Vpoem 14 by Ladislao Pablo Gyori begins with an introduction to the thoughts of the artist as he was constructing his work:

"Assume the function of destruction and decomposition, but as an accomplishment and not as a negation of being'.

Is there any way you could respond to/interpret these themes in order to produce some virtual works?"

From there, the artist throws up a background of infinite darkness, and constructs a play of words upon it, twisting the viewer's perspective on many axis, even as our perspective of each word changes. The code here is not initially transparent, but the artist's idea reveals itself like an onion with a bit of applied thinking.

First we must consider the obvious: we see words being thrown around, suffixes attached, prefixes, sometimes two or more are cut-and-pasted, but always proceeding with an understandable connection. I was immediately reminded of a thesaurus, and, what's more, the synapses of the brain. Certainly, if you've ever uttered a non sequitur, you are aware that although your train of thought appears to be disjointed, there was something that bridged the gap between the thoughts. This unusual connection is how our mind can put unfamiliar thoughts together, and is a step in the learning process. The more connections you have between synapses, the easier your brain can access ideas--which reminded me of code. Essentially, codes are a relationship between one (usually obscure) thought to another. If they weren't, cryptographers would be unable to break them. Even if their relationship is trillions of steps apart (like in the Enigma machine), they are still related.

Secondly, the actual computer/program coding that went on behind the scenes of this video provides an intriguing layer to what is already interesting.

I am among the lucky number of UMW students who have an on-campus job, and even rarer, I enjoy it! I work for the Department of Teaching and Learning Technologies (DTLT). Contrary to popular belief, we don't fix your computer (or the classroom projectors). Rather, we focus on keeping UMW at the forefront of the digital world, and one of our biggest accomplishments has been UMWBlogs. I was recently asked by Jim Groom (who blogs, moans, and bitches over at bavatuesdays--if you can't tell, I'm really hoping he'll read this. :P) to comb the UMWBlogs in an effort to encourage discussion and facilitate awareness among users of the digital community in which they live. (No person is an island when they float on the Internet, though at times we forget.) In doing this, I came across Groom's COMPSCI class Digital Storytelling, which at first confused and then fascinated me.

"Little Brother" terrifies me.

It does not terrify me in the same way that "Twilight" terrifies me (which is by being a glorified novel written at an elementary school level about a pitiful, weak girl who falls in love with a sparkly stalker, and god save our young women from such a terrible female role model.)

Rather, "Little Brother" terrifies me because when I look at my peers, and I look at my parents, and I look at my grand-parents... I see people who view modern technology with either great mystification, or blinding adoration. Computers and cell phones are either incomprehensible tools that only make life more complicated, or they are indistinguishable from magic.

This is not to say the greater populace is unaware of cyber-terrorism, viruses, and bugs, because they are surely familiar with the news and with the frustrations that come with owning such objects. However, I would postulate that average man does not realize (or think much about) the reality that comes hand-in-hand with cell phones and networks, and so forth.

Let's start simply.

If you are a member of the majority of the United States population, you typically have a phone at hand for the greater part of the day. But what is in that phone? What parts are required to created this mechanism with which you spend probably seven hours each day? We have no idea, but we keep using them. They have been placed in our hands as we are placing them into the hands of our children, innocent of their abilities.

"Innocent" is not a term I am using lightly--this is, after all, an English course. "Innocent" implies guiltless, implies naivety, but is it inaccurate? Technology is a big dollar industry, even disregarding the peer pressure to text message! or video chat! We are taking these items from trusted sources without an explanation of how they function at a basic level, besides which buttons will email your bff.

The idea of "Harajuku Fun Madness" was intriguing enough, in my opinion, to warrant a few clicks of the button.

ARG on Wiki

ARGs remind me of geocaching, but with a storyline & added adventure.

For those of us who game, an online BioShock 2 Puzzle--There's Something In the Sea. This is along the lines of Not Pron.

Do share your opinions.

" class=

To the one who gets it right, a BEER!

(Or a coffee if you're <21.)

I know, it's pretty easy.

In case other members of the classroom were unable to attend this event, TJ Leyden spoke yesterday night about his life as a Neo-Nazi and his withdrawal from that community. It was a vivid, arresting lecture in itself (rather like the metaphor of being unable to look away from a train wreck) but Leyden also touched on subjects that I found pertinent to this class.

Part of "separatist" recruitment uses an incredible number and variety of symbols, and even codes to further impress their messages. Some of those he talked about are also available on his website, StrHATE Talk.

Check it out.

If you've ever been part of a community (a neighborhood, a club, university class, etc.), consider what it was that defined you as a "community"? Was it a shared interest? Were you a group because you worked together in the same building? Perhaps you were on a sports team and wore matching uniforms? Like mindset, like locale, like clothing--all of these can create a sense of togetherness, of an "us".

While some communities may remain communities in only the most general sense of the word via broad generalities such as shared nationality, other groups find their foundation bring a closer bond. These associations may surround themselves with more numerous overlaps--from clothes, to music, to locations... to language.

As a student also taking a Linguistics course, I would propose there are many similarities to the uses of code (which we are studying in the class) and the use of slang in subcultures. Having been a member of several very sub-subcultures and viewing firsthand the dialog between members, I would argue that in some cases, the terms and words used become so particularized that what was once "slang" crosses into "code".

Codes have a variety of uses, but by their nature are a method of exclusion. Slang, too, can fulfill this need. It can conceal "a message so that only the intended recipient can read it," which coding is described as doing by Singh in his Introduction. This encryption may or may not be intentional, but it exists nonetheless.

I happen to be a video-gaming enthusiast, among other things, and I particularly enjoy the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) known as World of Warcraft (henceforth referred to as WoW). I feel that using this as an example is exceptionally... geeky. But at the current time, I think it is an excellent demonstration of slang being a less formal kind of code, and it is an example with which I am familiar.