Re-pin and MOOC forum
What are the implications of re-pinning and switching between the MOOC forum and other platforms, such as Pinterest, but also all the other ones that have been used to build artefacts?
In the IDEL module, we were introduced via Sian Bayne’s article to the idea of smooth and striated places (referring to Deleuze and Guatarri)
It struck me that the MOOC activity of ‘grasshopping’ * between the various platforms (i.e. forum to Pinboard, to other blogs, to websites etc…), each digital territory folding into the other one, reminding me of
… a local integration moving from part to part and constituting smooth space in an
infinite succession of linkages and changes in direction. It is an absolute that is
one with becoming itself, with process. It is the absolute of passage’ (Deleuze &
Guattari, 1988, p. 494). (quoted in Sian’s article)
The striated spaces, are however, also inherently part of this experience, with Pinboard constraining activity within a structured, engineered interface, that although giving the user some control, is very manufactured. However, the option to link to any images allows the user to de-territorialise, to make engaging collages and juxtapositions and extending the narrative and the audience.
In addition, this visual pinning is supported by personal commentary.
Sian mentions ‘Electracy’ (after Greg Ulmer) which is a new type of literacy, that takes the symbolic representation of knowledge into account. Where the Coursera forum is based on traditional writing, a platform such as Pinterest allows for this new means of expressiveness.
‘if literacy focused on universally valid methodologies of knowledge, electracy focuses on the individual state of mind within which knowing takes place’ (quoting Ulmer, 2003).
The Pinterest Board is similar to Ulmer’s ‘mystory’:
‘The act of composing online to that of curating an exhibition, in which largely ‘readymade’ or pre-existing elements are arranged
together through an intellectual act which consists less in exposition or
argumentation than in the appropriate and meaningful use of linkage and collage.’
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/content/pdfs/1/2/6_bayne_elea_1_2_web.pdf
(some more digging for this is required)
[* a term borrowed from one of the the pinboard comments]
Thank you for this. We really needed this kind of analysis for the different tools offered. I have not really used Pinterest and often wondered the underlying philosophy for the board. You have explained well the striated spaces and the de-territorialising process involved.