I found the lecture really good, I understood so much more when it was applied to life today. Adrian also made a point out of this; don’t try to interpret the reading for how it would have been understood when it was written, you have to understand why it is relevant TODAY.

Even though I went over much the same in the post for the tutorial, I want to keep this here if I ever need to revisit the subject.

Up until when the reading was written, Certeau claimed that work and liesure had been divided, two distinctions: use in the workplace, and use in leisure

The distinction between private and public is gone. So is the distinction between work and leisure. Where is the border now? Where is my private? How much media goes out of my private home? I have more than 700 friends on facebook (yup, I’m one of those), and although I’m not the most active “facebooker” they can still see pictures from my life, pictures of my family and friends, what i “like”, etc. On top of that there is this blog. Although it is mainly revolved around school, it still contains personal information.

PLACE doesn’t work anymore. Modalities of actions (what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter where you’re doing it). The statistics on consumerism only looks at what is used and how much, but not at HOW they are used.

Reference to high school uniform. You follow the rules, but find small tricks (which are not described in the rules), introduce your own agency. Think about subcultures. They become styles of action. Obeys other rules. You wear the tie, but since it isn’t specified HOW to wear it you make do.

Mass media: Studies today only pays attention to how many people who watch it. If its on, you’re watching it. There is no consideration given to the fact that a lot of people just leave the tv on, even if no one is watching it.

It doesn’t account for what you are doing with the information. What they have to realise is that it is not the transmition of the message, it’s about the reception.

Consumption is a form of making. It is an active mode of making, producing. Whenever you “consume” something, you are also making something new with it, since your way of usage are different from others.

Fashion victim? No, choose the clothes, positive engagement with possibilities, we’re MAKING our identity.

Act of speech. There is a formal institution that defines and controls which words are allowed to be let into the French language. How bizarre is that? You can’t control which words that are accepted or not, this is proved by swear words.

Enunciation is the act of speaking. Only looked at the making and what the text say. Think about what the people do when the message arrive. What does the people make out of it? Enunciating matters, as it will be recepted by the readers according to how it is delivered.

Things are only real in the act of making it/doing it. If you have an idea inside your head, it doesn’t really exist until it’s written down. If you’re thinking about making a movie, it isn’t real until you start making it. Sketch videos are made in the moment. That’s why we’re making them.

Appropriate the language, turn it to our own usage. MAKE DO. Daily speaking, take something from the classroom, government, and we do something with it. “I take a hoodie cause I’m a teenager” You can do it and appropriate something.

Approtriate the retail space to a hang out space. Take something that exists and make it into your own.

In class we learned that there are no original ideas anymore, and that there are only really 7 different stories, which all the others are based on. All these other stories as appropriated the original story to something of their own, with similar elements, but still their own.

When it comes to interpret this essay we have to interpret it from our point of view, from our perspective. Why pretend to be in “that time” to interpret it? Why roll back when we cant do anything about it? We have to understand and interpret it in a way to make it relevant for us today.

Traverse, moving around. Example: You don’t sit still on a formal language style. You create another path which moves slightly different from the original, intended one. You are moving across different language groups. The architect of a shopping mall had an agenda about traffic flow, marketing, making a place a 100% retail production. When 15 hooded guys sit there without spending, they are is doing something that falls outside the logic of that space. They are traversing the space. 

Another example: There is a roundabout in carlton. In middle, just grass. Dirt path in the middle of the roundabout, it’s a route. It’s designed to use the footpath, but the dirtpath is a traverse that goes outside the system.

OUTSIDE OF THE RULES OF THAT SYSTEM.

Surface of cleanless, but hetrogenous underneath.

Tactics and strategies.
This classroom is a strategic place. If we’re on facebook, we’re using tactics. We’re making do. Writing on the wall is potentially a strategy, its interfering with the rules of the university. Wearing ties not completely the right way is a tactic. There isn’t a rule against how to wear it.

Strategies is about power. Power is. It is everywhere.

Think about life. It just is. Every creature have a drive, power, will in life to live. Separate from every living thing. It flows through it all, but different. Academic power, social power, it comes in different shapes. Frame the power in the frame of the institution.

All expressions of power. It defines a place where this power can happen. Uni gets to define what the rules of a university is. Hospital defines rules in a hospital. Watch tv, this is how you ought to consume it. Adrian mentioned in an earlier lecture that journalists are the ones who decide what good journalism is. That is a display of power.

Triumph of place over time. Strategy is to slow it down and build a place around it. Surveilance. You must three comments per semester, if you don’t, the university can see it. Surveilance system dressed up like other things.

Strategy can say: we’re going to define uni this way, and make all the distinctions.

It produces itself in and through the knowledge. What is knowledge, legitimate practice. We have tactics to respond to this: hand in work late. We don’t refuse to participate. Not picking it up afterwards. Tactical response on your behalve, you don’t care. It is irrelevant.

Tactic is deliberate thing you do, but it doesnt have a proper place. Play on the place imposed on it. You are not going to the supermaket to hang out to break down the consumerism system, you just take advantage of the space without any plan behind it.

Make do in the space of determined places. It’s an art.

Tactic determined by the absence of power. A student has NO power, at all. BUT we can use tactics to turn things to our advantage.

Strategier define places and what is proper in that place. Totalising discourse: There is no room to negotiate on these rules.

Tactics about time. Realised through doing.

Tactics is a clever utilisation of time. Play is on the foundation of power. If you engage to CHANGE something about a power situation, you’re being strategic.

Consumption is a mode of mode of making, its tactical.
Producers are strategic. They make things that they want people to consume. But sometime there is an appropriation of an ad towards other practices.

The strategic has been successful. Everything is within a strategic system. Rules everywhere. Its become so successful that it has swallowed up everything. Brownian movement might arise. In the scene of random tactical movement. BLOGGING. No strategy to blogging. Strategic, but blogging as a practice is tactical. Social media is tactical.

Define you as a consumer, and only that. They try and define you strategically.

Think about this in relation to integrated: Internet is strategic, but a tactical space. Knowing how to make do. It always changes, constant making do. Just about the moment.