I have been thinking about your comment all week, and have been struck about the issue related to *practical* permanence in our digital histories. Makes me wonder how our identities may cease to exist if we let our online subscriptions expire.

I wonder what this does with our sense of identities themselves?

Jeffrey

Thank you for the feedback. Yes, indeed, sometimes the most interesting things are found when we stop or otherwise are able to notice those little pieces (that often point to bigger concepts and issues!).

I hope to speak about my work, which I have a sense may continue in some form or another.

Jeffrey

Like the exhibit you describe, that installation is gone. It could be recreated in some fashion, but that instance existed for just an instant. Its own impermanence part of what has made it permanent in my mind.

For all the talk about being haunted by our digital history, the reality is that there’s very little *practical* permanence to it… it’s all theoretical.

A hunger to engage with something of permanence is part of why I write poetry… art has, potentially anyway, a longer life than *anything* in technology and education except, perhaps, the art that might be made by a student.

Your insight makes me wonder about our electronic world. I know I am engaged nearly full-time on technology-related tasks that, with the flick of a switch, would leave me with little trace of my life. Alas, to be more in touch with the world in which we move and breathe and have our being.

Thank you for sharing.

Jeffrey

I think– actually I KNOW– one of the reasons I am so big on writing paper letters, writing in the margins of books, and other such physical acts are because they leave traces that are potentially of relative permanence… it’s not the motivation, but it is a part of it…

Yes, I’m open to trying to participate in your book discussion. I’m curious about the threaded comments feature you mentioned, too!

The timing will be rough given my own schedule; hopefully you’ll have other takers as well to keep it lively.

I hope your memories of Aalborg will be as fond as mine!

steph

Aalborg, too! Small world, isn’t it?

A colleague of mine in the Netherlands is planning to discuss a few articles on Communities of Practice, and this text is the next one on the list to read and discuss. Wonder about the logistics of having a book discussion on a blog? Glad to host it here, especially with the threaded comments I implemented. You open for it if we begin in a month or so?

Jeffrey

Looks interesting!

As do the conferences you’ll be traveling to over the next while. I spent a week in Aalborg in 2005 for a Dexus Nexus conference. It was awesome (and yes, a bit pricey but where isn’t these days?)

If you do arrange some kind of book discussion, I’d like to try and participate. (If the logistics aren’t too cumbersome.)

best,
steph