Audio Take 2

Screencast of “Watch the Bubble” plays

Voice narration plays:

So this is my memoir. It's going to be pitched as a history of computers and writing. Let me get started by grabbing some sound. I’ll just call up some music here. Like any history, this will be partial. It covers certain times, certain perspectives, but it's good to lay these out. Let me adjust this a little bit. So I'll zoom backwards, but so that the details don’t get too focused, become too blurry, I'll pepper in some claims and questions as we go along. I'm playing with this image right here, just messing with what I want to say with these random flows of material. Words. Layers. Shapes that launch us into memory.

 When I was about six I went to the Twelve Gates Free School and this was in 1968, 1969, hippie school, and the only rule was that the teachers couldn't tell you what to do. We wandered around downtown Albuquerque. Hiding by the hospital receiving ramp. Asking the Coke truck driver for samples. Learning to be rhetorical. Exploring. But I soon had to go to public school and this was in first grade, public school, and the first thing I did was say shit or some other powerful word and had my mouth washed out with soap.

My computers and writing memories start with 1993.  Ah. [indecipherable] a question. This is pre-Web. What moved us as [indecipherable] pre-Web. For me that moment can be captured in two pieces. One is in an acronym, DIWE (Daedalus Integrate Writing Environment), and really the focus there is
LAN-based computer-assisted pedagogy. And more important, DIWE represents one characteristic that sets computers and writing apart. It was built from the bottom up by graduate students and faculty [indecipherable], driven by new faces formed in the bubble of what’s happening in the now.

So I'll toss out an observation: computers and writing is comfortable being led by new faces. And a question:  Who are the new faces and what can they tell us?

So this is a piece from 1994. It takes up the perennial question of Mac versus PC but it’s really grappling with the electromechanization of text. Here we see some people thinking about the movements of texts.

And also at that time HyperCard and and hypertext projects were a big thing.

A real baton passing as these standalone projects are taken up in a Web piece, which leads to an affirmation. Computers and writing is comfortable with "tweak first, theorize later."

So, if we jump forward to 1998 we can see the thoughts on the HyperCard era congealing: notions like the cognitive dimensions of non-linear texts. Quick Monday morning quarterback question: What do we make now of these hypertext/mind comparisons? But what we also see in this piece the strong urge to make the Web porous, to make it writable, which brings us to another key element of computers and writing, its DIY focus. Computers and Writing takes both of its field currents to heart. Practitioners are interested in not only using but also building the writing tools.

So my introduction to formalized education was rough. But I also had some great teachers. In second grade, on another first day in another class, Mrs. Buchanon told me "stick to your guns" when you think you're right. She taught me the poetry in recognition. 

In Computers and Writing history this piece is 2003, and this is multimedia taking deep root. This piece, this moment might best be seen as a response to programs like iMovie and the lowering of technical hurdles. This is the prosumer push felt full throttle.

My best class hands down was auto shop in high school. My German shop teacher, Erwin Schlaack, taught me to recognize the poetry in mechanical things. Lots of hands on work. Lots of concepts mixed with fixing. So these educational episodes (from soapy mouths to mechanical life lessons) lead me to another question: What is the teaching philosophy of Computers and Writing?

And as we work on our philosophy, we can enact some of the theories we have. 

Computers and Writing has been a place of experimentation.  It has been a lab space within the humanities, which is fantastic. The idea that with computers you can try something out. Who knows what will happen? It’s okay not to know how to do something. It’s okay to make mistakes.

These are some projects from the latest [indecipherable.]

My life memories merge with my recollections of the field at times. I think of John. [indecipherable] I need to find something long to say here with this student composing. They’re going to make a podcast. They are going to make a playlist.

My life memories merge with my recollections of the field at times. I think of John, who taught me the joys of technical work and the poetry of people. We are the lab discipline of the core humanities. The place where art, music, film, and word can be freely toyed with, where found tools are poked and bent, reworked, refined, or tossed away. Where new tools are created in response to the material world. Let be be finale of seem. Let the value of  OurField must be composing.

I used to think that the prosumer agenda was important for students, which it is, but what Computers and Writing says is that the prosumer is really meant for teachers. I realize that. You don't create the prosumer, you prosume. You don’t create the prosumer. You don't study Computers and Writing, you perform it. So that’s the last question. What performance is for me, an act that brings forward philosophies like "don't watch your mouth." Watch the bubble. That’s it. Just keep watching. And I'll type out loud for a while.

[Video plays out.]