Devlog 2

Same thing than last time. Thoughts are chaos, trying to give them meaning.

Week 3: Devlog 2 (Jan 25, 2018)

• Destruction as creation
• Poetic terrorism
• anonynimity
  • authority
  • credibility
  • authorship to gain credit and use in career or w/e
• Issue with new technologies permitting to reproduce faces and speech + attack on the truth?
• Public Historian’s issues/concerns + hard stories + protecting yourself by using academic language + potential to be attacked + push out of confort zone, but can’t push to go in danger zone + must consider impact on communities/groups mentioned + boudaries of anonimity, rights and wishes of people involved or impacted by projects
• Creating games on ARIS + possible to create neighbourhood tours
  • This is making me want to revive the La Pointe Audiowalk
• Thoughts
  • I don’t understand this fear of being attacked on your arguments and what you are doing. Scholars are constantly being challenged. Why are some us suddenly scared of criticism. Is it public criticism? Is it fine when it comes from our peers, but not from the public? I hate this. I want to embrace the fact that sometimes we can and will be wrong. Even though, I also live through this anxiety, this fear of creating something and realising that it’s useless or uninteresting. I tell this to my students at the start of every semester: I make mistakes. As do they and everyone else. The important thing with mistakes is to learn from them. It’s by making mistakes that we grow as individuals and as communities. If we keep an open mind, as scholars and academics, but more importantly as people, as individuals, we might just become better. We have to step out of our comfort zones. Then again, I am the first one to fall back to what feels familiar.
  • The issue of credit, for me, seems like a capitalist/individualistic concern: What will I get out of this? How can I profit from this? I feel like many scholars want to think of their work as a public good, but have a hard time treating it as such. I feel like our system is built in a way to benefit those who have an easier time acting egotistically. Then again, if I want to thrive in that very system, I can’t really do things differently. Maybe this is a pessimistic view of things, I dunno. I wish things will change. I hope I can do something to help. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to say screw it, sacrifice what little I have, and leave everything behind to actively fight for change. I’m not courageous enough for that, I think. Does that make me a coward? Maybe a little. I admire those who have enough strength and conviction to do that. Maybe doing guerilla public history is my avenue for change? We’ll see.