Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Vessel of Knowledge


I am currently working on an idea of introducing my dissertation through The Vessel of Knowledge. The idea derives from a speech given by the vice dean of my faculty at the welcome meeting when I started my PhD-program. He used a metaphor for the research process we were about to begin as the construction of a ship which we had to board and let go already upon starting to build it.

I would like to attach this image to the idea of moving within and through a relentless artifactualism, which forbids any direct si(gh)tings of nature (Donna Haraway), as well as to the theory of The Dream Society (Rolf Jensen), in which he introduces his visions of the society following the information society and an economy (Google definition) based upon the marketing of stories and emotions.

I will follow the idea of The Vessel of Knowledge through the emotional markets of the dream society. I will use it as a technology capable of producing enough noise and friction to allow for an analysis of hidden actors within the material practices of stabilizing meanings and thus producing knowledge (see Haraway 2004, 335, 63, 77). At page 77 of The Haraway Reader, Donna Haraway introduces the idea of a travel machine functioning also as a map. Her choice falls on A. J. Greimas' semiotic square, picked for its ability to generate meanings very noisily. Likewise, The Vessel of Knowledge is my means of traveling through, while mapping, artifactualism to the emotional markets of Dream Society (Jensen 1999, 51).

Through its journey, The Vessel of Knowledge will collect materials used to elaborate the figure, as of now I have thought of using the figure to enter empirical fields enabling us to navigate back and forth between Information Society and Dream Society.

Chapter two of The Dream Society presents six emotional market profiles:

  1. Adventures for Sale
  2. The Market for Togetherness, Friendship, and Love
  3. The Market for Care
  4. The Who-Am-I Market
  5. The Market for Peace of Mind
  6. The Market for Convictions

I am only beginning to explore what my ensemble of empirical fields will consist of. The previously mentioned The Passion of The Christ (TM) Tear Bottle will be tested as an entrance into the Market for Peace of Mind. Likewise, I think of testing the coupling of people who sell stories about science (like Peter Lund Madsen) with The Market for Convictions, the prostitute Susanne with The Market for Togetherness, Friendship, and Love, the Web 2.0 phenomenon with The Who-Am-I Market, and I would like to introduce the study in the light of Clipper Odyssey and its journey into the Pacific Ocean and several trips into exotically staged islands. I still haven't ideas for The Market for Care, but I wonder if a private hospice would serve the purpose here.

I hope that these ideas will be useful for telling a story providing rich and varied insights about human existence, sociotechnical actornetworks, as well as situated studies of easily overseen privileged locations (Google Scholar suggestions on 'politics of location'). I guess that I now need only to learn the magic words allowing this, or something similar or better, to happen.

at 00:57

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2 comments:

Mike Riley said...

Thanks for joining my neighborhood, although I can't really see where "After Midnight" connects with your thesis [looks pretty interesting, so far, by the bye].

The line between the "Information Society" and the "World Of Dreams" is becoming more blurred daily, what with product placements in TV programs, some more clever than others; in the US, for instance, web sites set up by broadcast networks regularly feature items featured on their programs. (Let it be further noted that TV and radio themselves are part of the Information Society/World Of Dreams convergence; what they sell more than anything else are commercials,which except for the tangible moment of their broadcast, give their purchasers nothing that they can touch. The theory is that an advertisers is buying the attention of potential purchasers of a product or service, but, even though the number of people watching or listening to the programs that carry commercials can be noted, the effect of advertising itself on the purchasing by its viewers is open to more than a little debate.).

The World Of Care might be better represented by the revolution in birthing techniques, especially in the [over-]developed world. From midwives handling at-home births to the comfortable, soft-lit birthing suites that some hospitals and private clinics make available, Just a thought...

Again, good luck on your thesis. While you're blogging, check out my other website, http://techforest.blogspot.com

-Mike Riley

October 11, 2007 7:45 AM
Zenia Effenberger Larsen said...

Thank you for your comment. :) I am new to the BlogCatalog community. I came to join your neighborhood through your very interesting comments to the discussion about reality and simulation in the popular science group.

Thank you also for your suggestion for The Market for Care! I have some colleagues who are very interested in reproductive technologies, my office partner is a midwife doing research on technologies at a maternity ward, and still this idea didn't occur to me before. It may even function in connection with the hospice idea - wrapping birth and death together in The Market for Care.

October 11, 2007 11:50 AM

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