DrJoolz Snapshotz on Life

Sarah has this about a new blog she has set up for a new class. Also on her blog is a link to something she is reading at the moment on pedagogy and space. I have copied and ordered it too.
I have aalso ordered the book Kate is interested in on second hand stuff. (So by reading two blog posts I have managed to spend nearly fifty squid.)
I can’t believe that Sarah has been doing a Masters as well as a PhD… and teaching. Wow.

Both these books will help with what I am doing on Flickr and representations of domesticity. This is the abstract at the moment:

Public Displays of the Domestic: online presentations and readings of ‘the everyday’

Drawing on a study of a photo-sharing website (Flickr.com), this paper explores ways in which domestic life is represented and talked about through online screen based images, in an online space where traditional boundaries between the public and private spheres are being extended, challenged or eroded. The paper reflects on the presentation and subjects of the images; the narratives around them, and the affordances and practices which are impacting on the ways in which we see and represent our ‘everyday selves and lives’. The paper considers the impact of new technologies on the ways in which we are representing our identities and lives in online spaces. The paper views the interactions on Flickr as instantiating literacy as a social practice (REF) using the notion of multi-literacies, which is inclusive of a range of modes within its conceptualisation of literacy (REF). Thus, a multimodal approach to the analysis of images is adopted, following the work of Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996; 2001, and Van Leeuwen and Jewitt (2001) as well as Pink’s work on Visual Ethnography (2001 and Hine’s work on Virtual Ethnography (DATE). It also draws on the work of cultural theorists of the everyday (de Certeau, 1988) and of photographic representations of the everyday, such as Kuhn (1985) and Hirsh (2002). Third space theory (Soja, 1996) is invoked to explore aspects of the global/local practices on Flickr, and to reflect on the processes of online social learning, with particular reference to our reconfigurations of the domestic.

So I am interested in space as a metaphor to describe something like the development of shared meanings in spaces where collaborative social learning takes place - but especially the idea that a space gets created through the shared meanings.

Something else to say … I think the RAE is a pain.
We have all had to highlight the four publications we want to be counted in the RAE and these have been graded by an external assessor as a practice RAE from 1 - 4 with 4 as the highest. One of mine gets a 2, which frankly, is rather crap. Yet this paper is one that has been downloaded the most since last July in the journal it is in.. see here. Does this mean that the people who download are only after mediocre work? Does it mean they are all bad judges? Does it mean the RAE reader is wrong and should think again? Does it mean the criteria for assessment in the RAE are not useful? What does it mean?

Finally, just when you think you are clever, this can happen:

One guy fell asleep on the subway and so his friend gleefully took photos of him on his ‘cell phone’. He happily texted these pix around the place and kept looking at fellow passengers for approval.

What he did not know was that we were the clever ones, shooting him. (Did anyone shoot us?)

Yesterday I went into a Sheffield school to film a teacher who loads of kids reported to be really good. It was their history teacher who they liked so much and their views were passed on to me by their form teacher.

I have been thinking for a while about the inadequacy of my PhD work and how in focussing just on spoken language in the classroom, I had missed all sorts of crucial information about the communicative process. (My PhD looks at spoken language, learning and gender). Aaaaanyway, influenced by Gunther Kress , Carey Jewitt et al, I decided to take in 2 video cameras to the school and had one trained on the pupils and the other on the really good teacher. I wanted to look at what things he seemed to be doing that so engaged the kids.

I am so pleased with the quality of the recordings - visually and sound wise. For the teacher I used my new Sony DVD recorder with a bluetooth microphone. The microphone was excellent. But diappointingly the mini DVD only records half an hour, so that I had to change it half way through. AND then you have to put the recording onto a bigger DVD if you want to use it with most playback machines. So TRY before you buy. (Unlike me.)

The fsacinating thing is that the kids’ favoutrite teacher keeps them under PERFECT control, is very traditional (suit and tie) and makes no jokes. It has to be said (counter-intuitively) that he is an excellent teacher and held the kids spellbound for much of the lesson. They seemed to REALLY learn. It is going to be so good doing a mulit-modal analysis of all the data.

Later I went for a research conversation at The University … and as is so often at these things, it triggered off things in my mind about my work and I was able to scribble down ideas about how learning takes place when affinities form online. I was thinking about how (as in off line situations) shared jokes emerge; shared phrases; how people joke around with those; how those shared jokes sometimes work through visuals; through sound; through moving image (e.g through You tube.) . And I was thinking about how this stuff is a magnification of the learning through language stuff I wrote about in my PhD. How through using language, through talk especially, kids ‘come to know’. (Vygotsky’s stuff.) This is the way as groups of people we blend our ideas together and create third spaces. I wanted to use the word ‘culture jamming’ for this, but that term is already taken. It is some kind of jamming process though. It is ‘SOMETHING jamming. Anyway I was thinking also how these things happen off line of course and that in fact it is these things which a multi modal analysis in the classroom can look at. I realised how looking at things online, sometimes makes more explicit for me, things that are going on off line. (Does that make sense?)

I am going to write something for a journal about representations of domesticity and the everyday on Flickr - which will feed into a paper I hope to present at a conference next January.

The abstract I sent off is this:

So that is what I want to present about for the conference but I want to write a fuller paper for a journal. Here are a few examples of the kind of thing I am interested in:

1. Every day aspects of life dignified, or made arty here. This is a kind of home as museum approach. Cultural studies stuff. This is in fact from ‘The New Domesticity group’ which describes itself like this:
   

   Domestic life has changed drastically in the past 50 years. What does your domestic life look like? Sewing, cooking, houseplants, crafts, aprons, I’d love to see photos of anything that fits into your domestic life. My hope is
   to showcase a younger generation\’s style and shape of domesticity.

2. Another example of life as art is here and I notice that this photo is also in the set up shots/not quite a still life pool as well as the ‘everyday life pool’. I love this kind of example which asks people to share in their life, with a descriptions saying, ‘this is not about the photography but the content (apple pie).
3. In the kitchen allows people to show off their cooking a bit or again there is a kind of museum/cultural studies approach. And I love this which is also in the ‘experimental’ group. By looking at the cross sections of groups that people put their photos in, you get an idea of the intention behind the photo. Similarly the group: ‘Domesticity: artful photos from around the house’ concentrates on things looking good. Very self conscious presentations of identity in the images like this washing up one. or the pegs.
4. And here is a really interesting glimpse into habitual ways of living and cooking (with a bowl resting on a cheese grater.) Note the sets this photo is in - it is in one to do wth ‘family’ and one to do with travel. Here the associations run through strongly with family, holiday and food. I feel like this one is a bit less like a ‘good house keepings’ photo.
5. I love this one which gives me ideas of what to get for dinner. Here is a delicious meal. A million genre of cookbook and magazine can be seen here.
6. An insight into life alone from the apartment life group. There’s a whole load of stuff to do with food issues again resonating here.
7. Hapakorean has been a contact of mine for a long ,long time and I saw the toddler in this photo from ultrasound shots even before he was born. HK documents the lives of her kids in detail and has just started enjoying vimeo. Here she has a movie of her son feeding his grandma ‘numnums.’ Just an episode of a few minutes showing the great American dream; the ideal family here with beautiful children and home. In addition I have traced through the story of how HK met her sister for the first time through Myspace. A lot revealed in these lives here through Flickr and HK has quite a following. Completely fascinating all this stuff as life moves seemlessly through the wrinkled binaries of life online and offline. (HK went to a Flickr meet a short while ago. )
8. Of course festivals like Christmas, weddings and Mother’s day are all excellent areas for me to look at in terms of representations of the domestic. So far a quick glimpse shws me they display things carefully. Apart from this exceptional photo of a ‘divorced grandparents’ domestic’.
9. And so is ‘what’s in my cupboard?‘ , ‘what’s in your bag?’ , ‘inside your drawers’, ‘deskspace‘, fridge and so on.
10. I want of course to also look at representations of family other than the type HK has shown - which are really quite traditional despite the new medium. I find this a brave image - showing a choild looking pretty uncared for - but I am sure this is not so, it is just the presentation has not been ‘cleaned up.’
11. I love the groups which try to emulate particular photographers. So this photo of a Dad and uncle (twin brothers) is in the Diane Arbus group. So the display is mediated through what is known about a photographer.
12. This one is presented like a social history display in a museum again, using artefcats of identity to represent something of character and time.
13. And also I want to look at the comments people are making, since this is often at least as revealing as the photo and more stuff is shown of the domestic through the comments quite often.

Lots of data huh? Whoever said that blogs were a waste of time?? I am finding a structure for this paper I think. And some questions.

I am wondering as I am looking at these photos whether the images themselves break down any boundaries? Are they pretty stereotypical of other photos we see in magazines? Family photos? Are we presenting family and domestic life in new ways? Or are the photos the same as they ever were? (Just more of them?) … while the nature of Flickr is allowing new conversations and new insights into our lives? Hmm those are things I will think about. Maybe it is the community and the talk around the photos that are bringing in the new?

Shall I submit this article to Visual Communication or somewhere else?