GIST

          Although I have never been especially adept at physics, I found myself very intrigued by Liz’s lecture on metaphysics in class last week. The article and subsequent lecture got me thinking about the possibilities and limitations of quantum mechanics, and who else should be concerned with the topic.

We are asking each panel member, of each panel of 9,
to prepare a 3-minute mini-presentation ahead of time,
in which you will introduce yourself,
tell us what group you are representing,
why this group is of interest to GIST,
and how the intersections embedded in GIST have affected your group.

We are asking all 19 audience members to review the list of panelists ahead of time, to come ready w/ some more directed questions to explore more deeply the significance of the groups and their inter-actions, intra-actions and experiences with GIST.

 In discussing her view of quantum entanglement, Barad reviews Einstein and Bohr’s understandings of objectivity. Einstein argued that there must be separability between the observer and the observed in order for there to be objectivity. Bohr, on the other hand, argues that the observer and the observed can be entangled because what matters for objectivity is that the object being measured leaves “unambiguous” and “reproducible” marks for the observer. Barad draws from Bohr’s understanding of objectivity and concludes that the human observer is not separate from the phenomenon he/she observes, but entangled with the object of observation. The human “seeks to understand the emergence of the ‘human’ along with all other physical systems”.

So, I said a plug for my project in class on Wednesday, but I'm posting it here so y'all can get more info. I am writing a short drama piece/ play for my second webpaper. The play will also function as a skit for the panels. If anyone is interested in developing the characters and/ or skit with me, it can count as a group webpaper. If you are interested in performing one of the characters, then that is cool as well (it just won't count as part of your webpaper).  The play outline is listed below.

"A GIST DISASTER"

CHARACTERS

I found our class today with Tian fascinating because it connected to several other ideas. The John Cage piece, Tian sampled for us, 4’ 3”, reminded me  of our earlier class when we listened to a noise band and questioned the definition of information. Now, however, I question the definition of music. I love the idea that even silence has a sound (or that there is no such thing as silence…). If this is true, then silence can create music just as noise does. This train of thought reminded me of an article I read a few months ago on Sean Forbes (http://deafandloud.com/biography.html), a deaf rapper.

A topic that came up in today's class with Tian that really interested me is the difference between noise and music.  At the beginning of class, when he performed by standing in silence to show us that in Cage's (I think that was the composer's name?) view, all noise can create music.  This idea was further explored when we sang the raindrop song, a kind of song that can never be repeated exactly as it was sung before.  Both of these examples brought me back to a book from my Politics of Music class. 

 March 21, 2011

GIST Notes 

Panel feedback, what worked, what didn’t:

more interactive

more dialogue

more time

For Monday:

Come to class ready to speak about collective practices we have not explored together

Speaking for a group as though you are studying this group i.e. an anthropologist or sociologists

How does this group engage with science

Possible groups include: post op transsexuals, doctors without boarders, car makers, scientists studying climate change, emergency responders, first group of hominids to use tools, midwives, etc.

In an effort to do this before I forget...

For the next panel, the group I want to study is.... LIBRARIANS! Do you all think this works? I'm not sure in exactly which way I should be looking at this, because it is very flexible. The degree for someone wanting to go into the library field is called the MLIS: Master in Library and Information Science, but you can also get an MSLIS: Master of Science in Library and Information Science. Whoa. So that should be both science and information right there, right? But not only that, it's the science of information.

But from there, I could also look at librarians and gender. I'm thinking along the lines of....

This video thoroughly freaked me out when I found it about a year ago. I thought I would share it now, since it seems applicable to Barad and what we're talking about in class.

Gotta love the mindfuck.