008
(Broken record: this is an Amsterdam-related post.)

How primarily do the Dutch interact with their news and commercial media, and how has this shaped the general commercial structures and mediums of the industry?

In general, the most analogous conceptual framework by which this question lives is the synecdoche. The consumption of products in an economic sense drives the development and availability of those products from the supplier, and so in many ways the physical existence and prominence of media reflects synecdochically upon the consumption of media.

Through this observation, we can explore new and indirect methods of studying media consumption among the Dutch. Rather than query directly for the public usage of media, we can take the relative production of each medium as an indirect measure for that same usage data. In this way, we can get a complete picture with hard data with much less variability.

Caution must be taken, however. The premise of our question is that the consumption of media potentially shapes the production and mediums of media - that is, consumer demand drives the industry. Thus, if we simply take the numbers on the production end and infer the consumption numbers, we completely fail to address our research. In this way, it can be seen that in fact our very research question is based on the goal of addressing the extent of the synecdochical relationship between physical media existence and production and consumption.

Mon, May
12th

To Mieke Bal:

Posted by clint
on May 12, 2008
(I again apologize for the lack of context for this Amsterdam-related post.)

Do you think the way the American Museum of Natural History evolved was a result of, in spite of, or irrelevant to the existence of the Met?
Much is made in the introduction, and in scattered references throughout, of the opposing juxtaposition of the AMNH and the Met due to their position in physical space across from each other, as well as due to their function in knowledge. The interesting point brought up is that the viewpoint of each museum on art and nature shapes the way in which art and nature are chosen and represented, as if the Met and the AMNH built off of each other in this fashion. However, is this truly a direct result of their relative positions in physical space, or more a function of their individual goals and processes?

Do traditions necessarily require eventual replacing?
Bal points out that traditions remain as a relic, reminding us of some point in our past or history, until they become too painful for our culture to bear, at which point they are rejected and replaced by some new tradition. Is this a necessary consequence of the nature of traditions, or is it rather a contextual result whose occurrence depends on the tradition and the culture?

Wed, May
7th

Form and Content

Posted by clint
on May 7, 2008
It's been a while since a video entitled "Web 2.0 .. The Machine is Us/ing Us" circled around the web. For those of us who live in Web 2.0, who think constantly in its context, the video was nothing new, but simply provided a neat, bundled package summarizing a number of its tenets, potentials, and quandaries.

The core idea presented in the video is that of form and content. Mike Wesch, the author of the video, argues that with the advent of XHTML and RSS/ATOM, effective separation of form and content has been achieved, and information sharing has become not only easier, but a core principle of the Web, vis-à-vis Web 2.0. This is currently arguable, as the quality of code dictates the level of separation afforded in each individual instance. HTML5 is fascinating in that it provides more native mechanisms for determining these separations without sacrificing expression of form.

The point at which this conversation becomes interesting is that at which we turn the argument upon itself: what is the medium of the video? One of Wesch's more tangential (and thus questionable) assertions is that the separation of form and content has directly led to the influx of the user-generated web. What is inarguable, however, is that without the user-generated web, his video could not have possibly existed in the plane it currently does. It is thus appropriate that a video about the web is in fact a video on the web.

Likewise, Philip Thurtle, in his book The Emergence of Genetic Rationality, focuses on, among many other topics, the necessity of effective information collection, collation, and communication in the rise of certain forms of social consciousness, among them genetic rationality. In fact, in the introduction of the book, he comments on the organization and information principles followed by the book - this bit of meta draws attention to the book as the medium, as the ultimate culmination of a certain process of information processing which is perhaps the most final and arduous of them all.

On the other hand, the media in general filters out instead most commonly over the mediums of print, the web, and television. The most interesting point here is in fact the medium itself - each communicates in an entirely separate way, organizing and shaping both form and content with radically deviant methods. When ground down to these separate considerations of form and content, the concept of the television as a medium seems to become the most bipolar, and the print medium the least. When we consider the effect of the content alone, it seems that given the wealth of content on the Web, to survive in the medium means that content is of absolutely key importance.

These deviations are things to consider when considering other concepts relating to media.

Mon, May
5th

Convolution and Information Theory

Posted by clint
on May 5, 2008
In mathematics and electrical engineering, convolution is "a mathematical operator that takes two functions f and g and produces a third function that is typically viewed as a modified version of one of the original functions." Commonly, this operation is performed by taking two transformations of the same wavefunction as the operands for the process, which then analyzes the wavefunction into a new one. This process is extremely useful for analyzing linear-time systems.

Walter Benjamin, a philosopher from the early 20th century, took this concept and applied it analogously to non-mathematical cases in reality, creating several concepts about which to analyze arcades in Paris. To aid in doing this, he created a multitude of convolutes about which to focus and organize his thoughts and research.

Of these, one interesting convolute is the one he has entitled N: On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress. As the media of our society is built entirely on the dissemination and manipulation of knowledge, this is of particular note and relevance to the concept of the transfer of knowledge through the media. In the spirit of Benjamin's research, the following is a short entry following his form.

"Over the last decade, the major firms and cultural institutions that have dominated media and information industries in the U.S. and globally have been challenged by people adopting new technologies to intervene and participate in mainstream media culture."
Lievrouw, Leah A. "Participatory Design". Ninth conference on Participatory design: Expanding boundaries in design. New York: ACM, 2006.

It seems that the "new media" is gaining legitimacy quickly. This has been aided by numerous factors: more journalistic practices being weaved within the agile framework provided by new media reporting, providing for more accountability and thus credibility within society, and increasing feedback from blogs and new media back into mainstream media - for instance, Keith Olbermann regularly quotes the Daily Kos on his program. This increased impact of new media culture and the Internet has led to a radical reshaping of how knowledge is disseminated: user-generated content is rapidly gaining mindshare, and citizen journalism is reshaping ethics and accountability. This has a profound effect on the progress of our culture.
May 2007

(Conversely:)
As competition for audience revenues intensifies in the newly competitive media environment, programmers are hoping to harness the potential of the Internet. The present study explores potential online media service access in light of motivational factors, existing media use level, home communication technology infrastructure and demographic attributes. Findings indicate that perceived gratification expectation dimensions were strong predictors of likely online media service use. Although traditional media use was largely perceived as irrelevant to online media content access, online service was seen as a functional supplement to traditional media instead of a complement or displacement mechanism. An existing communication technology cluster in the home was not found to be predictive of likely online service adoption, as it might not have been deemed "functionally interdependent" of the online service. The younger babyboomers and post-babyboomers fit the profile of a likely online media service adopter, as characterized by their age and educational level.
Lin, Carolyn A. "Perceived gratifications of online media service use among potential users". Telematics and Informatics. New York: Pergamon Press, 2002.

Wed, April
30th

On squatting practices and research methods

Posted by clint
on April 30, 2008
My attempt thus far has been to keep the posts on this blog related to my study abroad in Amsterdam fairly generalizable -- anyone should be able to, without prior context, pick up and read any post made on this page. Unfortunately, this has become more and more difficult as time has progressed, and I would like to apologize in advance to my readers for how contextual this post is.

On Monday, we were able to hear about three of the research projects that our group will be collectively executing during our stay in Amsterdam. Here is some commentary on the one I personally found the most interesting, the squatting group.

I must admit that I only had faint shadows of an idea about what exactly "squatting" is prior to hearing their explanation. My impression on the subject was that squatters were very little differentiable from the homeless, an impression which now would seem to be very much incorrect. As it turns out, there is a very definite distinction that squatters have - they own a space. This is not to say that they bought and paid for it, but rather that the Dutch government has enabled anyone to take over any abandoned private or public space a year after it has fallen into disuse. As long as the new occupant "claims" the space by means of populating it with a bed, a desk, and a chair, the space is legally theirs.

This is a fascinating take on a few of the more oblique issues with urbanization, and I certainly wish Isaac and Fiona luck on studying it, as it is a very compelling topic. From what I gathered, Fiona wished to study the aesthetic nature of squatting spaces: how the squatters decorate their squatting space. While this is a good way to investigate perhaps the squatter culture, I am not entirely convinced that a clear pattern will emerge - in my mind, squatters are mostly connected together by virtue of being squatters, and I have doubts as to whether there is indeed a unified culture that will extend as far as aesthetics. Rather, I think a perhaps more directly relatable issue would be perhaps to use the measure of aesthetics (and of course interviews) to determine the squatters' attitude towards their space. How much do they see the space they occupy as being "theirs?"

Isaac, on the other hand, wished to study something quite a bit broader - whether the practice of allowing squatting makes Amsterdam more habitable. This seems at first glance highly counterintuitive - how would allowing the homeless to just take over spaces make the city more habitable? In fact, however, there are numerous advantages to this practice. First, it gets people off the street, and gives them a means to perhaps get on their feet. Second, it prevents buildings from falling entirely to disuse - squatters usually pay to keep the utilities running, and naturally do what they can to keep their space from falling into disrepair. This is an extremely interesting topic on a societal and a policy level, and learning more in this direction could be extremely illuminating about urbanity and urban planning in general. My only thoughts are that the topic is perhaps too broad; even with a focus on gastronomy, I think that perhaps contextualizing the actual research down to a particular district or even building/block would make it a much more palatable and digestible piece of investigation.

I unfortunately did not catch exactly what Cassie wanted to do with her research, as she was sadly not here in person to explain in depth her topic. However, I wish all three of them luck in their research, as the topic seems extremely interesting and compelling, and should be rather illuminating as urbanity pervades more and more into human culture.

Wed, April
23rd

The Waag Society and the indecipherable intentions

Posted by clint
on April 23, 2008
The Waag building and surroundings Our last discussion of the Waag Society was perhaps incomplete. We never did quite discover what the Waag Society is, in point of fact. So I did some more research.

And I still don't know.

The Waag Society claims to many things, and yet seems to work on projects in a completely disjunct set of many things. On their Organisation information page, they claim that their founding goal from 1994 is to exist as a "Society for old en new Media." Other mentions of the society around the web also allude to this goal. Their site continues:
The Society's -soon to be called 'Waag Society'- mission was to make new media available for groups of people that have little access to computers and internet, thus increasing their quality of living. After a complete restauration of the Waag building, a small group of enthousiastic idealists began their activities in 1996. [sic]

So really, it would appear that their goal was not to be so much a society for the study of old and new media, so much as the promotion and enablement of new media over old media. Now, however:
The medialab developed into an avant-gardistic thinktank whith a lot of freedom. But with an eye for commercial possibilities: attempts were made to bring Waag prototypes to the market. Waag Society grew into an institution that was active in the fields of networked art, healthcare, education and internet related issues like bandwidth and copyright.

And yet it seems like most of their projects don't reflect this new goal either, as given by example from my previous post. So, here is a question we may want to answer:
What are the Waag Society's goals, and how effectively are the methods they employ achieving those goals? What effect have they had on the media landscape in Amsterdam?
We can begin to answer this question by putting it to the Waag Society themselves - through a series of interviews with their employees as well as their customers, we should be able to develop a good understanding of the organization and its impacts. Of course, there are moral implications to this study. Most significantly, we need to ensure that we do not invade the privacy of interviewees, particularly those not directly associated with the Waag Society. This involves methods for obtaining interviews, as well as the extent of interview questions themselves. Also important is that we gain a full understanding of the Waag Society and what they do, so that we do not misrepresent them in our final research.

Mon, April
21st

The Waag Society and the symbiotic synecdoche

Posted by clint
on April 21, 2008
As a follow-up to the previous post on news sources, I'd like to comment perhaps on physical manifestations of the same concepts. Specifically, I would like to refer to the news as provided by people with a similar agenda as ours - the Waag society. While the form of media they provide is not directly what we wish to study - which is to say that what we wish to study isn't necessarily particularly extant at the moment - their quarterly magazine represents an interesting fusion between a media instance of the news and research into society.

First, we require background. The Waag society primarily - as far as I can tell - focuses on performing projects that bring forward social unity and promote social progress. For instance, as a collaboration with the India festival in Amsterdam, the society put together an event, concurrent with a companion event in Delhi, which enabled participants to explore the city as a parallel of India: the theme was that of constantly shifting urbanization. Their goal was to allow participants to explore more of both the city and society of Amsterdam, and to bring the two together into a more unified whole.

Thus, the physical manifestation of their research and activities, their magazine, represents a form of news and media which seeks to promote and sustain the Waag Society. Their goal and their magazine are thus somewhat symbiotic: the magazine exists to sustain the goal by raising and maintaining awareness of the orgainzation, and the goal exists to provide the magazine with content. This setup is somewhat unlike most other forms of media, and thus represents a very interesting fusion of the topics we seek to study whil we are in Amsterdam.

Wed, April
16th

On news sources and environments

Posted by clint
on April 16, 2008
News media I have always been fascinated by the entirety of the news and media mechanism. Their implications on society are enormous - people need to be well-informed in order to make decisions, both personal and societal. Especially with politics, the agenda of the media is a key part of this informative process, and yet is nearly indivinable to the outsider, such as we are.

Of course, each outlet of the media has a different perspective, a different spin, a different agenda. Some are blatant, perhaps even revoltingly so, such as that of FOX "news," while other outlets are less obvious, such as the conundrum that is the government-controlled yet somehow exceptional BBC. It's hard to say with certainty about the specific agenda of most media forms and corporations. However, print, television, and radio news sources have all existed for long enough that a fair bit of analysis may be done on their archives and evolution.

One form of media that's rapidly becoming a major news outlet, and which does not have a long history, however, is the Internet. Outside of websites maintained by the major news outlets, the Internet is an extremely odd news source - I have commented before on anonymity and the Internet, and the faceless, baseless form of web media are somewhat mysterious. In addition, nothing on the web is constant - corrections, modifications, and even wholesale deletions can occur in the blink of an eye without so much as a notice. This is, of course, irresponsible journalism, but such is the power that the Internet affords. The shortcomings of the Internet also rear their heads - entire sites can vanish over time due to neglect or budget cutbacks. Thus to study the news from the web properly, we need a comprehensive archive of work built in real-time - but this is not my arena, nor my current interest: please refer instead to the work of Kirsten Foot.

Instead, since studying the news media of the web directly is so difficult, I am instead interested in the habits of people in our society. In an age where a majority of peoples' knowledge of the news comes either through the television set or through word of mouth, the transfer itself of news has become even more contextual. So, what happens when we remove that context? What happens when we take habitual people and transplant them into a foreign land, where they lack the means and mechanisms of getting news to which they are native?

Perhaps they fall back upon print media. Do they pick up a local newspaper? Do they pick up the New York Times? Or perhaps they resort to using the web. Do they read CNN.com, or something more esoteric such as The Huffington Post? How do these new habits compare to their old ones?

People like to gravitate toward the familiar, the native. The mediums and outlets to which people resort when they find themselves in a distant land says much about those mediums and outlets. If people do resort to using the web to obtain their news, then a comparison between their choices online and their choices offline at home is an effective and indirect way to study something as difficult to study as the Internet.

Photo credit: Birdfarm via flickr.

Mon, April
14th

A phenomenon brought into focus

Posted by clint
on April 14, 2008
Photos are coming soon.

The idea broadsided us on a leisurely Saturday afternoon, as such ideas delight in doing. Tasked with performing a cursory inquiry into a potential local research question, we had planned on making a trip to the Ave to flesh out our fragmented ideas of studying something related to physical location and ethnic makeup on a street defined by location in its proximity to a particular university campus and its ethnicity, embodied by its smorgasbord of culture-specific restaurants and boutique shops. We never got there.

Instead, as we crossed the Quad in a distracted state searching for friends, we suddenly saw a phenomenon which most students and the University have gotten used to in due time in a different light - the Quad was covered in chalk. This particular campus meme began with the self-promotion of Qdoba's new location several months ago by means of simply writing the name of the subject in white chalk all over campus. It was remarkably effective in obtaining mind-share, and reasonably permanent - one particular instance upon a pillar in front of McMahon hall persists to this day.

Thus, we retooled our research premise and began photographing chalk markings around campus instead of taking the journey over to the Ave. Two patterns emerged: first, nearly all of the chalk markings were advertisements for campus events (with a number of rather obscene exceptions), and second, most of these events pertained to either cultural or philanthropic events. These two observations, along with the very nature of the markings themselves, serve as trailheads for potential research questions.

Perhaps the most relevant and immediate question pertains to the effectiveness of this means of communication. When I have mentioned these advertisements in the past, some people note the same general observations I do, while some people haven't the faintest inkling as to what I am referring to - they simply do have not noticed the proliferation of messages appearing on the ground upon which they walk.

The most direct way of addressing this question is to address the human subjects - this would involve utilizing Lynch's subject observation method to a great extent. We could approach this several ways - we could ignore the chalk's existence and lead the subjects in a walk around the Quad and the HUB, taking note of whether they observe that the chalk is there, and if so, whether they bother to examine the actual message of each instance, or we could address nothing but the chalk and simply show subjects photographs of the markings, asking them to verbalize their immediate observations. Of the two of these approaches, the first is much more relevant to the question, noting the extent to which subjects read into the chalk without being directed to do so, but the second method is also interesting for analyzing the content itself of the markings.

The results of this small inquiry have very little bearing upon my initial research interests, those being related to news and news mediums. However, the concept of observing chalk as a communication method, or potentially as physical traces, is similar to another idea we considered for Amsterdam, which was to address graffiti in the city; we got no further than the initial idea, however.

Tue, April
8th

Fitna.

Posted by clint
on April 8, 2008
I had heard about the "controversial" film Fitna in the days prior to this posting, but I had not found reason to watch it until I noticed that screening it would soon become necessary for discussion in the context of my Amsterdam class. So I watched it just now.

我的天啊!

I am speechless.
My only context for the film was twofold: an assumption that the film was about Islam, gleaned from its shared name with the term used for the Islamic civil wars, and the fact that it was "controversial," a bit of news gathered from various blogs I read detailing its existence on Google Video. I had always assumed that this film would be "controversial" in the way that a political blog like Daily Kos is, or in the way that the great Martin Luther King was at some point "controversial" - that is, that they examine what is already a controversial subject (political news and racism, respectively), and draw certain insightful but not necessarily politically safe analyses and conclusions from them.

This is nothing like that.
This is more akin to terrorism.

The film is shocking. The use of footage from September the 11th in its opening is only the first in a long string of shocking imagery used in the film. The quote from the Qur'an in the beginning of the film isn't an introduction, isn't a hook, isn't a piece of food for thought; it and its successive siblings are rather the focus of the film, it and its successive siblings are rather the foreground against which the film's shocking images are set, it and its successive siblings are rather the disquieting fragments of text from an already fragmented text called out to be wielded in some unseemly fashion to illustrate some unseemly point which, try as I might, I fail to comprehend in the slightest.

The film is shocking. The film is beyond hyperbole, and this statement is far from it. Indeed, I find myself sitting here writing this post of my own volition, before knowing what the content of it is supposed to be simply because I feel compelled to write something about its grotesque nature at this very moment. There are, of course, other reactions.

There are also less reactionary and perhaps more rational and scholarly approaches to discussing the film - not on the merits of its content, which are beyond hope for any sort of academic study, but rather in terms of the social roots of its existence and of its topic. I could discuss the film's religious roots, discussing the effects of perspective upon various views of the world, but this line of discussion has been done to death by minds greater than mind, and are not what I find immediately stimulating.

Rather, I would like to discuss the issue of the freedom of speech: what does it mean and where does it cease? Unfortunately, I have no answers to this question, and thus I am unable to provide a particularly proper discussion on this issue. In my opinion, there is no such thing as overstepping the bounds of the freedom of speech. Society is self-balancing, and if one does make a statement this controversial, the social backlash and implications thereof are likely to rectify any damage one may have done or attempted to do. However, I find it incredible that there was considerable issue raised with video sharing sites' decisions on whether or not to allow the video to be shared. Put simply, the laws and rights of free speech cease once one intrudes upon private property. These companies have a right to look out for their employees' security (which prompted the original distributor LiveLeak.com to remove the video for several days), but also to their own interests, and avoiding the center of controversy certainly falls in that category.

Mon, April
7th

Reflection through refraction

Posted by clint
on April 7, 2008
As perhaps a bit of a recursive learning experience, I have been encouraged to review the previous musings of one of my course ancestors in the form of taking a figurative walk around their blog. In keeping with the concept of the "Native," I have chosen the blog of a friend of mine, Sunil Garg. I am hoping that my personal experience with him will provide a better context with which to examine the Amsterdam-related segment of his blog.

Sunil's Tag CloudAs the Honors Amsterdam 2007 blog linked to Sunil's main page and not the more relevant Amsterdam material, I was forced to dig through the navigation and search for the "amsterdam" tag. In doing so, I also caught a glance at the rest of his tags in the form of his tag cloud which, as can be seen to the left, visualizes the tags which Sunil has labeled his posts with. In this cloud, the size of the tags indicate the frequency of their use. I am not sure if it was the subconscious influence of having read Lynch's study or an act of my own volition, but I immediately began attempting to organize the cloud in terms of my current task, mentally sorting them into the categories of "potentially Amsterdam related" and "likely irrelevant." What then immediately struck me is that the majority of the content of his blog is amsterdam related, as the amsterdam and studyabroad tags are far and away the largest tags. Delving deeper, I ignore the technology and internet tags, knowing that these are unrelated interests of his, and confirm that wayfinding was a large part of his studies, along with research on society and culture. Having satisfied my curiosity, I finally click through to the Amsterdam tag to review the content of his posts.

Before arriving at content, however, the eye comes across the title of his posts, which are similar to mine and contrast with that of some of my classmates in their more abstract and less academic nature - "Tolerance and Submission" instead of "Amsterdam - Assignment number one" and the like. This, along with the introduction concluding with "[this] marks the first post in a series of what I hope to be many," is indicative of a certain excitement about the subject, rather than the requirements of a course.

Body TextMy next observation is that Sunil does extensive research beyond the requirements of the course and prompt before posting, as evidenced by his abundant links off to various sources to support his statements. This is an interesting take on the assignments he was asked to do, bringing in the viewpoints of people other than himself to strengthen his arguments, either through agreement or dissent. This pattern is much more familiar to the format of a blog than to the format of a classroom assignment, indicating to me his native environment.

My final major observation that is general enough to note in this brief post is the lack of photos decorating Sunil's posts. Whereas most of his regular writing involves at least one image accompanying the text, only two of his Amsterdam posts involve images. This decided lack of images was a bit disquieting, as again the inclusion of images is a standard practice when posting on a blog.

Wed, April
2nd

Ignition.

Posted by clint
on April 2, 2008
As part of an ongoing dual-use of this blog, I will be posting various musings in preparation of a study-abroad to Amsterdam. Eventually I am going to rework the backend guts of this blog such that all Amsterdam content falls into its own separate category and feed, but that is for later. For now, let us consider the revealing study of close-reading a perhaps common email:

The subject is "Deadline: Midnight tonight." While email subjects are, by convention, supposed to inform the recipient of the specific contents enclosed within, such that the importance and relevance of the mail may be determined without actually reading it, this email deliberately eschews transparency for ambiguity, leaving me with no choice but to open it to discern its contents. The urgency and set timeframe magnifies this effect.

The email opens with "Friend." These people have my first name on file given my previous donation, and have used it in mailings past, so it's of importance that they chose not to use it for this mailing. Given the ease by which electronic mass-mailings today can insert your name into correspondences, the use of the greeting "Friend" seems almost more personal, against conventional wisdom -- and given the soon-to-be-revealed nature of this email, a personal tone is important to these peoples' cause. There is a space between the greeting "Friend" and the following punctuation "--" which draws attention to this word choice.

The first body line reveals all. Concise without being impersonal (referring directly in second person to the reader multiple times), the sentence remedies all the vagaries of the subject line by stating in a lone sentence comprising a lone paragraph the mission statement of this lengthy email. Its content is complete enough to persuade immediately those who understand its implications to do its bidding with no further questions or reading required, short enough to inform the disinterested to turn away, and intriguing enough to push the interested on. The second paragraph -- also a single sentence -- reinforces this last point.

The content of the email follows with several extremely short paragraphs, each drilling into further and further background and generality from the incredibly precise topic of the opening line, providing as the first line did progressively wider information for the curious and numerous jumping-off points for those who have decided whether to enact upon the call of the email to cease reading.

This series culminates with two final calls. The first addresses the direct implications of the donation you will be making to the campaign; the voice of the paragraph makes no question out of whether or not the reader will in fact enact upon the email, as if to project into the reader's mind this call. The implications listed are all secondary to the potential donor, enumerating specifically benefits to the campaign in question given the hardships listed in the previous few paragraphs. The next paragraph appeals more directly to the reader if the previous incentives are in fact not sufficient cause to donate, revealing a prize that directly benefits the reader, pushing the donation as much as possible.

Then follows yet a single-line paragraph ("Will you make a donation of $25 now?") followed by a link to donate, thus closing with a call to action and an easy way to do so. But if the addressee is still not convinced, the email continues! The remaining content is far more general, with the exception of a description of the prize to be had for donating, interleaved with several more instances of links to the donation page.

For the sake of brevity, this analysis ends here.