Blogtrax

I started taking pictures of padlocks. As a matter of fact I copied the idea from someone else. Here’s a short exchange on my photostream

lizjones112 Pro User says:
Nice shot, I’m glad I’m not the only one who takes pictures of padlocks!

on-the-run Pro User says:
Actually it’s contagious. I thought your’s were so good that I suddenly found myself copying!!

lizjones112 Pro User says:
Thank you, glad to know I can inspire others to take interesting pictures

I wrote about this on my own blog, referring to visual memes, but all the time I was thinking about copying and the whole ambiguity of that culturally located concept of copying. I guess we are first socialised into the complexities and nuances of copying in school. We learn for example that:

- close imitation is good in certain contexts (such as letter formation, lining up, singing, turning somersaults, using technical vocabulary)

- imitation is bad, when we make fun of how people walk, speak and so on…that is as long as they are not legitimate targets (and of course what constitutes a legitimate target varies from situation to situation)

- imitation is good in creative tasks, particularly in the broad sweep of things such as kinds of representation, writing genres and so on

- imitation is bad in creative tasks when it shows a lack of originality and when it is a straightforward (literal) copy

In a nutshell, we learn by copying and we learn not to copy. Our academic life is shot through with similar notions about copying. Plagiarism is bad, summarising someone else’s ideas and acknowledging them is good. Doing a similar thing to someone else locates you in a particular discipline or field. Doing exactly the same thing is unoriginal etc etc. Underlying all this there seem to be some cultural constructs about individuality, originality, authority and authorship that are related to the way that knowledge and learning are conceived of and policed in the dominant Western paradigm. These are all concepts that new media and new technologies challenge. Yet, we still prize the originality of our blogs even if we riff off the posts of others; we celebrate the uniqueness of the images in our photostream even when we are inspired by others. Cut/paste, capture/remix, and rip/burn technologies suggest how we can make new knowledge or art out of the work of others. Originality and creativity is perhaps re-defined in terms of the juxtapositions we make, the new links we establish. What we do then is less like orchestrating new comments more like deejaying, seguing one idea track into another whilst still keeping our audience on the dance floor. Maybe copies our OK (after all they serve DJs well), we are distinctive in the versions we have and the combinations and sequences we make and, of course, the spaces in which we produce them. After all that’s where we perform our identity and develop our reputation.

I got excited on Friday. I’d spent an hour or so working on a book review and had just run out of energy. I took a break, had some tea and surfed a bit. Playfully looking around, I came across a programme someone had written. It generated letters a numbers from other people’s Flickr images. I wrote my name, quickly grabbed the accompanying html and pasted it into my blog with a ‘wow look what I’ve found’ or words rather like that. Along comes Mary Plain with a ‘Pray tell’ sort of comment. And then, of course later I spruced up the original post with some reflections (yawn) and the link…the link itself which Mary Plain (being a cool hunter) really wanted. That then set me thinking about links.

1. We can be quite dictatorial in our links. I’ve done it. I’ve seen others do it. No real comment- just look HERE they say. Or HERE, HERE and HERE. This is cool. This sort of link tries to drag the reader away…but does it? Probably not.

2. There’s the hyper-referencing link. So and so (linked) argues that, blah, blah, blah, blah but I think blah, blah. There’s an option here you can read the original or pass on. The writer gives you that choice (a bit like academic referencing it points you to the source).

3. Then there’s the name- check link that takes you to the person’s homepage, blog or photo. This sort of link just adds local colour.

4. Hybrids of the latter- place, company or self-referencing (also adding local colour, providing free advertising).

5. Affiliation-linking sometimes includes 3 and 4, but really strives to demonstrate allegiances, networks and so on. Affiliation linking shouts out THIS IS WHO I AM; THIS IS WHO I KNOW; THIS IS THE KIND OF PERSON I WANT YOU TO THINK I AM.

6. Source-linking. Well I think that’s what Mary Plain was after. I want to play this too, but can you tell me where to find it.

One of the things about blogging as hyperwriting is that it gets you to understand more about how linking works. And this has a knock on effect when you start reading and following/not following other people’s links. I think you get more discerning. Either that or you slip into bad habits. Some places I go and don’t really bother reading - just follow their links. Other places, what the person writes is usually far more worthwhile than following the links.

Hyperwriting is about making choices. Deciding when to link and when not to link. I know I’m very unsystematic. On some occasions I find I’ve found a lot of cool stuff during the day and I end up stitching my blog together around the links. The links end up being more important (to me as the writer). Other times I’ve got something I want to say. Maybe it doesn’t really need links, so it’ll depend upon whether I’m busy or not. On such occasions I might add a few links to pep it up, to add another layer of meanings or just for fun. If I’m pushed, tired or stressed I’ll probably think ‘Ah what the hell who needs links anyway.’ Now funnily enough that must be hyperwriting too. Deciding not to include links.

I had an experiment in mind, but it may take some time planning (sounds like hard work already). That’s to make a text that has a very thin slice of meaning on the page itself but is composed almost entirely of links that would communicate meaning through their very juxtaposition. I expect someone’s already done that, but it would be worth a try. One thing for sure - it would get you thinking about linking!

I should be working but I’m blogging. Why’s that? Must be more fun I guess. I’ve just been cruising around checking everyone’s recent postings, reading comments, checking my Flickr (Oh! someone else likes Marcel!). There’s two things here. One is that the workspace is the same, so its dead easy just to rattle off a few emails and then - in that liminal space between tasks - pull down the bookmark and you’re in. And of course, one’s own blog is a portal, a rabbit hole to an intertextual wonderland and then you’re gone, time has slipped, you’re in flow, lost in third space, safe in your own heterotopia. This is loaded with references to a shared discourse! The other, the second, is the sense that it’s more fun, less constrained, open-ended, even creative…and playfully interactive (see italicised text above). You’re hanging out with your friends, they make you laugh, you’re curious about what they blogged, they make you think, they nourish the blogger within.

So my guilt, here, is that this escape to Blogland is about avoiding what needs doing. It’s blogging as skiving, slacking off, loosing it. What will become of me? I’ll be a blog-junkie a hopelessly addicted cyberflaneur. OR….I’ll somehow be lost to my online identities, as the dracula cyberworld takes me over. I’m reminded of Borges, who writes about being taken over in the following.

…news of Borges reaches me by mail, or I see his name on a list of academics or in some biographical dictionary. My tastes run to hourglasses, maps, eighteenth century typefaces, etymologies, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson; Borges shares those preferences, but in a vain sort of way that turns them into the accoutrements of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that our relationship is hostile - I live, I allow myself to live, so that Borges can spin out his literature……Little by little, I have been turning everything over to him…

Borges and I (from The Maker, 1960)