Category Archives: Reading Notes

Design Fiction in Science Fiction

One of this week’s readings – an interview with Sci-Fi writer Bruce Sterling  – brought up a neat point about Design Fiction in Sci-Fi, which is a favourite genre of mine.

I looked back at one of my all time favourite video game series Mass Effect which is based on the fictitious ‘mass effect’: the process of applying an electric current to a spaceship’s core made from this particular element that renders the spaceship massless, allowing instantaneous space travel. This was a fascinating premise for a game (being that humans discover this alien technology causing an explosion in space travel) and while it’s always been a dream of man to travel far distances in space, I love that this game allowed me to enact this fantasy.

Now while it’s not strictly the same concept, NASA have recently speculated that it may be possible to create a similar fast travel effect using a warp drive that compresses space to travel long distances in a short amount of time. This makes, what was previously an entity inside design fiction, a potential reality.

Taking Mass Effect as an example again, the game describes it’s inter-galactic communication is possible with the use of linked quantum particles so that a message on one end will instantly appear on the other end. This idea is actually much closer to reality. Scientists are experimenting with quantum computing that uses qubits to perform calculations much faster than binary computing (binary calculates things 1 by 1 – much like human brains – whereas qubits calculate multiple things at once due to their constantly changing state). This could potentially be translated into communication technology much like in Mass Effect.

‘Design Fiction as a Pedagogic Practice’

I write this while I’m on the train to Uni (a fantastic consequence of having internet access via smart phones and the cloud based programs I use!). I found this reading a little vague, so I went along with it (speculative thinking eh?) and I found the concept of approaching teaching in a more speculative fashion to be rather humbling. Instead of teaching what students can do, it supposes teaching students what they might do; it teaches potential over fulfilment. This is an absolutely superb way of thinking, particularly in an age of dynamic digital environments and cultural shifts that demand independent thinking and versatility from those who want to rise a step above the rest in the professional world.

It encourages double loop learning, certainly, but it does so before it’s needed; a precautionary measure. If we were to take an engineering lab (not that I actually know anything about engineering) as an example, rather than encouraging students to best please clients it would ask them “Why would you choose that design? What other designs could work better? Why, or why not?” and ultimately nurtures an inquisitive mind.

For a TL;DR I guess the idea is to question your future decisions, then question them some more. I guess it best dismantles deterministic values of what will happen and replaces them with more relevant values of what could happen as we enter the ever changing contemporary world.

edit: here’s the link if you want to read the article, it’s rather interesting.

‘Blogs in Media Education’

Listening music, because what’s a blog without sharing stuff I like. Don’t worry, it won’t always be metal, my musical tastes are eclectic to say the least.

Before I really respond to this particular reading I wanted to remark at how transparent the course’s intentions and material is. Rarely do students even ask (me included) why we study or learn a particular thing, let alone the teacher directly explaining why. I love to see such a straightforward and, really, honest way of delivering the course’s content. Continue reading →

‘What is Networked Media?’

The first thing that came to me to describe this passage by Adrian Miles, was ‘sporadic’ and I guess it best describes the nature of ‘ideas’.

‘ocean’, ‘no shore’ then began to manifest into more morbid ideas of ‘ideas’. To be on this ‘boat’ surrounded by ideas – to immerse and surround yourself with the immensity of creativity – can be humbling and very lonely. At the most basic level and idea is hard to communicate with somebody, much like when you hear the infancy of an idea in your head, try to explain it, and end up stuttering or not being able to find the right words for it; the idea in it’s primal state is purely self-evident, incommunicable, or a qualia – a thing only experienced in the first person and indescribable to others. Try explaining the colour red to somebody who has never seen it before (thanks VCE Philosophy!).

Of course once the idea begins to take shape and you can attach human language to it, the loneliness will subside and you might find that ‘shore’ that you chart and settle your idea on to cultivate it. In short being in an ‘ocean’ of ideas is a little daunting but thrilling at the same time because once you catch that one sparkling idea it’s an adventure to explore it and when it’s a real killer of an idea the thrill is only further amplified.

How might this translate to Networked Media? Well adventure is exploring the unknown, so the easiest way to make the best use of the subject and explore it’s themes is to experiment in every way possible. With access to an online community feedback is inevitable, and the collaborative effort will be nothing short of an adventure for better or for worse.