cck08

There have been posts on what tasks theory can perform. During the weeks of this course I am developing a language and accessing resources to speak about the experience/terms of Connectivism (phenomenology/epistomology), its performative forces/fields (networking theory, ANT) and its tensions in ethics and politics/frameworks (Marxism, deconstruction).

Coming from a world of theatre that not only plays with incomprehension but often tries to create it and accepts simplicity as the art of complexity Connectivism and Connective Knowledge may point towards . . .

Peter Brook writes in The Empty Space:

But all is not movement, all is not destruction, all is not restlessness, all is not fashion. There are pillars of affirmation. Those are the moments of achievement which do occur, suddenly, anywhere: the performances, the occasions when collectively a total experience a total theatre of play and spectator makes nonsense of any divisions ... At these rare moments, the theatre of joy, of catharsis, of celebration, the theatre of exploration, the theatre of shared meaning, the living theatre are one. But once gone, the moment is gone and it cannot be recaptured slavishly by imitation - the deadly creeps back, the search begins again.

The course creates a site to draw and acknowledge 'whole body research' for discussion and interaction.

Explorations/demonstrations/instantiations of discourse occur and I observe micro-shifts occurring in forums and this relational kind of aesthetics teaches a lot about the actual workings of distributed cognition. Does it come back to the autonomy of the individual? Do I want change? Change in circumstance, my understandings, my life ... then why not embrace one more ism among many others.

As for modelling:

Guattari writes of metamodelization ... allowing yourself to work with any models that appear useful, while refusing to identify closely with any of them ... in other words, letting them slide with experience ... which makes for a happy contagion and ongoing mix in a pragmatic approach to life ... 

(Andrew Murphie - Associate Professor School of English, Media and Performing Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, Editor - The Fibreculture Journal http://journal.fibreculture.org/ )

... which hardly leads to a stance I know but at the moment I'm here and not going anywhere else fast.

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... simply put connectivism is a participatory process ...

And I am thinking… wow, if I can build my brand as effectively as they are building theirs, I’d be all set. And yet, I am unable to give up the personal. And that bothers me sometimes.

(Authenticity in the Age of Social Networks | Bring back Grimmy! | Pale Fire)

Insofar as social technologies make us more dependent upon the opinion of others, they may be said to increase our inauthenticity and are to be deplored. But I am a technologist and an optimist about technology's capacity to expand and improve our lives. However hesitantly, I will continue to use social media. We'll work out the kinks. I choose to think that our private selves will survive and be enlarged by Twitter and Facebook as they were by earlier communications technologies.

(Authenticity in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility| Technology Review | Jason Pontin) (registration required)

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... yes authenticity is a loaded word ... even more when used with social and technological ... branding the self ...

(from Burak Arikan his course titled Creative Networking.)

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... turning networks into a creative activity ... i'm just a broken child of the internet playing with concepts ... & if you want complexity have some more fun ...

In an attempt to provide a common language that describes form and function in biology and computer sciences (as well as all other sciences), Peter Bentley created a model known as "systemic computation". The model relies on notions such as embodiment, circular causality, and homeostasis to explain how information flows and is transformed by interacting systems, whether biological or artificial.

(Presentation given at the Tesla Symposium 'Visions and Imagination: Advanced ICT in Art and Science', organized by Gordana Novakovic at the Department of Computer Science of UCL on 24 November 2007, and funded by AHRC Methods Network.)

Bentley talks about his thinking process & worries ...

... worries about the organization of pebbles at Hastings

... worries about the emergent behaviour of neurons

... worries about fruit fly cells interacting & developing

... charts contrasting flows of computing

Video of talk @ Tesla Video Archive or Digital Arts & Humanities

Talk may be divided into 10 minute segments: Part 1 (worries) Part 2 (flows) Part 3 (image).

I remember hearing Steve Kurtz ( from Critical Art Ensemble) saying once that he wasn't the least bit interested in whether scientists and artists actually had anything to offer each other's disciplines. What he believed was important in science-art collaboration was whether you shared a 'political' project with each other and that if you did, the alliance between science and art could become very powerful. I think more shared political projects between artists and scientists on the basis of complexifying our ways of thinking about brains, bodies, thinking, sensing and perceiving are what is important right now.

(Dr.Anna Munster, Senior Lecturer School of Art History and Theory College of Fine Arts UNSW)

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... an exercise in how we may grow knowledge ... perhaps concepts towards Rhizomatic patterns ... right hand words are the terminology of connectivism ... information flows ... are we educators aware of our political projects? ...

... read all artilcles & read all threads & read a few posts & a few comments & listened to all sessions & wandered SL site & skimmed & linked ... downloaded tool & created different (3 unsaved) maps talking to myself the whole while ... provided Twitter data ... did very little expression ... fell asleep to radio & woke listening to Norman Doidge interview challenging the old neurological nihilism (transcript) ... a visual highlight was watching the Siemens interview on connectivism  (answering focused questions with attentive enthusiasm) ... stimulated to pursue neuroplasticity & virtual/ digital ethnography ... feels like a creative soup/ocean ... ... don't know what to do but content to follow the process for now ... hauntology ...

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... remember reading Peter Brook: (badly paraphrasing) do what you will in the first reheasal & most importantly get to the second rehearsal ...

People and theories that inform some of my epistemological ideas and I hope will get us away from dualism: complexity theories (e.g., Edgar Morin) anti-dualistic philosophy (J. Searle) as well as theory of emergence and self-organization (chaos theory..).  ...

I would agree that brain adaptability is one of the new hot topics and framework in cognitive neurosciences. ...

The other hot topic I think is the great variability between brains and how much it challenges conventional statistics which are the most used in cognitive neurosciences. This leads to understanding how individuals change over time (rejoining the idea of plasticity, deterioration or improvement). ...

A coming hot topic I think is within the social neurosciences is the cultural relativity/relevance of certain emotional/cognitive abilities.

Lastly, the development of new drugs that may arise from changes in the epistemological framework in cognitive neurosciences.

- Lucette Cysique: [-empyre-] decade of the plastic brain (yikes another list to register/password & digest - just think that every node requires a password)

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... following a Skeptic ... "sounds like a new religion" ... i'll playfully contend connectivism is the new drug ... become a user and after the course a potential pusher then dealer ...

by Matthias Melcher

by Helena Ramos

by Mitch Weisburgh

- See: CCK08

:: note ::

... beginning maps culled from course ... curious what maps will appear at the end ...

simple intro's are done (almost)

valued this thread launched by Skeptic / Catherine Fitzpatrick / Prokofy ... from what i've witnessed the past months a superior provacative poet player of networks ... call her an Outrider:

It's word-obsession for the honor, dignity of a mind ill at ease, restless, jumping from desk to orally standing-at-attention, examining itself. A maker of poetry. Parallels to many makers of many things.

from the pre-reading recommendations Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture:

Play - the capacity to experiment with one's surroundings as a form of problem-solving. Performance - the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery.

- See: CCK08

:: note :: ... concerned am unable to participate in either the elluminate or UStream sessions ...

Organize/Narrat(ive)e learning experiment/challenge:
how is connectivism related to enabling a participatory pedagogy

Pre- Course
signed up for: Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Online Course &  SL component
visited blog & joined google group
logged in to Moodle CCK08
listened to EdTechTalk #81, #82 & interview
read posts: Planning Page, English Pageflakes, support wiki, Sarah's Musings, Connectivism blog, The Connective

- See:  CCK08

:: note :: ... accept those talking marks/grades/assessment/institutions is an important part of their narrative ... after this pre-course "work" must chip away to principles of personal practice by ruthless selection of info-nodes ... find it difficult to commit (be open) to any process structured/unstructured of "network" whether social, neuronal or conceptual ... live chaos ... love complexity & diversity ... keep experimenting with (x28) rules versus patterns, complicated vs. complex, equivalence vs. similarity, and coping with ambiguity and uncertainty ... my paradox is to be a fully involved participant & be invisible ...

Begin
-- -- raYmon