Re: [-empyre-] clarifying noiseless challenge

[michelle@kasprzak.ca]

hi all,
Apologies for coming a little late to the party.
Since this discussion started I've been interested in thinking beyond
defining the "noiseless" challenge literally, and thinking of it more as a
notion of what is obvious versus what is less visible and more reflexive.

> Once Guy Debord said that i'm a lost child. Now, in
> the middle of our discussion i feel that i'm a lost
> child. I prefer to be silent and listen.

I'm picking up on Hamed's reference to a "lost child", because reading the
debate over the past weeks reminded me of Mimi Ito's research into how
young people use technology - though the children she is studying are far
from lost. If my 10 year old niece is any example, technology is
completely "noiseless" (noiseless = invisible, reflexive) to her - she
uses instant messaging and email in ways and for reasons that are
completely not obvious to me, someone who came to networked technologies
in her teens (in other words, relatively late in life!)

>From the official announcement about Mimi Ito's new research programme:
(sorry for the long quotation but I think it explains this research
initiative in sufficient detail - references from
http://spotlight.macfound.org/,
http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2006/10/21/mimi_ito_studie....html,
http://www.annenberg.edu/news/news.php?id=41)

"Mimi Ito, a senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Communication 
was named among a distinguished group of researchers awarded grants 
through a major new research initiative on "Digital Media and Learning" 
announced by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on October
19.

The five-year, $50 million initiative aims to support research which 
helps determine how digital technologies are changing the way young 
people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life.

?Digital media are no longer experimental technologies that live in
special laboratories and classrooms; they are part of our everyday  lives,
inhabiting our living rooms, backpacks, pockets, and cars,? says Ito on
the MacArthur Foundation?s ?Digital Media and Learning? blog site for the
initiative.

?We need to understand how digital media has changed how young people 
play, learn,
relate to others, get information, and create knowledge and culture. Ito?s
research, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of
California-Berkeley, includes a large-scale ethnography of young people
that will provide a broad portrait of the digital generation:technology's
influence on their social networks and peer groups, their family life, how
they play, and how they look for information. It will be one of the most
significant attempts yet made  to explore the influence of digital media
on youth.

?One goal of our project is to unpack what it means to be ?fluent? and
?natural? with digital technology, and document the technical, social, 
and cultural environments that support this kind of lifelong learning  and
literacy,? says Ito. ?Configuring an iPod, exchanging IM with friends, or
posting a question to a fan bulletin board are all learning  moments.
Taken as a whole, these informal and everyday moments can have  a longer
and lasting impact on young people?s learning
and development  than their exposure to educational technologies in the
classroom.?

As Aliette noted in a post earlier today to this list:

> The butterfly does not think, he flies.

I'm sorry to truncate your very long post down to one solitary sentiment,
Aliette, but it is the one that supports what I am saying! ;)

What becomes of digital creation when noise and noiselessness collide -
that is, what kind of artwork will my niece make, as a member of a younger
generations for whom a networked existence is natural? (A butterfly that
does not think, just flies.) As opposed to the new media works created by
us, the digital immigrants? And how shall we have a conversation about it
or understand each other's perspectives?

all the best
Michelle
--
http://michelle.kasprzak.ca
http;//www.curating.info