Emblem

This is my emblem. I'm not super thrilled with it but it does combine some elements from my mystory. I love the beach and no matter how long I spend in other places California will be home. When thinking through some possibilities I felt that I had to include the beach or California in some way. I tried a few different things and settled on this one. The other element, my name, is in similar typeface and colors to Goggle. This represents the career portion of my mystory highlighting Web 2.0. I like the contrast between nature and technology and they way it doesn't quite fit. I also felt that using my name helped to offset the lack of presence in my family discourse section. My emblem has simply lines and uses only two elements. When I design things I typically like the clean lines and simple elegance. Throughout the semester I have noticed my tendency towards simplicity, my blog is black with some color highlights and my mystory is not overly complicated either.

WoW Character- Arravette- Level 15

I finally reached level 15 last night at 11:30. Wahoo! I struggled all week to reach level 15 and came to the conclusion that the only way to play WoW is with a friend. My character has died countless times and rarely completed a quest the first time without dying. Having a group or guild would have come in handy multiple times. One night my character had died about 5 times trying to accomplish a certain quest. I put the computer away to take a break and later on I came back and resurrected my avatar. When my avatar made it back to the quest site, I noticed all the guards that I had been fighting were dead, so I killed the main character and walked away. I saw on my chat log that another character had called me a jerk. I quickly realized that another character was on the same quest and had killed all the guards and I had swooped in and taken the prize. I didn't realize what had happened at first but I quickly apologized and asked the individual if he wanted help completing that quest. He said no. I felt horrible. If I had realized what was going on we might have been able to complete several quests together. Unfortunately the guy was so mad at me he didn't want anything to do with me. Lesson learned.

The Emblem

To be honest I have no idea what my emblem or wide image will look like. While reading the chapters on the emblem I tried to brainstorm and make connections wherever possible. Some of those connections are kind of weak and so I am still searching for the connections that make the most sense.

Ulmer's statement, "Everything that is said about the emblem is there as a relay for your own composition/design. You should always ask: What is that for me?" is a guiding statement for the emblem. The emblem can't just be a random picture that sort of, kind of, maybe represents, it must sum up the "look and feel of the mystory."

As Ulmer continued he encouraged us to make links so here are some of my thoughts- my family and entertainment discourses focus on the players- the players of characters in a book or the main players in a sports game. I also connected the concept of characters to my community discourse and the inclusion of Hollywood. One cannot deny that there are many "characters" in Hollywood. I also took the idea of storylines, narrative or drama from my community and family discourses. No sure what type of image this makes or even if it makes one.

Later on Ulmer states, "Their meanings, we could say in our context, are not those of studium, but of punctum. The punctum is what should ultimately drive the creation of the emblem so my random, stretched links may not provide the image I am looking for, this to me, goes back to the initial question Ulmer wants us to ask "What is that for me?"

At the end of the chapter I wrote a bit of scribbled notes of possible connections, hoping to stumble upon the one that involves the punctum.

Community- California heritage- part of my identity
Entertainment- classic narrative or book
Family- sports centered
Career- (still working on this one) web 2.0 maybe? a technological advance that allows my career to be relevant.

So I have classic and current- active and passive references, current and future, discourses that focus on me and those that don't include me. I have a lot of binaries? paradoxes? contradictions? Can I put these items on a scale and identify degrees? Maybe a timeline? I mindmaped these ideas and didn't really get anymore connections other than the ideas are home centered. I think I need to figure out and revise my Career discourse before I will be able to see more connections and determine an image for my emblem. I have already planned on putting my emblem on the home page of my mystory.

Entertainment

I moved my mystory to wix this week. I couldn't do what I wanted to do in iWeb so I moved on to bigger and brighter things. So here's my new mystory link- www.wix.com/dhwitmer/mystory

Ulmer Questions

1. With the mystory being so personal and yet public, where does audience analysis or audience adaptation factor in to the content?

2. As a person that hasn't fully entered into a career, what other methods or exercises would you give that would help me develop the career part of the popcycle?

3. With social media becoming the norm, how does it fit into electracy and the popcycle?

Baudrillard part 1

Baudrillard 's discussion of the real, simulation, and the pretend was really interesting. I had never really thought about the difference between simulation and the pretend. He says, "Therefore, pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary" (3). The terms are not synonymous and the pretend leaves reality in place and simply adds an additional level to experience.

Baudrillard adds to the comparison with the discussion on illusion. He states, "The impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real is of the same order as the impossibility of staging illusion. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible" (19). The statement that the real is no longer possible is interesting since the book has to use the real as basis for comparison for terms discussed with the idea of simulation.

A third term that Baudrillard uses is parody and talks about it in terms of transgression and submission. "Parody renders submission and transgression equivalent, and that is the most serious crime, because it cancels out the difference up on which the law is based. The established order can do nothing against it, because the law is a simulacrum of the second order, whereas simulation is of the third order, beyond true and false, beyond equivalences, beyond rational distinctions upon which the whole of the social and power depend. Thus lacking the real . . ." (21). He goes on to state that "it is now impossible to isolate the process of the real, or to prove the real" (21). So my question would be, how can we define a standard or characteristics if it is unprovable and impossible?

The inclusion of reality TV, I thought, was very good. I have always criticized reality TV for not being real. Baudrillard asks, "What would have happened if the TV hadn't been there? More interesting is the illusion of filming the Louds as if TV weren't there . . . An absurd, paradoxical formula - neither true nor false: utopian. The 'as if we were not there' being equal to 'as if you were there'" (28). The last phrase is interesting since there is a reliance on the the TV being there in order for it to be in existence. We would not know the people (or characters) if the TV wasn't there and how can we really 'know' the people if they change because the TV is there? Seems very cyclical and very unreal or surreal? What would be the proper term? Pretend? The people are acting in a way which they would like to be seen, rather than how they are.

Mystory part 2

For the family part of the mystory I chose to do something different. I created a photo essay video of pictures from my childhood. My family revolved around sports and it continues to be a theme in my family. Schedules and events were planned around the sports team's schedule. My Dad was the coach, my brothers the players, my sisters and I were always on the sidelines as either water girls, trainers or recording stats. The photo essay exhibits the narrative as mentioned by Ulmer, “When we are born into a family we enter in the middle of an ongoing narrative. We already are a character in the stories of our parents, who have plans, hopes, fears for us that they project into our care or neglect as sons or daughters” (86). Since I struggled with writing text last time I chose to not write anything and simple put up relevant quotations from Ulmer.

http://people.clemson.edu/~hwitmer/Site/Home.html

And more Ulmer

This week's readings on entertainment discourse have been rather interesting. In the middle of chapter 6 I came across the following lines, "Who is the audience? Whomever is online (the other, the stranger)" (160). I started thinking about what the Internet does to the concept of the audience and how the author relates to the audience. Is audience analysis even possible? Or do we simply send out information hoping that it reaches the right people?

I have been working on my project paper and include Bitzer and the rhetorical situation in regards to brand identity for a non-profit. Although there are some situations online where the rhetorical situation apply there are may instances it seems where the rhetorical situation in stretched in ways that change the relationship between the author and the audience. The communication models are shifted away from the typical traditional models and become a reciprocal situation where the audience is also the author.

My next question is how does this tie into Ulmer and the Mystory? How do we adapt for the changing audience? Do we consider the audience when composing each part of the Mystory or compose the Mystory separate from the audience? And is that even possible?

The house I built . . .

The house I built used square and column prims. I also added objects I had picked up from freebie places these objects included- tintable windows, a lockable door, rugs, and a TV.

Virilio part 2

Reading Virilio and working within Second Life are contradictory. Virilio takes an stance that is against the idea of 'being' in a virtual space and yet many 'live' and work in Second Life. This quotation I felt pinpointed the idea of 'being' present when a person is actually only 'telepresent.'
“In both cases[virtual space or cyberspace], we are forced to meet the same challenge, the challenge of a sudden ‘loss of reality’ of space-time-matter. Hence, the accident is no longer a local accident, precisely situated in the space of an action and in the presence of a being, there, here, and now, but a general accident which globally undermines all ‘presence’ and promotes a ‘telepresence’ without consistency and, more particularly, without a true spatial position, since the remote interaction of a being at once absent and acting (teleacting) redefines the very notion of being there” (131).
Every time I'm in SL I have a hard time talking to other avatars. I know there is a person at the other end but because I cannot know their true appearance and identity of the avatar I am always hesitant. I wonder what makes a person decide to be in SL and interact in events that take place there. The anonymity of SL isn't a freeing aspect like some might think, I am always pondering their physical location and circumstances. I thought I was fine with the idea of 'being' virtually present and not physically, but then I encounter someone I don't know in SL and I realize that I'm not. So in many cases I disagree with Virilio but in this case I agree with him.

Virilio

"Terminal – and final – sedentarization; a practical consequence of the emergence of a third and final horizon of indirect visibility (after the apparent and deep horizon): a transapparent horizon spawned by telecommunications, that opens up the incredible possibility of a ‘civilization of forgetting’, a live (live-coverage) society that has no future and no past, since it has no extension and no duration, a society intensely present here and there at once – in otherwords, telepresent to the whole world" (25). This idea of technology allowing us to be everywhere at once and basically no where at the same time is a concept to ponder. As technology has progressed, the technology has allowed us to do what we do in real life.

Telephones= talk to each other like we would face-to-face.

Television= watch events like we would if we were present.

Internet= ability to communicate in a variety of ways that simulate face-t0-face communication. i.e. Skype

Instead of viewing these technologies as imitations of simulations, they should be seen as part of real life and allow for greater communication in situations where face-to-face communication is not possible.

Virilio discusses the idea of using technology to facilitate communicate but in the extreme, "Once more we are seeing a reversal in trends: where the motorization of transport and information once caused a general mobilization of populations, swept up into the exodus of work and then of leisure, instantaneous transmission tools cause the reverse: a growing inertia; television and especially remote control action no longer requiring people to be mobile, but merely to be mobile on the spot" (20).

Cellphones and iPhones now allow for people to communicate in a variety of ways using one device from anywhere. Does communicating primarily from technology cause "a growing inertia" or the ability to accomplish more from anywhere? I feel like I bring up the idea of technological determinism a lot but I feel like this discussion goes back to the question- Does society shape technology or does technology shape society?

Second Life Avatar

I already had an avatar in Second Life from my visual class, but I decided to change it up for this class. I wish I could change the name, since Phobia was chosen for a specific theme.

Here's the old avatar from my visual class-

And my avatar after a few changes-

Mystory Part 1

For this part of the popcycle, I focused on my undergraduate degree in public speaking. I looked at the evolution of speech throughout time and technology. My widesite banner image focuses on the idea of air and speech. I feel like this idea of air is something I can continue to expand on, and use throughout each part of the popcycle. I am still somewhat unsure that I understand the full concept of the mystory and popcycle and hope that I gain a better idea as this project moves along.

http://people.clemson.edu/~hwitmer/Site/Mystory.html

Duck or Rabbit

Multimodal Foucault Project

Part of our Wave

This time we'll be discussing the statement... so something in order to read that concept would work. It is interesting that Foucault doesn't give examples of his work. He leaves it pretty conceptual. That is, until later when he reads closely things like madness, prisons, and sexuality in light of the foundations he's established.

Maybe this will help, though: "it is not in itself a unit, but a function" (87). AND it's a function that "reveals [structures and possible unities]" (87).

I can't help but think of a 'statement' in a normal way that I would --- about somethign "making a statement," or something "saying something." Like Avatar "making a statement" about war. I feel like that's a rather over-simplified understanding of it... but because Foucault does his best to NOT give us a clear understanding, I feel like that's what I am left with.

The University of Phoenix instructs of faculty to use Emoticons. Perhaps this pertains to the statement in an interesting way. Emoticon as statement.

:)

So we have symbols that make up statements that then create discursive formations. Wikipedia is a discursive formation.

And as I take it, we can't have statements without symbols. Because statements have to have a level of materiality to exist--whether it's oral, written, etc.

Although, as far as I can tell, Foucault doesn't give examples of visually rhetorical statements... they are primarily linguistic for him.

Statements exist in a complex web with other statements and absolutely cannot stand by themselves in order to be a statement; their existence depends on the existence of the other statements with which they relate. Although this connection to other statements is distinguished from "context."

Also, a statement cannot be defined by a proposition or an author, but can contain both. I am not sure at this point if it can contain just one or the other, but I think so. Sometimes the creator of a statement is an actor or even a reader... So an "author," in its broadest sense, is very likely always there in some sense.

This is all just background to get my head about it. I think statements in Wikipedia definitely qualify because a. It's a level of materiality 2. There are other statements to create a web of meaning 3. There are authors and propositions but they don't alone define the statements 4. There are rules with which the statements in Wikipedia must operate, or actually Wikipedia will throw them out or write a note that the sources aren't adequate...what else

One thing I was confused about is in the Enunciative Function chapter, Foucault discusses how statements can't exist alone--like I mentioned previously--but how did statements ever even begin? I mean in terms of Wikipedia, that concept isn't hard to digest. Also, in relation to Wikipedia--multiple authors/ enunciators / what have you can repeat the same statement, just a different occurrence of enunciation. It's like, someone goes into Wikipedia, gets some information/ meaning /group of statements, and passes that information on to a friend or a report...same statement, different enunciation.

Also, since Foucault says a statement is deeper, structurally--though not always meaningfully--than some sort of psychological function (such as a speaker acting on a rhetorical situation, I guess, or a certain motive), it would make sense that Wikipedia is a collection of statements. At the root of Wikipedia is something much deeper than a rhetorical situation--some sort of more unmoving meaning to things. Fact, I guess, for lack of a better term. Would statements be that term I am looking for?

Wikipedia is a classic example of social construction, so yes it is a much deeper rhetorical situation. Maybe that is where the enunciation comes into the discussion.

Also, I like on page 104 where he uses the term "agreed code" when discussing statements. I feel like Wikipedia, in all its socially-constructed glory, centers around this "agreed code" or what is truth. I think that "agreed code" is what Foucault means are statements--meanings that follow establish rules, codes, ideologies, etc. of other units of discourse, and form a complex web of meaning--but meaning nonetheless. Or perhaps that statements exist in relation to this agreed code, both abiding by it and creating it. For a discourse to exist, those involved must be "talking about 'the same thing', by placing themselves at 'the same level' or at 'the same distance', by deploying 'the same conceptual field'" (126).

[Though, for all the social-constructioniness of Foucault, I can understand how one would read him as a structuralist, with Foucault saying things like: "there are not, in such cases, the same number of statements as there are languages used, but a single group of statements in different linguistic forms" (104). I don't think Foucault was really trying to be structuralistic there, as there is context to that sentence, but I can see one viewing that extracted statement as a logical unfolding of Foucaultian thought.]

Another quote I like: a statement is "too bound up with what surrounds it and supports it to be as free as a pure form (it is more than a law of construction governing a group of elements), it is endowed with a certain modifiable heaviness, a weight relative to the field in which it is placed, a constancy that allows various users, a temporal permanence that does not have the intertia of a mere trace or mark, and which does not sleep on its own past" (105).

I feel like this quote has social construction of truth written all over it. (No pun intended). First of all, a statement cannot ever be merely relative even though it can change itself to become a new, more meaningful statement. Or newly meaningful statement...anyway--a statement has "temporal permanence." Semi-permanence in that it belongs to a field, is caught up with other statements that are the basis for it's definition, etc.--but it's only "temporal permanence." Such as his example for what the theory of the Earth being round meant before they actually discovered it...how that statement changed because the field changed. In terms of Wikipedia, just think of all the statements that will change and become new statements over time. Because as he also says on page 105 as well--""men produce, manipluate use, transform, exchange, combine, decompose and recompose, and possibly destory." It's not something "said once and for all." And if there was any Truth with a capital T behind a statement, it would be once and for all, and have that finality. Which is so great about Wikipedia--there's no finality at all. We can go in there and change any entry we want right now. I feel like it embodies a collection of statements in Foucault's terms even better than an old school encyclopedia.

The discussion of Wikipedia is an interesting example because it exists at this intersection of some important Foucaultian concepts. On one hand, Wikipedia is an opening up of discourse - affording individual voice that counters hegemonic institutional knowledge. Wikipedia is not the same as Encyclopedia Britanica. Yet, it is bound by institutional practices - even discipline. Foucault could almost have been defining Wikipedia on page 130, saying, "the archive defines a particular level: that of a practice that causes a multiplicity of statements to emerge [...]; between tradition and oblivion, it reveals the rules of a practice that enables statements both to survive and to undergo regular modification. It is the general system of the formation and transformation of statements."

And let us not forget that the word archive is etymylogically connected to the word, archon, which means ruler. Thus, our archives have attained a kind of rule over our ways of thinking. See my project concerning this issueat http://theyellowrobot.com/foucault.html.

Lastly, we may consider how the statement, while interstingly explored through the constructs of Wikipedia, may exist without meaning, context, or referent at all. Foucault writes, "Nor is it [the statement] superposable to the relation that may exist between a sentence and its meaning" (90). Foucault's example of AZERT shows that there can be a statement that exists aside from traditionally held conceptualizations of reality or intended thought. So, while Wikipedia includes many, many carefully and socially constructed statements, there may be statements out there that lack many of the aspects that are necessary for the language to be used in a distinctly encyclopedic manner.

The question is just how bare bones can a statement be? I tried to look for a statement this morning at 5:30 a.m. in the water droplets on my shower curtain, but couldn't find one there. But maybe someone else could have...

Foucault

Foucault wave-

Ulmer

There was so much in the readings this week so I provide a list of the terms Ulmer presented and his definitions.

egents- "the nature of 'agency' (both individual and collective) is undergoing mutation in electracy" (18).

inventio- "the stage of gathering the materials with which to work" (21).

Popcycle- "refers to the ensemble of discourses into which members of a society are 'interpellated'"(24).

Dike- justice (29).

Definition- "establishes essence"(33).

Formless- "a term serving to declassify, requiring in general that every thing should have a form" (40).

Discipline- "specialized knowledge" (41).

Image- "refers to verbal as well as pictorial practices" (46).

Shiori- "referring to language that is flexible, supporting productive ambiguity" (51).

Wabi-sabi- "cultural mood of Japan" (52).
"a guide to the elements of the wide image" (52-55).
The Material Register
Things
Material attributes
Atmosphere

The Spiritual Register
Feeling
Worldview
Morality

Middle voice- "based on the reflexive, self-conscious nature of modernist writing that claimed to be knowledge only of language, not of life" (57).

Stimmung- "as one of the existentials grounding one's being in the world" (59).

Disaster- "is important in evoking the dimension of 'disaster' that the EmerAgency is designed to address" (63).

Ulmer discusses Aristotle's Topics and the concept of a definition. Although this seems to be basic common knowledge I acknowledge the significance of a definition and the "essence" it creates. In undergrad, I was on the intercollegiate debate team and had instances where the definition in the case won or lost rounds. My coach would highlight the importance of not only finding a suitable definition, but the academic nature of the source for the definition. The definition always came first because it does "establish essence," content, or meaning and is the way in which we can judge the nature of the case or way the claims.

Rettburg

In last week's reading Rettberg mentioned the shift that occurred when society was able to individually read texts. "With silent reading, reading changed from a communal to a personal act, and it has been argued that this new solitary relationship between an individual and a text was a significant reason for the development of the notion of a separation between private and public (Chartier)" (40). It seems as though blogging is another shift from public to private. Individuals no longer have to rely on the media to receive the news. Readers can go to various blogs to obtain information. Another facet of this shift is the authoring of information. Rettberg states, "Bloggers have seen themselves as an alternative to mainstream media, as a force that can reform and change the ways we conceive of media: today, anybody can own a press. Anybody can be the media" (108). The idea that anyone can contribute information is a driving force for not only blogs but also Twitter. An average person now feels comfortable and almost driven to let the world know they are taking their dog for a walk or any other mundane piece of information. I find it interesting to see how companies integrate this media into its daily communication. This incredibly individual media in a large company compromises the individual nature of the media.

As part of the shift from public to private there is an emphasis on trust and authenticity in blogging. Rettburg provided multiple examples of blogs that gave off the appearance of an individual's personal thoughts and composition, but the individual was either a fake person or a person paid by a company. "When Kaycee and lonelygirl15 were revealed to be hoaxes, readers and viewers were furious" (125). Because of the perceived personal component to blogging, society expects the same level of integrity from those who blog as those they interact with face-to-face.

Rettberg and Ulmer Week 1

I started reading Rettberg and after reading the first paragraph I had a question about her view on technological determinism. In a book about blogging, I was wondering how technological determinism would factor into her writings about digital media. I read fifty pages and finally found what I was looking for--on page 53 she states that the "moderate viewpoint referred to as co-construction, a term that emphasizes the mutual dependencies between technology and culture." The idea that culture and society is shaped by technology is rather extreme. I wonder about the inventors of major technologies and speculate if they anticipated the massive response to their products. Did cell phone inventors ever think that not only would one household own one but every member in the household? Or that there would be laws passed to ban the use of cellphones while driving? Technological co-construction does address the fact that technology has an impact on our culture while avoiding the extreme views of technological determinism.

Throughout the Rettberg reading I tried to make note of the way in which she classified or described blogs. One aspect that I though could relate to Ulmer was the cumulative nature of blogs. Rettberg says, "because blogging is a cumulative process, most posts presuppose some knowledge of the history of the blog, and the they fit into a larger story" (4). The cumulative nature of a personal blog can aid in the retention of events and ideas. A narrative is built through the posts and topics discussed in the blog. Another characteristic is the dynamic nature of blogs. Rettberg highlights that "today's blogs are expected to change regularly--indeed, their chief defining feature is that they are frequently updated and that the content does not stay the same" (23). I must say there are a couple of blogs that I follow and I am disappointed when the author does not update them on a consistent and frequent basis. This idea of blogs being a dynamic and possibly two-way communication medium relies on the characteristic that the content constantly changes and is reciprocal.

In the Ulmer reading I was looking for a clearer idea of what a Mystory is and all that is involved in this project. I googled Mystory and Bystory and had a few good hits but still had some questions. In Ulmer's book on page 6 under the Make a Mystory I was struck by the statement "Memory is crucial since we are testing the power of the punctum (Barthes) or memory sting as the connection bet ween personal organic memory (living) and the artificial memory of computing and the web" (7). In undergrad I did my final senior project on the public or collective memory in regards to the memorials in Washington D.C.. I compared and contrasted the Vietnam and World War II memorials and how the designs are indicative of society's memory of the wars. I thought of this in comparison to Ulmer's emphasis on memory but in a "personal organic" manner. Mystory is the personal counterpart to public memory.