Navigation

As I made a right turn across traffic into a blind alley on my bicycle today, I thought about Douglas Englebart, who I met in Thierry Bardini’s book Bootstrapping: Douglas Englebart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing . Englebart is best-known for building the first on-line computer system and for heading the lab where the first computer mouse was designed. But his more interesting contribution to cybernetics and computing studies was his concept of co-evolution – where engaging with a system changes the way that you think, while simultaneously changing the system itself. This principle suggests that tools don’t just serve useful purpose, they actually enhance human intelligence through the way that they are used.

Englebart wanted computers to demand an engagement from the people who used them, so that both would co-evolve, as Bardini says, “to enable new modes of creative thought, communication, and collaboration” (p. 143). But his caveat was that computers were not meant to be easy to use – otherwise the people using them wouldn’t really evolve – and neither would the system. He was inspired by an early cybernetic thinker, J.R. Licklider, who wrote:

“it is worth pausing to ponder how few well-developed skills there are that are both complex and widespread. Almost everyone can get about in three-dimensional space. Almost everyone can speak and understand one of the natural languages – perhaps not grammatically, but fluently. But relatively few people can do anything else that is even remotely comparable in informational complexity and degree of perfection.” (cited in Bardini, p.216)

Englebart hoped to make computing into one of these complex, widespread skills. But his co-evolution project never took off – instead, computers are “user friendly” with purportedly transparent forms of navigation. But on my ride today, as I made a turn that was logically correct but intuitively wrong, I thought about the complexities of navigation as a cognitive activity.

Navigating in a new place requires not just the capacity to move in three-dimensional space, but the acceptance and mastery of a new geography – understood through street signs and direction abstracted from a two-dimensional map, as well as memorized physical landmarks. Because I don’t yet know the circuitous route across London well enough to calmly pedal like a distracted academic thinking about cybernetics, I have to pay attention so I don’t turn intuitively and find myself in the horrific triangular limbo between Marylebone Road, Old Marylebone Road, Marylebone High Street and Old Marylebone High Street.

But according to Englebart, my navigation confusion could be making me smarter. Once I can get across the city without thinking about it, I will have mastered another complex everyday skill – following a route featuring roundabouts, bad signage, and braintwistingly similar corners while not falling off a small metal contraption barging through traffic at 20 km an hour. It’s just that the city won’t be getting any smarter from me riding across it.

Then again, neither will my computer interface. In fact, compared to the process of learning to navigate the city, I have learned almost nothing from navigating the WYSIWYG interface of my Mac. Of course, I am not expecting to be challenged – I have accepted that my computer is meant to be easy to use rather than interesting to use. Even worse, using my computer provides me with very few of the brilliant moments where it, as a tool, becomes “ready at hand” (that’s Heidegger) – where it falls away and leaves me only with the experience of what it makes possible. A ready at hand bicycle lets me look up and marvel at the brilliant winter sunlight on mansions, chimney pots, and medieval churches. In comparison, a tool that is present at hand (still Heidegger) forces me to acknowledge its role as a tool. A bicycle does this when it has a flat tire. The Mac interface does this when it expects me to search through hierarchical files and folders for a document that I know is related to what I am writing, makes me scroll down to read through documents, highlight to cut and paste.

Can Englebart’s vision of co-evolution ever return to the complex everyday use of computer tools? Could we connect to our computers using only our minds, and then shape and learn from the systems we created? Bardini thinks we could, but warns us with the words of Jeff Raskin, an interface designer:

“I suspect most of us would prefer to use a direct mind to machine (MTM) interface, rather than type and shove a mouse around, but if the interface in which MTM is embedded is full of modal traps, complex navigational puzzles, and a multitude of details to be memorized, the improvement will be marginal and the interface as frustrating as anything now available” (cited in Bardini p. 226).

Faced with the complex navigational puzzle of the four Marylebones I ride past, I’m wondering if we underestimate the extent of the cognitive challenge of just getting where we are going!

Research roots and wings

So, I’m in London. Waking up in the morning in a house in West London, next to the person next to whom, out of all the people in the world, I most want to be waking up with. Riding my bike in traffic in London, on the left hand side, circling buses and avoiding pedestrians and sometimes looking up at the Regency mansions on the way to the library. Writing in a cafe in London, listening to accents from the edges of the empire. In these first few weeks in a new place, the differences between where I come from and where I am seem most marked. I don’t know the conventions here – Christmas is Happy, not Merry. Mistletoe is a plant, not a plastic symbol. More beer is drunk than I am used to, and sex is taboo in a way I don’t expect – jokes about it crop up everywhere as if to urgently break the tension.

In these days, at this time, I cannot yet say that I am truly living in London. I am, in some ways, still in transit. Once, someone asked me whether I thought I would spend my life as an “uprooted researcher living in a global city.” That question has followed me since, as I have travelled farther and farther from the place I grew up with, the culture that I could have called my own. But in a way, nomadism is also my culture: from the Polish orphan who landed at Ellis Island and lost his name, to my grandparents fleeing postwar England for the warmth of Africa (and then again for the cold of the Midwest), and of course my parents, driving their tiny cars full of possessions here and there across the continent.

But that question came back to me today: not the bit about being uprooted, but the bit about being a researcher. As I clicked off the reading light, packed up my pads and pencils, passed through security, and walked into the central atrium of the British Library (looking like nothing else in its airy magnificence than a cruise ship for the bookish) I felt as if I were travelling from one world to another. From the world of my thoughts, the true site of my research, to the reality of being in London: the cold fog descending, Christmas lights twinkling, and the same buses and taxis to avoid on the long descent down Notting Hill. A strange world, after the deep and commanding one of my thoughts – and more strange for being still unknown. I think this is why researchers, even those who like me are committed to understanding and participating in situated and particular knowledge, need sometimes to travel. When the world outside is strange, the world in your head, the world you are excavating every day through writing, feels familiar, comfortable, and known.

If I thought it didn’t matter what I wrote

Every day, I get up and write. Some days, it is the best activity ever invented. Some days it is like pulling teeth. Most days I wonder why I bother.

Not last week. Last week I went to a public consultation for the Commission d’agglomeration de Montreal sur le developpement economique. They were studying whether to fund an expansion of Ile Sans Fil. In the remarks period, I expressed my support for the plan, as a researcher studying municipal and community wireless.

Then the committee members asked their questions. The mayor of St-Anne-de-Bellevue, on the West Island, started his questions by saying, ‘I don’t know much about these issues. So I asked a friend to recommend me some reading. He sent me an article by Alison Powell and Leslie Regan Shade.”

Then he read the words we wrote, the critical questions we had asked about the sustainability of community wireless networking projects. Sitting in a leather seat in a marble hall, I realized those words had made a difference.

The next day, the mayor of Ste-Anne followed up with me, and we had a long conversation about the role of technology projects in economic development strategies, the expansion of open-source organizational models, and the scalability of wireless networks. At the end of the conversation he thanked me and Leslie for writing the way that we did: clearly, informatively, elegantly.

If I thought it didn’t matter what I wrote, how I wrote . . .I’ve changed my mind. Now, I’m off to bed, because tomorrow, I have to get up and start again.

Reunion Tour

Here I am in a basement conference room, sitting next to Sascha and Dharma. Mike is behind me, and Tracey is over there, sitting next to Gabe from Murmur. And of course, the CRACIN gang is spread around.

(International Community Wireless Networking Expert Mimi Gabor was also glimpsed, briefly. Photographs to follow . . .)

This is billed as the CWIRP workshop, but we think it should be the Reunion Tour. I feel privileged to be part of this great group of colleagues and friends. Sure, we are doing work that we feel is changing the way we think about communications, community, and democracy, but we are also building relationships that make arriving in a strange city feel like coming home.

Let’s sing that song again, one more time . . . .

All those other lives I never lived

I recently applied for a conference to be held in Montreal in May. The brochure for the conference was illustrated with “typical” Montreal images: curving metal staircases, lights on the St-Lawrence seaway, neon signs on St-Catherine. An offer of what the city is meant to give to tourists.

Biking home in the golden light this afternoon I passed hundreds of “typical” blocks of flats, engaging in my usual habit of imagining “what would my life be like if I lived somewhere else — on the Plateau, downtown, in St-Henri . . ” I imagined the tiny but important differences from my life at Jean-Talon. A different vegetable market. Fewer Mexican restaurants. Another cafe with different owners. Would they remember my allonge, collect my forgotten mittens for me?

Next month, I will live in a Victorian row house in West London. From the back window of that house, you can see the planes land at Heathrow, above the rows of chimneys, the thick trees full of birds. The London tourist brochures show images of these white-fronted terrace houses, window boxes full of flowers. The brochures include pictures taken down along the Thames where I run sometimes, past houseboats and waterfront pubs and parks. Beyond what’s in the pictures, the river has surprising beauty. The city noise falls away, leaving the sound of rowing skiffs, clinking glasses, and geese. On the far bank, bicycles careen through mud left by high tide, against the backdrop of wild parkland. Even in winter, the trees are green.

By the time I come back to Montreal it will be spring. I have never lived through a winter with no snow, without the bitter cold jab of air in the nose on a February morning. This feeling is never described in a tourist brochure. Neither is the precise quality of light reflected at 4 pm through my office window.

The fact is, we can never know what things, exactly, change our lives. I came to Montreal almost by accident, but living here has given me something I never could have imagined. Paris, too. As I prepare for a new life, in another city, I wonder — not even daring to imagine — what surprising beauty I will find.

Writing

The idea is in my head, in my hands, arms, legs, and feet. Getting it from there to the screen, to the page, to the table with the pen and the cup of tea, is the hardest thing I could have ever imagined. There is nothing, it seems, more difficult than a line (that was Picasso).

The distractions are legion: grant applications, art projects, trapeze lessons, newspapers, music, food, friends.

But the idea is still there, turning slowly, gestating. A quote from a fellow researcher I read recently sums it up best: “it is like being married to something. You go to bed with it, you wake up with it”.

I am not married to anything but this, not now. But this idea could take up all the space there is. It could, if I don’t get it into words.

Artivistic Oct 25 to 27

This is very exciting! I helped my talented brother and talented better half design a sound installation for the upcoming Artivistic festival. Please come and participate – it will be a great weekend!
_______________

3rd edition of Artivistic :: [ un.occupied spaces ]

25 to 27 October 2007 :: Montreal

We are infiltrating all levels of society. Artists, activists, academics, architects, bureaucrats, the homeless, anarchists, first nations, immigrants, doctors, geeks, queers, lawyers, teachers, witches, philosophers, clowns. Artivistic does not only provide a platform for political artists and artistic activists, but partakes in the very movements that work for change. In the pursuit of temporary moments of pleasure, we move towards freedom, for resistance is perpetual and oppression, ever-changing.

Building on the 2005 generation, Artivistic in 2007 will continue to ask questions that do not leave us thinking we have resolved the issues. We strongly suggest that you answer one, or all, of our questions with a question of your own.

< what is indigenous ? >

< what is natural space ? >

< what is (there) to occupy ? >

Artivistic is an international transdisciplinary three-day gathering on the interPlay between art, information and activism. Artivistic emerges out of the proposition that not only artists talk about art, academics about theory, and activists about activism. Founded in 2004, the event aims to promote transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue on activist art beyond critique, to create and facilitate a human network of diverse peoples, and to inspire, proliferate, activate.

Trapeze Lessons

I have been taking trapeze lessons for almost a year now. Aside from it being a satisfyingly bizarre spare-time activity, it is a good way to build strength, flexibility, and coordination without having to endure the gym. But the best part is that slowly, I am learning to do things that I used to think were impossible. My coach is sanguine about this. She says, “humans were not meant to do this. We resist at every stage. But you can learn to do impossible things.”

Today, I suspended myself completely upside down, ten feet up in the air, above the trapeze bar. It felt easy.

I would like to apply my coach’s teaching method — the rigourous, methodical repetition of incrementally more difficult tasks — to my professional life. I’m beginning to analyse the data I’m using for the thesis, while planning and conducting more new more data collection. Why? Partly to make up for data lost due to technical mishaps and plain stupidity, but also because I am learning a lot about methodology by listening, reading, and writing down what I have already done. In new research situations I can then modify my approach, building on the last movement.

I rushed through the end of my workout today. Nothing looked good, and I almost lost my balance. Coach shook her head: “We have to do things slowly when we are in a hurry.”

I feel in a hurry to finish this thesis, to embark on the next adventure. But it’s clear that I have to learn, up in the ropes and down here, to do things more slowly.

The tentacles of the CRACIN

After four years the CRACIN project, that multi-tentacled beast of a research project that has employed me, frustrated me, inspired me, guided me, and provided me with the framework for my research with Ile Sans Fil has wrapped up. I said goodbye to many colleagues and friends who I am sure I will see, but whose official connection with me will soon become more tenuous.

A few pieces of sushi, hugs all around, and I am home in my office realizing that this desk, this window, and this pile of files will be my world for the next year or so, as I finish the thesis. Four years ago, I remember the feeling of stepping out of my small world into a much larger one. Suitcase in hand, I travelled to Ottawa to meet a group of academics who have since shaped my approach to collaboration, research (and good food and drink).

The suitcase has travelled many kilometres since then, and so have my thoughts. As I begin to focus them to create a work that bears my own name, the tentacles of the “beast” that was this project remain. The people and practices I encountered over the past four years have shaped and will continue to shape my work. Thank you, to everyone. And now, to write.

What Is Net Neutrality?

This week, Neil Barratt, Mike Lenczner and I launched WhatIsNetNeutrality.ca — a primer on network neutrality for Canadians. It was a pleasure to work with Mike and Neil on this, and we hope that this site makes the debate more accessible to a wide variety of Canadians.

The official announcement:

Today marks an important day in the net neutrality debate in Canada. With the launch of www.whatisnetneutrality.ca (WiNN), Canadians have a valuable resource with which to educate themselves about this emerging concept.

While it sounds like an issue for experts, net neutrality is a debate that will affect the future of communications in Canada for everyone. WiNN aims to help Canadians understand this debate, and why it should matter to them. We’re not advocating a specific solution to the debate. Our goal is to inform and educate Canadians about a poorly understood and sometimes intimidating issue. Our lives depend on communications, and the Internet is growing to encompass television, telephone, journalism and entertainment. Net neutrality is a principle that will shape this powerful communication tool.

Please visit the site and look around. The site touches on the business, technology, and policy aspects of this issue. Each section has short and detailed answers, depending on your interest. The dictionary gives simple explanations of many of the regulatory and technical terms in use. The blog will track any developments of the debate in Canada.

This web site is a project of the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN), a research network comprised of academics and community technology practitioners from across the country. CRACIN is dedicated to community-based research and innovation in the use of new information and communication technologies to empower local communities.

While only available in English for the moment, WiNN will be translated in coming weeks to be fully bilingual.

Thanks for your time,
Neil Barratt
Michael Lenczner
Alison Powell