Just a quick note to thank everyone for a great year and wish you all the best on your upcoming exams.
Please remember to come pick up your final assignments and marks next Friday starting at 9:00am. If you haven’t already voted for the film we’ll watch, you can still do so here.
I also wanted to share this story with you because I think it shows how powerful small acts of kindness can be.
- Anne
When it comes to electronics, how “green” are your consumption habits?
Friday’s discussion questions:
According to Sterne’s article, what relations and practices contribute to a sense of new technologies being “disposable”? According to Sparks’ article, how can the “salvaging and repurposing” of old technologies be seen as “creative acts” that challenge the ethic of obsolescence and disposability?
Note: This is the last day that students can submit reading summaries for extra credit marks.
- Anne
Mar 21 - No Class - Good Friday
Mar 28 - Lecture & Discussion
The lecture will cover a variety of issues around new media & electronic waste, and your discussion will address the chapters by Sterne and Parks in Residual Media (pp.16-47)
Apr 4 - Class starts at 09:00 - Vote for the film here
- Anne
Friday April 4th is our last class. Please come pick up your final assignments and we hope you’ll stay for the entertainment and snacks!
At 9:00am we’ll be showing the film that gets the most votes:
American Beauty (1999) Everyday life & the death of the American Dream
The Weather Underground (2002) Documentary on 60s/70s radical activists
Gattaca (1997) Power & resistance in a biotech future
Vote here! The poll closes at midnight on April 3rd.
- Anne & Melissa
This week’s lecture will discuss collecting practices as ways of (re)ordering the world, and the assigned readings encourage us to critically question the cultural viability and utility of “dead” technologies like letter-writing and vinyl records.
Here are a couple of videos to get you thinking about these things:
Ryerson University News: Vinyl collectors
Lakshmi Pratury: The lost art of letter-writing
- Anne
PS - Assignment # 5 is due Friday in class
