Complexity and Classroom Learning

This thesis provides a theoretical basis for applying complexity theory to classroom learning. Existing accounts of complexity in social systems fail to adequately situate human understanding within those systems. Human understanding and action is embedded within the complex systems that we inhabit. As such, we cannot achieve a full and accurate representation of those systems. This challenges epistemological positions which characterise learning as a simple mechanistic process, those which see it as approaching a view of the world ‘as it is’ and also positions which see learning as a purely social activity. This thesis develops a materialist position which characterises understandings as emergent from, but not reducible to, the material world. The roles of embodied neural networks as well as our linguistic and symbolic systems are considered in order to develop this materialist position. Context and history are shown to be important within complex systems and allow novel understandings to emerge. Furthermore, shared understandings are seen as emergent from processes of response, replication and manipulation of patterns of behaviour and patterns of association. Thus the complexity of learning is accounted for within a coherent ontological and epistemological framework. The implications of this materialist position for considering classroom learning are expounded. Firstly, our models and descriptions of classrooms are reconciled with the view of our understandings as sophisticated yet incomplete models within complex social systems. Models are characterised as themselves material entities which emerge within social systems and may go on to influence behaviour. Secondly, contemporary accounts of learning as the conceptual representation of the world are challenged

General Ecology: The New Ecological Paradigm

Ecology has become one of the most urgent and lively fields in both the humanities and sciences. In a dramatic widening of scope beyond its original concern with the coexistence of living organisms within a natural environment, it is now recognized that there are ecologies of mind, information, sensation, perception, power, participation, media, behavior, belonging, values, the social, the political… a thousand ecologies. This proliferation is not simply a metaphorical extension of the figurative potential of natural ecology: rather, it reflects the thoroughgoing imbrication of natural and technological elements in the constitution of the contemporary environments we inhabit, the rise of a cybernetic natural state, with its corresponding mode of power. Hence this ecology of ecologies initiates and demands that we go beyond the specificity of any particular ecology: a general thinking of ecology which may also constitute an ecological transformation of thought itself is required. In this ambitious and radical new volume of writings, some of the most exciting contemporary thinkers in the field take on the task of revealing and theorizing the extent of the ecologization of existence as the effect of our contemporary sociotechnological condition: together, they bring out the complexity and urgency of the challenge of ecological thought-one we cannot avoid if we want to ask and indeed have a chance of affecting what forms of life, agency, modes of existence, human or otherwise, will participate-and how-in this planet's future. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/general-ecology-9781350014695/#sthash.6WXDqoeE.dpu

Navigating Subjectivity: South, a Psychometric Text Adventure.

South: A Psychometric Text Adventure is an artist’s book and a set of software programs. The South project re-conceptualises the artist’s book and wider bookforms, encouraging models of interaction that are aware of specific locations and individual subjects. These alternatives are a response to what this thesis frames as two rapidly stagnating forms. The thesis argues that both the artist’s book and electronic literature (see the glossary on page 343 for definitions of the key terms used throughout this thesis) have not made a significant impact on the cultural landscape of the early 21st century. Nor have they made a significant use of the key technological changes that have occurred since the first electronic literature emerged in the late 1970s (in the form of interactive fictions, sometimes called ‘Text Adventures’, such as Colossal Cave Adventure (Crowther, 1976)). In order to move forward from the increasingly problematic, disembodied, computational models used in these early digital works (discussed in chapters two, five and six) this thesis specifically recommends the formation of temporally specific, contextualised, relationships between readers and digital texts. The South project presents a multi-linear, situated and embodied form of intra-activity (see glossary) as an alternative to more linear forms of interaction. These ideas and their implications for electronic literature and artist’s books will be clarified and outlined throughout this thesis, as will the rationale for framing them as valid models for moving electronic literature and artist’s books into a position of cultural and technological relevance

Videogame ecologies: interaction, aesthetics, affect

This project is driven by omissions at the intersection of ecological game studies and media-ecology. Although authors have studied videogames from a variety of ecological approaches, few have attempted to develop a holistic methodology, embracing videogames' specific attributes while recognising their role within larger physical systems. This thesis is an attempt to address this, reading videogames as simultaneously about and functioning as ecologies. My methodology draws on the agential-realist philosophy of Karen Barad whose theory of 'intra-activity' is abundant with ecological ramifications. Adapting Barad's 'intra-active' framework for use with contemporary videogames, I read them as assemblages of hardware, software and their human players. I explore three significant aspects of game studies: interaction, aesthetics and affect. Focusing on interaction, I analyse the game Shelter. Emphasising the role of hardware and software, I read these processes in conjunction with an understanding of gameplay. This encourages a shift away from seeing gameplay as 'interaction' as it is defined within human-computer-interaction, and instead promotes a view that is 'intra-active'. Siding with Barad, play is radically reframed as a phenomenon that produces the apparent objects of its inception. In the second study I approach a series of more experimental games illustrating how an agential-realist worldview influences aesthetics. Analysing high-concept puzzle games Superhot, Antichamber, and Manifold Garden, I suggest that these games place a focus on aspects of ecology often over-shadowed in so-called 'natural' imaginings of our world, such as time, space and their entanglement. Finally, bringing my focus to the role of the player in my ecological understanding of games I analyse a number of short, human-centred or biographical games. Seeing the role of the player in an ecological manner, designers deviate from traditional methods of generating pathos and affect. Rather than developing empathetic relationships between player and avatar through immersion, viewing the player as only a part of an ecological system demands a posthuman response from players. These designers ask players to empathise while acknowledging their role is small and not central. This thesis presents a novel point of view that draws attention to the ambitious design practices of artists while suggesting new avenues in the future

Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed

We’re used to talking about how tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon rule the internet, but what about daemons? Ubiquitous programs that have colonized the Net’s infrastructure—as well as the devices we use to access it—daemons are little known. Fenwick McKelvey weaves together history, theory, and policy to give a full account of where daemons come from and how they influence our lives—including their role in hot-button issues like network neutrality. Going back to Victorian times and the popular thought experiment Maxwell’s Demon, McKelvey charts how daemons evolved from concept to reality, eventually blossoming into the pandaemonium of code-based creatures that today orchestrates our internet. Digging into real-life examples like sluggish connection speeds, Comcast’s efforts to control peer-to-peer networking, and Pirate Bay’s attempts to elude daemonic control (and skirt copyright), McKelvey shows how daemons have been central to the internet, greatly influencing everyday users. Internet Daemons asks important questions about how much control is being handed over to these automated, autonomous programs, and the consequences for transparency and oversight. Table of Contents Abbreviations and Technical Terms Introduction 1. The Devil We Know: Maxwell’s Demon, Cyborg Sciences, and Flow Control 2. Possessing Infrastructure: Nonsynchronous Communication, IMPs, and Optimization 3. IMPs, OLIVERs, and Gateways: Internetworking before the Internet 4. Pandaemonium: The Internet as Daemons 5. Suffering from Buffering? Affects of Flow Control 6. The Disoptimized: The Ambiguous Tactics of the Pirate Bay 7. A Crescendo of Online Interactive Debugging? Gamers, Publics and Daemons Conclusion Acknowledgments Appendix: Internet Measurement and Mediators Notes Bibliography Index Reviews Beneath social media, beneath search, Internet Daemons reveals another layer of algorithms: deeper, burrowed into information networks. Fenwick McKelvey is the best kind of intellectual spelunker, taking us deep into the infrastructure and shining his light on these obscure but vital mechanisms. What he has delivered is a precise and provocative rethinking of how to conceive of power in and among networks. —Tarleton Gillespie, author of Custodians of the Internet Internet Daemons is an original and important contribution to the field of digital media studies. Fenwick McKelvey extensively maps and analyzes how daemons influence data exchanges across Internet infrastructures. This study insightfully demonstrates how daemons are transformative entities that enable particular ways of transferring information and connecting up communication, with significant social and political consequences. —Jennifer Gabrys, author of Program Eart

Conférence Nationale d'Intelligence Artificielle Année 2020

National audienc

Navigating subjectivity : South, a Psychometric Text Adventure

South: A Psychometric Text Adventure is an artist’s book and a set of software programs. The South project re-conceptualises the artist’s book and wider bookforms, encouraging models of interaction that are aware of specific locations and individual subjects. These alternatives are a response to what this thesis frames as two rapidly stagnating forms. The thesis argues that both the artist’s book and electronic literature (see the glossary on page 343 for definitions of the key terms used throughout this thesis) have not made a significant impact on the cultural landscape of the early 21st century. Nor have they made a significant use of the key technological changes that have occurred since the first electronic literature emerged in the late 1970s (in the form of interactive fictions, sometimes called ‘Text Adventures’, such as Colossal Cave Adventure (Crowther, 1976)). In order to move forward from the increasingly problematic, disembodied, computational models used in these early digital works (discussed in chapters two, five and six) this thesis specifically recommends the formation of temporally specific, contextualised, relationships between readers and digital texts. The South project presents a multi-linear, situated and embodied form of intra-activity (see glossary) as an alternative to more linear forms of interaction. These ideas and their implications for electronic literature and artist’s books will be clarified and outlined throughout this thesis, as will the rationale for framing them as valid models for moving electronic literature and artist’s books into a position of cultural and technological relevance.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Navigating subjectivity : South, a Psychometric Text Adventure

South: A Psychometric Text Adventure is an artist’s book and a set of software programs. The South project re-conceptualises the artist’s book and wider bookforms, encouraging models of interaction that are aware of specific locations and individual subjects. These alternatives are a response to what this thesis frames as two rapidly stagnating forms. The thesis argues that both the artist’s book and electronic literature (see the glossary on page 343 for definitions of the key terms used throughout this thesis) have not made a significant impact on the cultural landscape of the early 21st century. Nor have they made a significant use of the key technological changes that have occurred since the first electronic literature emerged in the late 1970s (in the form of interactive fictions, sometimes called ‘Text Adventures’, such as Colossal Cave Adventure (Crowther, 1976)). In order to move forward from the increasingly problematic, disembodied, computational models used in these early digital works (discussed in chapters two, five and six) this thesis specifically recommends the formation of temporally specific, contextualised, relationships between readers and digital texts. The South project presents a multi-linear, situated and embodied form of intra-activity (see glossary) as an alternative to more linear forms of interaction. These ideas and their implications for electronic literature and artist’s books will be clarified and outlined throughout this thesis, as will the rationale for framing them as valid models for moving electronic literature and artist’s books into a position of cultural and technological relevance.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo