My Place in Eternity

Oral Traditions with Dr. Sexson has been the single most important class which I have taken in my college career. Here we have learned the invaluable skill of mnemonics and the "art of remembering everything." This is a skill which has been somewhat lost and mutated in the technological modern era. It was an art form prized by previous generations but nearly forgotten in ours.

While distinguishing and revisiting childhood palaces, I have been able to learn more about myself. The storage of new memories inextricably interweaves with those of the past allowing my memory palace to attain endless possibilities. With Dr. Sexson's assistance, we have been given the tools to create and build upon the infinite wealth of knowledge. The effect is akin to gazing into a mirror which reflects another mirror which reflects another mirror, connecting all stories to one another throughout time.

 The pictures here are of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Room, which gives the viewer the distinct sense of endless space.

Our stories are uniquely linked to every story which has ever existed throughout time. The idea of being connected to something larger than ourselves resides in the very fabric of our being and, now we are, or have always been and, now we re-member.
 

Dream House

So here is some elucidation on my "Museyroom." I realize now that staying up into the wee morning hours completing the project and presenting it coherently are probably mutually exclusive.

The initial concept for this endeavor came from one of the graffiti artist Banksy's famous pieces. This balloon girl is on the wall that separates Palestine from Israel.This image was created by Banksy as a way for people to envision transcending barriers created politically and psychologically. This notion informed the creation of my Museyroom: the idea that art can move beyond any limitations which are set for us. So I took this concept and ran with it. The clay girl which I created (fashioned after the Banksy painting) is floating out of the cardboard room, beyond the boundaries of imagination.



Here she floats up and away, beyond the stars and the moon which have fallen into the room with the dreaming bald guy sleeping on the over-sized couch. The puzzle pieces on the walls represent the detached memories which we all store inside of us just waiting for a hook to be fished out. I chose some puzzles with a pictographic alphabet to symbolize the junction between chirography and orality. The pieces are jumbled and disjointed just as memories become with time.

The entire cardboard house is filled with items which are memorable to me. I put them in with the idea of creating a dreamlike place. The furniture is much too large for the inhabitants. Items hang from the ceiling, defying the law of gravity. A green, squishy caterpillar as large as the guy in the bed, creeps out from underneath the blanket. The moon is personified and the stars hang down in the room with the guy dreaming of all these curious things. A mythical globe spins on a paperclip, created by Violet. The Star Wars figures ride on their Lego-mobils and duel with the bunnies.


Some of the items had been used in my previous memory palaces: the parrot, the hula-hoop, the multicolored caterpillar, and the tree spirits from Princess Mononoke. Totoro, another Miyazaki invention is there also. Miyazaki is a mastermind at transcending these boundaries of reality in his films.I also put in Calvin and Hobbes. They embody the notion of never growing out of your dreams. It seemed to fit well with the overall theme.

Before

After

These are some more pictures of the items in my Museyroom. They are all part of the dream: the flowers, cube, a book opening of its own accord, the frisbee, and a beach ball. Some of these creations are born from the real world, some not. This is my Museyroom, a dream house, located at the intersection fantasy boulevard and reality avenue.

Violet's Story

So, in case you don't know, Violet is my four year old daughter. This is her story. She can't read yet but can decipher some basic words and knows her alphabet, etc. I told her to tell me a story and this is what we ended up with.

"Once upon a time there was a princess named Vanilla and her mom didn't let her go out any of the time. And she didn't let her mother go out because she didn't want to go out because she wouldn't, because she wouldn't because she wouldn't. Blah blah blah. And then the prince came and she had a furry coat and she had a list about it. Most of all she loved her bunny. Hop hop hop went the bunny. Hop hop hop she helped her bunny. Hop hop hop hop hop with her lovely penny and her little woof woof named Allay. Allay and bunny went to the store because they wanted to sweep and they sweeped the computer and they sweeped the wall because most of all she loved her bunny, she loved her bunny. The queen loved the animals and she tried to keep her away from the bunny and her bear Sandy with a pink bunny and a white bunny with a broom she wouldn't go without a bloom bloom wash. Tada the end of that one. Now it's time for the next one. Because she has a bow doesn't mean she was a boy. I made myself homemade handcuffs today out of this today. I just did and then I had a little time and then it was really hard getting it off. (Singing) Balupadupadup. I don't know what to do. She didn't know what to do. I am singing the song for her because she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do because she's lost, because she's almost new because she's eating fruit every day. I don't know what to do. She didn't know because I didn't know. She had a floppy coat that was pink and black and she had nice soft shoes on and a nice soft Hoseypillow. And she didn't know her name, she couldn't write her name. (Begins to strum the guitar and sing now) She would be a bad bad bunny because end of story but we still have part of the story left. If you ever liked a tomato, if you don't like to talk to tomatoes, then you don't like to talk to me, and if you like to talk to me, then you don't like to talk to me. It's fine if you don't. I don't know who did it for awhile. The End. I will tell you more of the story. Hopping leaping for awhile. You don't know what the frog is. It's a Wooluf. A Wooluf is a wolf that doesn't scratch or doesn't bite, but most of all, doesn't bite. And her name is Vanilla. Va-uh-nil-uh. That is what it says? If you don't have this list, then you don't know what it is. (Guitarring again) And I don't know what to do, I love books and you do too."

So this is completely unedited. I just wrote what she said/sang. Actually turned out kind of cool (I think).

Technological Orality

It seems that society may indeed by approaching a wave of secondary orality with the age of computers and their vast capabilities. A few devices come to mind most immediately.
The latest iPhone with Siri (voice activated software which allows users to give the phone commands rather than inputting them manually). While phones have been using voice commands for nearly a decade, Siri is the first that can actually respond more or less appropriately to a user's demands and can make some limited decisions based on input. The ramifications of this technology are immense. This phone can allow people, such as quadriplegics and others with handicaps, to be able to communicate through the phone. Another tool, originally an iPhone software innovation, is the ability to use the phone as a camera to speak with another individual. This also can allow for communication possibilities which are either more oral in nature, i.e. facial expressions, etc. or can enable those who are mute to sign through the phone to other people in order to communicate. The cellular telephone (or really the telephone as a whole) in general is a sign that humans are moving in the direction of a oral culture, while not displacing many chirographic forms of communication, it certainly does replace much of the letter writing that used to be the prominent communication form.

The iPhone 4

While working with a group of disabled gentlemen, I encountered a device which astounded me. One of the young men I worked with was a severely handicapped 17 year old who was quadriplegic as well as non-verbal. We had weekly appointments with a group of specialists at the University of Wisconsin who gifted him a Dynavox. This machine allowed my friend to, in essence, speak using only his eye movements. He could control the speech of the computer with just a slight flick of the pupil. A laser would detect this movement and draft sentences to verbalize through a speaker. The entire apparatus attached to his wheelchair and could be turned on and off at will and used when needed for his communication needs.

Dynavox mounted to wheelchair

 

 

Dynavox user interface

The Dynavox came with an initial setup but the interface could be easily customized with common words, sayings, sentences, or phrases to enable the user ease of access to whatever they wished to communicate. For my client, sayings like "What's up?" or "Would you like to come over to my house?" were input because he used them the most. Later models of the Dynavox were enabled with technology to enable phone hook-up, television remote controls, and access to the internet. While all the technology was based in typography, the device translated everything into oral forms of communication. Even without, or in the event of a loss of knowledge of the alphabet and word forming processes, the Dynavox can use pictures to convey many ideas without being concretely based in letters and words.

Another community which has sprung up in the computer age is the "chatroom" community. Initially, these were based on typing in a live forum where people would discuss, argue, and joke about many subjects. However, later on there evolved chatrooms where computer video cameras became common. This allows users to interact without having to do so much as a single keystroke. One thing I have noticed about most of these video chatrooms is the amount of agonistically toned conversations. Everything is fair game in these rooms. There are even places where people do mostly singing on their cameras. Flyting, song creation, and popular song rendition and imitation are extremely common among these music chatrooms. The mobile computer manufacturers have kept pace with these ever-evolving online communities, creating built-in webcams for their laptops and other mobile devices. I believe every Apple laptops comes with a built-in camera.

One type of chatroom

Dell created their own video chat software

These video chatrooms have become so prevalent that Facebook and computer manufacturer Dell have incorporated them into their main interfaces. Skype is another variety of video communication software which allows users to connect from anywhere to be able to talk with loved ones or distanced friends. It is becoming a very common tool with elderly folks who cannot use their telephones any longer because the software is simple and can remain on all the time.

The Latest Addition to My Memory Palace...Reverend Mark

And the line is..."I will preach to thee. Mark." Lear. This guy is a paranormal spiritual counselor, in case you may need one. He has his own troop of paranormal goons and all.

And the coup de grace...Mark stroking out as he climbs his stairwell.

This guy may never exit the memory theater, hopefully I don't laugh too hard while delivering that line.

Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss was considered one of the founding fathers of anthropology. I found an interesting section in chapter 28 of Tristes Tropiques where he describes some of the effects of writing on the Nambikwara, a sparsely populated primary oral culture inhabiting rural Mato Grosso Brazil. The memoire, published in 1955, highlights anthropological studies of rural cultures of different areas but mostly those in Brazil. Chapter 28: A Writing Lesson, details his travels to and with the Nambikwara and the intersection of chirographic and oral cultures.

After traveling to the Nambikwara village, Levi-Strauss gives all the villagers sheets of paper and pencils. "At first they did nothing with them, then one day I saw that they were all busy drawing wavy, horizontal lines. I wondered what they were trying to do, then it was suddenly borne upon me that they were writing or, to be more accurate, were trying to use their pencils in the same way as I did mine, which was the only way they could conceive of, because I had not yet tried to amuse them with my drawings." He goes on to explain how this affected the villagers. "The majority did this and no more, but the chief had further ambitions." Levi-Strauss would ask the chief questions and the chief would draw the horizontal, wavy lines on the pad given him and then show Claude expecting him to understand the meaning behind the drawings. The chief expected them to convey meaning just as the written words do. The Nambikwara chief went even further with his display of feigned writing skill. When the presents which Levi-Strauss had brought with him to give to the Nambikwara people were handed out, the chief took out his notepad and pretended to check it and conduct the ceremony of gift exchange. He had used writing as a tool for the purpose of attaining power over his tribe in a way that differentiated from his role as chief. "It had not been a question of acquiring knowledge, of remembering or understanding, but rather of increasing the authority and prestige of one individual - or function - at the expense of others."

Levi-Strauss goes on to consider the effects of writing on society: "Writing is a strange invention...If we ask ourselves what great innovation writing was linked to, there is little we can suggest on the technical level, apart from architecture...Such, at any rate, is the typical pattern of development to be observed from Egypt and China, at the time when writing first emerged: it seems to have favoured the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment...My hypothesis, if correct, would oblige us to recognize the fact that the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery." He tells later on in the chapter about the Nambikwara that they in fact expelled the chief for his false pretenses of knowledge and using it to gain an unfair advantage over his peers.

Another important hypothesis is made by Levi-Strauss in this chapter of Tristes Tropiques: "Although writing may not have been enough to consolidate knowledge, it was perhaps indispensable for the strengthening of dominion. If we look at the situation nearer home, we see that the systematic development of compulsory education in the European countries goes hand in hand with the extension of military service and proletarianization." This furthers the idea of writing as a tool of power and considers the fact that it has furthered nations' concepts of warfare and class control.

Ong One-Liners

Here are a few one-liners from Orality and Literacy:

"Proverbs from all over the world are rich with observations about this overwhelmingly human phenomenon of speech in its native oral form, about its powers, its beauties, its dangers." (p.9)
"When an often-told oral story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it." (p.11)
"We have to die to continue living." (p.15)
"Heavy patterning and communal fixed formulas in oral cultures serve some of the purposes of writing in chirographic cultures, but in doing so they of course determine the kind of thinking that can be done, the way experience is intellectually organized." (p.36)
"When all verbal communication must be by direct word of mouth, involved in the give-and-take dynamics of sound, interpersonal relations are kept high - both attractions and, even more, antagonisms." (p.45)
"Nature states no 'facts': these come only within statements devised by human beings to refer to the seamless web of actuality around them." (p.67)
"Man is the umbilicus mundi, the navel of the world." (p.72)