Here is my Prezi:
http://prezi.com/a9hnkmonj-fv/cabot-koppers-superfund/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=prezi_landing_related_solr&utm_campaign=prezi_landing_related_owner
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Reflection on Prezi
I think what makes Prezi so successful (in its creative possibilities and potentials) is also what serves as its pitfall: with so much to do, a beginner can easily get lost. Of course, this is not strictly Prezi's fault--they offer up the interface, and it is up to the user of the software to figure it out. Unfortunately, many of the tutorials (Lynda included) give too much information too fast (in that, in trying to be comprehensive, they give all the information). For example, the Prezis that they use as illustrative examples of what Prezi can do far exceed what a beginner could probably do with Prezi under reasonable time constraints. After learning about the triple-layered 3D background feature possibility, I naturally wanted to utilize such. My (conceptual) idea: my significator card would be the wide background image (the toilet project); inside of the toilet would be the next layer, a map of Cabot Koppers; inside of the Cabot Koppers map there would be imbedded the spread of Tarot relays, giving a poetic narrative of the accident/disaster.
This simply was not possible--at least not at first, as one truly needs to master the basics of Prezi through trial and error before one can advance into such a horizon. First of all, as Lynda notes, the 3D background images need to be saved as a certain kind of file and pixelated in a certain manner in order for them to work effectively. They do not tell one how to do this, however, and trying to figure out how to properly adjust screen captures (I still lucky to know how to even screen capture!) to fit the proper specs was rather impossible. Eventually, I came to terms with what I am: a Prezi novice. I chose a template, adjusted creatively here and there so as to personalize it a bit and, though it is still not as complex and visually striking as it could be, I am happy with what I produced. There is perhaps an excellent pedagogical point here concerning electracy (or becoming-electrate) that, for the reasons of convenience, we will relate to literacy (or becoming-literate): one must learn how to read before one can undertake the complexities of Shakespeare or Proust, Derrida or Barthes.
Naturally, it would be pleasant if Prezi offered up comprehensive, step-by-step guides to the interface that were separated by skill level (maybe something to the tune of: Prezi for Idiots; Prezi for Beginners; Intermediate Prezi; Advanced Prezi; Prezi and Beyond). Trial and error works, too, and this indeed served as an experiment (doubly so for those of us that had not worked with Prezi--to completion--before), but the stress may have stemmed from the fact that it was nonetheless an assignment, as well. I look forward to the next time I use Prezi, as I know how to use the basics and, as such, will perhaps be more confident and capable in being able to go a step further. There is obviously a lot of possibility and potential in Prezi; it's simply a matter of what present skill-horizon stands before a given user.
This simply was not possible--at least not at first, as one truly needs to master the basics of Prezi through trial and error before one can advance into such a horizon. First of all, as Lynda notes, the 3D background images need to be saved as a certain kind of file and pixelated in a certain manner in order for them to work effectively. They do not tell one how to do this, however, and trying to figure out how to properly adjust screen captures (I still lucky to know how to even screen capture!) to fit the proper specs was rather impossible. Eventually, I came to terms with what I am: a Prezi novice. I chose a template, adjusted creatively here and there so as to personalize it a bit and, though it is still not as complex and visually striking as it could be, I am happy with what I produced. There is perhaps an excellent pedagogical point here concerning electracy (or becoming-electrate) that, for the reasons of convenience, we will relate to literacy (or becoming-literate): one must learn how to read before one can undertake the complexities of Shakespeare or Proust, Derrida or Barthes.
Naturally, it would be pleasant if Prezi offered up comprehensive, step-by-step guides to the interface that were separated by skill level (maybe something to the tune of: Prezi for Idiots; Prezi for Beginners; Intermediate Prezi; Advanced Prezi; Prezi and Beyond). Trial and error works, too, and this indeed served as an experiment (doubly so for those of us that had not worked with Prezi--to completion--before), but the stress may have stemmed from the fact that it was nonetheless an assignment, as well. I look forward to the next time I use Prezi, as I know how to use the basics and, as such, will perhaps be more confident and capable in being able to go a step further. There is obviously a lot of possibility and potential in Prezi; it's simply a matter of what present skill-horizon stands before a given user.
Final Reading
My final reading went as detailed below:
Significator Card: Justice (see: previous post)
Spread: Celtic Cross
Questions:
1. Present: How is Cabot Koppers?
2. Immediate Challenge: What does Cabot Koppers want to teach Alachua County?
3. Distant Past: From where did Cabot Koppers come?
4. Recent Past: What does Cabot Koppers want to be?
5. Best Outcome: What is at the top of Cabot Koppers' Jacob's Ladder?
6. Immediate Future: What music does Cabot Koppers produce?
7. Factors Affecting Situation: What is the appliance of Cabot Koppers?
8. External Influences: How does Alachua County want to dance with Cabot Koppers?
9. Hopes and Fears: What does Cabot Koppers dream about?
10. Final Outcome: How can we help Cabot Koppers?
Answers:
1. Queen of Wands --> Rimbaud
2. 2 of Swords --> Telephone Poles
3. 7 of Cups Reversed --> The Rhizome
4. Temperance Reversed --> Louis the Chiropractor (Jacob's Ladder)
5. 4 of Swords --> My Bed
6. 6 of Wands Reversed --> Surveillance Camera
7. 3 of Cups Reversed --> Cabot Koppers Shake
8. The Tower Reversed --> The Inferno (Jacob's Ladder)
9. 8 of Pentacles Reversed --> Messy Room
10. The Chariot --> Helicopter (Jacob's Ladder)
General Reading: Cabot Koppers is not just a disaster of spatial proportions, but an accident of necessarily temporal dimension. In this sense, we cannot merely follow the telephone poles spatially to Cabot Koppers, mapping them as such, but rather we also need to follow the telephones back to the knotted desire of our past that engendered such an accident in the primary position. In this sense (truly!), the telephone poles function generally as analogues for pepper: the spatial strategies of their mapping only gestures towards our future disaster (such is the accident: the shipwreck was invented by the ship [Virilio]). To this end, the immediate challenge for Cabot Koppers is not merely spatial, but more importantly temporal: we have already mapped and demarcated the Superfund site, and we know where the poisons are (dioxin, arsenic, etc.); the question is how to move, in active, dynamic process and production, towards a place that not only adjusts Cabot Koppers in the service of well-being, but does so in a manner that prevents the next accident-cum-disaster? The Chariot as the Final Outcome is quite fitting: the entire spread, regardless of the nuanced hermeneutics of the poetics at hand, inevitably rests upon that of will power and determination. The potential aesthetic power of this electrate method means nothing if it collapses back into stagnant epistemology and blind-spot lethargy.
Significator Card: Justice (see: previous post)
Spread: Celtic Cross
Questions:
1. Present: How is Cabot Koppers?
2. Immediate Challenge: What does Cabot Koppers want to teach Alachua County?
3. Distant Past: From where did Cabot Koppers come?
4. Recent Past: What does Cabot Koppers want to be?
5. Best Outcome: What is at the top of Cabot Koppers' Jacob's Ladder?
6. Immediate Future: What music does Cabot Koppers produce?
7. Factors Affecting Situation: What is the appliance of Cabot Koppers?
8. External Influences: How does Alachua County want to dance with Cabot Koppers?
9. Hopes and Fears: What does Cabot Koppers dream about?
10. Final Outcome: How can we help Cabot Koppers?
Answers:
1. Queen of Wands --> Rimbaud
2. 2 of Swords --> Telephone Poles
3. 7 of Cups Reversed --> The Rhizome
4. Temperance Reversed --> Louis the Chiropractor (Jacob's Ladder)
5. 4 of Swords --> My Bed
6. 6 of Wands Reversed --> Surveillance Camera
7. 3 of Cups Reversed --> Cabot Koppers Shake
8. The Tower Reversed --> The Inferno (Jacob's Ladder)
9. 8 of Pentacles Reversed --> Messy Room
10. The Chariot --> Helicopter (Jacob's Ladder)
General Reading: Cabot Koppers is not just a disaster of spatial proportions, but an accident of necessarily temporal dimension. In this sense, we cannot merely follow the telephone poles spatially to Cabot Koppers, mapping them as such, but rather we also need to follow the telephones back to the knotted desire of our past that engendered such an accident in the primary position. In this sense (truly!), the telephone poles function generally as analogues for pepper: the spatial strategies of their mapping only gestures towards our future disaster (such is the accident: the shipwreck was invented by the ship [Virilio]). To this end, the immediate challenge for Cabot Koppers is not merely spatial, but more importantly temporal: we have already mapped and demarcated the Superfund site, and we know where the poisons are (dioxin, arsenic, etc.); the question is how to move, in active, dynamic process and production, towards a place that not only adjusts Cabot Koppers in the service of well-being, but does so in a manner that prevents the next accident-cum-disaster? The Chariot as the Final Outcome is quite fitting: the entire spread, regardless of the nuanced hermeneutics of the poetics at hand, inevitably rests upon that of will power and determination. The potential aesthetic power of this electrate method means nothing if it collapses back into stagnant epistemology and blind-spot lethargy.
Significator: Justice
I ended up using my conceptual toilet image as my Tarot-relay emblem for my Significator card, which happened to be Justice (using the birth date system this time).
On the toilet lid it is written: "Alachua Cabot Koppers." On the toilet seat are two figures: a female (who is dressed as though a bride or princess) and a male (curiously not dressed as a groomsman or prince). Between them is the abyss of the toilet, which holds and flushes away shit. In the middle-forefront is bottled water that is obviously impure. I do not want to give a reading of my conceptual image, as I feel as though such would defeat the purpose (for many reasons and on many scales). Nonetheless, I do want to gesture to some of the concepts I am generally approaching: disaster/accident; the relation between the micro and macro (and its relation to sense of justice); the complexity of limit; blind spots, the (w)hole, and the abyss, especially with regard to shit and pollution; productivity and the logic of late capitalism industry and desire for/of the commodity. Despite the toilet's function to "flush" away shit and fold it back into a "blind spot," if the toilet fails and clogs, then the water floods over, washing the two figures into the toilet or out of frame (they would, in this latter sense, "leave" Alachua/Cabot Koppers). Their ability to be together and stay together remains not only one of micro-desire, of re-cognized Moment, or of EPS, but also of knotted desire that inflects the well-being of the entire Community which maintains their GPS.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Jacob's Ladder Major Arcana: Take One
This is not all of them, but a good number.* A lot of this still revolves around The Fool, and I will adjust this, but for the time being, this helps me properly modify the narratives as they ought to operate.
THE FOOL: FOLLY, MANIA, EXTRAVAGANCE, INTOXICATION, DELIRIUM, FRENZY, BEWRAYMENT.
NARRATIVE: JACOB, THE FOOL, DOES NOT KNOW WHERE HE IS OR WHERE HE IS GOING. HE IS SEEING THINGS. HE KNOWS HE MUST DO SOMETHING, BUT HE IS NOT YET SURE WHAT IT IS HE MUST DO. HE IS CARING AND GENTLE, BUT HE IS INCREASINGLY UNTRUSTING OF HIS SEEMING CLOSE ONES, THOUGH HE YET LOVES THEM. JACOB'S HEART GUIDES HIM, AND THIS IS WHAT MAKES HIM BOTH A FOOL (INITIALLY) AND ALSO A HERO (EVENTUALLY). JACOB IS A PATIENT LISTENER, BUT HE IS ALSO A LEADER. JACOB CLINGS TO WHAT HE KNOWS AND HOLDS DEAR (AS SEEN SYMBOLICALLY SEEN ABOVE), THOUGH HE COMES TO UNDERSTAND THAT HE MUST LET THIS GO (FOOL TO HERO). CONFRONTED BY ANGELS AND DEMONS, DAIMON AND NEMESIS, THE CHOICE(S) REMAIN JACOB'S ALONE.
NARRATIVE: LOUIS, THE CHIROPRACTOR, AND FIGURE OF TEMPERANCE, GUIDES. HE ADJUSTS THE BODY AND SPIRIT, AND IT CAN BE PAINFUL. IT CAN BE UNWANTED. AS LOUIS ONLY GUIDES, HE SPEAKS IN METAPHORS AND FABLES. LOUIS ONLY MANAGES AND ACCOMMODATES. JACOB DISCOVERS THIS.
THE MAGICIAN: SKILL, DIPLOMACY, ADDRESS, SICKNESS, PAIN, LOSS, DISASTER, SELF-CONFIDENCE, WILL.
NARRATIVE: THE MAGICIAN SITS AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, AWAY FROM THE PARTY BELOW. SHE IS FLATTERING AND GENTLE. SHE WILL LOOK AT A PALM AND TELL ONE THAT THEY ARE ALREADY DEAD. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE AN INDICTMENT OR A CONDEMNATION. HER SKILL IS MERELY TO INFORM AND ADDRESS. SHE INFORMS OF DISASTER DIPLOMATICALLY. JACOB LEARNS ALL OF THIS.
THE CHARIOT: SUCCOUR, PROVIDENCE; ALSO WAR, TRIUMPH, PRESUMPTION, VENGEANCE, TROUBLE
NARRATIVE: THE CHARIOT BRINGS YOU INTO AND OUT OF WAR. THE CHARIOT CAN SAVE YOU FROM A WOUND, OR IT CAN CARRY YOU INTO DEATH. THE CHARIOT MOVES IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. JACOB KNOWS BOTH.
NARRATIVE: BEWARE THE REVERSE, AS HAPPENS TO THE FOOL, JACOB. THE PENNY ON THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE SLIPS AND REVERSES. THE WHEEL IS AN INDICATOR, BUT ALSO A GUIDE: FORTUNE ONLY AS DESTINY IN THE SENSE OF CHOICE. GOOD FORTUNE AWAITS, BUT HOW ONE ARRIVES AT SUCH IS DEPENDENT UPON CHOICE.
THE HIGH PRIESTESS: SECRETS, MYSTERY, THE FUTURE AS YET UNREVEALED; THE WOMAN WHO INTERESTS THE QUERENT, IF MALE.
NARRATIVE: JEZZI, THE HIGH PRIESTESS, SEDUCES. SHE IS CARING BUT CAN BE HARSH, UNFORGIVING. SHE WILL NOT LET ONE LEAVE, FOR BETTER OR WORSE. JEZZI IS CARE IN THE SENSE OF LIMIT. SHE IS MYSTERIOUS; DARK AND DIFFICULT TO READ, SHE NONETHELESS IS THERE FOR CRUEL AND CARING INDICATION. JACOB, THE FOOL, BELIEVES TO LOVE HER.
NARRATIVE: THE TOWER IS THE SITE OF TUMULT. IT IS WHERE THE OLD BELIEFS AND BELONGINGS BURN TO ASHES. THIS IS DIFFICULT, BUT IT IS OFTEN FOR THE BEST: IN ORDER FOR NEW CREATION AND REBIRTH, OLD LONGINGS MUST BE LEFT TO RUBBLE. IT BURNS THE PICTURES WE NEED TO ABANDON, THE IMAGES THAT HINDER THE BRINGING-FORTH OF NEW IMAGES. JACOB, THE FOOL'S, PICTURES BURN THERE.
THE STAR: LOSS, THEFT, PRIVATION, ABANDONMENT; ANOTHER READING SAYS HOPE AND BRIGHT PROSPECTS
NARRATIVE: THE LAST THING JACOB SEES BEFORE GOING PRACTICALLY COMATOSE. HE WAS ABANDONED; BUT HE WAS ALSO SAVED, RECOVERED (SEE: HOPE).
NARRATIVE: IT IS TOWARDS WHICH THE CHARIOT FINALLY CARRIES JACOB (MATERIALLY), THOUGH SUCH IS THE SAME CHARIOT THAT DROPPED HIM INTO DESPAIR AND DEATH. THE SUN SERVES AS AN ALMOST UNIVERSAL FIGURE OF WELL-BEING AND FORTUNE, EVEN IN ITS REVERSAL. JACOB, THE FOOL, MOVES TOWARDS THE SUN, LITERALLY AND METAPHYSICALLY.
JUDGEMENT: CHANGE OF POSITION, RENEWAL, OUTCOME
NARRATIVE: THIS IS WHERE JUDGEMENT IS IMPOSED; THIS IS WHERE UNFORTUNATE TRUTH IS HEARD (INDICTMENT, SENTENCE, LIMIT). JACOB, THE FOOL, LEARNS THAT HE IS DEAD. THIS IS DIFFICULT TO UNDERTAKE, BUT NOT AS DIFFICULT AS THE CHOICES HE WILL HAVE TO MAKE IN ORDER TO DEAL WITH SUCH A REVELATION. CONSIDER THE JUDGEMENT CARD WITH SERIOUS DISCERNMENT: IT IS ABOUT HOW YOU REACT TO THE JUDGEMENT, RATHER THAN THE JUDGEMENT ITSELF. SEE: SURROUNDING AND COUPLING CARDS.
NARRATIVE: THE HERMIT WAS A HIPPIE WHO ESCAPED A JAIL SENTENCE FOR COOKING LSD BY ACCEPTING AN OFFER BY THE MILITARY TO WORK ON A NEW DRUG. THE HERMIT PRODUCED A DRUG, THE LADDER, THAT INCITED INTENSE AGGRESSION, FEAR, PARANOIA. THE MILITARY USED THIS ON THEIR OWN TROOPS, INCLUDING JACOB, THE FOOL. THE HERMIT, WHO REMAINS ONLY HERE AND THERE, EVENTUALLY COMES TO LIGHT, CONFESSES. THE HERMIT TELLS YOU WHAT IS THERE, AND WHAT HE DID; NO NEED TO GET ANGRY. USE THE INFORMATION AND TREASON REASONABLY.
THE LOVERS: ATTRACTION, LOVE, BEAUTY, TRIALS OVERCOME.
NARRATIVE: LOVE AND ATTRACTION ARE TO BE HAD, BUT THEY ARE NOT ALWAYS RECIPROCATED. JACOB, THE FOOL, LEARNS THIS SLOWLY AND EVENTUALLY. TAKE LOVE FOR WHAT IT IS: A PERSONAL GIFT FIRST AND FOREMOST. APPRECIATE SUCH A CLUE.
NARRATIVE: THE HANGED MAN IS A REFLECTION OF AND FOR YOURSELF. IT IS YOUR OWN WISDOM TALKING BACK TO YOU, BY WAY OF YOUR EXTERIORIZATION OF YOUR OWN TRIALS. USE THIS AS A CALL TO THINK ABOUT THE SURROUNDING AND COUPLED CARDS.
*Brief descriptions borrowed from A.E White.
A Brief Outburst Concerning Theory
MONTY PYTHON PHILOSOPHY FOOTBALL
One of the central aspects of this course that I have found most redeeming (aside from the shift (in frame) from literacy to electracy, ethics to aesthetics, critical judgement to flash reason, commodity qua commodity to the appropriation of commodity/commercial logic for the service of well-being, etc.) has been on a return to the metaphysics and ontology that operate as recurring threads throughout the Western tradition of thought. While I have long been a proponent of the conjunctive "and," as opposed to the biunivocal either/or (Deleuze not only took Kant from behind, but me as well), I have found the creative and useful conjunction of many of the great thinkers as being-towards a common and recurring goal, idea, concept rather refreshing.
This is How the World Began: Not With a Whimper, But With a Game.
Bernard Stiegler. Originary technicity: "The history of technicity is the history of being" (TT2). Can be used for constructive, creative play; or it can be used for destructive, reactive violence. 2001 Space Odyssey.
Tarot cards. Ancient technique. A language of seeming and interpretation. Play. Opens up blind spots, much like Smithson's work. A different way; an aporia of language filled.
Tarot cards. Ancient technique. A language of seeming and interpretation. Play. Opens up blind spots, much like Smithson's work. A different way; an aporia of language filled.
Ubicomp/Ubimage. Electrate epoch. Flash reason. A shift to the aesthetic tendency. The avatar function.
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