Flickr

As part of Sue Thomas' lecture she talked about Flickr and, by extension, other web 2.0 applications. I'm still having problems seeing the worth in these applications. Are they not just extensions of peoples ego's? Do we need to know what you are doing every second of the day however mind numbingly dull? I mentioned this in a tutorial with Sue and we talked briefly on this issue. Sue was saying, I believe, that it was the patterns and swarms within the linking in these applications that can create meaning. In Flickr it is the comments, the linking, the tagging which construct new meaning over and above the picture, text, audio itself.

The trick. I believe, is not to think in terms of structure or organisation - what goes where and why, but to dip in pull something out and see what comes with it. I feel a leap of faith is needed. So here I go. I shall register with Flikr and see what may.

Violet : PKD

Last lecture Sue gave us the remit to write on 'violet' ( she doesn't like to lead us much;-) ). I'm not sure why but this sparked off an idea.

"The data-stream shuffled minutely in his arteries. Mewing and bawling its life erupting once again as another iteration took place sending waves of nausea/ecstasy into his brain. Brendon Quail's veins pumped and gorged. He closed his eyes awaiting the clarity that would take him to the next level as the Violet : PKD kicked in."

What i wanted to do was write an extract from a possible short story in the sub-genre of science fiction constructed, I believe, by Philip K. Dick. As a note i'd like to add that this is only an exercise to write in the genre and not an attempt to emulate. Thinking about it the inspiration sprung to mind as many of the concepts in these kind of stories ( Jeff Noon, William Gibson and Max Barry included ) fit into the trans-literacy approach of the CWNM - emerging technologies and possible their possible extrapolations into something new.

To start this exercise I re-visited some of Dicks works as research to ascertain themes and threads that run through his work and and developed by other authors. Here's what i found :

1. drug use
2. questioned reality
3. short form
4. visionary predictions
5. blended juxtapositions of the normal and the extra-normal
6. an unreliable narrator
7. mental illness
8. fictional worlds inhabited by 'non-science fiction' characters
9. proliferation of 'distinct new ideas'
   

Dick creates worlds predicated on our own which is advanced in some way. Indeed Dick himself states that science fiction must contain this dislocation between our known world and the world created, by a conceptual idea which transforms the world with events that have not happened but could happen in the 'real' world.

Bibliography:

Harvard system of referencing included for my reference.
Author, Initials/first name., Year. Title of book. Edition. (only include this if not the first edition) Place: Publisher.

Dick, P.K., 1972, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?. 1997. Great Britain. Voyager
Dick, P.K., 1972, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. 1996. Great Britain. Voyager
Dick, P.K., 1972, Beyond Lies the Wub. Great Britain. Voyager.

Ok, i got a bit side tracked there but i leaned something. Spending time researching a genre or author is fine. But not when it stops you from writing!

First Short Story

A box containing an assortment of objects was placed in front of us. Our first writing exercise! Sue Thomas left the room, and asked us to write for 15 minutes something relating to the box and/or its contents. Here are the words what i wrote :

"The time it took for the girl with the skates to become Roller Girl was not a short one. A transition of sorts of comparable magnitude and length had occurred in her life previously but she didn't like to talk about it. So I won't.

The skates had belonged to who we don't know. The girl had belonged to no-one and was adamant she never would. Maybe this is why the bond between her and the wheels became so strong. A symbol of freedom, an ability to roll. To roll away from Glen Galla and his damn obsession with army style stencils. There was no way he was going to tag these eight wheeled babies. Free wheeling, thats what she was."

Kinda felt like more text when i was writting but hey.