Some days I feel like this. I am trying my best to survive these last two months of grad school! It’s been quite the eye opening experience. For those of you who are wondering, I pulled this from #whatshouldwecallgradschool (such a great site). GIFs and memes have been helping me with all the stress. Over the weekend An Xiao Mina (co-founder of The Civic Beat) reminded me that I have to “clean the palette” of my mind. She recommended a good game of Tetris. She was right. Surprisingly, I don’t get addicted to games. It’s just enough to take me out of my rut quite frankly. Working out has actually helped too. More posts in the upcoming weeks. Some exciting stuff has happened and more interesting developments on the horizon. Will write more soon…in the mean time, please feel free to share how you de-stress or what you do when you’re in your head a little too much. I need all the help I can get.
Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of being in conversation with writer, culture critic, curator, and artist, Ben Valentine at ZERO1 for the Bring It! Summer programming. Admittedly, it was a small and intimate group that joined us for the talk. When I got home, I read and wrote because I walked away from the evening with many big ideas. One of the things that kept coming up (even well into this week as I mull over the discussion), was a question by ZERO1 curator Jaime Austen. It had to do with responsibility.
What do you feel is your responsibility in terms of my writing, research, and scholarship?
There are so many ways to answer the question. Being a blogger since 2007, I’ve experienced different ways of looking at my writing practice, research, and what this means not only for me but the community I am trying to build around writing, critical theory, arts and technology. It definitely starts somewhere and a writer/theorist life can be rather lonely because it’s not as prolific and doesn’t promise benefits from efforts made to produce content (whether its for media outlets, a personal blog, and/or for print). So, how did I answer the question…well, I’d like to think that the work I’m putting into the community is helping answer that question.
Do you have a story around your commitment to the arts? What do you feel is your responsibility? How do you feel the virtual landscape facilities and allows or hinders and distracts your objectives? I would love to read your stories.
I know, I know. I’m killing you with cuteness, eh?
The Internet sure does offer some pretty awesome stuff. But the digital age has me living four lives (work, school, personal, and freelance). Every now and again, I need a cute kitten picture to help me get through all the theory, the spreadsheets, and freak-out moments, and community work. I stay busy. Thinking about the past year, I’ve done a lot of growing up. Even my voice has changed. I’m not so scared to speak up and no longer speak with trepidation. Next week will, officially, mark the end of my first year of graduate school. Although the first semester was marked by extreme sadness with the passing of my grandfather during midterms , acquiring more personal projects, and a recent move, it has been an incredible time of learning, self-reflection, and growth. Who needs sleep when there’s so much to do? Right? Side note: For the record, I do sleep (I get about 7 hours a night, please don’t ask how, I just do).
I’ll tell you about my projects and post regularly as soon as the summer hits. This was just a quick note to say everything is going well and like kitty, I’m bright-eyed and ready for the whatever comes my way for the rest of the year.
Love and terabytes,
Dorothy
Hello Family and Friends,
I can’t believe the semester is almost over. My research papers on the other hand have yet to be completed. I’m still working on them. Not to fear, they will get done. Feel free to send me messages of encouragement and a reminder to be kind to myself. I’m sure there will be instances in the next couple of weeks where I start hyperventilating because, sometimes, I do forget to do this thing called breathing. In any case, if you’re interested, these are the titles for my two research papers:
Engendered Rhizome: Explorations of Embodiment through the Machine
On the Margins: Comparative Analysis of Bohemian Paris and American Hacker Culture and the Emergence of New Media Arts and Computational Aesthetics
Good times! I’ll probably post excerpts when I’m done with the papers. This summer, I’ll be blogging a lot more (the good stuff). Promise. Thanks for reading and, again, feel free to ask me, “Ummm, what the hell is a rhizome?” Trust me, if I can explain it to you, I’ll be happy. 🙂
Cheers,
Dorothy
There’s nothing like spending a quiet night with a hot cup of tea and reading for pleasure! While the Rushkoff book is directly related to my research, it’s an easy and accessible read on a relatively complicated issue of programming and contemporary culture. I plan on finishing up Saturday afternoon. As for The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone, I’ve eyed this book since it came out and finally picked up with Program or Be Programmed. I’m a huge sucker for graphic novels and perused this one in particular since it is describes the history and current state of media. I’ll let you know how that one turns out. It looks great considering she covers topics from government outreach to journalism to fairness bias to the notion of objectivity. In any case, I wanted to throw something on the blog since I’ve been busy with work, school, and a few freelance projects (which I will be posting soon – hint: Asterisk SF’s next issue is the IDEA issue and a few curatorial contributions in the pipeline for a couple of larger art shows – fun times!).
All right, I should get going. It’s not even Friday, it’s EARLY Saturday morning! Eeeesh. Til next time!!
