OLCT Fall 2018

“It has provided a record of ideas and has enabled man to manipulate and to make extracts from that record so that knowledge evolves and endures throughout the life of a race rather than that of an individual.” -Bush

These images represent what I believe to be the scientific principles of innovation from reading the “As We May Think” article. The procedure is also relevant in art as, “The Greeks knew only two procedures of technically reproducing works of art: founding and stamping…The woodcut graphic art became mechanically reproducible for the first time, long before script became reproducible by print.” (Benjamin, 1).

This quote shows the limitations time and space has on procedure for innovation as said in the Benjamin article. I believe there will always be new inventions in the future and we are just as amused with our computers today as the Greeks were amused with a new method to printing via wood cut graphic art. Although the times and spaces of the Greeks and our modern era were different, the methodologies to finding new means of innovation were the same.

October 1, 2018October 4, 2018

Week 5: Yvonne Empire and Communications

For this weeks post I chose H.A Innis “Empire and Communications” which examines the history of media and its impact. In this case the “media” refers to the earliest time of where papyrus was used and the alphabet of developing societies. “The effective government of large areas depends to be very important extent on the efficiency of tradition” (Innis, chp.3). Focusing on how media came from oral history, to the development of traditional writing to printing press. When discussing the alphabet, he talks about the relationship between those who are at the top of civilization and those who are the bottom. He argues that multiple gain of knowledge was developed at the top only to be challenged and overthrown by new ideas that take shape for those who are considered at the bottom.

Innis, H.A. “EMPIRE AND COMMUNICATIONS.” Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada, by J. Harold Putman, www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/innis-empire/innis-empire-00-h.html#III.

September 30, 2018

Abby Potashnik-Blog Post #5

For this weeks’ blog post, I am responding to Brian Winstons’ “Introduction”. Brian chooses to touch upon the subject of how technology and humans relate to one another, and how the progress and production of technology changes and how it benefits us, as mankind. As technological production happens, we have to be careful to maintain its inferior position to humans. Yes, technology has its perks and is definitely beneficial, but we do not want technology becoming the next superior artificial intelligence corporation taking us over. Seems a bit extreme, but that is how my favorite movie of all time started, The Terminator. We must appreciate where technology ideas began, its’ production, its’ continuous progression, its overall history in the past, its education in the present, and its potential in the future, but at a cost of caution.

In his work, Winston says “It is my contention that the received understanding of our current technological situation the view that we are living in the midst of an “Information Revolution” or at the start of an “Information Age” can be seen rather diffrently if the histories of the technologies involved are considered.” I could not agree more. We all have different ideas or thoughts on how technology is with us, how it is helpful or harmful. Either way, our job is to be on top of it and be helpful to ourselves and one another.

September 28, 2018

Michael Farias blog post 5 for October 1

For this weeks blog posts I chose “Race In/Fir Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet” by Lisa Nakamura. In her writing, Nakamura talks about this chat space online called LambdaMOO. This is where people play games and they give their characters names that the users make up. Users then design their characters by assigning a gender, but can only express race in character descriptions. She goes on to talk about how Asian characters in popular games such as “Mortal Combat” have very stereotypical Asian names and portrays Asian culture as just martial arts based. This is true about many other video games and movies. She also says that this gives off the idea to people from other races that Asian culture is just about the martial arts. This is something that really stuck out to me because it is true that the way a race is portrayed in things movies and video games, is the way that race is view upon by other races. What we see in movies and video games cannot portray or give us a full understanding about the culture of a particular race.

September 25, 2018September 26, 2018

“Fixity was in the eye of the beholder” ~ WEEK 5 READING REFLECTION BY VICTOR AFOLABI

“Fixity was in the eye of the beholder” (Johns, 265).

What if the next generation believed my photoshopped image above was the original and the actual original was a fake?

This quote somewhat explains my reason for “not reading”. What I mean by saying I do not read is that (of course reading is fundamental), I do not believe In the traditional structure of glorifying documents dead old white men composed. How are we so sure the content printed are trust worthy ? No one from our modern era ever conversed with Shakespeare, neither did they share personal experiences with him obviously because he’s dead. However deconstructed versions of his manuscripts are continuously passed down as requirements for adolescents to read, whether in middle or high school. The stories he told were cool. But the idea of generational praise the guy and other guys who share the same complexion and status as him receive are overrated. Did “Sir” Isaac Newton truly discover gravity? Or was his “Invention” the first to be documented. What if people in other regions of the world had understood the metrics of Sir Newton’s invention but lacked the resources Newton had and recored their discoveries oral within their culture which was restricted to their region at the time.

Bach to the high and middle school kids, its like education is important, but the manner in how kids are thought isn’t as valued and tests are not always the best way to evaluate if they retained the information.

This post somewhat felt like a rant, maybe I feel upset for my younger-self not being exposed to certain information as I am now in a higher educational environment. I might also be upset that society relies so much on past with little care for the future. There is a TV series called Mr. Robot. S1E1 of the protagonist’s narrative Thoroughly explains how I feel about not trusting over hyped old books. Also, are online ratings trustworthy nowadays?

September 25, 2018

Isaac Espinoza Blog Post 4

Elizabeth Eisenstein’s “Defining The Shift” focuses mostly on the transition from scribes to printing and the consequent effects this had in the many cultures of the world. Eisenstein says “an evolutionary model has been applied to a situation that seems to call for a revolutionary one. She believes the printing press caused a paradigm shift as it changed the way we approach, interact with, and perceive literature. For one it was the converging point for a diverse group of techniques skills and people. It also allowed literature to be produced at a much higher rate. I want to draw the parallel to social media and its similar effects. While the printing press allowed people to mass produce their work and make it available to a mass audience, social media allows us to post our personal pictures, information, opinions for a mass audience to consume. They both streamline the process of spreading information while creating a slew of new jobs, social interactions, opportunities, and problems.

Citation:

Elizabeth Eisenstein. “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture.” The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006.

September 25, 2018

Alassane Diop W#5 (Homi Bhabha, Signs of Wonder)

This week I want to speak about Homi Bhabha’s “Signs of Wonder”. From reading the first paragraph it caught my interest by the mention by mentioning an English book and what effect it had in the Carribean. I had an interest with Carribean culture growing up and the effects of colonialism. From what I read, when colonist came to the US they invaded the islands and mainland, while they did that they forced the locals to conform, forcing them to speak English and practice religions like Christianity. It’s not just a change of language that occurred, colonization also brought in technology that has not been done in certain parts of the world like the book.

According to the article, “origin, memorable for its balance between epiphany and enunciation. The discovery of the book is, at once, a moment of originality and authority, as well as a process of displacement that, paradoxically, makes the presence of the book wondrous to the extent to which it is repeated, translated, misread, displaced”.

The quote states that the idea of the book brings a way to document the world. Books are written down ideas or history which can be used by many people and the information contained inside can be passed down, told, and translated.

September 24, 2018

Jailene Mangome, Blog Post # 4

The text I chose to reflect on this week is Elizabeth Eisentein’s “Defining the Initial Shift”. In this book, Eisentein is writing about the major shift of scribes to printers and even goes to call it a “Communication Revolution”. Personally I think thats the best way to describe it. While reading this, I couldn’t help but think of how far we’ve coming with the printing press and how successful it had become and how much it has grown over time. We forget that before there were books or print in general, there were only scribes and everything was hand written and copied many many times. Sit back and think to yourself “what if the production of this never happened?” We wouldn’t have books, education would have been much more different than it is now. In class, we previously spoke about why we trust books so much and I couldn’t help but think that right now too. All of these scribes were hand written and then printed. In the text Eisentein writes “Unlike the shift from stationer to publisher, the shift from scribe to printer represented a genuine occupational mutation.” Having seen many poorly transcribed papers, I see why there are many editions of textbooks now. Or even bibles. They make it more and more modern by the day, but how can we believe any of it if it’s been transcribed over and over again?

Citation:

Elizabeth Eisenstein. “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture.” The Book History Reader. eds. David Finkelstein, Alistair McCleery. Routledge, 2006.

September 24, 2018

Weekly Response #5

The History of Printing and Printing Processes, dives heavily into the dates and years for important momentous occasions in the history of printing human languages into text. The first record of a text being put onto a piece of wood can be seen in China around 800 C.E. The article then describes the first printing press, The Gutenburg Press, emerging in Germany around 1420. This was the first known practice of mass producing a piece of literature, The Bible. The most interesting aspect of this timeline of the are of printing is the heavy industrial influence it had in the 1800’s. Many countries, Germany, France, and Scotland, started producing machinery and steel tools to help print literature at a higher volume. The stereotyping and rotary web-feed letterpress all were momentous steps in the printing world because it exponentially increased the accessibility of literature worldwide. The first example of a mass produced book was The Bible. This is important to me because the bible was such an influential piece of literature that may have actually sped up the creation of the Gutenburg press.

Bellis, Mary. “The History of Printing and Printing Processes.” ThoughtCo, Jun. 14, 2018, thoughtco.com/history-of-printing-and-printing-processes-1992329.

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