Expressions

This is the trailer for the film Visitors (from the folks behind Koyaanisqatsi).

I appreciate photography and videography of human emotion, particularly the many wonderful expressions and iterations of joy and happiness and ecstasy. Sadness and anger and outrage may be compelling, too.

But I have relished frowns for as long as I can remember. The frown is rich with potential—a frown needn’t be disapproving, austere, or frightful. Indeed, frowns are perhaps, above all, thoughtful.

The frowns in this trailer are all the more fascinating because they lack any context. All we have are rhetorics of display that work in multiple directions simultaneously—as viewers, we try to understand the meanings behind bunched eyebrows and tilted heads, but those we view seem to be starting at us (or something), working out the the same kinds of calculuses.

Idle Speculation

A few months ago, I think my mom must have googled me and spent some time going through my blog and website. She was reading up on my research and such, and then she sent along a couple of lengthy emails asking all sorts of questions about the future of communication technologies—questions I’m not qualified to answer, necessarily.

I told her I’d try and answer some of her questions, even though my responses would amount to little more than idle speculation. Then I thought it might be neat to simply publish her questions and my answers on the blog, and she was thrilled by the idea. So here goes…

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Subject: “What do you think?”

Hi Son,

Hope that you and your family are doing well and all back at school with all the scheduling that involves. Enjoy your web/blog site and check frequently to see all the wonderful things you are doing. You know that I am so proud of you and all the hard work you have done has certainly paid off. I have a few theoretical questions for you…

Considering the almost universal usage of cell phone technology to tweet, “like” instantly send msg, pix and ideas as we have seen in the countries that have overthrown dictators, would you say that this will be the methodology for future history making/changing events? Do you think that the centuries old idea of “war” as we know it will change?

So, my mom starts off with a huge question, one that I feel woefully unprepared to answer. This is the kind of question that Clay Shirky routinely answers, and I’d consult some of his stuff for viable insights.

But just thinking through the question, I wouldn’t say that mobile technologies necessarily will be central to future “history-making/changing events.” Certainly, it seems inevitable from our current perspective, but who could have predicted 5 years ago the role that something like Twitter would play on a global scale?

So while all signs point to SMS and our current iterations of mobile communications playing a significant role in the coordination of human activity, there’s no telling what might be available to us in 5 or 10 years.

As for the notion of “war,” well, yes. I think our understanding of this construct is always in flux. Look at the role of drones in contemporary warfare, for example…

Now we have the ability to take a blood test from a sick child in Congo and send samples to laboratories in the USA or any where else. The samples are tested, the results emailed/tweeted back, best practice treatment is administered and the child is well. What do you see as the future of medical technology to help alleviate suffering utilizing this means of communication?

Again, I’m so unqualified to address this question that I hesitate to respond. One of my graduate school colleagues, Lucia Dura, is doing interesting and important work in areas like this, and one of my Ball State colleagues, Kerry Anne McGeary, is leading our new Global Health Institute in an effort to explore similar problems.

I also know that this question is related to the previous question in that SMS is increasingly used to facilitate health care decision-making in places where computing technologies are scarce, but mobile technologies are ubiquitous.

As for the political arena, now that everyone has access to modifying, altering and sending images, how will that effect the truth of what we see and believe?

There’s nothing new under the sun as far as this goes. Just differences of scale…

What do you think is the solution to cyber bullying and those who hide behind their keyboard/ texting to decimate the life of others?

This is an area where I haven’t done much thinking, but I know that folks like danah boyd are actively researching in this area, and the work that she and her colleagues are doing is helping to shape public policy…

Subject: “One more…”

Do you think that since tweeting has created a sort of new language to fit in 140 letters/symbols we will eventually evolve to a phonetic only language?

thx 4 yr insite, luv u, ma

Here’s one I can answer! I needn’t just provide my thoughts, since we know that the constraints of SMS—and by extension, Twitter—have resulted in many neologisms that have been adopted in more traditional communication genres.

The word “tweet” itself is a prime example. It’s now a verb that basically means “to broadcast a short, public message using the microblogging service Twitter.”

As for a “phonetic only language,” well, our language is already phonetic, but I think I see where she was going with that question… I think she was asking if written forms of our language will contract in some way, in order to better meet the constraints of SMS.

I’d say the answer is probably yes and no. In the short term, neologisms for shortening written forms of language will prosper. But again, we don’t know what our communications media will look like in 5 years. Even now, for example, Apple’s iMessages is pushing back against the constraints of SMS, affording text expansion within a given mobile message.

Who know’s what we’ll see in 5 years? A renaissance of epistolary communication is not out of the realm of possibility!

Subject: “Re: One more…”

Just thinking of the possibilities with these new methods of communications – visitors from another planet describing earthlings “2 feet, 2 legs, a torso topped by a head and 1 arm and an angular appendage on the other side of the torso that connects to the ear on the head. “ (cell phone user) Or –” 2 feet, 2 legs, torso, 2 arms, 1 head and talks to the air” (blue tooth user)

Medical issues – already seeing “text thumbitis” –(Will the thumb evolve to twice its present size and the other fingers shrink?), greater number of young people with major hearing issues (ear bud use with volume too high), neck cervical issues (always bent over keyboard of cell phone checking or sending text msg), major increase in stress levels and blood pressure due to the 24/7 involvement in constant communication, major increase in eye problems due to small print on text msg and/or computer social network connections, or the really tragic one “accident involving multiple cars due to driver texting while behind the wheel.” New law in CA has already been placed into effect – “no texting while driving – fine at least $350.00.”

Psychological changes – future generations unable to form deep friendships or other personal relationships. Every individual continually on blue tooth or texting while attempting to have conversations with companion, neighbor, friend, spouse etc, greater population of patients with major insecurities/depression and feeling disconnected from life due to loss of cell phone, spending time in “dead zones” etc.

Two really interesting popular audience articles come to mind when reading about changes to personal relationships. This first is Clive Thompson’s excellent, almost magisterial piece on “ambient awareness”.

The second is more recent, and explores the “Joy of Quiet”.

Both articles make compelling arguments, and both are substantially “right.” It’s not either/or, but both/and.

Future of communication? – cell phone type implants in the brain (sort of like a cochlear implant now in use for the deaf) so no actual cell phone or accessory needed? Also no battery needed as communication device powered by neuron synapses of the brain. The possibilities for future communication methods and effects on many areas of our lives are mindboggling ! Fun to speculate.

Definitely fun to speculate! Thanks for your contribution to the blog, mom, and thanks for making me think!

"Connected Knowing"

I'm currently reading Stake (2010), Qualitative Research: Studying How Things Work, and have so far found it to be eminently readable and insightful (I've read 4 chapters, not in order).

Part of what attracted me to the book was the simplicity of the subtitle, actually. It's kind of how I view my job: I study how people work.

Stake cites Candib (1995), Medicine and the Family: A Feminist Perspective, and I think the concept he invokes—Candib's "connected knowing"—is noteworthy. He says that

connected knowing is the embodiment of empathy, using personal experiences and relationships to inquire how others see how things work. It relies on a studied perception of situations in context, thus working toward credibility and esteem (p. 47).

I don't think this is the same as saying one is a participant researcher, in the sense of Malinowski, for example. Since it is empathic, connected knowing is a construct that relies on keen observation and perception—on embodied observation and perception, I might argue.

Part of the reason that this construct resonates with me has to do with one of my ongoing studies, an investigation of embodied interaction in religious practice. That inquiry is guided by the desire to better understand how people know the ineffable, how their embodied practices enable their knowing.

As a researcher, a kind of connected knowing—an embodied observation and perception—is a method I deploy for understanding participant practice.

I just didn't know what it was called.

Eulogy

[ NB: Though this is my research blog, I sometimes write posts that are more personal in nature. This is one of those times. ]

In early 2008, my Dad died.

He was a tough, tough man; a smart man, and a man of few words that were often heavy with meaning.

I watched him die. Held him as he breathed his last breath. This was a hard thing. Seeing a man tough as nails reduced to bones by cancer.

My Dad and I weren't close, but we weren't distant.

I think about the last 10 days of his life a lot. I think about seeing him die. You can't forget something like that.

I don't want to.

My brother and I eulogized my Dad at his memorial service. I'm reproducing my part of the eulogy here because when I think of my Dad, I think of what ran through my head during the final days and hours of his life, and immediately afterward.

Small things.

Small things make a life, and small things comprise love and interpersonal relationships and family.

Small things matter.

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I’ve had time to think, these last few days of my father’s life, about my most meaningful memories of our relationship. The first thing that comes to mind is that I wish I had the opportunity to hear how he would approach the same question, his perspective on the most meaningful memories of our relationship as father and son. So, before I talk a little about what repeatedly occurred to me as we spent our final hours together, I think it’s worth speculating that we might find some important solace in approaching those we love, while we still have ample opportunity, and pose the same question of each other.

As I sat next to my dad the last few days, it was profoundly interesting to consider the memories that were most vivid. It seems that the most important events for me, as I thought about him while he prepared to face death, were not such important events in the grand scheme of things. At least not on the surface, anyway.

Right now, the most vivid and recurrent memory, where just my dad and I were spending time together, won’t seem like much of an event at all. When I was around ten or so, I had some kind of day trip, maybe with school or some other group, at Mt. Diablo, forty minutes or so from our home in Dublin, CA. I can’t even remember why I was there, or in what context. I don’t even remember who took me up the mountain that day, just that my dad picked me up in his red, two-tone Ford F-150 around dusk.

Darkness fell as we drove the winding road down the mountain, my dad and I not saying much to each other, but happy in each other’s company. More important than whatever I had done that day—climbing rocks, hiking, etc.—was my hunger for dinner, and my dad’s suggestion that we find a Foster’s Freeze instead of waiting until we got home. I won’t say that Foster’s was my favorite restaurant, but I loved the prospect of having a chocolate dipped soft-serve cone after dinner. As we neared the bottom of the mountain in the increasing darkness, my hunger and anticipation built as my dad took a few unfamiliar streets in search of a Foster’s Freeze.

I recall some frustration, some detours, but eventual, ultimate success: a booth with my dad, a hamburger and fries in an unfamiliar city after dark, and a cone of soft-serve vanilla ice-cream, dipped in crunchy chocolate.

We drove home together, full and happy, listening to whatever was on the radio, a Giants game perhaps, on KNBR 680.

Why should such a thing be so vivid a memory for me, at this stage, just before and after my dad’s death? It’s difficult to make clear meaning out of the complex and convoluted memories and nuances of consciousness that we all wade through in times of stress and struggle. Who can say, for example, what my dad was thinking about as he neared death…

For me, the trip to Foster’s Freeze stands out, I believe, because it’s such a pleasant and simple reflection of a time when it was just dad and me. It didn’t involve much money, or an extravagant trip, or a significant milestone, though those things are surely important. Instead, it was a simple moment in a complex and lifelong relationship, one of literally hundreds of thousands of similar moments that make up the incredible fabric of meaningful human relationships, relationships between parents and kids, husbands and wives, and lifelong friends.

My dad did lots of nice things for me, things that had much larger implications in the scheme of things; he bought me a car, for example, and drove a couch and other household items 600 miles in a U-haul to Oregon to help me settle in for college. But far more important to me: he did little things really well. Like teaching me to fish, helping me to break in my baseball glove, improving my vocabulary, and taking me for a burger and an ice-cream cone.

I know that my dad loved my brother and I, and I know that he was happy we were with him these last few days. More importantly, I know my dad loved Les. Sure, they took some fantastic trips together, and did some significant things as a couple in the last 20 years. But I will be perpetually thankful that my dad had Les to do those things, those hundreds of thousands of little, simple things for him and with him as my brother and I moved away and began to take our own kids out for ice-cream…

"What's Human Contact?"

I arrived home last week to find a small, white envelope, addressed to me by hand, with the return address of my brother-in-law. The writing didn't look like his, though; more likely it was from his wife. Now, it's not my birthday, and Father's day is still a few weeks off, so this was puzzling. I turned it over, only to see the following inscription:

"Snail Mail Rocks."

Very puzzling indeed. Inside was the following note:

Hmmm, so my California quasi-kin thinks that perhaps I would enjoy some insights on the "downfall of society." This must be good...

And there's the punchline. "What's human contact?" Naturally, I did what any sane and sensible, technologically and culturally aware person would: I chuckled, shook my head at the care and time V. took to send this note "the old-fashioned way," then digitized it, marked it up, created a blogpost, and shared a link via tweet.