[-empyre-] Writing Culture

[Bill Seaman <bseaman@risd.edu>]

Kenneth Newby States:

"Well I suppose we experience them as cultures in the sense that 
there are competing views as to what constitutes knowledge, meaning, 
valid methodologies, and valid research in the construction of these. 
We encounter issues where we seem to speak different languages and a 
considerable effort is required in translation."

Seaman:
I am very much interested in the art/science relation at the moment. 
It does take huge work to be able to talk across cultures. At Rhode 
Island School of Design where I am department head of Digital+Media, 
a graduate department that fosters such bridging, we try to enable 
bridging between many different disciplines and cultures. The 
proximity to Brown University also enables high level science 
collaboration.

The internet empowers one to do international research with top 
people around the globe. There are many many cultures, yet, we are at 
a moment in time where we can each contribute to the others 
potentials. For me it is worth the work in vocabulary building - 
exploring and developing bridging languages as I call them.

Susan Leigh Star and Geoffrey C. Bowker in their text Sorting Things 
Out: Classification and its Consequences, define the notion of the 
Boundry Object:

"Drawing from earlier studies of interdisciplinary scientific 
cooperation, we define boundary objects as those objects that both 
inhabit several communities of practice and satisfy the informational 
requirements of each of them. In working practice,  they are objects 
that are able both to travel across borders and maintain some sort of 
constant identity. They can be tailored to meet the needs of any one 
community (they are plastic in this sense, or customizable). At the 
same time, they have common identities across settings. This is 
achieved by allowing the objects to be weakly structured in common 
use, imposing stronger structures in the individual-site tailored 
use."

--http://weber.ucsd.edu/~gbowker/classification/      "At this site, 
we present the introduction, first two chapters and concluding 
chapters of our book on classification  systems published by MIT 
Press in 1999".

The questions we are asking in terms of creating intelligent new 
writing systems cross many domains and demands real collaboration ---

Best
Bill
--
Professor Bill Seaman, Ph.D.
Department  Head
Digital+ Media Department (Graduate Division)
Rhode Island School of Design
Two College St.
Providence, R.I. 02903-4956
401 277 4956
fax 401 277 4966
bseaman@risd.edu

http://billseaman.com
http://www.art.235media.de/index.php?show=2
http://digitalmedia.risd.edu