connectivity

autobiographing/moving forward

/ Jana Rosinski / 2 Comments

This is a self(ish) post. It is personal and contains no academic content. Except that it does.

kinetic transfer/transition

I’m in the transition period between MA and PhD. It’s not limbo; I don’t feel free-floating, aimless in waiting, or still of mind. Each day feels like some sort of spirit quest in which I am learning and getting to know myself, and with each day come rituals that I explore and abandon to better prepare myself physically and mentally. Some breakfasts give more energy than others; some times for exercise seem more beneficial to my ability to concentrate; to-do lists rarely result in doing; I can’t work on my computer in bed; breaks really need to be timed; etc. What I didn’t anticipate is the level of inner reflection that I’m practicing – I slice vegetables and meditate, I run and think of my future scholarship, I cut strips of tape to hang pictures and think of the connections I have established, need to maintain, and where I want to relate next. I hope these are synapses connecting to establish habits of mind that will serve me well as I continue on. Leaving my MA program and school (and state and professors and self(s) space…) is difficult; despite all of the good advice I’ve received, the support I continue to get, and all that I now carry because of the program, nothing could quite prepare me for this. And what I’m realizing is that it couldn’t, not entirely – and this is where I come in. Momentum requires my energy, moving, acting, doing, making, thinking require me to do so. This probably seems trite, but to me, this is life changing. It’s the time/space to establish who I am (want to be, am being, what I have done/yet to do). I’m not just going into a PhD program, I am moving forward.

looking at myself(s)

Working to better myself and know myself better, I bought a Fitbit monitor.

I’m flipping vertical lists into horizontal plots to graph progress. I realize this doesn’t change anything I actually have to do, but changing perspective brings a change in perspective.

I’m working to create more malleable daily plans, or ones that can shift based on circumstances without being obliterated. Yesterday I planned to write the entire day (as if that wasn’t setting myself up for disaster) but was struck with one of the worst migraines I have gotten in a while. Unable to pick my head up, writing didn’t happen. But sideways note taking, sketching, light reading, and watching generative documentaries (documentaries on creating and object making) could happen with pause. Another change is perspective: days are not lost, they sometimes change their focus.  I want to account for my time, but it rarely exists on a clear dichotomy of on task and off task.

Reasons I Don't Work

 

 

 

 

Reasons I WorkI want to be able to represent myself in my academic activity. This means using this space in earnest, and making my action/working/making/doing/thinking visible. Blogging notes robustly, attending and reflecting on events, having conversations, producing scraps of scholarship; but too – hand drawn comics, lists, graphics, asides, wonderings. A more visible (and known) self.

WIDE-EMU 12 (or 2?): (post)post-(un)conference

/ Jana Rosinski / 1 Comment

Last Saturday (October 20) was the second happening of WIDE-EMU – an (un)conference on writing in digital environments. I attended and presented last year when it took place at EMU, and presented again this year at MSU. The framing question for the talk, make, do sessions was What is composing today? How do people learn (and teach) it?

My presentations:

Do with Derek Mueller and Joe Torok: “Clocking Composition: Exploring Chronography with Timeline JS”

We explored/experimented with Timeline JS in a workshop like session and had an idea exchange of (pedagogical) use of such a tool. We were coming up with cool ideas, including playing with the units of time and leaving time signifiers, which makes more available/possible/potential. I’m not sure what that is yet, but i know I want to use this way of composing/(re)presenting a text.

Do with Joe Torok: “Composition’s Objects: Taking Stock Through Tiny Ontology”

We had a smaller session that was more of a conversation, which fit well with what we planned. We didn’t necessarily want to pinpoint ontology, especially in relation to OOO, but to explore what it makes available when brought into composition (more akin to OOR). We each came with an idea/activity we had worked with in our classes that we designed to help students think about things. Joe’s was creating a list with what is used to compose/what makes up the composing space for this attention to small things we neglect to see within the larger and assembled process of composition. Mine was more of tracing of materials/things associated with the (un)conference:

conference (de)compositions: creating lists/tracings for how far we can (de)compose the things of this conference.

  • Into what can some thing be broken apart?
  • To what connections/relations can some thing be traced?

There are plenty of things around us here (and our paths to here). Select a thing to appreciate in its thingness – the things of which it is composed.

  • words from the session titles/program
  • landmarks/things you passed coming to Bessey Hall
  • the highway/road you traveled here by
  • what you are going to eat for lunch
  • what you consumed/used already today
  • things in this room
  • things in your pocket or bag
  • the history of WIDE-EMU
  • people/schools presenting today

 

Plenary Session by Bump Halbritter: “Teaching/Learning/Knowing Writing as Symbolic Action”

I find Bump’s work with video a motivation to make more with video and to implement its process/potential into the classroom. It works really well not only for a metaphor for composing, but for working through composing – planning/story boarding, filming mass amounts of footage, reviewing and selecting small portions from the footage, assembling/arranging the footage, adding transitions and effects and sound/music, publishing. I have/continue to think that visual composition, from video or imagetexts, makes more space for awareness of/attention to rhetoric and design than alphanumeric text; so, a note for myself to read more about composing with video/sound.

 

Talk with Becky Morrison and Chelsea Lonsdale: “Student Writing Made Visible: Questions About Publication” and we were joined by Cheryl Ball “Editorial Pedagogies: Who’s bringing publications into the classroom?”

Becky, Chelsea, and I made zines (need to scan one and post as a PDF) that were filled with our questions; our talk session was more of a forum. We were/are really proud of our zines, our DIY publication of scholarship, that interactors (audience) could add to and take away with them. More questions were raised, which is exactly what we hoped for, and Geoffrey Carter and Cheryl Ball, and our/EMU’s Steve Benninghoff made contributions to our work that we are all still discussing/working with/through/from. Our session transitioned into Cheryl’s session of her creation/implementation of editorial pedagogy, which sounds incredible/exactly like a class I would like to teach. Her vibrant attitude/personality and knowledge of the field and the publication/circulation of its scholarship was incredibly illuminating. Now, to make sense of my scribbled notes and make this type of approach/methodology in my own way.

 

I presented in three of the four sessions, and actually spent the fourth session talking with my comrades Becky and Chelsea with Cheryl Ball as an: extension of our session, a trail of breadcrumbs to return to, a perspective on what’s going on in the field in digital spaces, a confidence and morale boost, rallying cry/cheer to try things on our own terms. The three of us left that conversation with her on the verge of skipping/fighting the urge to dismantle (politely, of course) some of the constraints we work within. I didn’t realize it until talking with her that I have lost connection to some of the ideas and scholarship that got me excited to make/do this work in the first place. She was an (un)expected catalyst, a happening I did not anticipate happening. spark. take/make a happening.

The (un)conference was followed by #beerrhetorics at Beggar’s Banquet, which was a delightful opportunity to talk over beer (or through beer?). Aside from enjoying the company of my EMU comrades, I had the pleasure of talking with Alex Myers, an Assistant Professor of Game Studies at Bellevue University. He had my attention at his casual mention of Bruno Latour, and while I don’t have much of a connection to game studies beyond reading Ian Bogost’s piece on procedural rhetoric, what he is doing/creating is captivating (as can be seen on his site). Cheryl was kind enough to let us continue picking her brain/ask her an assault of questions because she is a wonderful human being, and I had a chance to somewhat re-connect with Geoffrey Carter, who presented in the same session as I did at the (un)conference last year, who is doing/making scholarship with YouTube that I want to know/experience more about. Among others! The (un)structure of the (un)conference makes these opportunities for engaging in conversation/exchange available, something I value tremendously as a doe-eyed novice to the field of rhetoric and composition.

Things I’m taking/carrying/absorbing/connecting with(in or to) me:

  • I need to get subscriptions to Computers and Composition and the Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  • I am lucky to have such supportive faculty at EMU that are happy to/make a point to let us grad students try/explore. My work wouldn’t be possible/visible without them; which makes me think about how important connections within scholarship are – to whom, from where, to where, from whom. This is where I am situated.
  • Check out in greater depth the work of Cheryl Ball and Geoffrey V. Carter (both of which I graciously thank for their attention and conversation).
  • Read more. And then more: Jeff Rice, Jenny Rice, Victor Vitanza, Thomas Rickert, Cynthia Selfe, Anne Wysocki, William Burroughs, Gregory Ulmer (and then…)
  • I want to make more (of) myself. Let this be a part of my scholarship. craft/connect/compose myself into an identity I want to circulate/connect.
  • Sound. Make noise within composition. soundtext to accompany my library of imagetext.
  • Perhaps a PhD is possible.
  • Find time. Use time. Make time. Create time.
  • Shake the static. I have become docile.

I left feeling like a conductor of energy. Now, where am I going to transfer this energy? For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. Push/Pull.

This second (un)conference was made possible by: Derek Mueller, Steve Krause, and Bill Hart-Davidson. Thanks!

supplements becoming unsupplemental

/ Jana Rosinski / Leave a comment

I’ve been spending a lot of time roaming thrift stores the past two weeks, almost daily trips. Each trip uncovers some discovery and subsequent purchase, like the three unopened packages of Stargate party invitations I couldn’t leave without, but this I did not buy, although I seriously considered it. It was a supplement to an art exhibit at MoMA, which means it was free with entry to the museum, and would now cost $1, or $.20 if I could find four other books to package with it. It was a checklist to the exhibit, giving the name, date, dimensions, and material list for each piece. The opening information about the exhibit was torn out – perhaps a memento for someone’s scrapbook on their first trip to the Big Apple. Without it, the entire text seemed disembodied; just titles and lists – acrylic paint, ink, pencil. I could have looked up the artist, the paintings, perhaps even the entire exhibit online when I got home, but I didn’t want to. I was more interested in the idea of texts, things, breaking away from a larger piece they were meant to stay connected to. What information does such a text now convey? Is it useless? Is it truly disconnected (isolated)? Can it, should it, be (re)connected? What becomes of it now that the connections are not traceable? The idea of supplemental text no longer being a supplement. (Makes me want to entertain a project of finding disembodied supplements and pairing them with new master (?) texts…)

Loosely Connected Thoughts:

On the drive home I thought of finding an unidentified map, a guide to navigating an unrecognizable mass of land. If I go thirty miles west of Town X, I’ll be near Lake Z and a number of Lake Towns; better keep that in mind for summer trip planning.

Aging networks. Useless archives. I really need to read more Latour.