Libraries have never been better at their mission of serving as your gateway to all human knowledge and culture…so why are they in greater danger than ever before? And what can we do about it?
Read my latest, for Australia’s The Vocal:
Category: Australia
Marvellous, Electrical: The Man in the Machine
…the nonhuman entities with which we share the world – including, but not limited to, our tools – are active in their own right. They have their own powers, interests, and points of view. And if we engineer them, in various ways, they “engineer” us as well, nudging us to adapt to their demands. Automobiles, computers, and kidney dialysis machines were made to serve particular human needs; but in turn, they also induce human habits and behaviours to change. Nonhuman things must therefore be seen as…active agents with their own intentions and goals, and which affect one another, as well as affecting us…
…Things are creative. And again, one of the great potentialities of science fiction is to illuminate the positive, productive powers of things, of materials, and of technological apparatuses.
– Steven Shaviro, Discognition
This week, Marvellous, Electrical heads out to the fields of Queensland’s Darling Downs for a ride in a modern farming machine.
When you find yourself at the wheel of a self-driving harvester, just who’s steering who?
Marvellous, Electrical: Mouth on Legs
There have been great Queenslanders and famous Queenslanders, real ones and imaginary, but only one has been to the end of the universe and back.
This week’s Marvellous, Electrical is about Tegan from Doctor Who.
TEGAN: What’s a Zero Room anyway?[…]
NYSSA: I suppose it’s some sort of neutral environment. An isolated space cut off from the rest of the universe.
TEGAN: He should’ve told me that’s what he wanted. I could’ve shown him Brisbane.
Read Marvellous, Electrical: Mouth on Legs here.
Keynote speaker for SWITCH 2016
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be a keynote speaker at the New South Wales Public Libraries Association’s conference SWITCH 2016, 22-25 November in Ulladulla, NSW.
Here we are on the shore, on the edge of some adventure. Have we been deserted or let loose?
How do we move away from centralised, broadcast-based models of discussion, creation, and debate in favour of democratised, distributed approaches?
When libraries around the world are fighting to thrive and everyone has co-opted the language of innovation and community engagement, what does great public librarianship look like and how do we do it?
See you in November!
Where Do You Find Yourself? Space, Play, and Duty in the Australian Digital Library
Are there still cultural backwaters in the digital age? Three months in to my year-long residency at the State Library of Queensland, I’ve written about Australian libraries, regional engagement, and digital literature for The Writing Platform.
I’m very interested in the vogue for locative literature, where texts are linked to physical spaces through digital or conventional media. But there are questions still to be asked: not just whether we add a virtual layer of story and literature to physical spaces, but who gets to create the content in that virtual layer.
If writers are having a creative and critical conversation about the world, and in the locative age we are venturing outside of traditional venues, we still need to ask: who are “we” having those conversations with? And how could a simple online comic maker start expanding that circle of storytelling, literary production, and critical discussion?
Electrical updates
There’s been some new entries on Marvellous, Electrical in recent weeks.
Here’s a few highlights:
You can sign up for weekly updates from Curious, Mysterious, Marvellous, Electrical here.
Libraries: the seven-fingered fist?
Last week saw the first of my guest columns for Library as Incubator in the US, following my experiences as Creative in Residence at the State Library of Queensland, Australia.
This first piece explores libraries as gateways to other worlds, showcases the work of Queensland’s Signature Team, and explores the challenges of working with a cultural institution that serves a region three times the size of France.
Days of Fear and Wonder
Queensland Public Libraries and the State Library of Queensland are holding a two-day professional development event, Future Libraries, on Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 April.
On Tuesday, I’ll be speaking on library futures in these days of fear and wonder.
Rock and Roll Writers’ Festival: Playlist
My playlist is up for Brisbane’s first Rock and Roll Writers Festival.
Growing up at the tail-end of the mixtape generation, compiling songs was a way of connecting with friends and strangers alike, all through high school.
Now Leanne de Souza and her team at the Festival are working with the team at Playlistr to share music selections from Festival contributors and friends.
If you’re not a Spotify user, you can find my mixtape on YouTube, too.
And the one must-listen track is this…sweet video, too.
Marvellous, Electrical: The Nation Coped
Subscribe to Curious, Mysterious, Marvellous, Electrical here.
This Friday, 25 March, would have been Bernard King’s 82nd birthday.
One of Australia’s first celebrity chefs and talent show judges, King was known and beloved for his sharp putdowns, his flamboyance, and his all-but-inedible recipes.
He was as iconic in his own way as Dame Edna or Crocodile Dundee, but he died in poverty in 2002. Today he’s all but forgotten. That erasure of one of Australia’s biggest gay celebrities highlights the tensions and troubles which still exist in a country on the verge of a referendum over same-sex marriage.
Find out more about Bernard King’s life – and the time he poached a fish in a soft drink – over at Marvellous, Electrical.
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 