Tag: Marcia Bates

Help! ––I’m at a symposium and I’m trying to learn!

By Meghan Lyon

Last Friday, October 19th, I had the pleasure of observing two symposiums. I attended the first half of The Uncomfortable Archive: New York 2018 Archives Week Symposium, and the the second half of the first day of theWhitney Independent Study Program 1968-2018 50th Anniversary Symposium. These events marked my first encounter with the conference-style symposium. I have attended numerous lectures, but a presentation in the symposium format has a quality that diverges from a unique lecture; each speaker addresses their own content or area of expertise  as well as the overarching concept of the day.

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of symposium includes: “a social gathering at which there is a free interchange of ideas”; “a formal meeting at which several specialists deliver short addresses on a topic”; “a collection of opinions on a subject”; and “discussion.” Additionally, it defines a panel as “a group of persons who discuss before an audience a topic of public interest.” The panel would be the object of attention, the body expected to enlighten the audience; it could also be the platform from which information is distributed. From my observation of the symposium as an information environment, I would define it as a learning-based information environment, where the audience is an information-seeking group whose attendance is predicated on the expectation of a conference of knowledge from the panelists. 

The Uncomfortable Archive Symposium, which I observed from 9:30 am through the lunch break at 1:15 pm, was devised to motivate the audience by revealing uncomfortable histories and truths about archives or loosely-defined archival materials. This goal manifested in multiple presentations about obstacles to record keeping and maintenance from autocrats, fascists, and capitalists. The Keynote Address was given by Anthony Clark, who played up the “uncomfortable” concept. Clark is an expert on presidential libraries and archives and discussed the more insidious aspects of presidential libraries—not just as propaganda machines but as active forces in politics, conservatively oriented towards maintaining the status quo of private interest groups. His address examined the unfortunate history and present mismanagement of the National Archives and Records Administration by the former director of NYPL, David Ferriero.

Clark addressed a room full of concerned professionals who were mostly cis-female, mostly white. The audience lights and stage lights were both on and remained on throughout the day; the AC was on, there was carpeting and plush chairs, there were no outlets throughout the seating area, and  there was no wifi and no data service in the hall at the Center for Jewish History. There was a podium for speakers and a table for panelists; I found that every panelist was an individual speaker and the “panel” discussion was, unfortunately, just an audience Q&A directed at the group of “panelists.”

The Uncomfortable Archives Symposium was crafted as a learning environment for archivists and professionals within the field of information. Most audience members were taking notes; actively engaged and trying to learn. However, several days after the Uncomfortable Archives, a peer who was also in attendance bemoaned that there was too little discussion of problems or troubleshooting thereof from within archives; in other words, she gained no knowledge that was useful to her as a professional.  Also, most talks were initiated after a precarious disclaimer: “My comments are my own and not my employers,” a common social media and web-based, personal disclaimer which has migrated towards any format that has the potential to wind up on the internet. This attempt by speakers to protect their professional status could relate to Robert Jensen’s paper, The Myth of the Neutral Professional. In order to keep their jobs, librarians and archivists are pressured to appear politically neutral. At the very least, they must attempt to be sure that they cannot be held accountable as a representative of their employer when speaking publicly. I find the disclaimers’ presence to be unsettling, and feel sorry that the speakers need to present defensively on stage.

Midday I walked over to the Whitney Museum of American Art for the ISP 50 Year Anniversary Symposium; This second observation lasted from 2:30pm – 8pm.

The Whitney Independent Study Program 50 year anniversary Symposium was a very different kind of event from the Uncomfortable Archive; It was not technically a professional event. The intended audience was ISP alumni, but the ISP program is so popular that many others were also in the audience. The 2-day event was both open to the public and free, so it drew contemporary art enthusiasts, fans of panelists, social climbers, artists, museum workers, art historians, current university students, and people in some way involved in the art world who are hungry for continued education. Because of the various points of entry, there was also a more diverse demographic. It was so packed in the lecture hall that overflow seating was made available in the Tom and Diane Tuft Trustee Room on the 8th floor, which is where I wound up for the first panel that I witnessed.

Whitney ISP Symposium from the 8th floor Trustee Room

In the trustee room, there was a monitor playing a livestream of the symposium as it occurred downstairs. This room quickly filled up, although it wasn’t totally full and people wandered in and out. There was an odd phenomenon of 8th floor of attendees clapping when speakers concluded, even though the presenters were on tv.

Another unexpected occurrence (unexpected to the Whitney staff, at least) was that people who showed up at the beginning of the symposium did not leave. This created a major occupancy problem, because people who registered beforehand, or who were ISP alum, could not enter. I believe that the organizers thought that people would come for a panel, or a particular speaker, and then leave—grossly underestimating the major interest in this kind of educational experience. After witnessing this symposium, I would conclude that multitudes of people are craving high quality, free, educational experiences. The panelists in this case were key figures in art theory, writing, criticism, contemporary studio practice, and pedagogy, and it is too often an exclusive few who are able to interact with the brilliance associated with the ISP milieu.

Like the Uncomfortable Archives’ attendees, nearly every audience member had a notebook out, although I would say the note-taking at the Whitney was a little more feverish, on both the 8th and 3rd floors. Eventually, a few people from the 8th floor went down in between panels to try and claim a few abandoned seats.

A panel in the lecture hall at the Whitney ISP Symposium

I made it into the lecture hall for the Pedagogy and Critical Practice panel. The structure of the panels were similar to those of the earlier symposium; each member of the panel gave a short presentation with slides, however, instead of a Q&A afterwards, there was a moderated discussion on the overarching theme of the panel, with a short time for  audience questions. The time-ratio weighed heavily on the lectures, clocking in at almost 2 hours of serial lectures per 20 minutes of panel discussion.

A little earlier in the evening, curator Johanna Burton had referenced  “embodied learning”—which she described as something along the lines of “trying out learning through new experiences.”  I thought this would be a good opportunity to explore  Marcia J. Bates’ paper Fundamental Forms of Information.  I could see note-taking as an interaction with recorded information, “communicatory or memorial information preserved in a durable medium,” (Bates 14)  as well as an enactment of student/teacher paradigm, and an attempt to fill a knowledge-seeking need. The symposium could be examined as a place for the expression of recorded information (lectures) to be

Single-Circle Diagram that says "Information Environment / Learners / I feel grateful to be here ----->"
“Information Environment / Learners / I feel grateful to be here ——–>”

embodied by an audience through listening and interpretation, and then enacted by their future selves as more knowledgable beings.  

Nearing the end of the ISP Symposium, Mary Kelly took the stage. Kelly was the only speaker who did not use a slide-show presentation, and she was so soft spoken yet captivating, you could feel the entire audience leaning in and opening up. I drew a small diagram of the environment and how I felt.

Sources:

Bates, M. (2006). Fundamental Forms of Information. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(8) (2006): 1033-1045

Jensen, R. (2006). The Myth of the Neutral Professional. Lewis, A. (Ed.), Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian. (pp. 89-96). Duluth, MN: Library Juice Press.

 

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Trace Information, Transcendence, and the Proliferation of Meaning

Marcia Bates’s treatment of trace information, in her Fundamental Forms of Information, seemed awfully cursory. While it fits as a necessary component within the overarching framework she establishes for information, she neglects this process of removal, compared to the ample thought given to the other aspects of her topic. But if we provide trace information further thought, it appears more significant than merely “the pattern of organization of the residue that is incidental to living processes or which remains after living processes are finished with it (Bates).”

Before we can truly comprehend the importance of trace information, we must briefly explore the foundations that Bates establishes for the entire scope of her system. In her paper, she defines information as patterns of organization, which then get encoded and embodied through how living beings store, translate, and communicate information genetically, neuro-culturally, and exosomatically. Thus, Bates constructs a vision of information as a dynamic flow through complex and interweaving channels. Metaphorically, imagine this process as a tidal pool ecosystem, where inlets bring in substance that sustains and shapes life within its bounds. Without this inflow, life shall starve; however, life also creates waste, which the living then removes by the tide pool’s outflow.

For Bates, trace information represents the function of this outflow:

The flow here is of a different sort — the Biblical “dust to dust” – in which structures previously associated with life recede back into their natural, inert forms. Trace information is that information that is degrading from being represented information (encoded or embodied) into being natural information only (neither encoded or embodied) (Bates).

She likens trace information to the “residue” that once “represented” life: “no-longer-used wasps’ nest, waste heaps, carrion, disintegrating ancient scrolls, and so on (Bates).”

All these effects are necessary for the aforementioned reasons. Nevertheless, something seems amiss when juxtaposed with this picture of carrion, an exemplar she mentioned:

 

Pictured: Carrion – not waste, lions, hyenas, and vultures

 

The very name “trace information” implies that it is beholden to the source of its trace. In her example, the residual value of the fire leveled house resides in the building that once supported life: to expand this idea, death as a slow return to dust. With this, the husk of a wasp’s nest stands as a likely forgotten testament to its time in use. But what then explains all the life in the photograph? Certainly, the lions, hyenas, and vultures find much use in this dead elephant, and apparently not for its trace of origin.

Here, questions arise, what more does death contribute? Does decay allow information to transcend its original use into something greater? Can destruction encode more into life? To further investigate, let us leave the inhospitable systems at play in the savanna for something more digestible by humans.

Before I link this next piece, I shall provide some context. William Basinski created The Disintegration Loops through his process of conversion of old tape loops, a common medium for his compositions, from analog to digital. He realized that, because of the magnetic strips’ advanced age, this transfer considerably deteriorated the music represented on the medium itself. The strips literally fell apart as he recorded them. Because he worked with short loops of larger compositions, he could track the continual degradation. In his own words:

[I] looked at the CD recorder to make sure it was on — it was — so I just sat there, listening as this gorgeous melody decayed over a period of an hour in such a beautiful way. I was just stunned […] ‘Wow, something different is happening here. I don’t need counter melodies. This is its own thing (Basinski).

Clearly, the resultant music is trace information, once from the residue of playback, and twice from the fact that Basinski found the original loops as left over from recordings stored from many years ago. But in their decay, greater meaning emerges, unexpected from what their original inert forms suggest; the sound loops would diminish in value, if their consistency remained.

September 11th, 2001 occurred during Basinski’s production, and gravely, the music symbolizes the transpired events. The linked video communicates this; the loops serve as a diminishing echo as the sun sets on the abject horror of the day. “So grave and so beautiful and stately,” the original sound mirrors the World Trade Center in its life, which then fades, in time, against the world’s growing realization of the situation.

The Disintegration Loops enable us to grapple with this reality. Because this power, Basinski’s piece, adapted for orchestra, was featured at the Temple of Dendur for the tenth anniversary of September 11th. As Basinski accounts,  

[Y]ou know, no one wanted to go out that day, nobody wanted to remember an anniversary. You don’t celebrate this kind of thing, but it was a day of remembrance and several people told me how profoundly moved they were and how they felt that the whole energy had changed and somehow the resonance had lifted. Maybe, somehow, there had been a moment of healing in that silence (Basinski).

The death of a small segment of a forgotten piece of music in one man’s attic transcends into a universal expression about the transience of life. With this art, we can confront that which we do everything in our power to hide. In effect, we re-encode this trace information back into our lives, through the meaning we weave into the holes that open up in the tape.

In this case, as in many others, trace information yields a proliferation of meaning. When information starts to unbind from its original, rigid, patterns of organisation, a freedom emerges; and freedom begets new uses. The dead elephant becomes a community of consumption around which its participants activate their own patterns of organization. Therefore, trace information does not merely hold value as a residue of its source, but has latent powers in its decay for rebirth as something both novel and profoundly meaningful. Bates’ characterizes trace information justly; and now we recognize its potential impact and capabilities.

One more point of discussion, however: the practical lesson. By its own nature, the library is replete with trace information. As time progresses and thinkers, scientists, and authors propose and try fresh ideas and methods, old frameworks fall out of date. And, naturally, questions arise about the approach to this obsolescence. Should we think about old books merely in the historical context of their time, as a trace back into the minds and minutiae of their creation? Or does previously obsolete material contain yet dormant powers to re-inform? Certainly the former is obvious, the object of museums and exhibits since their inception. But, the latter, the ability to actively communicate with the past, also seems true, when we acknowledge the phoenix-like ability of trace information.

We see hints of this effect in this week’s reading of Rodger’s “New Theoretical Approaches for Human-Computer Interaction,” where Soviet Activity theory originally intended to explain “cultural practices […] in the development and historical context in which they occurred (Rodgers 103).” This lens has transcended the destruction of its initial use in context, where it now applies to contemporary studies of Human-Computer Interaction: its Soviet denotation decayed, to enable capitalist appropriation.

A final, more evident example occurred in ethical discourse, where Aristotelian virtue ethics fell out of favor during the enlightenment and resurged back into contemporary use in the 1950s (Anscombe). Today, it stands as a viable and compelling opponent to the prevailing utilitarian and deontological ethical viewpoints.

I recognize the semantic loads that some the concepts I mentioned carry. We require much further study into the true implications of trace information as it stand as part our epistemological horizon. Therein, however, lies my point. Perhaps we can now comprehend the substantial weight trace information carries, and therefore we can better explore its depths.

Works Cited

  • Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). Modern Moral Philosophy. Philosophy 33 (124):1 – 19.
  • Bates, M. J. (2006). “Fundamental forms of information.” Journal of the American Society for Information and Technology 57(8): 1033-1045. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/articles/NatRep_info_11m_050514.html.
  • Basinski, William. “Divinity From Dust: The Healing Power Of ‘The Disintegration Loops'” Interview by Lars Gotrich. Npr Music. Npr, 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 27 Sept. 2015. <http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/11/12/164978574/divinity-from-dust-the-healing-power-of-the-disintegration-loops>.
  • Rogers, Yvonne (2004). New theoretical approaches for human-computer interaction. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 38(1), pp. 87–143.
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