Read Lisa on Transience and Permanence
Check out this blogpost by the ever-thought-provoking Lisa M Lane: http://lisahistory.net/wordpress/?p=496 and then consider this set of data on our exponentially increasing generation of information and the issues of storing it: http://diigo.com/0ar9r
Will we just stop storing stuff at some point?
Will a new Tao of information emerge - let the data flow past, focus on the now, the experience, rather than seeking to hold on to anything?
Is that what Twitter is preparing us for?
In which case, is the Library of Congress deciding to archive tweets a bit like storing punchcards - quirky and interesting but ultimately of interest only to antiquarians?
1 comment so far:
bonstewart says: stashing
i really like Lisa's piece for foregrounding the conflict at the root of wanting things "open" and wanting things permanent. somewhere in the idea of permanence and having it all there to come back to later is not just the saving everything that Lisa talks about - which is definitely part of a broader scarcity economy that information left behind a good generation ago - but also, i think, a belief at some level in an inherent metaphysic, an organizational superstructure that is external and omniscient. a "way it should be," if you will.
i think making the leap to moving in the flow - if that's what's desired in terms of progressive pedagogy - will definitely involve changing from content storage to content experience, but also content synthesis, choosing which pieces to pull from the flow and mash up to create new, constantly shifting structures. to adapt to those will require letting go of the idea that we can ever actually get our heads around it all.