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The Rhetoric of a Parking Ticket

Can a parking ticket be rhetorical? Well, let's start with the working definition of "rhetoric" that is used by my colleagues. Rhetoric is situated, strategic discourse. And so, I would argue that a parking ticket can indeed be rhetorical. 

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Bars and Cells

Technology is creating spaces around us. More specifically we are redefining the usability of spaces by their ability to support cellular phones, wifi, and 3G networks. An entire discourse is being created around brands and their spaces.

These spaces and our access to them enable communication and the sharing of information only if we are situated in places which support the communication. People then begin to define the world around them by the number of bars they have or connection availability. Dead zones are frequented less and places where the connection is above average are sought out.

Each brand or type of device that utilizes these technologies creates a specific public. Many companies are offering incentives to their consumers/publics masking the penalties of communicating with someone outside their network which puts an odd twist in a concept of space and publics. Before we make a call or connect to the network we have to think, are they in network? Is there a charge? Our communicative realities are being shaped by the spaces and rhetorics which are a part of the technologies we use.

The ability for communication across regions. Doreen Massey discusses this in her article A Global Sense of Place. These networks allow publics to connect over distances yet certain people or publics are excluded by default because of their lack of connectivity. Businesses, individuals, and entire nations are being impacted by their access to these technologies.

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No Pacemaker

"Urban critics since Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs have known that cities have lives of their own, with neighborhoods clustering into place without any Robert Moses figure dictating the plan from above."

Steven Johnson, Emergence

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Google voice

Voicemail and I have had a love hate relationship since the purchase of my first cell phone in 2004; however, this week it all changed as a friend passed along a link to the Google Voice Blog. The service is free and by requesting an invite you can have it too.

It is incredible that since the purchase of my first phone I have become attached to the device to the point that I feel guilty for turning my phone off rather than silencing it during my classes for fear of forgetting to turn it back on. I like my cell phone, but let’s be honest sometimes I just need a break. In fact, I am far more of an email addict than a phone addict. This is why I have been so annoyed by voicemail up to this point. I knew that I was annoyed, but until discovering Google voice did not realize that it was due to a lack of options and new technology. The automated voice spoke so slow that I found myself wasting time trying to get caught up on voicemails. That is not the case now.

My voicemail has transcended spaces and can even transcend publics as I can share voicemails via email, embed them on a webpage, and download them later. Talk about the perfect means for saving and sharing voicemails. I can now access my voicemail as I would an email. I have set up the service to text me an alert message when I receive a voicemail; I opted out of having the voicemails transcribed and sent to me via text, simply because I prefer email. However, by logging into Google voice, I can view my messages just as I would an email. Rather than listening to voices, I prefer to read the messages or do both. Of course I can always listen to them through the program too. There is no wait time, and I love the service because it is visual unlike traditional voicemail. I can even jump over to my Gmail to take care of the content left in voicemails if need be or continue working and return to the inbox of voicemails later. The ability of voicemail to now transcend spaces and create new discourse by going from voice to text is fascinating. Quite simply, Google has developed the means once again to repurpose the internet for personal communication purposes.

 

Since 2004 when my parents purchased me the latest and greatest cell phone, I have seen the influence of discourse, language in use via cell phone, create spaces in technology. Take for instance picture sending, video sharing, text messaging, not to mention the capabilities of the iPhone. However, looking specifically at voicemail, all sorts of adaptations for particular carriers such as visual voicemail for iPhone users exist,  but unfortunately my simple LG Verizon flip phone does not offer such services. I now however have found the perfect solution in Google voice.

I’m still learning and you should too! Check it out.

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The "God view":...where everything interacts

   

Click here to download:

The_God_view...where_everythin.zip (388 KB)

This summer, I traveled to St. Louis and I visited the Gateway Arch, which has a beautiful museum . But the main attraction is the view from its very top. Standing about 630 feet tall, the view is amazing to say the very least.

On one side of the Gateway Arch is the amazing view of the city, with high-rise buildings, roads, and bridges intertwined; it's a distinctive sight that is highlighted by the St. Louis Cardinals Stadium.

On the other side sits possibly the only thing you cannot view in its entirety from the top, the Mississippi River--2,320 miles in length--the second largest river in the United States. Seemingly the whole world around you shrinks and you get close to possessing what I term the “God view.”

The “God view” is the ultimate unreachable perception of the world in its entirety, with everything and anything being in sight. The idea of the "God view" came to me as I stood on the ninth floor of Teacher’s College (TC), a building on the BSU campus. I looked out the windows on the side of the building, with a view down N. McKinley Avenue.

I immediately noticed the vast difference from the experiences I have during my everyday walks on campus. I saw everything beneath me in its entirety and not just in little tidbits. For instance, you see the Atrium as it relates to the sidewalks, the sidewalks as they relate to the streets, the streets as they relate to the people, the people as they relate to the cars--as the Atrium relates to the library, as the library relates to the Bell Tower, and the interrelationship never ends.

Everything felt like it had a more defined relationship, and I began to realize how much the environment and surroundings affect our being and our movement. My one question remains what is the ultimate reachable “God view”?

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Monster Mash, Indianapolis

Have you ever heard of alleycats? Do you have a bike? Any plans on Halloween? No? I have an idea for you...

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ACCESSing movement through spaces

Marie Sester created ACCESS. "ACCESS," according to its website is, "a public art installation that applies web, computer, sound and lighting technologies in which web users track individuals in public spaces with a unique robotic spotlight and acoustic beam system."

ACCESS essentially creates an individualized space around its target. This is a space which they cannot control. The light and sound generated by the robotic setup solely target the individual (non-targets cannot hear audio instructions unless they are in the space with the target). ACCESS in this way incorporates individuals into its rhetoric by creating a sensuous experience which only they participate it.

More often than not, the person in the space reacts negatively to that reality. They try to run from and escape the spotlight. A few respond to the audio cues, accepting the new spacial reality to which they are introduced. Sester in her interview about ACCESS discuses the relationship between the person being tracked, the public around them, and also the individual controlling ACCESS via the Web.

I find the connection between the unseen and the viewed to be interesting in that the control of space by an individual which is not present changes not only the reality of the target but also the discourse around space which they occupy. People don't pay attention to the space as they walk but when the spotlight highlights an area and creates that new space people are more conscious of their actions and movements in the public eye.

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Counter-Discourse, Counter-Sites in Camajuaní, Cuba

The Repurposing of Garages as "Espacio Segrado" (Sacred Space)

This is a special guest contribution to :: repurposed :: by Christa B. Teston, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Writing Arts, Rowan University.

“Rhetorical agency—in social space—depends on the strategic application of a range of representational devices, whether the goal is to continue a given spatial tradition or to sponsor a counter-discourse via a counter-site.” –Ackerman 2003, p. 86

For the past two summers I've had the rich and worthwhile experience of being able to travel to Camajuaní, Cuba for humanitarian purposes.

The terrain, architecture, and overall organization of streets, stops, and stores in much of rural Cuba simply has not been managed or maintained.

A street side view in the Camajuaní neighborhood I stayed in.

A second street side view.

Despite the seeming neglect of common areas and travel paths in Camajuaní, there is a kind of hyper-vigilance on the part of the government toward places and spaces of public worship. Except in very few cases, the government owns all land in Cuba. There are, therefore, strict laws about what you are and are not allowed to do with it. If you can afford to, though, you can build an outdoor kitchen.

Children playing around the outdoor kitchen.

The entrance of the outdoor kitchen with the family's pet parakeets.

Outdoor kitchen's counter top.

Outdoor kitchen's cook top.

Outdoor kitchen's shelf (the recycled bottles are used for storing sauces, etc.).

While you could construct an outdoor kitchen in Cuba, it is not permissible to build or add on to an existing place of worship. Penalties for noncompliance range from outrageous fees (when the average monthly income for a Cuban is only 17 to 20 U.S. dollars) to jail time. For over 50 years, therefore, no new churches were built in Cuba. Hurricane damage and increases in population have left many towns without local houses of worship. Larger Catholic churches still stand strong in Havana, but for protestants, farmers and their families who live in rural areas, there is no place to collectively worship.

Many faithful in Cuba, however, have subverted the government’s religious repression, dominant discourse, and disavowal of collective worship by making material a kind of “counter-site.” That is, while it is not permissible to build a church in Cuba, it is permissible to build, or expand upon a garage.

One pastor, for instance, has repurposed his family’s home garage as a sacred space for the parishioners in his community. After o btaining building permits and collecting financial support from several churches in the United States, Pastor Alejandro* and many from his community began the hard work of turning their garage into a temple.

Constructing the outside wall.

Pastor Alejandro scraping paint off the old interior walls of the garage. Later, walls were painted a bright Caribbean pink.

The temple, under construction.

As a law, garages in Cuba must have one completely open wall large enough to fit a car into. Therefore, three walls along the “garage’s” perimeter may be built and a roof can be added in order to enclose the space, but one whole side of the temple must remain open and exposed at all times. Pews, musical instruments, and any religious artifacts or relics must therefore remain mobile.

Mobile pews, instruments.

The front of the temple with freshly painted Caribbean pink walls.

Community members deciding where oscillating fans should be hung on the wall. It gets quite warm in the temple during summer months.

Pastor Alejandro's story is one of many. Several pastors in rural Cuba have chosen to repurpose their garage in order to facilitate a sacred space for worship. These repurposed spaces are but a few examples of the Cuban people’s circumnavigation of political dominance through rhetorical agency--the collective sponsorship of a counter-discourse made material through counter-sites.

Structure built under the guise of being a garage.

Same structure, but filled with mobile pews and a makeshift movie screen on which parishioners watched Magdalena in Spanish, with English subtitles.

Another pastor's repurposed garage. Fits four pews.

A young parishioner in one of the church’s pews, having her first iPod experience.

*Names used throughout are pseudonyms.

These and various other images from Cuba can be found here.

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On Organizing Space - Both Physical and Virtual

How does the way we organize space influence the way we use technology? 

In "Life on the Gridiron," a chapter in James Kunstler's book The Geography of Nowhere, the author criticizes how our space is organized. From the first settlements in The New World to the island of Manhattan, space has typically been organized into evenly divided squares or blocks. Kunstler is obviously disconcerted by this phenomenon. However, I don't see the problem with it. It seems logical to me, just as it probably did to those early settlers, who had lots of land that needed to be divvied up. 

I am a very organized person, so straight roads lined with equal-sized plots of land is appealing to me. For example, take a look at this GoogleMap satellite view of Muncie:

And Muncie probably isn't even the best example of this type of division of space. Due to natural formations like the White River, some areas aren't as linearly divided as others. 

While thinking about the organization of actual space, I realized that it is similar to how we organize virtual space, like our computer files.

Of course, there are three organization options - the list, columns, or (pictured above) icons. All three very linear and logically organized. So, it would seem that the way we organize the space we inhabit has influenced the way we construct technological, virtual space.  

BUT the way we organize and interact with technology, specifically computers, is rapidly changing. Take a look at this video from the 2006 TED Talks:

The speaker is demonstrating what he says is a more "intuitive" way to interact with your computer. The multitouch technology allows users to manipulate objects on the screen without using a mouse. I found it interesting that he repeatedly said this state-of-the-art technology is intuitive. He said it wouldn't require a manual and "it is exactly what you would kind of expect, especially if you haven't interacted with a computer before." So, someone who has never encountered a computer could approach this technology and use it successfully with no help or training. 

Now, I have messed around on the Microsoft Surface in Bracken Library, and it doesn't seem intuitive to me. It's fun, that's for sure, but I don't know that I could use it to it's full potential without some kind of training. But could that be because of the structured, linear way of organization that has been ingrained in me since childhood (from the numbered county road I lived on to the computers I used at school)? 

Perhaps new technology will change that way we think about organizing our actual, physical space. Apparently, intuition trumps logic. 

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Legal Graffiti

The line between graffiti and art has always been a blurred one. Where some see vandalism others see beauty, where some see a territorial mark others see a political statement. Slowly, but steadily, new ideas are created and graffiti is being shed in a new light. The idea of legal graffiti embraces the idea of free expression and gives people room to turn what could have otherwise been a bland building or concrete wall into something colorful and fantastic, repurposing space to suit their needs.

Places like 5 Pointz have honed legal graffiti into what the creators ideally hope to make into an museum. Artists first must obtain a permit from the building's owner before they can use a space to create their work.

Pictures from Richard Dawkins Forum

Other legal graffiti walls are more liberal, allowing anyone a chance to leave their mark and resulting in layers and layers of paint melded into each other.

The idea of legal graffiti walls is slowly expanding beyond major cities. The website Legal Walls uses Google Maps to help users find legal graffiti walls all around the world and to add information about missing walls to the system.

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