Most of the world
today runs on ‘fixed-term contracts’ (Barbrook,
1995, p. 2). Long gone is the notion of staying in one job or company for an
entire career. When I began my career as a historian, Mulroney had decimated
the history staff at Parks Canada, and many of the community museums in Nova
Scotia were only seasonal. I knew early
on that I needed to diversify my skills and always be ‘on the lookout’ for the
next contract. There was no “guarantee of continued employment” (Barbrook,
1995, p. 2), there wasn’t even a guarantee of summer employment! All that aside, for the most part, Nova
Scotians have put their ‘big girl panites’ on and figured out how to live a
meaningful life. Like Europe, we
understand the need “for an enlightened mixed economy” (Barbrook, 1995,
p.8). There is no job that is deemed
‘too menial’, in fact many of the people behind the counter at Tim Horton’s
have degrees of higher learning, some of them multiple. The running joke in my family has long been
‘Dr. Grant to the centre cutting table’ because to return to Nova Scotia may
mean a return to working at Fabricville.
So
what’s a historian to do?
In
Robert Hassan’s article “The MIT Media Lab: techno dream factory or alienation
as a way of life” he asks “what are some of the possible social, cultural and
ontological consequences of ‘being digital’ within a hypermediated digital
ecology of interconnectedness” (Hassan, 2003, p. 89) ? Hassan tells us
that the MIT Media Lab looks at ‘Sociable Media’ and how people percieve each
other in a networked world, and the ‘Digital Life’ looks at connections between
‘bits, people and things in an online world’ (Hassan, 2003, p. 90) . As I have mentioned
in class before, part of my life is spent online interacting in online history
communities. This is not really all that different from most people’s lives. Everyone
has online communities that they frequent. What is a bit different for me, is
that the online world is also my work world. “[T]he ‘real-time’of the online
environment [has] become the ‘real-time’ of [my] everyday life” (Hassan, 2003, p. 90) . My peer-group has come to realize that we can
use technology to create a space for working, sharing research, and networking
with historians and museum sites all over the world. We have found a space that is between the
‘good and evil’ of technology, in that we all use it, begrudgeonly for some,
but that it can be a useful tool for us to develop the networks we need in
order to remain in the history field (Hassan, 2003, p. 91) . For many of us,
dabbling in webpage development was just too cumbersome a thing to maintain.
Facebook though, proved to be an easy interface to use. Add to this many
blogging forums that we could publish in and hotlink to facebook, a network could
be formed. In a similar fashion to
LaTour’s laboratory of a couple of weeks ago, we are able to read other’s
research findings, share and collaborate on new articles, and be in a creative
space together, even though we may physically be thousands of miles apart. A cocktail party in our network would have to
be done over skype, with each of us sitting in our own home offices, probably
over coffee instead of alcoholic drinks. “Media has become critical in popularizing
me as a person in the historical community” (Hassan, 2003, p. 92) .
So my
work life and personal life have become blurred into one. My online prescence is strictly developed to
provide ‘good press’ (cited in Hassan, 2003, p.93). I am constantly reading about the
eighteenth-century and its fashion, I am hoping to soon fully contribute to
that discussion instead of just the occasional comment. My own trips to the
past in the form of re-enactment are not only sales trips in that I am still
making clothing for interpreters, but also research and networking trips as I
learn of new pieces of extant clothing that I will want to study for the disertation.
In both instances, I have to be ‘on my game’.
Unfortunately though, despite my offering a ‘commercially viable
product’ (Hassan, 2003, p. 93) , I am not being paid
unless I have provided an article of clothing as part of the exchange. I am still being paid for what I do, not for
what I know, and that tends to relate to a lower dollar amount. Hassan tells us that “ICTs have flooded the
lives of many within the advanced economies, that it is increasingly possible
to speak of life being conducted within an information environment, an informational ecology” (cited in Hassan,
2003, p.95). How to earn a living from this ‘interconnectiveness’ will be the
question on many historians lips before too much longer.
I
will admit that I am extremely privledged to be who I am in this world, an
historian who is not employed in the traditional sense, a graduate
student. If it were not for my husband’s
steady job, neither of these parts of my life would happen. I would be that struggling, retail sales
associate at Fabricville, cutting your fabric, asking you what you are making,
and if you need thread (questions we all have to ask, not that we are
interested). I would not be sitting here
at the computer thinking philosophical thoughts about ‘interconnectiveness’,
I’d be worried about paying rent and buying groceries. These two things are still in the back of my
mind though, because I have been that retail sales associate. And so this past week, along side my
philosophical ramblings, I have been carrying out a time honoured tradion of
processing the Fall harvest for consumption during the winter months. Alongside my friends in other parts of New
England and the Maritimes, I have been making pickled veg, filling my freezer
with other freezable vegetables and meats.
If you live in an area where there are farms and farmers, food tends to
be cheaper right now than any other time of the year. Also, since I have just received my term
disbursement cheque, I have money. Money
that was almost entirely spent on food for the winter months. Other friends of mine are processing their
flock of chickens and turkeys, others still have gardens full that need to be
‘put up’ for the winter. Next summer, I
too will have a garden full of things that we can eat. This summer was a write-off, as we did not
move here until mid August, instead of the first of June as we had originally
intended. I have other friends who are
now finishing up their summer employment and are getting geared up to begin
Winter projects for themselves, or to suplement their income producing items
for museums trying to use up budgetary money before the end of March.
By
now, you will have noticed that I haven’t cited the Brand reading. Having tried to obtain a copy of the book to read,
I learned that it is not available as an ebook (technology), nor, despite there
being several copies available, is it available for shipping until after
christmas, unless I sign up for a costly Amazon shipping package that I will
never use. In the meantime, I have been
reading about the MIT media lab through other sources. I have been thinking about technology and how
it was supposed to make our lives so much easier. One would think that by now, most books of
this sort would be available as ebooks.
My mum devours fiction now only as ebooks or audio books, which saves
our bookshelves for books on art and
topics that we are constantly researching.
And then I think about what would happen without technology (there was a
recent fiction novel about a post technology state and how re-enactors were
able to build a new society, it was the SCA, but the skills are similar). I still wouldn’t be able to read an ebook
entitled The Media Lab:Inventing the
Future at MIT. I have been thinking
about the community I have become a part of through the internet. How I would miss those friendships that I
have developed. Hassan informs us that
the time-space compression that technology provides was part of the
acceleration of modernity, centrally connected to capitalist development. He explains that tech has changed the lives
of many people in profound ways on a macro level (Hassan, 2003, p. 102) . But what of the micro level? My own life would change without technology,
certainly. I would have to think harder
about the micro of daily life. How
important a good cooking fire is; that hot water is a chore and a blessing when
it doesn’t come from the tap. But then I
think of the things that I know how to do, the knowledge that has been passed
down to me from my parents and grandparents, the knowledge shared amoungst my
peers. Daily life would be harder, but
livable.
Especially
if we up and moved again, to be closer to our friends, our post-apocalyptic bug
out team.
Works Cited
Hassan, R. (2003). The MIT Media
Lab: techno dream factory or alienation as a way of life. Media, Culture
and Society, 87-106.
Richard Barbrook, A. C. (1995). The
Californian Ideology. Mute, 1-8.
Works Not Cited
Brand, Stewart. The
Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT. New York: Viking Penguin, 1987.
Chapters 1, 6, 9, 13.
Post Script
Last week I wrote a
whole other probe about tech and how I live my life with tech, but still do a
lot of non-traditional, low tech things at this time of year. That my life is a balance of tech vs.
non-tech, leaning towards the non-tech.
I was missing the last readings, from the Brand book though, and even
commented on how my inability to find those readings ticked me off. This is why…
Thursday, before
class, I went in to the Library and found a hard copy of the book. Yes, I could have done this right from the
beginning, but I was told ‘just go on to google docs and look for the
readings’. Having done that, I really
could not find the readings. Further
searches informed me that there was ‘no electronic format’ of this book, but
that I could buy it from Amazon for the low-low price of one cent. I thought, ok, for one cent, that, even with
shipping costs wouldn’t blow my budget.
I could do this. I wanted a hard
copy, printed out anyway, so that I could make my comments in the margins and
highlight the hell out of it. You really
can’t do that with a library book, the librarians kinda frown on it. The problem was, with regular shipping, the
book wouldn’t get to me until February, unless I bought into Amazon’s expensive
‘free’ shipping program, Prime. I could
get six months free trial and then cancel without being charged. Well two of my friends have fallen for this
trick and have been charged, and have had a difficult time getting out of the
contract, so I was hesitant…and so, I went to the library.
The thing is though,
this book is about tech that was being developed 30 years ago. Think about that. Thirty years ago, I had no idea what the
internet was. No idea what email, or
list serves, or even really what a computer could do. Thirty years ago, I had just written my first
computer program, one that made a turtle slowly walk across a bar of music that
made the notes play as he passed over them.
This was four years before I would know about something called the intranet,
four years before my family would own ANY kind of modern tech. Hell, we had only just gotten a microwave!
As I have told you
before, I spend a good part of my day on the internet, on social media, on
J-stor, on youtube. A lot of my social
life is there, as my friends are far flung, not only in Nova Scotia, but in the
US, out west, in the UK, Germany. It
makes me feel a little less alone. I
think J-stor is one of the very best inventions ever, and I am so happy that I
will still have access to it, long after I leave Concordia.
Youtube has become my
television. I have separated this one
out because I think it’s as important as the fact that I couldn’t get the Brand
book in electronic format. Brand talks a
lot about tech in the book, tech that has been developed in my lifetime. Things that have caused me to have an easier
life. It started with the VCR, because
at about that same time, my migraines started to get really bad, and I began
noticing that I couldn’t watch movies in the theatre any longer without coming
away violently ill. We had a small
screen TV at home, and my dad would rent a VCR on the weekends and a bunch of
movies and we would have a great time, all curled up in my mum’s room until
long into the evening. We watched all
the classics, concluding each weekend with another great Cheech and Chong
movie. Yes, my parents were/are weird,
and I love them for it. We had a great
video store at home, whose staff were into some ‘other than normal Hollywood’
stuff. I became a great fan of stuff
produced in the UK and Europe. The plots
were often better developed, and the scenography ‘quieter’ on the eyes. Now, I watch a lot of those films on Youtube. The problem with Youtube isn’t the interface
really. That is really easy to use, and
the search engine’s great, and the fact that it’s algorithm remembers me is
really not creepy to me, and has been helpful in finding things for me to watch
that I wouldn’t know to search for, like Timeteam. The problem is that I have to wait for other
people to upload the programs I would like to watch to Youtube. I, living in Canada, do not have access to
the programming of the BBC. It is
‘blacked out’ here. We have BBC Canada,
but often it is just a rehashing of programs produced here in Canada, like
Holmes’ and Baumler’s renovation programs.
Not the BBC at all.
is a UK based show where a team of archaeologists have two days to go
into a site and do an archaeological survey.
The stuff they find is fascinating.
If the site is rich, then there may be follow-up digs on the site at a
later date. All the seasons are there,
on youtube for us to watch. I have
gotten many of my friends hooked on the series.
Youtube is also where I ‘met’ Ruth Goodman, and her team of living
historians doing a job that I could only dream about, actually living history
for a period of time, in a historical place.
Living history allows me to have a better understanding of how
historical clothing works. In some of
the historic sites that I have worked, we have been able to do experiments on
clothing, noting wear patterns, how clothing is changed by the wearing, and how
the body is changed by the clothing worn.
It then helps me to understand what I am looking at when examining an
extant garment. I can understand if it
has been altered, and often when, and for what purpose. I have also come to the understanding that a
lot of the myths being spread about clothing in our grandparent’s time and
before are truly that, myths.
But let me get back to
Youtube, and technology…
The UK is big into
Living History. I capitalize it on
purpose, to try and explain how big it is in the UK. Their museum system is almost entirely
federally funded. And they are swimming
in historic sites. It is so important
that the BBC has an entire channel devoted to historical stuff, and I’m not talking
about Ice Road Truckers or ‘Alien’ anything here, actual
HISTORY! And so these shows are being
produced, and people watch them, and they grow to like their own history. Here in Canada, we get stuff from the US,
which by and large is dramatically plotless, and uses far too much special
effects and flashy filming techniques to make the viewer think they are getting
something new and fabulous.
I have been home sick
this week. I have been watching
(listening to, really) a lot of home improvement shows. I am bored, but cannot stay awake long enough
to continue with my readings. It is
really hard to concentrate on stuff you want to write about when you lose your
place on the page twelve times before the end of it. I can watch a home improvement show and it
really doesn’t matter who the host is, I can see the problems coming a mile
away with the shallow plot techniques and know how the show will end, in case
of napping. Sitting at my computer to
watch Youtube is problematic when sick, it is cold outside of bed, and
uncomfortable sitting in my desk chair all day.
And yes, in case you haven’t realized it yet, my bedroom TV is still a
dumb TV, and Pierre detests it when you set a laptop on the bed…he is a techie.
I have brought you on
this quick rant because by now, thirty years after the Brand book was written,
I figured that I would just be able to watch anything I wanted to watch
(produced anywhere in the world), when I wanted to watch it, on just about any
surface in my home. Or maybe not on a
surface at all, that TV would be like Princess Leia’s hologram from Star Wars. That I would be able to explore the space all
around the ‘program’, looking to see what I wanted to see, from the comfort of
my own home, from bed when I am sick.
Thirty years in though, I am still stuck watching a lot of bad TV from
the United States, which now, Pierre tapes and we watch when I can handle the
flashing for a period of time…which lately has been growing shorter and
shorter, along with the list of programs I can handle both the flashy filming,
and the seriously bad plotlines.
Works Cited
Brand, Stewart. The
Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT. New York: Viking Penguin, 1987.
Chapters 1, 6, 9, 13.
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