Thursday, December 22, 2005

Sedimentary my dear Watson


sedimentary

Here DrJoolz makes notes on the cube of artefactual bonding. Unlike these onyx cubes, this one is imbued with meaning! Spread across time and space, I love this subtle interplay between online and offline activities. I’m reminded of Christo’s umbrella work (also the Gates project), mentioned in Colin and Michele’s chapter on Attention Economics: so, the onyx cube becomes a temporary attention structure (wow!).

Meanwhile back at home I’m reading The Story of Lucy Gault (see my sidebar) and it made me think how I’ve always had this rule with immersive reading that goes like this: if I get to page 100 I’ll then know whether it’s worth finishing or not. Lucy Gault is. Just think, she’s been abandoned by her parents (they think she’s dead); they’re in Europe in a limbo of mourning; she’s grown up and is just about to fall in love and then in the background is the dark and troubled figure of the young man that Captain Gault shot as an intruder when Lucy was much younger. And then I realized, in my 100 page rule, there’s the attention economy of bookspace.

So for movies it’s different. It couldn’t be 100 pages: could it be 10 minutes? I’d like to know. What about a webpage or a blog? Now the good doctor insists that it’s 5 seconds, because she knows about attention economics and checks her site meter stats. But is she blinded by data? I can see her posts on my feed without a visit. Then again sometimes I might pass through, because perhaps she’s got Doug Kellner on her sidebar. Anyway, who says that someone who’s on you’re page is actually there with you? I just flicked back and saw I still had the GreatSouth onyx cubes window open. It’s been there since I started this (longer than usual) post….fascinating thing, this attention economy….are you still there…or did you drift off?

3 comments:

Anya said...

I am not only still here, but totally captivated!! Great juxtapositioning of ideas :>

Festive greetings btw! *hug*

Guy Merchant said...

Many thanks Anya, and make sure you have an enjoyable Christmas and some rest before that book gets finished!

Joolz said...

It was great to see you today Guy and I loved the way we did that artefactual bonding!! It was good to hear the story from you in meatspace about the shopping with Anya and Michele.
You are so right aboput the meter being a very crude guide; I had forgotten about those other ways of viewing. I think you have to pay money to get any kind of sophisticated info about visits. And that is SO true about just leavinga page open. I often do that too.