Confused by abundance

Confused by abundance

It's getting a bit too much and at the same time too little with scientific literature. Once upon a time, we used to have just a small number of scientific journals in my area, a couple of conferences every year and a few books that established approaches. Nowadays there's an inflation of journals, conferences and even books that amount to little. Going through the latest batch of journal papers is often depressing: tiny steps taken with sound methods. Even worse are the wider effects of computerization: having all publications digitally available and websites on one's research is not enough. One also needs to have blogs, vlogs, YouTube channels, tweets, facebook and LinkedIn activity, followers and likes. Educational technologists keep reminding us how important all those things are for our careers and students (not to mention their own).
Are they really? Should I invest so much time in temporary, forgettable stuff? Should I repeat in one outlet what I've done in the others, merely in order to increase exposure? Am I a researcher or a PR person? Even if I could justify the time, I'm not convinced by the hyperactivity in this kind of dissemination and advertising. We are just wasting valuable resources by pretending that what we have to say deserves so much space. Even worse is that it becomes quite hard to find worthwhile information in the resulting mess. If only people tried to consolidate what they have to say in a definitive publication …

Modernity

Modernity

I was watching Hitchcock's North by northwest the other day, thoroughly enjoying the film, as well as the images of modernist architecture that abound in it. Twenty years after the film was released, the same morphology was still the most modern idiom, they one we were taught to respect and reproduce. That got me thinking and comparing the architecture with other designed things in the film. Some seemed rather out of sync. Men's suits in the period when the film was made were spartan and austere enough to match modernist architecture and furniture, significantly simplified from prewar men's fashions (ironically the stuff Loos appreciated). Women's clothes were closer to their overcomplicated prewar precedents, not yet attuned to the practicalities of the washing machine and the dry cleaner. Still, those early postwar women's fashions were considered pretty revolutionary at the time. Twenty years later both men and women dressed in even simpler manners, having abandoned hats and adopted denim (which seems equivalent to respectively avoiding pitched roofs and using béton brut in architecture). Modernism was still dominant, although there was widespread disappointment with its effects. Postmodernism was about to emerge, promoting eclectic, decorative forms, from which we have yet to recover. Things keep changing in ways that seem unpredictable, rendering our vision of modernity outdated almost as soon as they are expressed. Perhaps it's a good thing that we don't were the clothes or have the technologies one sees in science fiction imagery from the 1950s and 1960s. That stuff seems quite comical today. As for modernism, its redeeming feature (which is not unique to modernism) is simplification and the resulting attention for fundamental aspects of form and construction. Although it has not become the basis for all morphology, ait underlies a fair share of the things we make and use today, thankfully often without the dogmatic proscriptiveness of modernism.

Standards, protocols, technologies and purpose

Standards, protocols, technologies and purpose

Once again I've been busy with literature review on BIM and related matters, once again I found myself swimming in an ocean of technicalities, most of which seem to be supporting each other's existence: protocols, guidelines, standards - all presented as obvious solutions to fundamental problems, as key enablers of change. Sometimes what they say hits the nail on the head, e.g. when they suggest that BIM adoption is not enough, that it's all down to more extensive and intensive collaboration through BIM. More often, however, it's all about how to use some arbitrary facilities: how to be a correct user of some technologies (orthopraxy), how to conform to some standards.
That's not enough: there has to be some real purpose, something that justifies the time and effort put into mastering and utilizing all these facilities. I know that this runs contrary to current sociotechnological tendencies, that the reward is often just the ability to participate, but I still need some sense of purpose: why am I modelling a wall like this; what will be the outcome; which benefits are we expecting from collaboration and conformity. Without adequate answers, I fear I'm just jumping on a bandwagon that leads me nowhere. Even with a good seat and good company, I have better things to do elsewhere.

Cars in films

Cars in films

It's quite telling how American urban life in the 1950s and 1960s is depicted in films. It must have been a fascinating period for the physical environment, with so much becoming mature and widely available. Recent films seem to celebrate this and depict it in a fond manner. Cars, in particular, have rather gentle presence, being there and serving people well, in contrast to films on more recent times, where motorized traffic can be overwhelming - and not just in bigger cities. It seems that the past we want to remember can be quite different from what was experienced back then, just because the present is worse. Reversely, back then people may have exaggerated the ills of cars because they thought the past was better, more peaceful and tranquil. At least, there are enough films from the period that do not present cars in a positive manner, while horses and horse-drawn vehicles receive more sympathetic treatment. The past is always sanitized.

Citizens

Citizens 

I've been listening to a learned podcast about the future of the world and humanity: politicians, scientists and others seem to agree not just on the challenges that face us but also on the way forward. Either mildly pessimistic or moderately optimistic, they tend to focus on the citizen. Their argument is that if the citizen is aware of the problems and the effects of their choices, then improvement should be expected - even salvation.
I'm filled with doubts. Even if we managed to agree on a common approach, are we powerful enough as citizens? We're far from equal in any society. The one is a fearful employee and the other a powerful employer. Each has their own impact and between the individual citizen and the abstract group of society there are intervening layers composed of interests and hence related to power. How can we ignore them and believe that citizens as voters, consumers, taxpayers and the like can achieve enough just by their choices? Our choices are shaped by the intervening layers, either on purpose or by accident. It's the reciprocal relations between the individuals and these layers (which include ideologies, lifestyles, ethnicities etc.) that I'd focus rather than passing buck directly to citizens.