LabLitArch Final Project.
Globalization and Diaspora, Fall 2017.
Misplaced Lens Cap
Xuebing Du
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
One Nice Bug Per Day
Keni
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
NASA
wallacepolsom
Today's Document
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
noise dept.

roma★

JBB: An Artblog!
will byers stan first human second
art blog(derogatory)
No title available
DEAR READER

JVL
No title available
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

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@ja-mul-blog
LabLitArch Final Project.
Globalization and Diaspora, Fall 2017.
Mapping meaning
Of all the books we have read, I find Tropic of Orange to be the most similar structurally to a road map, and like the story’s structure itself the book’s structure reminds me of a highway. Similar to the effect of cities on road systems, there is a relatively clear point of convergence in both time and space in the map of the novel. To incorporate the aspects of time and space-time, I have decided to represent the 4 dimensional structure of the novel in a 3 dimensional space. The map, in my mind, is in a clear plastic ball and each path is made of wire. The location inside the sphere is arbitrary, as long as it remains relative to the other paths, made from wire inside the ball. I think this map represents well the ways which paths draw near each other but do not actually cross. On a 2-D map, it is impossible for the map I drew to exist without collisions. However, in 3 dimensions not all of the lines have to ever touch. This is important, because 2 dimensional maps represent 3 dimensional space. This means that in the real-life representation of my map occupies time. I think this is an accurate depiction of time-space in Yamashita’s novel, because of the way that things can happen without regard to the function of time.
LabLitArch does not have a group timeline right now for our project, but we have met once already to discuss our intentions with this project. This led us to choose Tropic of Orange as the subject of our project. I am currently skimming through and taking a small set of notes that I think might help on our project.
I would like to meet with the other members once a week for a few weeks. After that it could be good to work together two times a week when possible as we approach the due date, though I suppose we don’t have too many weeks left.
The product will be a 3-D structure that translates the written novel into a physical representation of its internal architecture. I think there are many ways to build a structure that would encompass the characters, events and themes specific to Tropic of Orange, but I think the table shown at the beginning of the book is an interesting starting point. It maps out each chapter as they correspond to the time and perspective. I would like to look into the possibility of incorporating the 7x7 grid somehow.
Globalization & Diaspora...finally
I included this image because of an article I found by Teju Cole on the influence of “Respiration” by Black Star. This was inspired by a search about Marcus Garvey’s presence in the book. Here is the link: http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/08/21/159534467/my-american-dream-sounds-like-black-star
Check in and essay proposal
An addition
Isabel’s post spoke to the selectivity of the internet and the ways that its distribution creates new borders in the world. An important factor in this is that the selectivity of internet relies heavily on economy, and the maps that Isabel provided reflect that. The internet drives global economy by offering an environment for individuals to contribute at ease. To relate this to my previous post, as well as the posts I responded to, I must reference the corporations which influence the appearance of sites people use to consume. Through the manipulation of advertisement, selective filtering and other similar tools, companies are able to create vacuums, for individuals to have the ideal experience. These vacuums, however, do not themselves exist within vacuums and are informed by global events, politics, and economy.
Responses to Grandma Toby and Milo.
I thought the introduction to Grandma Toby’s post was well designed and got me thinking about the impact that the internet first had on my when I was a child. I also felt that it was presented in a generally positive light, and I don’t think that that needs to be flipped, but the way that this post addressed the problems of this perspective was important. My first thought in reading it was how my views on the internet have developed over time. I think, in some ways, that the internet has grown with me. It is not nearly as one sided as it once was, and now it not only supplies information, but as Grandma Toby pointed out, people have the ability to contribute their own opinions, feelings and ideas, and corporations have a heavy influence over who sees, and internalizes or dissents to them. It has become a more complex machine. This has made the internet an immensely cluttered space which, and I think Grandma Toby touches on this implicitly, makes it increasingly difficult to diagnose or even notice a problem in the mechanisms used to present problems. The corporations mentioned control any individuals accessibility to an issue or topic, and further intertwine capitalism and ideology throughout the reach of the web.
I found Milo’s response to be quite interesting, as well. It started off in the same way as Grandma Toby’s, drawing on early memories of the internet. It has always seemed to be an act of globalization, even before I was able to call it one, too. I found the reference to time-space compression interesting, because I think it preempts the idea of individualization as a kind of separate idea, but it supports it in a deeper way (perhaps just deepens the argument) than simply the normalization of people on platforms. It also normalizes people over a plane of distance and time. Conversations now not only last a few minutes, or hours, depending on how tired your mouth gets, but they can last months or even years as a post online is not less pungent when you read it years later. The words are still presented in the exact same format as they were in their first post. The context, however, does change, as the internet stays updated to the political and social atmosphere of the time or place. So, in some ways, I agree that time-space compression normalizes an individual’s internet presence, but it also removes people from each other by almost creating a vacuum, something I thought about while reading White Teeth. The words are all the same, but the environment they are consumed in is equally, if not more significant. I do acknowledge that I may have strayed from Milo’s original point, but I think that the overlap is significant and a discussion of such would bring light to this.
Saturday in the park
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID3-vqADnRY -- This is a clip which I thought of upon examining the relationship between nationalism, globalism and war in Oberlin.
Purchase
During our first session, Yanagi’s World Flag Ant Farm helped us to begin to dissect aspects of globalization and diaspora. I felt that this was a rewarding process as the rules and limitations of the piece forced me to analyze closely the connections that it holds to these concepts. By studying a structure that did not perfectly replicate human expansion and communities, I realized that I would like to further understand the ways in which people struggle to fully understand and relate to the effects and structure of their diaspora.
Literature is a quite effective medium for this style of analysis, which is another draw this class has for me. New World Border has pushed me to consider the ways the form of the novel speaks to the conveyances of Peña’s writing. The divisions within the prose and its self contained quality remind me of Ant Farm by pointing at the natural process that inhabit globalization and diaspora, while also drawing attention to the challenges of fully understanding these concepts.
In reading the syllabus, the LabLitArch project stood out to me as a way to conceptualize the structure that authors create within novels to explore, in this case, globalization and diaspora. I also think that there are a great deal of abstract concepts which won’t have one consistent meaning throughout the course, and even within one novel. With this in mind, I envision a fluid and potentially implausible architecture constructed by the literature we will discuss.