Re: thoughts on artifacts and appropriations

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Sat, 25 Jul 1998 12:14:46 -0700

Jay - your thoughts on possession as both being possessed and appropriating,
this helps tremendously in nudging thoughts

about identity; as a way of "laying claim to" some"thing (appropriating , I
can see how this might be conceptualized as scaffolding, although I'd
likely think it's more fluid, chaotic)

and being possessed by some"thing", projecting oneself through
something to the extent that the...dialectic?...reverses, negatively
(hey cool I managed to slip in a Horkheimer/Adorno reference!)

...these kinds of relations go a long way towards
understanding the processes of learning with tools, or learning with
technologies such as computers,
video, photography, in terms of what is invested,

appropriating the powers of representation,
and being possessed by the seduction of "owning" what's "out there" -
I watched an ethnographer speak about her camera,

and she stroked her arm so gently where the small Sonycam rests when she's
trying to 'shoot' discretely,

it was as though her wish was for the camera to disappear just under the skin,

cyborg desire, ha ha,

but more interestingly, I think, is the implication of what ownership
provides in the production of identity, - it is a form of
self-preservation
through self-projection, but certainly the tool is being signed,
or appropriated as a sign, a marker of some sort. huh.

so many other really really interesting notions have been
spun out in the past couple of days, ... much to ponder here.

ya gotta love this distributed thinking thing eh? ha ha
diane

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction,
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada

snailmail: 3519 Hull Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8