Digital Is Improv?

“Point to something and say what it’s not.”  When Lacy said this to start our Digital Is planning meeting, I laughed a little bit.  What did she say?  It would be a difficult task, but I’d give it a shot.  “Large green chandelier,” I said while pointing at the red velvet curtains.  “Those are markers” (It really was my laptop).  Then I stopped.  I found myself staring at the two-toned blue walls of our hangout spot, pointing at it, unable to name the object.

It’s a blue wall.  It is not anything but a blue wall.  It was strange to point to something and describe what it was not, and we all had difficulty trying.  But that was the point: “to make the familiar strange,” as Lil later said.

This improv activity is indicative of our work with Digital Is.  Our site’s mission is to understand/deconstruct/critically investigate our personal histories and interactions with technology and literacies.  We want to bring together our personal experiences and make connections with others based on these experiences.  We also want to question—we always question.  This is a good thing.

After this activity jump-started our thinking, we began thinking about the different events along our literacy journeys.  Specifically, we created timelines of our experiences with digital literacies in our daybooks, taking note of the years and events we felt were significant.  Lacy asked us to transfer these events to sticky notes, and together we created a group timeline of significant events.  Technologies such as the Atari game system, instant messaging, our first cell phones, etc. all made the list.  “Oh yeah, I remember that…” accompanied by a smile or a laugh was a common response for many of these examples.

Our timeline of sticky notes covered our table; there were so many, in fact, that the amount of yellow sticky notes over the table formed a U-shape rather than a straight line.  As we read each sticky note in chronological order, we began to deconstruct why these events were significant to us, making connections to each other’s experiences.  We then challenged these events by asking ourselves what dominant narratives were present or affected these experiences.  Capitalism, competition, authority—these were just some of the ideas that came out of that discussion.  Next month, we will meet again for a writing retreat in which we will delve deeper into these topics and discussions.  If our retreat is anything like our planning meeting (and I know it will be), it’s going to be awesome!