Laura Napolitano--Emergence

Ok, so I never would have compared ants and humans, but it made sense that we could learn something from them. Yet, I'm not quite sure what that is. Ants are so small minded, literally. Granted, they must be good for something since they make up 30% of the population of the Amazon. Without ants (or spiders) we'd be living in a much different world. Their meticulous work is very much appreciated, as annoying and disgusting they may be.

But at the same time, I don't understand the fascination with ants. They're ants! Such tiny little creatures! And why would someone even dare to say that we could learn something valuable from the ugly things? I must have missed the central point of the article if I have that attitude.

Our bodies cells function like ant colonies? Ok, sure. Didn't want to know that. Next time I want to think about how my body functions, I'll just imagine a colony of ants crawling through my veins. Thanks Mr Johnson, for that lovely mental picture.

Emergence, development, and evolution.

My classmates below brought up two interesting points about the way the word is changing, and how we shape ourselves now through communication. The fact that we now are evolving into being virtual communicators over face-to-face ones can affect many aspects of our lives. Interaction starts when we are young children. If we learn to interact through screens, will that affect childhood development? We eat with a fork, spoon, and knife now. However, fingers and were customary during the “cave people” era. Now we view that as wrong, messy, and animal like. If we saw a person eating food with their hands at a high-class restaurant, we would be turned off. However, it seems as though as we enter the “jetsons like” era, students as young as 6 years old will be able to email their teachers when they are absent from class, and ask what did they miss oppose to waiting until they return. Now the question is, is this good or bad? Can evolution of technology affect development of people?

John Curall-Emergence

I also had trouble figuring out the point of this reading as relating to class. It was interesting, but I was kind left going "ok, and..." The one thing this did make me think of is what effect the "virtual world" that we all increasingly live in will effect the physical world. We live in a world where the majority of our social interactions are online and through text messaging rather than face to face or even voice contact. Will this have a positive or negative effect on the world at large? Is this just part of our evolution? Much like the effect of moving from sidewalks to cars, that was mentioned in the reading, moving from a physical to a virtual world can possibly have a huge impact on the development of the world itself. Many of us would say that this would likely be a negative one. However, there is one important difference in these two transformations. When we moved from sidewalks to cars we reduced our interactions. Whereas with the shift to a virtual world we have increased our interactions on a global scale whether or not we believe those interactions to be less meaningful. No longer is the "neighbor" that we have interactions with limited to physically proximity. Our "neighbor" can be anywhere in the world. Much like we discussed when we talked about the effect the telegraph had on communities so too the emergence of the "virtual world" has a profound effect on our development. Only time will tell if that effect is a positive or negative one. We always loose something when we evolve. The question is do we gain more than we loose?

Emergence by Steven Johnson

As I read this selection from Emergence, I’m thinking: This is fascinating. But what on earth does it have to do with class?

Question: where do the male ants come from? If they’re only alive for a day, how do lady ants birth male ants and then reproduce with them? This I must find out. Or if the queen is the only one to reproduce, how does she lay eggs in the first place? I like that the question of the chicken or egg came up, I feel my question is in the same category.

I’ve read Jane Jacob’s Death and Life of American Cities and, in all honesty, it is boring, and rather uninsightful. She states things that seem obvious; observations that anyone living in a city could make (e.g. parks are useful because of the businesses and housing around it; if it’s just a park, no one will use it).

This reading definitely switches gears from participatory art, but it is not quite clear where we’re going next. I think I mostly retained information about ants after this reading.

----------
I'm definitely interested in doing another participatory art exercise, but I'm not sure which one would work best.