Best Prac­tices in Ba­nana Time (aka, Is That iPhone Work­ing or Play­ing?)

Symposium:


Session Title:

  • Virtual Doppelgangers: Embodiment, Morphogenesis, and Transversal Action

Presentation Title:

  • Best Prac­tices in Ba­nana Time (aka, Is That iPhone Work­ing or Play­ing?)

Presenter(s):



Venue(s):



Abstract:

  • Panel: Virtual Doppelgangers: Embodiment, Morphogenesis, and Transversal Action

    Since the Vic­to­rian era, hob­bies have served as a form of leisure that offer both plea­sure and sub­ver­sively re­in­force spe­cific be­hav­iors, value sys­tems, and ide­olo­gies of the dom­i­nant cul­ture. Ac­tiv­i­ties such as col­lect­ing, gar­den­ing, or model build­ing uti­lize many of the same tools and tech­niques found in the work­place. An anal­o­gous re­la­tion­ship be­tween leisure and labor be­gins to emerge–work under the guise of play. If we fast-for­ward into the dig­i­tal age, the tools and tech­niques of the past are now vir­tu­al­ized. The no­tion of col­lect­ing hap­pens in Flickr and Face­book, gar­den­ing in Far­mville, and model build­ing in vir­tual en­vi­ron­ments such as Sec­ond Life. And sim­i­lar to our Vic­to­rian hand­i­crafts and 1950’s soap­box derby, the ide­o­log­i­cal and eco­nomic are in­ter­twined. Yet, what was once an anal­o­gous re­la­tion­ship be­tween our labor and leisure is now di­alec­ti­cal. In the world of so­cial media there are no bound­aries. Through a brief sur­vey of a few key so­cial media ap­pli­ca­tions and pro­jects cre­ated in vir­tual en­vi­ron­ments that tra­verse both busi­ness and en­ter­tain­ment, this di­alec­ti­cal re­la­tion­ship will be put on the round table. How af­fect is pro­duced through these em­bod­ied in­ter­ac­tions and the role of strate­gic in­ter­rup­tions in lo­cat­ing sites of agency will be on the agenda. It will be fun.


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