artifacts - digital and otherwise

Once upon a time I was an visual artist working towards a Masters in Fine Arts in Fabric Design at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. A common outcome of such a program is a collection of objects, photo documentation of said objects, a philosophical treatise (AKA thesis), and the beginnings of a record of one's activities in the Art World (AKA Resume, Curriculum Vitae [CV], or brag list).

Eventually, the photo documentation in form of 35mm slides or color prints along with the brag list / resume became my portfolio. I'd use it to enter shows or to join groups such as the Fiber Workshop of the Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA.

Later as I started a different career in academic computing my collection turned more to participation in events or publications. The slides became less important and the list was pruned to emphasize grants, talks, articles.

Now 25 or so years later I'm wondering about the trail I've left behind. The various media including 35mm slides, photographs, articles, 3D objects, and other stuff. The artifacts of my various lives.

I'm wondering not just about how to archive or preserve the old stuff, but also what is the best approach to move forward or how to plan to soften the blow of obsolescence.

My 35mm projector is dusty and has not been used for a long time. I have begun to scan some of my more favorite pieces as JPEG's to share online and to burn on CD's, DVD's in hopes I can read them in 5 years. I have a year's worth of digital QuickTake files that I'm trying to remember how to convert to TIFF or JPEG. Paper is good because I can scan images and / or text to convert to digital. The physical objects are good too because I can document them with film or digital camera. I already converted some 3/4" UMatic and other video tapes to DVD.

Alfred E. Neuman would ask: "What me worry?" Well, I'm planning to be around for a while longer and I do enjoy looking at my past work. Also, there are people I want to share the work with. So, I want to keep as much as possible in a media that will be around for a while.

As de facto family historian I have been given documents and photograph albums from long deceased family members. Most of the material has been regular print, but there are also some documents that are sensitive to light that are fading. News print becomes extremely brittle. So, I scan or photograph them. Again I'm creating digital artifacts, but I wonder which will last longer -- the original paper photographs or the digital files of the originals.

So, a question is how should an individual best prepare to archive, document, and keep abreast of current technology to make sure that his or her portfolio will be available at a given time in the future much less at present. At the moment I'd say a portfolio includes representative collected works of varied media representing one skills.

I've enjoyed some discussions online with Jim Groom, Trent Batson, and others about the notion of an ePortfolio. I understand that in the Teaching and Learning community that the term has certain associations. One quick observation here is that I appears to me that ePortfolio is usually applied to a single course or perhaps a students tenure in a program, but not a life long activity.

At the same time I have observed bloggers and organizations such as the Pew Trust exploring the notion of "digital footprint." However, rather than an intended collection of representative work, the "digital footprint" is more aligned to privacy and digital literacy issues. A core concern is do you really want your words, pictures, or videos to be around as you mature or seek jobs and security clearances?

Time for me to stop for the moment. But, before I do some random word associations that I see and believe may relate to this posting: ePortfolio, resume, digital footprint, EduPunk, DIY, CV, peer review, portfolio, best work, sharing, archive, preservation, history, curating, filing, keeping, trashing, library, cataloging, obsolete, managing, keeping up, legacy, past, future.

it's all about channels

channel: "a course into which something may be directed," "a means of access," or " a frequency band of sufficient width for one- or two-way communication from or to a transmitter used for television, radio, CB radio, telephone, or telegraph communication." c/o http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/channel

The more I work with Social Media tools the more I am thinking about channels.

As I've mentioned before I am not comfortable writing, but I will talk with you for hours and wave my hands and scribble on white boards or do flying-finger demos with internet resources. We can enjoy lateral digressions that eventually loop back to the original premise.

Back to channels.

I'm slowly evolving this notion that all these nifty new internet toys / social media / multi-media blogging are in fact different channels that ought to serve different message types as well as content. In brief text based content such as this piece can be scanned quickly or read slowly via either RSS or original form. Photographs & graphics can be scanned via thumbnails and later savored in full scale. Audio and video I feel are victims of their reproduction of real time so in most cases the content doesn't survive well with fast forwarding. (Ah, I perceive a possible crack in that last notion).

Currently I have consciously decided that I will use the following channels:
> Utterz will be a channel for spontaneous moments of happy emotion. No set schedule.
> Flickr will be a daily visual diary from my phone camera along with documentation of events and travels. [off track: I'm intrigued how Stowe Boyd uses his Flickr to feed blogs and other channels - yet the Flickr track itself is a cabinet of curiousities].
> Facebook will be a social channel and ongoing experiment to see who stays and goes and who plays with what widgets.
> LinkedIn is an odd gathering of resumes and adding people who I do and don't know well.
> Twitter is the informal village commons. I have multiple communities abd have basically given up trying to keep current. [TechnoSailor's post about Terminal Velocity was a leve set for me.] I have fun and try to bring value to the various communities.
> de.licio.us is my communal bookmark archive that always amazes me when I find things that I forgot I found last year or longer ago.
> Netvibes is an interesting aggregator, kind of a Reader's Digest for all the places I drop stuff on the net as well as my friends stuff.

More channels to come.......

writing is hard to do

My family know that I am not a fan of writing. 

I've come to think that is one reason why I don't blog much. I've been looking back at my early posts to Manilla and Movable Type blogs. Those early entries were usually comments about web sites or online info I found. That was in the days before social bookmarking. Since I've been using de.licio.us I have really stopped blogging.

My friend Nahum has suggested I try the "Natural Way of Writing." I'm not sure that would help.

hambone theory

Thinking about what I'll call the Hambone Theory. In short it is about re-purposing content with attribution, context and memory.

Easter and Thanksgiving are two times a year when we have either a big ham or a large turkey for the celebratory meal. Then the following couple weeks there are sandwiches. Then the scraps are incorporated into ham-salad or turkey-salad for either more sandwiches, wraps, or salads. Finally the bones are usually frozen for later use in soup or with some other baked meal.

The makings of the one event extend over a longer period of time. They are re-used and re-purposed.

One thing I didn't think about before, but this week I realize that as I eat the left overs I find myself remembering the event. There is a thread that goes back to that day.

There is something here for me that resonates with my recent feast of social media and the explosion of multiple channels and media for content. I'm not exactly sure yet, but will tell more when the pieces come together.

life long learning

Lately there have been an increasing number of social media apps popping up all over. It's fun to watch who signs up. I'm usually among the second or third wave of new comers. As usual they request name and personal profile or interests. As a response I came up with a short profile which reflects my on going curiosity: autodidactic techno arsty craftsy eclecticist.

once upon a time in a gallery

Early on when I made objects for art shows I would often go ahead and not name my pieces. Those works would join the massive ranks of  art known simply as: untitled.

I've created a number of different blogs here and there for a long time. When starting this one, I wasn't sure what to name it. I seem to be moving away from the capital O  and capital R combination found in geORge and ORpost and other such ORtifacts. So, not that direction. In that case for the time being this will be simply untitled.

This space may prove to be a collection point of the various trails in the digital beaches of the internets.  I'll ask help from my tech savvy friends to figure out how to apply the different badges and widgets to link to artifacts of my other paths.

Meanwhile, I'll begin re-thinking about what I want to share.