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 GIST Notes 03/28/2011

First Half of class: Barad and Tian

TiffanyE: Thinking about whether objectivity is possible in the physical world…

Liz: Notion of those who make the classification, how experiments turn out…the agency of people and how they act and what they do plays a critical role

TiffanyE: The standard or measurement in which the world is classified is subjective b/c (like in video) observations and measurements are always subjective based on the person who makes it..so if our classifications are made always by a specific group of people it’s subjective

Liz: Trouble with metaphor going into real world..how do you standardize this classification across different people without it being subjective. Fundamentally, it should be reproducible. So we should be careful with this word “subjective”

Q: What were you thinking when we looked at those 3 questions again…? 

Leamirella: We do need these measurements, they’re just not as objective as we think they are.

 Liz: What categories we choose creates a world determined by those categories. Is there a world without categories? World is created by intractions, entanglements. Barad would agree without these we wouldn’t have a world..She’d agree with you.

Q: Does this matter to us?

 Kgould: Knower and known as entangled…what is knowing?

TiffanyE: Philosophy classes..objective world, what we do know is the measurements we do have so that’s how we approach the world.

Liz: Epistemological statement. If we think of it as a particle, we will always measure it by particle-like qualities. Not how the world might really be, just what we know about it.

Anne: We are a part of the world we observe and our observations influence the world we’re viewing..

Leamirella: Why do we need to know the physics behind this? Barad shows these concepts through what she knows, what she’s comfortable with.

Tangerines: Not that it wasn’t useful for us to know the physics..just that physics is abstract so hard to “wrap my brain around it.” Like to have comprehensive knowledge about things. Her theory was a lot for me to absorb. Would’ve liked to see another model that I can understand better.

Apocalipsis: Wanted to see vocabulary first rather than reading the whole physics of it. Hard for me to process it. Could’ve processed it a lot faster and better if had a way to make sense of it.

Anne: “Football physics” background. Come to this as a humanist..it’s really important to try to get our heads around the quantum physics. She’s not saying that it’s all subjective, she’s arguing for a kind of objectivity not knower separated from world. Way material world operates all the way down at a quantum level. That we can extract from and apply to the way the world operates. Materiality on a quantum world, my inability to separate myself from the world I’m studying.

 Liz: She’s trying to see what are the implications of the material world functioning like it does as we function as bits of material world at much higher level. Trying to come up with the truthful explanation, trying to build on this basic understanding of how the world works. And the physics isn’t just an example but the source of that world view.

Moving on to Tian…

Q: Questions between Tian and other topics we’ve discussed?

Tangerines: Our discussion between what music is and what information is. What qualifies as music and if silence is sound and if sound music then everything is music…?? Music is information if everything is music then is everything information.

Anne: what makes sound music?

Tangerines: Subjective. Silence isn’t music. Noise bands to some isn’t music.

Anne: Music is sound attended to..music is silence attended to..is a pattern

Liz: requires coder and decoder

PANEL

3-minute mini presentation

introduce yourself, what group you’re representing, how has to do with GIST

Video gamers

Lots of different types of gamers with different characteristics. Looking at broad term—some more representative of gender others of tech

As technology gets more advanced, videogames get more real…mixture of reality and virtuality.

How are videogames affecting social problems…

Gender: videogamers get to represent different genders

Patients of Dr. Gosnell

Dr. Gosnell performed abortions in his clinic in West Philly, would induce preterm labor and give birth to live premature babies then would kill the babies. This was his version of abortion.

Most of the women were over 24 weeks pregnant. In his notes he said 24.5 weeks, so technically was legal.

Only 30 legal abortion clinics in PA. Why would these women go to him? No one who worked in his practice had medical degree or license

Intersection of gender and the science and technology of abortion.

Most who sought abortions from him were between the ages of 12 -19.

Art Students

Art students are exposed to many different types of media before they “settle down”

Reading Generosity—about art students forced to take writing class

Art students utilize a lot of different types of technology…interesting intersection

US Immigrants

Purely biological way they enter this country for legal immigrants—keeping track of immigrants

Illegal immigrants coming using different types of technology to get in

Migration often seen as gender neutral because just process of people moving. However, has a lot to do with gender.

Patients of Lovelace Hospital

Scored lower than the national average in many categories—communication between nurses, bathrooms, pain etc.

Why were patients choosing to come to a women’s hospital? Because of this label they offer very women-centered services.

Website itself is based on a feminine image. Looks at more biological women rather than gender.

X-Men

Film interpretation of them. “X” refers to X gene that they possess.

Whether mutants should be “cured” using modern medicine…Whose duty..

People without the gene fear the X-men.

Youtube users

Covert community, not many obvious social networking elements.

People post comments, friend requests, see people interacting in ways you wouldn’t expect

Interacts with GIST and objectivity…When you put a camera in front of yourself, influences what happens.

Various benefits to youtube communities

e.g., Rebecca Black’s career

e.g., The 5 Awesome Gays

Put a face/realistic face on gay community...giving a voice to people who can’t necessarily speak up

Facebook users

Analyze its subculture..change socializing.

People have more of a virtual presence and can never just “live,” always seeking validation. If you’re not narcissistic people are going to forget you exist.

Has sexual orientation and relationship status…network on a range of levels.

Constant validation of your life.

Marketing presence, outside and within specific communities. You can post things to sell—like a mini craigslist on your facebook. Individualized marketing.

Masters of Library and Information Science

People who work in college or academic libraries.

Preserve form or content? Librarian has ability to decide that information in document is more important than document itself. Photocopy and throw out original.

Coursework…Information Organization: Resource types and formats, descriptive metadata, information life cycle. Social Aspects, Information & Technology

Multiple programs which you could do it online.. a lot of self-motivation because it’s a really independent program.

Questions: 

1) @Virtual World group: Gamers, Youtube, and Facebook

Gender can be represented falsely online. How do you think that relates to gender and sex and information? The idea of passing as someone else.

Youtube: Different on youtube because you’d have to use the same subject over and over again. How do you represent yourself? Youtube username isn’t always actual name, change name around…use aspect of personality. Even if you want to use your own name, sometimes you have to skew it because might be taken for instance, that might affect your image.

Video gamers: Role playing video games where you get to interact with others…different type of social networking site.

PhreNic: You can go on and play and not talk to a single person. You’re playing a character, not necessarily representing yourself. You’re not playing yourself. How different is that from facebook?

Hilary_Brashear: two different types of communities…question for virtual reality, do you think that having this online community is detracting from sense of community in real life.

Video Gamer: Hardcore gamers are mostly male…people die from playing videogames for 3 days straight. It is creating social problems.

Q: Medical Institutions, socio-economic groupings among your patients?

Patients of Dr. Gosnell: Women were from a community who had not known anything better, so yes definitely.

Lovelace: priced like a regular hospital. Reason why women go to it is because targeted towards what women want.

Patients of Dr. Gosnell: Discriminating among patients as well. Highest level of pain control cost the most.

PhreNic: Do they allow filming in delivery room? Hospitals reinforcing policy because of liability issues. Camera influence behavior…etc.

    Lovelace: Don’t know.

 Patients of Gosnell: Would take pictures of women and said was using them for training purposes. Took these without consent.

@Librarians and art students:

Q: Control of information, librarians are powerful. Presenting information…

Librarians: Not necessarily controlling but allowing access.

Art students: Even though art may not be objective, at odds with popular culture and exposes people to new ideas. Allows people to think in provocative ways.

I.e., Christian Sara…anti-establishment movement around WWI.

@X-Men and US immigrants: Theme of regulation

X-Men: have to go through rigid process, have to be registered and identifiable. Hard to get jobs because of their badge.

Regulation and Facebook:

People are able to present a different name or gender…

Regulation and distribution of information on us.