Final Project Description
The goal of my project is to present the concept of Absent Presence in real time/space within campus grounds where I participants can engage in their immediate surroundings and actively experience and understand this concept.
Because the project has a strong emphasis on social interaction, it is essential that the project needs to encourage people to directly connect and participate with the social experiment. I plan to accomplish this by firstly creating a print design on a t-shirt that can draw the attention to my “Absent Presence: Making Face Time” project. Next, I will assemble a crew to assist me in carrying out this project. The challenge for the participants would be to place their mobile device in a box or turn off their device and engage in a conversation myself for a whole 2 minutes. As a student on this campus, I realize that relying on students to voluntarily participate in a social experiment such as this is fairly difficult. Therefore, as an incentive for the students there will be small prizes involved. In addition to the T-shirt print designs, I will document the process of my project through photographs, and post them on a blog dedicated to tracking my progress.
Through the interwoven courses of my double major in New Media and City Studies, I feel that the project perfectly embraces both of these disciplines involving the social aspect of city studies as well as the socio-technological influences of new media. This project is important to me because I feel that my generation is losing touch with that unique real time-space relationship. We are frequently bombarded with the new gadgets and fast paced media that we are taking simpler things for granted. That is, developing a physical or tangible relationship with physical space or people around us. The impression I want to make on the participants who engage in my project is to make them think about the way they are using technology, and the impact it has on their lives.
Words: 333
Project Milestones
| Deliverable | Description | Date of Completion |
|---|---|---|
| Setup a Blog | Design a blog and write the first entry about my project. | February 12th 2009 |
| Assemble a Crew + Briefing | Write up short brief of the project for crew members. Further condense final version of Senior Project Description. | February 16th 2009 |
| Design, Print | Finalized design in Adobe Photoshop for t-shirt. Must be print ready. Double check with printing press on time needed. | March 12th 2009 |
| Print T-shirts, design, brief write up | Hard copies of design on high quality card stock and t-shirts for documentation. As well, brief as handouts. | March 19th 2009 |
| Photographs of Project in Motion | Initiate the project, Absent Presence: Making Face Time. Gather crew members to go around campus with t-shirts and engaging participants while photographically documenting process. | March 26th 2009 |
| Final Project Submission | 750 word essay, pertinent images, artist biography, and all previously mentioned deliverables. Submitted simultaneously on course wiki and to instructor in class. | April 2nd 2009 |
Project Schedule
| Week | Tasks |
|---|---|
| February 8th – 14th |
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| February 15th – 21st |
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| February 22nd – 28th |
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| March 1st – 7th |
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| March 8th – 14th |
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| March 15th – 21st |
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| March 22nd – 28th |
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| March 29th – April 4th |
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| April 5th – 9th |
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Bibliography
- Baym, N.K. & Zhang, Y.B. (2004). Social interaction across media. New Media & Society, 6(3), 299-318.
This article provides me with a relevant example of research about social interaction with people and the prevalence of absent presence. Research they provide are regarding the comparative studies on college students’ online interaction, face-to-face, and on the telephone. They begin by questioning the claim that the internet provides a tradeoff between quantity and quality of interaction, and they further explore the reality of this matter. This article directly speaks to my target audience and also provides me with an example of how to carry out similar methodological research.
Word Count: 89
- Gergen, K.J. (2002). The Challenge of Absent Presence. In Aakhus, M.A., & Katz, J.E. (Eds.) Perpetual contact: mobile communication, private talk, public Performance (227-241). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
I am using Gergen’s article as an essential part of my theoretical framework. The challenges of absent presence are discussed by drawing upon cultural implications involving diminishing face-to-face relations, devaluation of relationship depths, and fluid/conditional identities, differences between monologic and dialogic, and endogenous and exogenous aspects of the communication technologies. Gergen marries these dualities into one device: the cell phone; and the power it has to divorce one’s attention from their immediate surroundings. The author suggests that the cell phone is unique in its ability to link absent worlds to immediate circumstances as well as originated within face-to-face relationships.
Word Count: 99
- Jessup, L.M. & Robey, J. (2002). The relevance of social issues in ubiquitous computing environments. Communications of the ACM, 45(12), 88-91.
Jessup and Robey uses ubiquitous computing as a benchmark in its affects on individual, group, and organizational behaviours. They suggest that new forms of social interactions and organization require modifying existing models. This article allows me to understand the influence new media has on different levels of locale, such as the individual, group, and organization. It brings dimension to my project and also helps me think about the installation upon these three levels, the student, the group, and the university.
Word Count: 80
- Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: rethinking the digital divide. United States of America: MIT Press.
His article addresses the issue of the digital divide and how its affects on social inclusion in contemporary society. His main argument concludes that what is most important is not so much the physical availability of computers and the Internet but rather people’s ability to make use of those technologies to engage in meaningful social practices. In addition to his main argument, he stresses the importance of acknowledging that the ability to access, adapt, and create knowledge using information and communication technologies is critical to social inclusion. This article adds to my theoretical framework by addressing the social geographical aspects of the senior project.
Word Count: 104
- Yzer, M.C. & Southwell, B.G. (2008). New communication technologies, old questions. American Behavioural Scientist, 52(1), 8-20.
In this article, Yzer and Southwell explores the different perspectives on the new communication technologies and societal effects. They provide two rivaling hypotheses for and against this issue, and also rationalizations for both of these arguments. This article provides me with both sides of the issue, whether or not the emergence of new media (and absent presence) has a positive or negative effect on society. From their rationalization of these topics, I can strengthen my arguments and ideas for the project.
Word Count: 81
[...] Senior Project Proposal Search [...]
i think this was a great project idea, Charlotte
i hope it went well
It will be interesting to see how you address this issue. I feel strongly about this myself.