Well I'm pretty stoked. I found out the other day that I have been offered the International Scholarship to go to Sweden. Wow! I'm also pretty nervous and the wave of panic associated with my fear of flying hit me about 1.5 seconds after the wave of excitement upon finding out. I'm seriously considering attending one of those desensitising workshops at the airport. The only problem is they cost a bomb. Oh I so shouldn't use that word!
My proposed research for this Scholarship is an enquiry into innovations in mobile office technology by the two cellphone companies – Ericsson, of Sweden and Nokia, of Finland. The scholarship will provide me with an opportunity to conduct fieldwork for the final chapter of my PHD dissertation on mobile technologies and the ‘the office of the future’. It will also result in a series of papers and articles exploring the cultural, historical and geographical roots and context of these key mobile technology enterprises. The research will involve a visit to the headquarters of Ericsson and Nokia, which accommodate the R&D departments of both companies, to tour their facilities and conduct an interview with the design teams.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
twilight
The sky is fading, the blue leeched out of it like an ancient pair of stone washed jeans. The light that's left clings to the roof tops. I sit at my desk looking out at the street through the narrow terrace windows with their horizontal bars. The ink of night seems to be seeping up from the earth, erasing all detail from the gum trees and houses...oh geez, that's enough...it's dark already.
Feeling much better. My cold is almost gone. Unfortunately I passed it on to my partner who came down with it quite severely and then just as she was recovering, an opportunistic stomache virus seemed to slip in and caught her unawares. She has been really sick the last few days but is back to work today.
Meanwhile I have had bursts of energy that I've spent on preparing and painting two walls, one in the study and one in the bedroom, prior to the installation of our built in wardrobes that are being installed tomorrow!!
I'm very excited about this. Yes, storage does make me happy. The days of living with piles of boxes in the corner of each room will be over. I do like things to be put away but I'm not really fussed about cleanliness. A bit of dirt here and there, that's OK, it doesn't bother me but I really don't like clutter and mess. Where I got this preference for things being in their place is not very hard to imagine. I have tempered my mum's love of all things neat, clean and tidy to just focus on the neat and tidy bit and have rebelled against the clean.
Yesterday I handed in my application for a Postgraduate Scholarship in Sweden to take place later this year. I was in two minds about whether to apply and decided that I would focus on the application as a process in itself and I'm glad I did this because it has clarified my ideas about my PHD thesis and made me reflect on how the stuff I'm learning and researching can be applied to other outcomes such as seminar and conference papers. However, I remain concerned I may not be able to afford eight weeks in Sweden and then another month in the UK when I could be in Australia conducting field work. Three years is such a short time to do a thesis. It only really makes sense if I can justify the trip based on its direct relevance to my PHD, in terms of material collected and research conducted. Well, I did it anyway, and who knows whether I will be successful or not. My philosophy is to make the most of every opportunity and experience because it is only three years and though it may very well result in a better thesis to spend the entire time with my head down reading and focusing on my research, I want to experience more than that during my PHD.
Talking about reading, at the moment I'm reading Kenneth Gergen's "The Saturated Self" and "Emotions in Social Life", an anthology of writings on the emerging field of sociology of emotions. I'm also dipping into "The Social Shaping of Technology" to reacquaint myself with some of the social constructivist approaches to technology. I need to finalise my confirmation of candidature document and have sort of drifted away from the headspace I was in when I wrote it. My supervisor is arranging the committee presentation date for the first week of August. Small wave of panic...
Feeling much better. My cold is almost gone. Unfortunately I passed it on to my partner who came down with it quite severely and then just as she was recovering, an opportunistic stomache virus seemed to slip in and caught her unawares. She has been really sick the last few days but is back to work today.
Meanwhile I have had bursts of energy that I've spent on preparing and painting two walls, one in the study and one in the bedroom, prior to the installation of our built in wardrobes that are being installed tomorrow!!
I'm very excited about this. Yes, storage does make me happy. The days of living with piles of boxes in the corner of each room will be over. I do like things to be put away but I'm not really fussed about cleanliness. A bit of dirt here and there, that's OK, it doesn't bother me but I really don't like clutter and mess. Where I got this preference for things being in their place is not very hard to imagine. I have tempered my mum's love of all things neat, clean and tidy to just focus on the neat and tidy bit and have rebelled against the clean.
Yesterday I handed in my application for a Postgraduate Scholarship in Sweden to take place later this year. I was in two minds about whether to apply and decided that I would focus on the application as a process in itself and I'm glad I did this because it has clarified my ideas about my PHD thesis and made me reflect on how the stuff I'm learning and researching can be applied to other outcomes such as seminar and conference papers. However, I remain concerned I may not be able to afford eight weeks in Sweden and then another month in the UK when I could be in Australia conducting field work. Three years is such a short time to do a thesis. It only really makes sense if I can justify the trip based on its direct relevance to my PHD, in terms of material collected and research conducted. Well, I did it anyway, and who knows whether I will be successful or not. My philosophy is to make the most of every opportunity and experience because it is only three years and though it may very well result in a better thesis to spend the entire time with my head down reading and focusing on my research, I want to experience more than that during my PHD.
Talking about reading, at the moment I'm reading Kenneth Gergen's "The Saturated Self" and "Emotions in Social Life", an anthology of writings on the emerging field of sociology of emotions. I'm also dipping into "The Social Shaping of Technology" to reacquaint myself with some of the social constructivist approaches to technology. I need to finalise my confirmation of candidature document and have sort of drifted away from the headspace I was in when I wrote it. My supervisor is arranging the committee presentation date for the first week of August. Small wave of panic...
Friday, July 08, 2005
bad cold and rambling thoughts
Not quite so early at the desk this morning. It's 10.31 am.
I shouldn't really be here at all but in bed. My sore throat has evolved into a pretty bad cold and I have all the undesirable symptoms that go with it - running nose, headache, sore shoulders, sneezes, watering eyes. Oh how lovely.
It's a wet and cold day too and snowing in Kosciusko at last check. Sometimes, like today, you can guess that it's snowing because the temperature drops and there is a chill in the air that feels like it's come off the mountains and travelled down to the coast.
Stayed up a little later than I intended last night watching for any updates on the blasts in London. My partner's sister is in London and we were in contact with her via email to make sure she was OK.
It seems very surreal, from Sydney. I can imagine it must feel very unworldly for Londoners. I've checked the BBC web site and Sydney's ABC web site. The Internet seems to come into its own during incidents such as this. One Londoner put it, "the Internet has been my window into the world during this event". I've been thinking a bit about what is different about it. What is it about the Internet and its uses today that means that during an emergency incident, it takes on a more significant role than it ordinarily does, particularly in relation to other media? My thoughts on this are a kind of cold affected ramble through the myriad of ways of thinking about this topic.
Partly, from a production perspective, the ability to deliver information rapidly and without interruption are both critical functions of the media during an emergency event. The Internet seems to enable the collection, composition and delivery of information from distributed sites and additionally, requires less orchestration that other media forms. This means it doesn't rely on as many punctuated points in the production process. Punctuated points can be knocked out easily as a result of interrupted or partial network services, and this can effect the delivery of information anywhere along the production path. These characteristics of the Internet give it an advantage over other media forms during the coverage of an emergency incident.
The other difference is that the Internet facilitates the collection and delivery of multiple media forms without the same requirement for it to be 'packaged' or bundled to the same extent as other media forms.
Let's look at broadcast television. You do see quite a bit of improvisation - rough and ready camera footage, extra heads and torsos appearing in frame occasionally and people wandering in and out of conversations while they are being filmed. Increasingly too, you see the incorporation of other media into the live broadcast such as personal hand held videos (the coverage of 9/11 relied heavily on personal videos). You could even argue that these aspects operate as the signature of the 'live emergency event' and perhaps define it as a genre. Ultimately though, stories are still required to be assembled and delivered ('bundled') into the rather narrow parameters of what has become expected of this media form over its lifetime.
The Internet as a media form, on the other hand, does not have quite the same limitations. It facilitates the use of data from a much broader set of media forms such as text from sms, chat, images and sound from photos and video and the composition of this data in multiple mediums (web, chat, video, radio etc) and in multiple formats (news web site, blog). This means a media response can be formulated in a broader set of spatial and temporal configurations and it can be delivered more rapidly.
So while you could argue that during the broadcast of an emergency incident, television and radio operate under a changed set of conditions and with different expectations, and that this gives these media forms more latitude for impromptu improvisation, I argue (for the sake of this exercise at any rate), that the Internet is not as 'bundled' and furthermore, because it cannot be conceived as a single medium, its properties allow it to perform an extra ordinary role in the emergency event.
However, all of these characteristics really only makes a difference for the information producer. Access to the Internet can be just as disrupted as other telecommunication services, with ultimately the same result for the end user or consumer. One of the other aspects of the Internet as a media form during the emergency event, is that it can perform multiple purposes. It can act like a poster or billboard, as a news channel, commentary site, collection of personal experiences to name a few examples. These interventions into the emergency event support and create a different set of relationships between the information producer and information consumer than that of other media forms.
So to wind up this rather long winded ramble, perhaps the defining differences come down to two main factors;
- the Internet as a media form, must be understood not a single media that requires the conditioning and framing of information into a single broadcast stream, but as a multicast platform with multiple data streams.
- the Internet is, partly because of its multicast technical properties described above and partly because it is less bundled or 'packaged' can:
* deliver information more rapidly
* be less prone to interruption or disruption in the production and delivery of information
* perform mutiple purposes or roles
All of these contribute to the emergence of a different set of relationships between the information producer and consumer and gives the Internet an extra ordinary role in relation to other media during the emergency event.
I shouldn't really be here at all but in bed. My sore throat has evolved into a pretty bad cold and I have all the undesirable symptoms that go with it - running nose, headache, sore shoulders, sneezes, watering eyes. Oh how lovely.
It's a wet and cold day too and snowing in Kosciusko at last check. Sometimes, like today, you can guess that it's snowing because the temperature drops and there is a chill in the air that feels like it's come off the mountains and travelled down to the coast.
Stayed up a little later than I intended last night watching for any updates on the blasts in London. My partner's sister is in London and we were in contact with her via email to make sure she was OK.
It seems very surreal, from Sydney. I can imagine it must feel very unworldly for Londoners. I've checked the BBC web site and Sydney's ABC web site. The Internet seems to come into its own during incidents such as this. One Londoner put it, "the Internet has been my window into the world during this event". I've been thinking a bit about what is different about it. What is it about the Internet and its uses today that means that during an emergency incident, it takes on a more significant role than it ordinarily does, particularly in relation to other media? My thoughts on this are a kind of cold affected ramble through the myriad of ways of thinking about this topic.
Partly, from a production perspective, the ability to deliver information rapidly and without interruption are both critical functions of the media during an emergency event. The Internet seems to enable the collection, composition and delivery of information from distributed sites and additionally, requires less orchestration that other media forms. This means it doesn't rely on as many punctuated points in the production process. Punctuated points can be knocked out easily as a result of interrupted or partial network services, and this can effect the delivery of information anywhere along the production path. These characteristics of the Internet give it an advantage over other media forms during the coverage of an emergency incident.
The other difference is that the Internet facilitates the collection and delivery of multiple media forms without the same requirement for it to be 'packaged' or bundled to the same extent as other media forms.
Let's look at broadcast television. You do see quite a bit of improvisation - rough and ready camera footage, extra heads and torsos appearing in frame occasionally and people wandering in and out of conversations while they are being filmed. Increasingly too, you see the incorporation of other media into the live broadcast such as personal hand held videos (the coverage of 9/11 relied heavily on personal videos). You could even argue that these aspects operate as the signature of the 'live emergency event' and perhaps define it as a genre. Ultimately though, stories are still required to be assembled and delivered ('bundled') into the rather narrow parameters of what has become expected of this media form over its lifetime.
The Internet as a media form, on the other hand, does not have quite the same limitations. It facilitates the use of data from a much broader set of media forms such as text from sms, chat, images and sound from photos and video and the composition of this data in multiple mediums (web, chat, video, radio etc) and in multiple formats (news web site, blog). This means a media response can be formulated in a broader set of spatial and temporal configurations and it can be delivered more rapidly.
So while you could argue that during the broadcast of an emergency incident, television and radio operate under a changed set of conditions and with different expectations, and that this gives these media forms more latitude for impromptu improvisation, I argue (for the sake of this exercise at any rate), that the Internet is not as 'bundled' and furthermore, because it cannot be conceived as a single medium, its properties allow it to perform an extra ordinary role in the emergency event.
However, all of these characteristics really only makes a difference for the information producer. Access to the Internet can be just as disrupted as other telecommunication services, with ultimately the same result for the end user or consumer. One of the other aspects of the Internet as a media form during the emergency event, is that it can perform multiple purposes. It can act like a poster or billboard, as a news channel, commentary site, collection of personal experiences to name a few examples. These interventions into the emergency event support and create a different set of relationships between the information producer and information consumer than that of other media forms.
So to wind up this rather long winded ramble, perhaps the defining differences come down to two main factors;
- the Internet as a media form, must be understood not a single media that requires the conditioning and framing of information into a single broadcast stream, but as a multicast platform with multiple data streams.
- the Internet is, partly because of its multicast technical properties described above and partly because it is less bundled or 'packaged' can:
* deliver information more rapidly
* be less prone to interruption or disruption in the production and delivery of information
* perform mutiple purposes or roles
All of these contribute to the emergence of a different set of relationships between the information producer and consumer and gives the Internet an extra ordinary role in relation to other media during the emergency event.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
nice day but sore throat
Crisp, cloudless morning...at my desk by 9.10am.
I sent off my Confirmation of Candidature (COC) document to my supervisor a few days ago. I know I could do more work on it but am now wondering if I should set it aside and start focusing on the next task at hand. I think that's the Ethics Application. Also, I think I have outgrown the format and structure of the COC in terms of developing my ideas. The thought of the thesis being the next structure to start working on is pretty frightening. I'm hoping that the presentation of the COC to the committee panel will give me some solid feedback on the research. I don't feel like I've quite got the research design sorted out. I still need to locate my research sites and I think the research questions may still be a bit vague and un-anchored somehow.
The cat is stretched out on top of my monitor. She seems to have put on a little bit of a winter tum which is sort of drooping over the top of the display at the moment and obscuring the menu on my desktop. The dog meanwhile is curled up in her bed next to the heater to my left.
My throat is really sore this morning and all my glands are up. I'm finding it hard to focus on my readings. I'm working through "Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality" edited by Steve Woolgar at the moment.
I sent off my Confirmation of Candidature (COC) document to my supervisor a few days ago. I know I could do more work on it but am now wondering if I should set it aside and start focusing on the next task at hand. I think that's the Ethics Application. Also, I think I have outgrown the format and structure of the COC in terms of developing my ideas. The thought of the thesis being the next structure to start working on is pretty frightening. I'm hoping that the presentation of the COC to the committee panel will give me some solid feedback on the research. I don't feel like I've quite got the research design sorted out. I still need to locate my research sites and I think the research questions may still be a bit vague and un-anchored somehow.
The cat is stretched out on top of my monitor. She seems to have put on a little bit of a winter tum which is sort of drooping over the top of the display at the moment and obscuring the menu on my desktop. The dog meanwhile is curled up in her bed next to the heater to my left.
My throat is really sore this morning and all my glands are up. I'm finding it hard to focus on my readings. I'm working through "Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality" edited by Steve Woolgar at the moment.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
growling and brawling
The dogs are up to no good today. Must be the weather. It's been raining for about a week and everyone is feeling a bit cooped up and damp. The house has that sort of steaming clothes odour and the living room looks like a laundry, clothes hanging over every surface to dry. Really, we are not prepared for this sort of weather in Sydney. I've never had so many undie crisis in one week! It's rare to not be able to hang out your clothes to dry outside. Now I understand why people have dryers. How do people live like this? :-)
Wow, another downpour....impressive.
My blood pressure went up this morning. A bunch of council goons were hacking at the trees in the street. Not just grooming them but hacking off primary limbs (does that make sense? I'm no arborist!). Now I understand if they must trim the branches occasionally to keep them from growing into the electricity cables. However, these guys were butchering the trees. My heart beating madly and my head slightly throbbing (I always get a headache when I get cross), I went outside and as politely as I could asked them what the f*&^% they were doing. They told me they were responding to a complaint. A complaint? A complaint about low lying branches. A complaint about low lying branches? Since when has the council responded to a single complaint? I was flabbergasted and spent the next 30 minutes trying to get through to the Head Tree Manager at the local council to make my own complaint. I wondered if they might respond so enthusiastically to my complaint. I don't think so. Can't image big gang of goons coming down quite so keenly to stick the branches back on. I can't help thinking that there is an unwritten bias towards destruction in the council's policies. It is so much easier to come and cut down a bunch of trees than it is to develop a plan, for say, building a cable trench in the street so that all the trees can grow without fear of reprisal. OK, so I understand this is possibly not the most life and death issue. I can get very worked up about trees. My partner has suggested that I have querulant tendencies. Is that a good word or what? Do you like that word? A querulant is, you could say, a professional complainer. You know, the sad thing is, I could really see myself being a querulant - if I had the time!!
Almost finished my confirmation of candidature document. It's been a really interesting process writing it and I've had to do a lot of thinking about the project. I'm going to try and polish a couple of the sections today and then give my supervisor a revised draft tomorrow.
There is a master class that I've signed up for in August that focuses on strategies for approaching fieldwork. It's excellent timing since I hope to start the fieldwork later this year.
Wow, another downpour....impressive.
My blood pressure went up this morning. A bunch of council goons were hacking at the trees in the street. Not just grooming them but hacking off primary limbs (does that make sense? I'm no arborist!). Now I understand if they must trim the branches occasionally to keep them from growing into the electricity cables. However, these guys were butchering the trees. My heart beating madly and my head slightly throbbing (I always get a headache when I get cross), I went outside and as politely as I could asked them what the f*&^% they were doing. They told me they were responding to a complaint. A complaint? A complaint about low lying branches. A complaint about low lying branches? Since when has the council responded to a single complaint? I was flabbergasted and spent the next 30 minutes trying to get through to the Head Tree Manager at the local council to make my own complaint. I wondered if they might respond so enthusiastically to my complaint. I don't think so. Can't image big gang of goons coming down quite so keenly to stick the branches back on. I can't help thinking that there is an unwritten bias towards destruction in the council's policies. It is so much easier to come and cut down a bunch of trees than it is to develop a plan, for say, building a cable trench in the street so that all the trees can grow without fear of reprisal. OK, so I understand this is possibly not the most life and death issue. I can get very worked up about trees. My partner has suggested that I have querulant tendencies. Is that a good word or what? Do you like that word? A querulant is, you could say, a professional complainer. You know, the sad thing is, I could really see myself being a querulant - if I had the time!!
Almost finished my confirmation of candidature document. It's been a really interesting process writing it and I've had to do a lot of thinking about the project. I'm going to try and polish a couple of the sections today and then give my supervisor a revised draft tomorrow.
There is a master class that I've signed up for in August that focuses on strategies for approaching fieldwork. It's excellent timing since I hope to start the fieldwork later this year.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Amazing race
Sitting in the lounge with the powerbook on my lap, thanks to wireless. Cat is on the armchair, one dog on her bed in front of the gas heater and other dog on a pillow on the lounge. Been a bit quiet on the blog front lately. I think I may have got lost in the PHD forest at the base of Mt Fuji. My sister told me it is the deepest, most impenetrable and disorienting forest in Japan. Apparently the army runs orienteering training for their cadets there and many people have got lost. So anyway I felt like I was there and am just emerging from the woods. I've been working on my confirmation of candidature document and it requires formulating and refining my research area. It's been a challenging process particularly since I haven't studied for so long. Last time I wrote anything academic was over ten years ago. I love all the readings I'm doing though. I could easily just read for three years but I don't think that's recommended...
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Two dogs
We're looking after another dog at the moment, a little black and white fox terrier. She's pretty cute. During the day while I'm studying, I have both dogs in the room with me. Most of the time they sleep in their beds by my desk but sometimes they get restless and rumble with each other and make a racket.
They've kept me company during this rather stucky blocked time I've been having with my PHD. It's been quite frustrating and has lasted for about two weeks. I'm trying to formulate my research questions and research statement and it just isn't happening. Well actually, I've written about 3 or 4 versions and am just churning over the same stuff.
Aside from the stuckness I'm currently experiencing, I have made some progress on other fronts. I'm a lot clearer about the areas of reading I'd like to cover. I've been overwhelmed by the amount of relevant material. Meanwhile I've met with my two other supervisors and both generated some really good discussions and feedback.
I went to Fisher Library yesterday and borrowed a few more books. One of them was written by another of my supervisors a number of years ago. It's still very relevant and is about computer culture and the irrational self. I particularly like the extrapolation of Don Ihde's typology of the human-technology relationship with the addition of the psychoanalytic categories. I came across Ihde's typology recently and have been thinking about them in terms of how they may fit into my own project. It occurred to me recently while browsing Rosalind Picard's "Affective Computing" that her conceptualisation of what a relationship can be in relation to computers and computational objects could benefit from a more nuanced approach to what types of relationships can be formed. She views them primarily in terms of an alterity relation.
They've kept me company during this rather stucky blocked time I've been having with my PHD. It's been quite frustrating and has lasted for about two weeks. I'm trying to formulate my research questions and research statement and it just isn't happening. Well actually, I've written about 3 or 4 versions and am just churning over the same stuff.
Aside from the stuckness I'm currently experiencing, I have made some progress on other fronts. I'm a lot clearer about the areas of reading I'd like to cover. I've been overwhelmed by the amount of relevant material. Meanwhile I've met with my two other supervisors and both generated some really good discussions and feedback.
I went to Fisher Library yesterday and borrowed a few more books. One of them was written by another of my supervisors a number of years ago. It's still very relevant and is about computer culture and the irrational self. I particularly like the extrapolation of Don Ihde's typology of the human-technology relationship with the addition of the psychoanalytic categories. I came across Ihde's typology recently and have been thinking about them in terms of how they may fit into my own project. It occurred to me recently while browsing Rosalind Picard's "Affective Computing" that her conceptualisation of what a relationship can be in relation to computers and computational objects could benefit from a more nuanced approach to what types of relationships can be formed. She views them primarily in terms of an alterity relation.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
IVF in Australia
The Australian Government based on a proposal by the Minister for Health, Tony Abbot, is considering capping the rebates on the number of IVF cycles for women over 42. This reform attempt has got me really bloody peeved and quite worked up. These are the concerns and observations I have about this proposal.
- There have been an increasing number of incursions by the government to regulate and control what women can and should be doing as "reproductive" members of society.
- This recent proposal is divisive and like many of the Federal government's reform policies creates discord within sections of the populace that would otherwise not have had disparate positions by producing an emotional and competitive discourse whereby an extremely narrow 'normative' body and lifestyle is justified against which all other modes of being and bodies are excluded.
- In addition to being about women's bodies, who and how these should be controlled, this is also an issue about Australia's health system, and about how we define what is an elective and non-elective treatment.
Highlighting some of the internal inconsistencies and ruptures of a piece in the Comments section of the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday April 29th reveals some of these issues at work. In her comment piece, Hilary Burden, addresses all women readers in her claim that "If you have trouble conceiving, don't be surprised, don't ask for handouts and don't think it's the end of the world". According to Burden, women are not only arrogant but also selfish and naive to assume that the government will cover the cost of repeated cycles of IVF once over 42. After dishing out on women, all women apparently, as there are no specific references to any actual quotes by women or women's groups on this issue, only a reference to something Emma Thompson once remarked, she ends by saying that no women should "be made to feel they are dependent on what they produce or don't produce with their bodies. In an overpopulated world, you don't have to have a baby to learn how to labour or live."
Hilary is having trouble making sense of all of this. It's "just weird maths", she states, that the Government gives "couples $3000 for having a baby on the one hand and then reduce their chances of having one on the other."
One of the reasons why Hilary is having trouble understanding this is because she is reacting from a position of being a woman who is struggling to be valued in her own right as a productive member of society without necessarily being a reproductive member of society. Unfortunately Hilary, by taking this stance, is colluding with the Federal government's policies, harming her own cause and those of other women who have a broader and more inclusive position that women who choose to work, women who choose to work and have children and women who choose to have children are all deserving of being valued and supported.
In fact, the inconsistency of the Government's stance on these two issues shows the consistency of their belief that underpins all their policies on women's re-productive and productive labour, the notion that only some bodies and only some modes of being in bodies are acceptable and normal and therefore should be supported by Government funding. For though the Australian government is trying to address what it sees as a growing problem of reduced birth rates, leading to an ageing work force, by encouraging reproduction, the social model for achieving this is not simply to make having children and bringing up children easier to all members of society but to reform the social conditions themselves, so that it is made easier only within certain very narrow parameters, i.e. by being young and by being legally infertile. What this excludes are the many choices and conditions under which either of these two parameters are not viable, such as working for the early part of one's life or due to a phsyiological condition which reduces the likelihood of being able to achieve pregnancy without assistance.
And so, finally to my ultimate concern, about Australia's health system. These parameters of eligibility are maintained by making IVF treatments financially inaccessible, and therefore unavailable, to those who fall outside of the narrow definition. Burden asks, "Why is it so bad to be given three attempts at having another child, and after that, you pay for it yourself. Raise the $10,000 amongst your kin..."
Because by supporting access of only those women who are under 42 and legally infertile, to a comprehensive IVF treatment plan, we are not just reducing the overall rates of successful pregnancy, we are reducing the social and life options of all women in Australian society, and impoverishing the diversity of our culture.
- There have been an increasing number of incursions by the government to regulate and control what women can and should be doing as "reproductive" members of society.
- This recent proposal is divisive and like many of the Federal government's reform policies creates discord within sections of the populace that would otherwise not have had disparate positions by producing an emotional and competitive discourse whereby an extremely narrow 'normative' body and lifestyle is justified against which all other modes of being and bodies are excluded.
- In addition to being about women's bodies, who and how these should be controlled, this is also an issue about Australia's health system, and about how we define what is an elective and non-elective treatment.
Highlighting some of the internal inconsistencies and ruptures of a piece in the Comments section of the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday April 29th reveals some of these issues at work. In her comment piece, Hilary Burden, addresses all women readers in her claim that "If you have trouble conceiving, don't be surprised, don't ask for handouts and don't think it's the end of the world". According to Burden, women are not only arrogant but also selfish and naive to assume that the government will cover the cost of repeated cycles of IVF once over 42. After dishing out on women, all women apparently, as there are no specific references to any actual quotes by women or women's groups on this issue, only a reference to something Emma Thompson once remarked, she ends by saying that no women should "be made to feel they are dependent on what they produce or don't produce with their bodies. In an overpopulated world, you don't have to have a baby to learn how to labour or live."
Hilary is having trouble making sense of all of this. It's "just weird maths", she states, that the Government gives "couples $3000 for having a baby on the one hand and then reduce their chances of having one on the other."
One of the reasons why Hilary is having trouble understanding this is because she is reacting from a position of being a woman who is struggling to be valued in her own right as a productive member of society without necessarily being a reproductive member of society. Unfortunately Hilary, by taking this stance, is colluding with the Federal government's policies, harming her own cause and those of other women who have a broader and more inclusive position that women who choose to work, women who choose to work and have children and women who choose to have children are all deserving of being valued and supported.
In fact, the inconsistency of the Government's stance on these two issues shows the consistency of their belief that underpins all their policies on women's re-productive and productive labour, the notion that only some bodies and only some modes of being in bodies are acceptable and normal and therefore should be supported by Government funding. For though the Australian government is trying to address what it sees as a growing problem of reduced birth rates, leading to an ageing work force, by encouraging reproduction, the social model for achieving this is not simply to make having children and bringing up children easier to all members of society but to reform the social conditions themselves, so that it is made easier only within certain very narrow parameters, i.e. by being young and by being legally infertile. What this excludes are the many choices and conditions under which either of these two parameters are not viable, such as working for the early part of one's life or due to a phsyiological condition which reduces the likelihood of being able to achieve pregnancy without assistance.
And so, finally to my ultimate concern, about Australia's health system. These parameters of eligibility are maintained by making IVF treatments financially inaccessible, and therefore unavailable, to those who fall outside of the narrow definition. Burden asks, "Why is it so bad to be given three attempts at having another child, and after that, you pay for it yourself. Raise the $10,000 amongst your kin..."
Because by supporting access of only those women who are under 42 and legally infertile, to a comprehensive IVF treatment plan, we are not just reducing the overall rates of successful pregnancy, we are reducing the social and life options of all women in Australian society, and impoverishing the diversity of our culture.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Reviewing blogging
A recent post to a mailing list I subscribe to has got me thinking about why I blog. I have journalled off and on for a number of years. Recently I migrated to a software program called MacJournal. This program has a number of features for journalling that I liked including being able to write up an entry in MacJournal and then post it to a blog or a number of blogs. I used this for a while and I found that it wasn't really doing it for me. There was a sense of being cut off within the program and by my computer. Paradoxically, I think this was associated with where I imagined the writing to reside within the space of my machine. It was hidden away, buried in the directory structure of my hard drive. My desire to reach out to an imagined audience was somehow thwarted by the isolation of the medium within which it was produced. It was a conceptual isolation, in fact. Since there is no reason why blogging directly into 'blogger' is any different. A post is just a button away, not matter which program I was using.
I started up my own blog initially with the intention of logging my PHD progress. This was really all I had in mind. Something happened to me not too long ago that was one of those life changing and life challenging experiences and partly because during that time I was so preoccupied with just getting through it, I didn't journal or log events. One of the reasons I wish I had logged this period was that it literally shifted my reality. Writing for me, in addition to feeling like I am reaching out to others, although mostly imagined others, is also an anchoring device. It is in the traces of thoughts and feelings and in the materiality of the word, that I can see parts of myself in relation to things, events and people and how things change. Oddly, sometimes I do not recognise myself at all but this too is an aspect of my relation to the world. So I started blogging to record my PHD progress and this is still my intention. But somehow my blogging practice has broadened somewhat. The daily asides are more the meat, the PHD progress an aside. Interesting...
I started up my own blog initially with the intention of logging my PHD progress. This was really all I had in mind. Something happened to me not too long ago that was one of those life changing and life challenging experiences and partly because during that time I was so preoccupied with just getting through it, I didn't journal or log events. One of the reasons I wish I had logged this period was that it literally shifted my reality. Writing for me, in addition to feeling like I am reaching out to others, although mostly imagined others, is also an anchoring device. It is in the traces of thoughts and feelings and in the materiality of the word, that I can see parts of myself in relation to things, events and people and how things change. Oddly, sometimes I do not recognise myself at all but this too is an aspect of my relation to the world. So I started blogging to record my PHD progress and this is still my intention. But somehow my blogging practice has broadened somewhat. The daily asides are more the meat, the PHD progress an aside. Interesting...
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Outrageous Breakfast Show
I recently attended the Body Modification Conference Mark II held at Macquarie University. On the second day of the conference, "The Today Show" did a piece on the conference. Karl Stefanovic, Tracy Grimshaw and co spent the next ten minutes laughing and spluttering about the "wacky" conference and its "freaky" subject matter. From memory there were a number of dismissive statements about the so called incomprehensible abstract titles, questions about the relevance to students today along the lines of "what are we teaching our children at University?", and outrage expressed that we could be wasting tax payers money on funding such an event. The presenters laughed nervously throughout. Pardoxically many of the questions raised in their guffawing outrage required a genuine and legitimate response. Why isn't there help available for people who go through life believing that they would be more themselves if they had one leg instead of two? Why is it that we live in a culture where even to mention the words "my smell" evokes horror and terror by its utterance alone? Their discomfort revealed a real anxiety, I believe, about their own inability to address any of these issues with the seriousness and consideration they deserve. On a deeper level, it revealed a cultural anxiety about the issues of body modification. So why is it not acceptable to have a forum for seriously discussing this topic?
Not only were the titles of the papers mentioned mis-quoted, the purpose of the conference was completely mis-understood and its content mis-represented. No member of the coordinating committee of the conference was consulted to comment or provide any information nor did any of the presenters attend the conference to find out what it was about.
In short, it was an exercise in ignorance and anti-intellectualism of the highest "Breakfast Show" order. As viewers, we were presented with the view that we should not take the topic of body modification seriously because we do not WANT to take this seriously. And we should attack anybody who does, because WE have decided that it is not knowledge worth knowing.
Later that day the participants of the conference gathered in one of the lecture theatres to discuss the piece as well as the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. I was there during the discussions and at the conference throughout.
What was discussed was the possibility of a response and it led to some really interesting debates about the status of education in Australia, the politics of education and the role of Humanities, the motives and tactics for an effective response were raised and discussed. Many believed that any response was a waste of time. But a strong contingent believed that it is not just necessary but crucial to engage with popular culture and take it seriously, particularly when it takes such an active stance of ignorance and an intention "not to know".
I want to say that the conference was one of the most enlightening and insightful intellectual experiences I have had. The breadth of perspectives and the level of discussion and quality of research was far greater than I had expected. We live in a culture, as Meredith Jones clearly and elegantly described in her presention, where "becoming is more desirable than being". We are presented with demonstrations of self-improvement from many quarters, and this "makeover" culture describes a broad set of current cultural concerns and desires. There are not many appropriate forums for discussing the immense effects and changes that go with these sweeping cultural changes. The conference was one of these. It was an appropriate and relevant forum for bringing together people from all over the world to present and stimulate discussion that will help us to understand and perceive this phenomema from a range of different perspectives and to engage in its complexity. The presenters and program makers of breakfast shows have a choice. They too, could offer a forum for discussing these issues and if it is expressed in a style that is relevant for its genre, then that's OK too. But there is no reason whatsoever to undermine other peoples efforts to understand because of their own ignorance and lack of desire to know or to simply to ask. No excuse at all.
Not only were the titles of the papers mentioned mis-quoted, the purpose of the conference was completely mis-understood and its content mis-represented. No member of the coordinating committee of the conference was consulted to comment or provide any information nor did any of the presenters attend the conference to find out what it was about.
In short, it was an exercise in ignorance and anti-intellectualism of the highest "Breakfast Show" order. As viewers, we were presented with the view that we should not take the topic of body modification seriously because we do not WANT to take this seriously. And we should attack anybody who does, because WE have decided that it is not knowledge worth knowing.
Later that day the participants of the conference gathered in one of the lecture theatres to discuss the piece as well as the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. I was there during the discussions and at the conference throughout.
What was discussed was the possibility of a response and it led to some really interesting debates about the status of education in Australia, the politics of education and the role of Humanities, the motives and tactics for an effective response were raised and discussed. Many believed that any response was a waste of time. But a strong contingent believed that it is not just necessary but crucial to engage with popular culture and take it seriously, particularly when it takes such an active stance of ignorance and an intention "not to know".
I want to say that the conference was one of the most enlightening and insightful intellectual experiences I have had. The breadth of perspectives and the level of discussion and quality of research was far greater than I had expected. We live in a culture, as Meredith Jones clearly and elegantly described in her presention, where "becoming is more desirable than being". We are presented with demonstrations of self-improvement from many quarters, and this "makeover" culture describes a broad set of current cultural concerns and desires. There are not many appropriate forums for discussing the immense effects and changes that go with these sweeping cultural changes. The conference was one of these. It was an appropriate and relevant forum for bringing together people from all over the world to present and stimulate discussion that will help us to understand and perceive this phenomema from a range of different perspectives and to engage in its complexity. The presenters and program makers of breakfast shows have a choice. They too, could offer a forum for discussing these issues and if it is expressed in a style that is relevant for its genre, then that's OK too. But there is no reason whatsoever to undermine other peoples efforts to understand because of their own ignorance and lack of desire to know or to simply to ask. No excuse at all.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Ode to old wheels
Stains on the passenger seat, faded over time
Indian dinner leaked from a plastic bag,
Traces of dog, white fur and finger nails,
Drivers seat depressed from repeated sittings
Small dents on the rubber bumper from touch parking
A scrape down the side from a poor reverse park
Globe blue, a colour from the nineties, no more
Citrus and Techno grey amongst todays colour schemes
My old car, dolphin of the road, sculpted by my presence and form
I parked her in a back alley in the end
Far from the shine and glare of her fashionable counterparts
I folded inside at the thought of leaving her there
Conveyor of memories and material from my past
Goodbye UDA 434.
Got myself a new set of wheels. I've been enjoying getting a feel for it, how it takes corners, finding the optimum revs to change gears to get the most accelaration but the smoothest changoever, becoming intimately familiar with handling the wipers and indicators, being able to swap CD's by touch (yeah - it doesn't have a six stack CD player unfortunately). Actually it's not really a particularly flash car as far as cars go and I certainly wouldn't call myself very knowledgeable about cars but I do love driving and learning to hear and feel the machine-body. And it's new. I've never had a new car. My last car I bought second hand in 1994 and it was two years old at the time. I loved that car. Dropping it off in the side lane behind the car show room where I was to pick up my new car, closing the creaking door for the last time, I really felt a pang of regret. How attached I had become to my old car. I felt like I was abandoning her in the back lot. So my initial encounter with my new car was a little mixed with sadness as well as excitement. I got the guys to take a shot of me with my old car and another one with my new. I felt they really understood. I asked them if they'd take care of my old car. They nodded and said "Of course".
This afternoon I was stuck in traffic on the highway I regularly drive down to get to Uni. I was on my way back from a special visit to the library in order to renew and then reborrow two books that were one day overdue. So there I was, music up loud, rain hitting the windscreen, the sweet smell of new car and dustless surfaces, my own personal bubble as Michael Bull would say. I turned to the side and to my amazement, saw my old car in the car lot of the place I purchased my new car. She'd had a makeover. New wheels, hubcaps and a polish. It was too quick to examine her new features in detail but my heart leapt at the thought that she would have a new lease of life and a new owner.
Indian dinner leaked from a plastic bag,
Traces of dog, white fur and finger nails,
Drivers seat depressed from repeated sittings
Small dents on the rubber bumper from touch parking
A scrape down the side from a poor reverse park
Globe blue, a colour from the nineties, no more
Citrus and Techno grey amongst todays colour schemes
My old car, dolphin of the road, sculpted by my presence and form
I parked her in a back alley in the end
Far from the shine and glare of her fashionable counterparts
I folded inside at the thought of leaving her there
Conveyor of memories and material from my past
Goodbye UDA 434.
Got myself a new set of wheels. I've been enjoying getting a feel for it, how it takes corners, finding the optimum revs to change gears to get the most accelaration but the smoothest changoever, becoming intimately familiar with handling the wipers and indicators, being able to swap CD's by touch (yeah - it doesn't have a six stack CD player unfortunately). Actually it's not really a particularly flash car as far as cars go and I certainly wouldn't call myself very knowledgeable about cars but I do love driving and learning to hear and feel the machine-body. And it's new. I've never had a new car. My last car I bought second hand in 1994 and it was two years old at the time. I loved that car. Dropping it off in the side lane behind the car show room where I was to pick up my new car, closing the creaking door for the last time, I really felt a pang of regret. How attached I had become to my old car. I felt like I was abandoning her in the back lot. So my initial encounter with my new car was a little mixed with sadness as well as excitement. I got the guys to take a shot of me with my old car and another one with my new. I felt they really understood. I asked them if they'd take care of my old car. They nodded and said "Of course".
This afternoon I was stuck in traffic on the highway I regularly drive down to get to Uni. I was on my way back from a special visit to the library in order to renew and then reborrow two books that were one day overdue. So there I was, music up loud, rain hitting the windscreen, the sweet smell of new car and dustless surfaces, my own personal bubble as Michael Bull would say. I turned to the side and to my amazement, saw my old car in the car lot of the place I purchased my new car. She'd had a makeover. New wheels, hubcaps and a polish. It was too quick to examine her new features in detail but my heart leapt at the thought that she would have a new lease of life and a new owner.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Zombie Pope
Where is Buffy when you need her? Doesn't she know that the undead is in St Peters Square? I mean can we be really sure that he is gone? Since he was almost gone for quite a few days. And all of these rituals involving teenagers and young twenty somethings worshipping his greatness strikes me as very hellmouth activity. Now that Sunnydale is a large whole of nothingness, perhaps the hellmouth has re-located to St Peters Square.
I'm seeing zombies everywhere at the moment and I guess that has something to do with watching Resident Evil II the other night and alot to do with the green and red pills I've been swapping between the last few days to facilitate continuous oxygenic intake and break up the mucous masses.
Drove out to Uni today to return the digital recorder after my first interview on Sunday. Someone at Uni needed it prior to going overseas so I hit the road clean. No green pills. I'm easily affected by these substances and it recommends on the packet not driving or using heavy machinery while affected. No shit! I wonder if that includes my computer. How heavy does machinery have to be before it's considered heavy machinery?
I'm seeing zombies everywhere at the moment and I guess that has something to do with watching Resident Evil II the other night and alot to do with the green and red pills I've been swapping between the last few days to facilitate continuous oxygenic intake and break up the mucous masses.
Drove out to Uni today to return the digital recorder after my first interview on Sunday. Someone at Uni needed it prior to going overseas so I hit the road clean. No green pills. I'm easily affected by these substances and it recommends on the packet not driving or using heavy machinery while affected. No shit! I wonder if that includes my computer. How heavy does machinery have to be before it's considered heavy machinery?
Friday, April 01, 2005
chai
That was a great idea - meeting up with a friend for chai this afternoon. My mind was spinning from reading about the writings of Levinas. Not even the texts of Levinas but an "Introduction to Levinas" was enough to get me wondering if existence itself may have been disappearing out of a slow leak in my skull. It was only when I came face to face with my friend that the sense of disorientation and dizziness passed into a feeling of familiarity and acceptance. I am very interested in following up Levinas' writings on The Face. What about technology? What is it in the face to face encounter with technology, specifically digital technology but really any technology, any object, anything that is conceived as part of this world, that gives knowledge about that object and yet still have a sense of our selves as separate from it? What does Levinas' face tell us about the interface? What is kept separate and how in the human-computer encounter? Is the separateness important and something to savour? How can it be understood? There is a foundational act to this questioning because it raises the issue of whether there is a relationship to discover and whether it can be called such a thing. And yet, I know on a deep level that it is there, formed in myself in my body, dreams and in my every day use. It is so thoroughly embedded that I feel its loss when it is not there, although it can hardly be called gone.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
what's been up
Well it's been just over a week since my last post and my brain has recovered from its moment of excess stimuli. Unfortunately it was my back that decided to give me grief this week. Too much hunching at the desk with many an empty thought. Actually despite the back problems and being stranded in the rain with a flat car battery one day this week, I have achieved quite a bit on the PHD front. I seem to be slowly catching up on the summaries of readings done to date. This exercise involved me re-reading a journal article I had already read but made no notes about and I discovered on my second reading all sorts of interesting insights. My sister has suggested that I could spend the next three years re-reading the same article. Very funny sis but you know she does have a point.
I also drafted my first questionaire for a pilot interview I'm conducting with a friend next week. I emailed it off to my supervisor to have a look at and have re-thought big chunks of it since then. Oh well. It is a work in progress.
I finally got through Nardi and Day's "Information Ecologies". I put it aside for a while while reading other things. What I did find very inspiring about it was the 'systems approach' to the analysis of technology in use. Although I appreciate that the authors were extending this to an understanding of the system as an ecology which perhaps conceptually at least implies more room for local strategies and difference, the focus was on environments in which technology and people interacted and not just a single user operating on a piece of software.
I also drafted my first questionaire for a pilot interview I'm conducting with a friend next week. I emailed it off to my supervisor to have a look at and have re-thought big chunks of it since then. Oh well. It is a work in progress.
I finally got through Nardi and Day's "Information Ecologies". I put it aside for a while while reading other things. What I did find very inspiring about it was the 'systems approach' to the analysis of technology in use. Although I appreciate that the authors were extending this to an understanding of the system as an ecology which perhaps conceptually at least implies more room for local strategies and difference, the focus was on environments in which technology and people interacted and not just a single user operating on a piece of software.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Stimuli
I am feeling a little overwhelmed with intellectual stimuli. I must remind myself that I have been a very hands on kind of person for the last seven years. My brain muscles are sore...
Had another great brainstorm with my supervisor this morning. That is such a great word. Brainstorm. I thought surely somehow has registered the domain name but it doesn't appear to be being used although I haven't checked if it is available. Note to self. I do not need another domain name. My online etymology dictionary tells me that the word Brainstorm meaning "brilliant idea, mental excitement" was first used in 1849 and some of the other iterations include: brainsick (1483) meaning "mad, addled", braindead is dated back to 1976 (but doesn't seem to have a known source); brain teaser is from 1923, brainwashing has been imported from China and came into usage in 1950 and is a literal translation of Chinese xi nao.
But yeah braindead after brainstorm. Really love this PHD thing but geez it really is very brainfocused.
Had another great brainstorm with my supervisor this morning. That is such a great word. Brainstorm. I thought surely somehow has registered the domain name but it doesn't appear to be being used although I haven't checked if it is available. Note to self. I do not need another domain name. My online etymology dictionary tells me that the word Brainstorm meaning "brilliant idea, mental excitement" was first used in 1849 and some of the other iterations include: brainsick (1483) meaning "mad, addled", braindead is dated back to 1976 (but doesn't seem to have a known source); brain teaser is from 1923, brainwashing has been imported from China and came into usage in 1950 and is a literal translation of Chinese xi nao.
But yeah braindead after brainstorm. Really love this PHD thing but geez it really is very brainfocused.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Writing workshop
The uni is offering a series of thesis writing workshops and I attended one today. It could be a good way to write and receive feedback but I have concerns about how the group will engage with each others material. I guess there is a danger that the feedback will be kind of pointless or worse, undermining but then again it could also be a stimulating environment that assists the writing process. I'll give it a go despite my qualms. It's an eight week course.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Almost time for a dog walk
I've been reading some more journal articles today and have consolidated some of the output I've generated to date. I have come up with a Reading Key and Area Key for the readings I'm doing to categorise them in terms of progress and topic. I'm hoping this will evolve into a file that documents the literature areas by priority which is one of my MOA's for this semester. I'm itching to start writing without really having a coherent picture of what it is I'm itching to write although plenty of wondrously vague images and ideas...
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Going out to Uni today
Heading out to Uni today. There is a seminar series on that I am interested in attending on cultural diversity. I've been enjoying Postphenomenology but I think the essay "Image Technologies and Traditional Culture" was flawed and superficial. There is a vast amount of media theories that develop, interpret and critique these technologies in terms of machines that reconfigure the ways that a culture constructs space and time. Early semiotic readings combined with the psychoanalytic interpretations facilitate an understanding of how meaning is contstructed through the cinematic apparatus. Ihde does not refer to any of these insights or builds on them. The specific elements of the cinematic or televisual apparatus that Ihde chooses to foreground, that is, the irreal/real dialectic and the "effects" of cinematographic technologies including flattening, constructing space and time through techniques such as time reversals, flashbacks, special effects and discontinuities are mentioned but not contextualised or explicated in terms of how they create cultural meaning. Just as importantly, seeing the rise of fundamentalism as a reaction to the pluriculture that is becoming of a culture of image-mediation just doesn't gel, or at the very least, it doesn't help me to understand the cultural and historical specificity of the role of fundamentalism in the world today.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Islands on my mind
Been thinking about LOST and its significance as an allegory of cultural renewal and reinvention of the simulacrum, specifically, of America as television. What is LOST? Is it TV, as we may be tempted to believe by the title of the unofficial fan site on the web "LOST-TV"? Islands themselves and stories of island-making, by their liminality, can act as a stage for the re-working of meaning. What is lost in LOST is the past, which is slowly being reconstructed as the series progresses. What is lost is being able to communicate effectively through available technologies to the world, although here too we have the potential for technological salvation by the invention of a mysterious communication device by Sayid. What is lost is also how to get along with others, although it looks like this too may be rediscovered, episodically, as the survivors gain awareness of their situation; their hunger, thirst and isolation. What is lost is also material culture, though we have its wreckage and the remains of the plane's cargo which is rapidly diminishing. And here, in these diminished places, with the remains of the old, the series finds the space for its narrative of renewal and rediscovery. A quote from Dennings "Mr Bligh's Bad Language" echoes this idea of the meaning of island-making.
"Islands lie behind the screen of the sea. A screen as large as the Pacific Ocean thoroughly sifts the life that reaches an island. The few species of plants and animals that survive the sea, now without competition, play many variations on their own themes. All living things come to an island with only the capital of their minds, their instincts and their genes. In the case of human beings, they can also bring with them a select cargo of natural and cultural artefacts. Nothing is transported whole, however. The webs of significance are always darned...Island making sublimates a sense of alienation." (Mr Bligh's Bad Language by Greg Denning)
More to come on this, must stretch and rediscover my bodily parts such as toes and legs.
"Islands lie behind the screen of the sea. A screen as large as the Pacific Ocean thoroughly sifts the life that reaches an island. The few species of plants and animals that survive the sea, now without competition, play many variations on their own themes. All living things come to an island with only the capital of their minds, their instincts and their genes. In the case of human beings, they can also bring with them a select cargo of natural and cultural artefacts. Nothing is transported whole, however. The webs of significance are always darned...Island making sublimates a sense of alienation." (Mr Bligh's Bad Language by Greg Denning)
More to come on this, must stretch and rediscover my bodily parts such as toes and legs.
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