Transduction Literacies
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Follow Along?
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Today
The Programmability of Tactile Media
What Is Transduction Literacy? (with an example)
Implications for Research and Writing Studies
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But Wait...
Third Space = Maker Lab in the Humanities
Research Labs Are Not Usually Associated with Writing
But the Maker Lab Is in Many Ways Built on Writing
Image of the Maker Lab care of Arthur Hain
The Lab is supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation + the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
To What Effects?
MAKE Brand Hobbyism (see Hertz)
"Withdrawn" Objects (see Bridle)
Seeing Like a Machine (see Bridle again)
Glitch Fetish (see Nakamura)
YOU MUST CODE
Image of a microcontroller care of Arthur Hain
With What Responses?
Glitches Are Actually Features (see Menkman)
Media Are Executable Culture (see Galloway)
Code Is Neither Cure Nor Source (see Chun)
There's Resistance in the Materials (see Nowviskie)
Image of videogame glitch care of Jon Olaf Johnson
Transduction Literacy
Knowledge of How This Material Becomes That One (see Fuller)
Mediation over Media | Change instead of Still (see Vitanza and Kuhn)
Resonates with Procedural Literacy (see Vee and Rieder)
Tacit Knowledge + Trial and Error
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and, both, at once
Analog and Digital
Print and Electronic
Bodies and Data
Legible and Opaque
Individuation and Network
Remembering and Forgetting
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An Example
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Article Overview
An Inquiry into Platforms via an Evocative Object
Supported by Media + Labor + Feminist Studies Research
Claim: The Production of Game Consoles Largely Ignored
Written in HTML, JPG, MP4, Circuits, and Hardware
Image of circuit board care of Nina Belojevic
Instances of Transduction
How Platform Attention Becomes Screen Attention
How Embodied Labor There Becomes Play Here
How Parts Become Commodity Becomes Waste
How Material Becomes Immaterial Becomes Material
--- Playable Glitch Foregrounds Unperceived Change ---
Image of circuit board care of Nina Belojevic
"Following Cynthia Selfe (2010), I would argue that it is crucial that we commit to expanding our disciplinary commitment to the theorizing, researching, and improvement of written discourse to include other representational systems and ways of making meaning." Shipka 2011
Expanding Writing
Technical Writing Is Not Just Documentation
Critical Writing Is Not Just Reflection
Creative Writing Is Not Just Individual Expression
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Other Definitions
Technical Writing Is Historical Inquiry
Critical Writing Is Actionable Practice
Creative Writing Is Platform Design
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Some Implications
Writing between Bits and Atoms
From Process Reflection to Executable Culture
From Read-and-Repeat Model to Evocation
Point Digital Humanities to Writing Studies
Example Projects @UVic: DHum 350, English 507,
+ Kits for Cultural History
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Say to Students:
"What You Already Know
Is Enough"
Thank You
Special thanks to Bonnie Lenore Kyburz, Laurie Gries,
Brian Harmon, and Byron Hawk
Image care of Shaun Macpherson and some computer vision