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All
comments and suggestions about any part of this site is most
appreciated. I have published some of them here.
Email
Monday, March 31, 2003
To: Craig Bellamy milkbar@milkbar.com.au
From: dpe@kb.dk
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:34:45 +0200
Hi Craig,
It's a really wonderful project and I am intrigued by the sense of suburbianism that it conveys as an image of digital culture. Is this a functional cause of technology or is it an inevitable consequence of economical factors? I am mostly a sleeper in fibreculture. I use it as a thermometer dipped in a good node and it gives me a lot of new ideas. But occasionally I get in the mood to write something and your criticism of what I understand as fashion-Deleuzianism sparked the lust to provoke you back. It's sad (i think) when complex and nuanced philosophical or other theoretical work is boiled to the bone and appropriated as theory-on-practice. And it's even sadder when academia becomes ruled under opinions or fashions determining
the questions worth the trouble to ask. But then again what I sense as a resignation before all kinds of attempts at describing /analyzing /
interrogating into new phenomena in your last contributions to the list
saddens me too. And angers me a bit, which I think is your intention.
Should we take these new phenomena at face value? Say: Yes - the library where I work cannot find a different way to give people access to its digitized collection other than through a system that mirrors its
institutional structure. Then? how to describe this real problem? There are juridical, technical, political, economical and behavioural aspects to it, not to mention the aesthetical problems, and somewhere it seems that no place is better than any other as a starting point for one's analysis. So why not start in the middle, in their interdependiencies? To me it is here that the French frogs are of help. Most people in the MODINET project center are not into Deleuze. As opposed to the Australian scene, in Denmark
a minority are struggle trying to convince the vast majority of its
usefulness. And it does not give anyone any extra credits. I believe
Deleuze is one among several thoughtarchitectures capable of handling the complexity of the problem I have to ask. But then again, i may quite simply
be wrong...: )
cheers,
dag
posted by Craig Bellamy at Monday, March 31, 2003
Friday, March 28, 2003
Part Two:
1. You say that the audience is "peers in your field." How would you define that field?
This is a difficult question as positioning has been one of the great challenges of this project. When I stared the project, I was much closer to the book-based canon of the expression of academic ideas as I had read broadly within the field of 'globalisation studies'. I knew the ideas that I wanted to express; basically that communities are important components of 'the global' and that memory and place are important components of what we understand as an historical community. However, I wasn't quite sure how to express these intentions within a medium that is often impersonal, ungrounded, and even anti-historical. I decided on one of the most evocatively-human approaches possible in this medium; namely video-recorded oral-histories of people that can be both seen and heard talking about where they live in a medium that often just skims across the surface of historical place.
My audience has always been other historians, especially those interested in new ways and methodologies to express historical knowledge through technology and those interested in community and place. This has often been difficult in terms of balancing my duty to the past and respect for the profession of history, whilst in some ways being professionally marginised from the discipline in Australia. When I stared this project in 1999, there was virtually no where within Australia that could support this model of scholarship. It was done within an technically literate applied arts school, but in a university with no humanities school and no history school. My association to the field of history has been through a fellowship, through editing the on-line list H-ANZAU, through the attendance at conferences, though an active knowledge of humanities computing, and through the loose association with a history school in another university. In refection, I am glad that I did this work outside of a history school because often academic innovation can only occur on the margins. And accordingly, on a more practical level, the technical literacy of most of this countries humanities schools is not yet great enough to support this model of scholarship. Unfortunately, from my extensive experience overseas this is not the case in North American or European humanities schools. The field of computers in history or computers in the humanities within Australia must be taken into account when assessing this work in terms of its ability to advance applied historical innovation and knowledge on-line. The field is still wide open in Australia, thus positioning will always be one of the great dangers/challenges for this type of scholarship.
2. You say that there need to be more "grounded local studies" of globalisation. You have undertaken such a study. Does it lead you to challenge, confirm, or modify what leading commentators on globalisation have written?
Globalisation is not one thing, just like Australia is not one thing, nor is Fitzroy one thing. Hopefully this is one of the 'conclusions' that the user of this site will come away with. Globalisation is the formation of yet another meta-structure, just like Nationalism was two hundred years earlier. We know the dangers of Nationalism and 'mono-interpretations', lets hope that no nation, no community, nor no individual can ever singularly interpret 'the global'. What I hope that a user of this site will learn is how to articulate what is local and what is global and the relationships between them. This is difficult and speculative but it needs to be taught in language that people can understand either through a local history approaches like this one, or through some other means. My challenge to globalisation theorist such as Castells and Langhorne is to entertain more cultural sophistication in their work as it takes an extraordinary amount of arrogance to adumbratively discuss such a vast amount of humanity.
3. Should the practice of humanities computing be changed or modified in the light of your work? What is your contribution to that domain?
It should be broadened to include humanities knowledge and approaches from more schools. There is a large field in Australia developing around cultural studies and media studies that is now claiming the high ground of Internet discourse (however it is not practice based and often only focuses on how technology is used in the popular and market sphere). I have gone to extraordinary efforts, some of which are just now baring fruit, to at least get this group to acknowledge that humanities actually have their own field. The split that I see developing in how computers are used in the humanities in Australia is between 'New Media' and 'Humanities Computing'. New Media is more design based and hypertextual, uses popularly available consumer software, employs an argument, and has larger popular audiences. Humanities computing is closer to the library and information sciences, is centred upon canonised academic knowledge, is usually text based, does not usually have an argument, and is more often that not within schools that have a greater academic and economic ability for helmsmanship within the technological jungle. My work for a number of reasons is situated in the 'new media' end of humanities computing, but is hopefully a segue between the two.
4. You say that the user has to "put in a little bit of time and effort and has to search to understand the community." If you possess such "understanding," why not offer it to the reader/user?
In some ways I do offer my own understandings because all of the people that I found to interview were of my own selection (along with all the other parameters that the site was constructed within). As argued in the section on hypertext, I am positioning the thesis that; yes this is my authorship, but I am relinquishing some of this authority to the user so that they can challenge my authorship. Perhaps this approach to authorship would not work on other historical enquiries, but in this one where I am trying to argue historical complexity, multiplicity, and community diversity within what we understand as 'the global' then I feel that it is effective.
I am also trying to demonstrate a process and it took quite a long time to find an historical question worthy of this process. This is still only a very small view of Fitzroy, however if I have had interviewed all of the sixteen thousand residents of Fitzroy, I doubt any of the major themes that I touched upon would have been that much different. There is the historical personal experience that I bought to the selection process and expression.
posted by Craig Bellamy at Friday, March 28, 2003
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Here is a list of questions and replies that were directed at milkbar.com.au by one of the assessors of this work. (Part One)
Engaging with the Project
1. How do you want people to use your site?
Electronic publishing is unpredictable in terms of determining your audience because different audiences will use a site in differing ways. Surprisingly, the feedback that I have received from many general on-line readers is that they liked the photos of the milkbars and would like to see more of them! However, how I hoped that the general audience would view the site is by first reading the instructions on the first page, and then proceed to the videos in the local (or even global) section. The local section is easily palatable as it is a similar literacy to television meaning that you press the 'on' button and the videos play from A to B. It is also intentionally in a lower band width (40kbs) because most people do not have access to broad-band connections. I was particularly worried that the people that I interviewed in Fitzroy would not have access to the interviews that I gathered, so I made the 'local' section as accessible as possible. I did not envisage that the general reader would read the thesis component nor would be interested in the debates that surround electronic publishing in the humanities. A research audience is much more attuned to searching for evidence and perhaps the thesis component would be much more interesting to them.
2. who do you think will read this? Who is the audience?
This is connected to the first question, but in reflection, if this was not a Ph.D qualification I would have embarked on a very different project. The audience for a PhD in my mind is always the peers in your field. There has been a great tension in this work in terms of it already being 'published' in the popular sphere and sometime this can be at odds with an academic field which is concerned with specialist and esoteric knowledge. Perhaps the better suited history projects in this medium are popular histories to take advantage of larger audiences. There is some highly esoteric knowledge in history that is not augmented by popular distribution. Local histories and popular 'peoples' histories are particular well suited for the Internet as they are for the mediums of television and film.
3. What constitutes having read you thesis? Should the reader have
listened to/watched all the clips?
No, I really didn't expect anyone to do this (however I did meet a hairdresser on Smith Street who told me that he watched them all).
What I expected the reader/user to do is to view as many clips as they wanted until their curiosity was satisfied. Yes, this is a little open-ended, but so too is the local communities in which we live. The user is invited to view the videos in any order and in any sequence, has complete control over begin and end times, and had multiple access. The user can gain an insightful view into Fitzroy through some of its inhabitants, however this can never be conclusive. The user has to put a little bit of time and effort and has to search a little to understand the community.
4. Why not edit the clips?
They are already edited in a sense from the moment that I picked up the camera. However, editing in terms of 'cutting' like in film and television, does not make a lot of sense in this medium. It is usually one-to-one and as previously stated, the user has complete (24 hour-access) control over begin and end times and what (and when) they want to see it. I thought that the film would be of more value to other researchers if I did not cut it and would reveal more of the process of constructing it. The films is 'edited' however in terms of the search points in the SMAFE engine (in the global section) as the viewer can only see the segments of the film that I deemed important for these categories.
5. On page 42, you say that the user writes their own history ;
what do you expect them to write?
It would be difficult for any user of this site not to come away from it with the sense that local communities and local identities are alive and well (but they do face threats). The users who I have witnessed using the site usually do so through engaging with the recorded videos of the people that they identify with the most. Perhaps this is indicative of how they engage with the broader community at large. Age is a very important factor or even how 'cool' the participants look. What I expect the participants to write in terms of history is perhaps the sense that history is not mono-vocal nor is it advanced easily. Communities are complex and have various opinions about what constitutes a community. This methodological and technical approach may work well for this project, but in other areas of historical study it may not be suitable.
Clarification of Content
6. Do you have any conclusions about globalization?
There needs to be more grounded local studies of its effects and I have only touched the surface of it understanding in this project.
It is a literacy that is in its infancy, say unlike 'nationalism' that can in fact be readily demonstrated and articulated in a local community. My major conclusion about globalisation is that it is the formation of yet another 'meta-structure like the local, the state, and the national. The local contains many elements of 'the global', but some people like myself through technologies such as this have access to this structures whilst others don't.
7. Is this project about globalization or about trying to do humanities
computing?
It is a project about the local/global nexus within the field of humanities computing. The content is the local/global nexus but many of the processes that I have used are within humanities computing. They are inextricable linked.
8. On 9/11/02 you wrote in your journal: The work is becoming far too
process oriented, which may detract from the original reason of the
work. Do you still feel this way?
Yes I admit that I do in many ways and this has always been another tension in this work. The content for this work was created specifically for it which is very rare in humanities computing practice. If I was dealing with a already existing archive then the process would have been much more central component. I don't know if it is a good idea that humanists should always strive for the 'cutting edge' of technology, it is best for us to determine what technologies best address a specific historical problem. Process for the sake of process doesn't really do it for me.
9. On page 46-7, you say new schools have an approach that suits the
authorship of their particular institutional traditions What does
this mean?
A prickly question not easily addressed, but the humanities is broad and non-egalitarian and crosses numerous institutions cultures and trajectories. We would hope that the newer schools are more socially progressive in terms of drawing from a more diverse (and nouveau) student population. There are questions of equity and innovation that humanities in the newer schools address and the older more privileged schools do not. This is linked to the technologies that are available to the students and the choices that they make on what is important for their studies.
10. What do you think of TEI and standards? Are they good or bad?
I think they are good for particular historical problems but not for others. For preserving and distributing digital facsimiles of say Seventeenth Century Dutch canal maps they are wonderful, but in terms of this project they are not that useful. The TEI is a good example of 'institutional authorship' meaning that they are important standards for the schools that invented them and their institutional focus (ie. preserve the traces of human culture over time through traditional approaches to education) but for progressive and innovative schools that have a much more contemporary focus they are perhaps not as useful.
posted by Craig Bellamy at Thursday, March 20, 2003
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Dear Craig,
The process for the 'Q&A' component of your PhD examination has been established and endorsed by the RGS Exams sub-committee. Copied below are the details of the approved process. The same information has also been provided to the examiners, as well as your Senior Supervisor and the Chair of the Q&A component.
The proposed arrangements will be as follows:
1. The question and answer 'window' will be open from Wednesday March 19 to Friday March 28 2003. The times and dates refer to Melbourne time.
2. There will be two rounds of questions and answers.
3. The Chair will collect the questions from the examiners on Wed 19 and Wed 26 March.
4. At a time agreed in advance between the Chair and the candidate, the questions will be presented to the candidate by the Chair, either face-to-face or virtually.
5. The candidate will provide the Chair with responses to the questions (preferably a single paragraph and not more than 500 words per question) within not more than two hours. The candidate will not research nor consult (eg with their supervisor) during the preparation of their responses.
6. The Chair will convey these responses to the respective examiners by the end of the day on Fri 21 and Fri 28 March.
7. The role of the Chair is to act as moderator of the question and answer component of the examination by receiving questions from examiners and conveying these to the candidate; then receiving the candidate's responses and conveying these to the examiners. As a moderator, the Chair will seek to ensure that the questions and answers are appropriate and in context. Examiners are requested to not communicate with the candidate directly prior to the completion of this examination.
8. The Chair of this examination will be (name suppressed) from RMIT.
Guidelines on the Question and Answer Component and Process
- The purpose of this process is to allow the examiners to raise questions they may have regarding the work with the candidate, and for the candidate to be able to respond in a timely and informed manner to these questions to assist them in their examination of the work.
- It is intended that this question and answer component will allow for clarification of the project methodology, process and/or content in relation to what is being examined.
- All communication between the examiners and the candidate will be channeled through the examination Chair. The Chair will convey questions from the examiners to the candidate, and responses from the candidate to the examiner who posed the question: there will be a separate, one-on-one dialogue between each examiner and the candidate.
- The examination Chair, (name suppressed) will establish email contact with the examiners prior to March 19 to enable the question and answer component to commence and to ensure that you have an appropriate point and means of contact.
Please feel free to contact (name suppressed) or myself if you have any questions regarding the above.
regards
(name suppressed)
posted by Craig Bellamy at Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Saturday, March 08, 2003
Hi Craig-
Congratulations on your lovely site. I discovered it through the mailbox 'Fitzroyal' publication, and recognised your name/ project from long ago-
We met briefly at the Napier last year through Rory Hyde- sitting outside and birthing the idea of the global:local McDonald's flip-book. [a sad story that one, the book was never realised due to a number of issues]
It's great to see the site up and your vision realised, you must be justifiably proud.
When i saw the picture of the Olympia milkbar [in Annandale] on your site, I wanted to share with you a write-up of that establishment in a favourite zine of mine. Perhaps you have already seen it, but if not -
It is in 'I Am A Camera 7', which is by Vanessa Berry, a talented Sydney writer. The issue is all about memory, places and change, which was of great interest to an archi nerd like myself. [i read pretty much everything she publishes anyway as she is a lovely writer]
You can get a copy from Sticky in Campbell Arcade [underground next to Flinders St Station, enter from Degraves], or from the Melbourne zine distro smittenkitten thru mailorder - http://www.smittenkitten.net/ If the zine has sold out or something i can photocopy the story for you and post it.
Hope this finds you well, congrats again on the site & good luck in PhD land
sincerely,
Cara Wiseman
posted by Craig Bellamy at Saturday, March 08, 2003
Authored
by Craig Bellamy 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
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