"Dude, where's my subculture?"
Is it even necessary (much less, desirable) to have a subculture? I
seem to find myself attached to various groups as a loose hanger-on;
I'm not even sure if any of these groups is (the human image of) a
"subculture" -- maybe they're just people who loosely fit into amongst
cultural groups, like electrons floating in a proton lattice.
And yet, I think I do rub up against subcultures from time to time --
"the art subculture", for example, or "the academic subculture", or
"the activist subculture", or even (my least favorite) "the indie
subculture".
How would a search engine for cultural groups work? All of the
examples I mentioned above "advertise themselves" by what they do, and
bulletins of various sorts filter out into the rest of the world: come
to this art opening, take this class, join this group, go to this bar
and listen to this band.
I'd like to imagine that if I found ads sourced from some subculture I
liked better than any of these, I'd be drawn in right away!
Well, I always do like to think highly of myself.
* In New York, for example, there's that LISP NYC meeting once a
month; that's certainly something, and I haven't been drawn in by it.
* Comics... well, I've never been to a comic convention, maybe I
should try to go to one, just as a visitor? (The woman at the used
bookstore last night informed me that "graphic novels are really
popular right now.")
* There are probably some "flavours" of academic subculture that I
could have fun with; for example at the U of MN math building I saw an
ad for a program offering "Pathways from Mathematics and Physics into
Computer Science and Communication Systems" that's in Lausanne,
Switzerland (http://ic.epfl.ch/page68469-en.html); and while I'm sure
I wouldn't find it so intriguing if it wasn't in a foreign land with
French as a primary language, under the current conditions, it sounds
like something that could possibly be fun. (Then again, I haven't yet
tried that graceful move whereby I parlay my independent computer work
into a substitute for a good academic graduate record, so I don't know
if it will really work. I'm sure I'll be more confident about this
type of thing as soon as my "product" is better solidified.)
* Writing-wise, I still haven't checked out everything that the
Electronic Literature Organization has to offer
(e.g. http://eliterature.org/programs/), although I did speak with the
past president of the organization who said I should hunt through
their pages. If I was better qualified to apply for some of these
jobs, maybe I'd do that http://eliterature.org/news/job-listings/ --
maybe I'll do it (or at least try to worm my way in somewhat) anyway.
On the other hand, what I'm coming up with for the most part seem like
"activities" more than "subcultures".
One more note on the subject. I found a book by Umberto Eco called
"The Open Work". I didn't buy it (having already spent more than $100
on books this week in a fit of rampant consumerism), but it seems
like something I oughta look at eventually:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/ECOOPE.html
On 5/23/08, Timothy Teravainen <tkt2103@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> This reminded me of the "open-source search engine", at least in
> principle (decentralisation) if not in realization or even goals.
>
> http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/05/23/1514255.shtml
>
> - Tim.
>
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