~$say mk.com

Reflective Piece-Indigenous exhibition; The Bunjilaka exhibit at the Melbourne Museum.

Does the exhibition communicate ideas about nation and power? If so, how? If not, why?

The Bunjilaka exhibit at the Melbourne Museum was an interesting exhibition for us as students to have been allocated for our reflective piece this semester. Having grown up in an area of Australia, Echuca specifically, where there is a high density of aboriginals in the local population I have often tried not to too closely examine or apply concepts too broadly upon an entire group of people. From the people that I know who are a part of the local Yorta Yorta clan, I have never been so arrogant as to purport or suppose that they as indigenous Australians have a better sense of nationhood and power than the rest of the population.

However, that being said, I did feel that the Bunjilaka exhibition with its many indigenous objects and photographs did convey a very strong and true sense of the idea of knowing and belonging to their homeland and their nation. I think that even the most bigoted and racist person would be lying if they said that the collection didn’t show a very clear and innate knowledge and respect of Aboriginal law, custom and history.

I think the most powerful part of the exhibition for me was the part devoted to the burial rites and traditions of the indigenous of Australia. As we learnt through the exhibition, Aborigines put a lot of stock in the importance of being buried with their ancestors, in a sense returned to the Earth from whence they first came. It was described in one placard as “a need to be owned by the land”, and through being buried in their home area they can remain a part of their land. Through observing this and through keeping this cultural practice alive people like the Yorta Yorta can keep with them a sense of the power which by observance of their ancestor’s traditions they can draw on the spirit and energy of their deceased elders.

However, the exhibit may have educated me in terms of the way that Aboriginals have traditions which bolster their sense of cultural power, but on the other hand I was also made aware of the fact that thousands of aboriginal people’s remains are still being withheld from the return to their communities as they are still in museum’s all over the world. From Russia, to England, to Japan there are aboriginal remains thousands of kilometres away from their homeland, a particular cruelty to a race which very much uphold the importance of being buried with one’s people in one’s designated region. For me, this part of the exhibition truly demonstrated the lack of empowerment which Aboriginals today still bear. In fact on a whole, I felt that the exhibition had more of a grim feel to it than optimistic.

Look, for me the Stolen Generation, the fact that children were taken from their parents and reunited years later if at all, just smacks of oppression and I didn’t find reading stories about this period in the exhibition as very reflective of the Indigenous of this period having much power at all. As Lovett-Gardiner said in 1999 aboriginal “children grow up to be adults and in time with the teaching of the Elders, take their adult place within that clan and so the culture is handed down this way from generation to generation”.  For those that were stolen this natural inheritance of culture has been interrupted and hence they lack the connection to their ancestors and in turn a part of the power which many Aboriginals find in being connected to their heritage and history and their land.

Astrid Hildebrand, s3241719.

Project-sources & exerpts

1.Darwin’s theory quote-young scientists

“Darwin’s general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) “descent with modification”. That is, complex creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as random genetic mutations occur within an organism’s genetic code, the beneficial mutations are preserved because they aid survival – a process known as “natural selection.” These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation.”

2.Charles Darwin himself

We will now discuss, in little more detail, the struggle for existence.
–Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

we are all “bound together in a complex web of relations.”

3.Schwartz-Dig Darwinism

And just as Darwin observed that competition for food and resources leads to principles of natural evolution, we can see that brutal market forces in the increasingly cutthroat Web economy lead to new strategies for economic survival.

As an environment that can sustain economic life, the Web has given birth to entirely new species of start-ups and enterprises that could not have existed previously. These new economic organisms are, in turn, forcing older corporate species to evolve in new ways, producing new business models and characteristics necessary for their own survival

4.Information Darwinism-Marks

“The theory of punctuated equilibrium challenged the longstanding idea that evolution was a long, slow, gradual process……. punctuated equilibrium is characterised by very rapid evolutionary change”.

“punctuated equilibrium can be seen everywhere in todays business environment. With the introduction of the internet, the already frenetic pace of business has been ratcheted up further.”

5.Deleuze and Guattari

To summarise the key aspects of the rhizome as described above, Deleuze and Guattari state that, “The rhizome is an accentered, non-hierarchical, non-signifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automation, defined solely by a circulation of states.”(DELEUZE & GUATTARI, 21)

Ok, this may seem very trivial and unimportant to some, but it’s been driving me (pun intended) crazy seeing all these new cars developed that have the ability to check the rear vision without you having to do so! I mean people are just getting so goddamn lazy that they can barely wipe their own proverbials anymore.

I first noticed this a few years ago when my school bus got fitted with one after there were a few incidents when school children had been dan over by their own buses getting off. THIS was just fine by me. After all, buses are big bastards and it is really hard to check behind you on such a long vehicle. Trucks I likewise don’t have an issue with having these in-built installments, but on normal SUV’s and sedans-well-to me this just seems damn excessive.

I think relying on a camera which can supposedly see anything coming up behind you will probably lead to more accidents than it will prevent. I think when you drive it is the hesitancy and caution that you use which will prevent accidents, driving a bit slower, checking and re-checking for objects in your front, rear and side mirrors. I mean, is it that hard to go to a bit of effort. If you’re too busy, too bourgeosie and too important to take the time yourself to make sure you’re in the clear-you’ll probably be driving too quickly anyway.

Anyway, I’m done ranting.People don’t listen anyway. People are obsessed with signs of increased status and if that takes a big new SUV with all the useless and unecessary trimmings that they come with, you can bet your socks that they will buy it for a bit of an ego-stroke.

Typical facebook page.One of millions!

Why hello friend

Today I’m going to be talking about facebook (which I refer lovingly to as ‘facey’) and other social networking sites which have proliferated at a rate of knots of over the last 10 years or so. on the internet.

Now I remember the good old days when I sat at home, a chubby 10 year old playing grown up on msn on our old dial up brick of a computer, but let me say with a big sigh of relief-thank god those days are over.

Now we have wireless laptops to play on, which connect us socially with essentially everyone we know under the age of 40 via facebook.Remarkable stuff really.

However, facebook was preceded for me by a social network called Ringo . I signed up on this site all year while I was on exchange, it being a place where I could upload pictures of my travels and also comment on and find photos of other people I was connected to.This was perfect for me until the company (I assume went bust) could no longer be found at www.ringo.com, and to this day I have no idea how to access all the photos of my trip that I had taken.

So, after this slightly negative experience, you can understand my hesitation at following the new facebook trend which smacked me fair in the face in mid 2007.To put it mildly I wanted nothing to do with this fashionable social trend. In fact for about 6 months prior to me having an account I had been battling my friends, calling them would be msn lovers, until finally when I was pretty drunk (vulnerable) at a party with my sisters one night, my sister Pip took me into her laptop and set me up with an account.

I’m going to put it out there-I call what she did ‘facebook rape’ in the purest sense.

It wasn’t long til I started to love the thing;people kept on requesting to be my friends, I kept finding cool photos of parties and adventures, and best of all I could contact for free everyone I  wanted to keep in touch with.Very cool.But on the other hand you also become facebook freidns with people you aren’t really friends with. I have about 450 facebook friends which is way too excessive!I think friend should be replaced with acquaintances because honestly-not everyone on facebook that is my friend do I have time for….

But anyway, after 6 years of existence, with over 300 million active users, this social networking institution has revenuse grossing in the hundreds of millions! Needless to say, I want to start something as simple as a website for friends that will make me millions!

One of the first thrillers to be based around the scariness of the internet

Now I know I write a lot about movies, however with this one I think it has to be an essential! How could I go past Sandra Bullock as a software programmer  whose identity is stolen by internet terrorists who want to kill her for her knowledge about hacking into Government agencies websites?

A hot nerd, a sizzlinly bad baddie terrorist with an awesome British accent, assassinations, high speed crashes!This flick has the works and after hiring it out recently after not having seen it since I was 7 years old I am now aware why I am so suspicious of ‘the net’……..

                                                                it can steal your life……..

I’ve become intrigued by the idea that advertising companies actually survive by putting ads up on the net. I mean does anybody really go into those weird little pop up ad-spaces?They all look so hokey!I don’t really think of myself as a very suspicious person but I have since day dot avoided those “lose 5 kilos in 5 minutes” “find your soul mate in 3 easy steps” ads which promise happiness if you simply click a button to a diverting site.

I assumed everyone was smart enough to avoid these sites, but obviously some people do because every time I go onto youtube, facebook,internet banking etc those ads come up, and you can bet your sweet petunia that they don’t come cheap!

Anyway, just a thought.

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The indefatiguable rhizome!

What do weird tubular plants have to do with the internet?

This is not a trick question mes amis. These two things are quite similar; apart from the fact that the plants are tangible and that the internet is intangible.

Well when I was initially figuring out what  I’d be writing about for my project for this subject I came across my favourite reading-the one about  blogging thoughts by Mortensen and Walker. Anyway, the reason why I liked this reading so much was because as I was reading it I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that the whole exerpt reminded me of a living organism. With year 12 biol thoughts running riot in my excited brain I decided that considering the project can technically be about anything-mine would be about the internet being a living organism.

Look at it my way, this exerpt was discussing blogs as having varying contents, subject matters and can change over time eventually changing the form that the internet takes etc etc. WEll, how is that not like planet earth and all gods good creatures on Earth? Just like organisms, the internet too can evolve over time leading to new results, new phenotypes, new species etc.

Then after running down this train of thought I was told that there are already theories out there which connect the internet with a plant called the rhizome. Except in this case, we weren’t talking different kinds of blogs and how they aren’t dissimilar to living things; but instead about the actual structure of the internet itself.

Early on, I think in one of my first few blogs, I spoke about how the internet came to resemble a de-centralised structure. I remember rationalising this interesting internet structure by relating its history, and how it became important that no war attack could bring down or short circuit the whole internet system. No central organ could be the instrument of the entire system falling to shreds.

The same can be said of the rhizome.

Listen to this and tell me when you start to connect the dots.

1.Any part of a rhizome system can be connected to any other point.

2.The rhizome system is not hierarchical in structure.

3.No specific point must be connected to another point for it to work and live.

4. The rhizome can if broken or torn at any point begin again on the old lines or begin new lines.

5. The rhizome is a map with multiple entry points.

The rhizome is a perfect analogy for the internet!

In fact I found two academics almost immediately who give a description of the rhizome which is so perfect for the internet that I almost lost it!Here we go….

“The rhizome is an accentred, non-hierarchical, non-signifying system without  a General and without an organising memory or central automation defined solely by a circulation of states.” Deleuze &Guattari

How smug do I get to be now?My first hunch for this project and already smarter people than me agree with me!YES!

......................

Ok,

this has been pissing me off all semester!What is this cute term widget that’s always coming up on the screen of my blog?Ok, guessing time now-it will be small because the word sounds like midget-but that’s about all I have got in the idea/clue department…..

Google says;no wait wikipedia says;

“In computing a web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. They are derived from the idea of code reuse. Other terms used to describe web widgets include: gadget, badge, module, webjit, capsule, snippet, mini and flake.”

Ok, not a midget-even better-html code which you can reuse and chuck in anywhere when making a database or website.

Definitely not as cool as a midget.

What's a widget and why does it sound like midget?