Into the Neverlands

This one is about inspiration. And patience.

Ted Nelson once said that 'schooling systematically ruins things for us, wiping out these interests; the last thing to be ruined determines your profession' ¹.

During one of the seminars in Utrecht University one girl (luckily, not from the Media studies) expressed her worries about online universities and online lectures. I'd like to know which corners of the Net she's treading and I could suggest a good few.

I adore sites like Ted.com or Fora TV and obviously the good old friend YouTube. Some of the talks on Ted are so remarkable (needless to say free) that I they should make any ambitious professor rethink the content of her lectures twice before even starting to prepare for them. One aspect that makes Ted particularly compelling is the passion that I savour in numerous talks available on the site.

During the past few weeks I realised I would like to learn to program - mainly after watching Jonathan Harris' projects. Which reminds me that in his 1995 interview Friedrich Kittler suggested that students researching cultural studies should know at least two software languages - only then 'they'll be able to say something about what 'culture' is at the moment, in contrast to 'society'² (although that's quite a challenge when media scholars mostly are being trained within the faculties of arts or humanities...).

After Johny Lee's presentation on Wii Remote hacks I thought I should at least get better acquainted with the hacker culture and the ways their practises become quintessential examples of what De Certeau calls 'tactics' (2002)³, such as New York hackers turning iPods into drum machines or devices on which they play Doom. Mirko Schäfer just defended his PhD "Bastard Culture! User participation and the extension of cultural industries" in Utrecht University where among other issues he covers Xbox hacks as examples of participation culture.

Another talk I came across today cost me 4 hours spent in front of a square sheet of paper. I wish I was taught mathematics, computer science and arts the way Robert Lang talks about merging mathematics and origami! Talks like these are like watching the Olympics on the telly or listening to exceptionally good musicians performing - whatever they engage in seems so flawless, yet at the same time so simple, that I instantly consider becoming a figure ice skater or a pianist. I guess my idea of origami was similarly naive... While at first I was intending to make a water bug, for the moment it is a bit of rocket science, so with a bit of visual help, I rather chose to make a more basic beetle.



It's a bit beetle-tired, but it's mine... I wander if I can crack origami, can I hack something?..

Hope everybody is having as much fun this season :)

1. Nelson, T. H. No more teachers' dirty looks. 1970. In N. Wardrip-Fruin and N. Montfort , eds. The new media reader. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.

2. Technologies of Writing/Rewriting Technology. An Interview with Friedrich A. Kittler about Cultural Studies in Germany, Literature in the Age of Technology and the Blind Spot in Media Theory by Matthew B. Griffin and S.M. Herrmann, available here. The interview originally appeared in Auseinander, Vol.1, No.3 (Berlin, 1995).

3. De Certeau, M. (2002) The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: UC Press.

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Few thoughts cross my mind. Among them questions like where have I been before and in what plateaus have I been treading previously. What have I been doing with the time given to me and what has time produced out of me.

Despite the fact that I only spent a few months in my new Alma Mater yet, I have already discovered myself swamped by the flood of information and the fact that the field I have chosen to study - new media - is so terrifyingly dynamic that it is quite possible I will not necessarily stumble across anything new with my research. Once again I find myself on the first step of the ladder of competence - unconscious of my incompetence and stunned at how much has already been done.

By Lithuanian standards of blogging I am no newbie - I've blogged for over two years and quite successfully some might say: with quite a few 'thank you' letters from across the globe, constant comments, a bit of media coverage, a part time job proposal in the Irish media once I started to blog in English and even my grandma's keenness to purchase online newspapers she heard of writing about her granddaughter - only later on I explained to her that they were online. Oh the vanity of self-ordained fame!

For the past couple of days I have been brainstorming myself for a paper proposal I have to come up with for the course Spatiality/Temporality that would touch upon the aspect of mapping. The ideas are still in the metaphysical stage, but while thinking I realised how much is out there to be discovered and deciphered through the matrix of the hypertext. Moreover, how much has been done already... Last night I came across Danah Boyd's blog , which she started ehem 11 years ago. Christ, where was I then? :)

I was 15 and I didn't have a computer yet. My first encounter with surfing was in a parsonage. :) I remember desperately trying to log on to this new space and after successfully dialling-up with the information abyss I didn't know where to go... One of the first things I did was to set up an email. I chose the domain europe.com. I identified myself with belonging to wider terrains than my minuscule and relatively new country had. In other words, it was the sense of belonging and simultaneously a certain degree of escapism that drew me into the whirlpool of the world wide web. Driven by the same motivation I started my blogs which mainly focused on emigration/immigration issues as I found myself asking why and whether had I become an (im)migrant. As with many endeavours women launch, it was a self-exploration and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Those who might want to know more about the whys can go to my previous English blog emigration-etc where I have spend lots of time and energy on discussing the matter publicly and ultimately identifying myself as a voluntary nomad.

I started this blog with a determination to continue to post my observations about life (a)broad, yet I can't keep up to date those more or less creative cultural rants and ponderings as I find myself immersing into the research subjects of my studies deeper and deeper. On the other hand, they are not that far from exploring certain neverlands and positioning myself within them. I'm particularly interested in networking, social networks, locative media, identity representation, power relations.

I humbly bid a warm farewell to those who discovered the Neverlands as another blog with random tirades on cultural differences and I am grateful for being found and for your kind comments. Cultural differences will always remain there - it took me a few years of living abroad to realise they would never disappear, yet the beauty lies in the diversity of shades. However, from now on I would like to designate this blog for tracing my research and findings within the infinite field of media and us in it, because 'we live in media, as fish live in water'¹ . Recently I have discovered too much exciting new material in order to leave it within the footnotes of my previous musings and I need more logic in organising my folksonomies. I decided to keep the title, because I am still treading the Neverlands - the discourses that are still fresh to me, perhaps vaguely touched upon by my empirical approach yet without definitive conclusions. I'll see where this takes me. You are very welcome aboard. Please comment, suggest, argue and immerse yourselves in other forms of participation. We are all in this together, as Ben Lee sings (a rather cheesy melody, but the message is correct).

PS As for creative content, one day you might encounter it assembled in a book, yet it has to be written first. I might have the first page.

1 Nelson T. (1974) Dream Machines. In N. Wardrip-Fruin and N. Montfort , eds. The new media reader. 2003. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.

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