creativity/machine

Oh no, getting slack already, and my blog is only just 2 years old. Sorry, C/M. Happy birthday.

The BBC digital storytelling program has been exploring themed workshops (or at least thematic collections of digital stories) for a while - mostly pretty “big” stuff like family history, and there are some truly epiphanic experiences shared in those stories: revelations that recover lost histories, therapeutic moments of catharsis, and so on. It seems that these are the stories that people who come to digital storytelling workshops for the first time are often burning to tell - stories of recovery, of loss, of joy, of finding or losing one’s place in the world.

But I am really much more excited by the idea of Shoebox Stories: “A collection of digital stories about favourite objects made by visitors to the BBC Wales Community Studios”. I love the idea of stories extracted from personal objects, because they allow for a more subtle and multilayered style of storytelling, one which can come sideways at the themes of memory, loss, nostalgia, longing, and belonging. I think there is a special elegance that comes from unravelling the threads of meaning, the powerful whispers of memory that come packed into very small things, but it’s important for me that this elegance can emerge organically from everyday experience, without being overdetermined by an explicitly artworld aesthetic.

Since the comments on my previous post mostly said I should do whatever the hell I want with this blog, let me share this bit of irony (not really irony, but irony in the style of Alanis) with you.

Some deeply confused soul just arrived here via the Google search “what to wear out in the fortitude valley”, immediately followed by someone looking for a deportment seminar. I’m sorry to disappoint, but unless your ambitions run to slouching around with bad hair and minor variations on the jeans/trousers/black t-shirt theme, I suggest you ask one of the young folk. I may be able to help out with the witty repartee, however.

Also, based on recent experience I can offer the following: when you’re super-proud of getting over a cold in double-quick time, it is probably not a good idea to celebrate your recovery by spending most of the weekend going out in the fortitude valley, bubbling with said witty repartee until the wee small hours. ‘Cos colds have a way of coming back, with a vengeance.

…in which the blogger notes his/her continued existence, notwithstanding long stretches of silence, and makes excuses to the readership. Like, life continues to be more interesting than the blog, i’m trying to finish a book chapter *about* blogging, and now that I’m past the information-sponge stage of PhD candidature (so I’ve stopped just collecting stuff, for now), and my blog has reached some kind of generic equilibrium and has stopped feeling organic and emergent, I’m a bit at sea as to what it should be *for*….

So, if you’re still reading (and many of you no longer are, judging by my stats logs), what direction should I take with this thing next? What’s most interesting - hearing about the tribulations and/or eureka moments of my phd progress (when there is some)? More lame jokes? More playlists? More bits out of what I’m reading? Feisty in-group arguments with other cultural studies people? I’m stuck, please help.