Objects in Flux - RMIT Research Repository - RMIT University

Objects in Flux
principles. From personal experience, task-ori-
ented learning tended to produce a patchwork
collection of knowledge that did not always
give a clear overview of the field in which I was
operating. xxiii
The eclectic scope and task-oriented nature of
these practices often meant that knowledge I
accessed, developed or deployed for a specific
project was not readily retained in my memory.
Documenting projects for public presentation
provided an opportunity to reflect on this knowl-
edge. While preparing project documentation I
often found additional research was required to
bring a suitable level of clarity to the presenta-
tion. Although this documentation was generally
produced for public consumption, it also served
as a useful reference for my own practice and
on a number of occasions I returned to my own
project documentation for guidance when devel-
oping new works. xxiv
5.5 Embodied knowledge
Aside from the disembodied knowledge dis-
cussed above, a second form of knowledge is
discernible within practices of object modifica-
tion – an embodied knowledge that is locally
constituted and intimately bound to the practi-
tioner and the place of action. This knowledge is
equivalent to a way of working, acting or being.
It is, in its extremes, both de Certeau’s ‘ways of
xxiii. See the blog post The Unknown Unknown
for a discussion of the difficulty in seeing the
gaps in your own knowledge, http://www.
openobject.org/objectsinflux/?p=14 accessed
16 January 2011.
xxiv. The use of one’s own documentation as a
reference guide is also noted in Torrey et al.’s
study of How-tos (2007).
96
Woz is God, or possibly the antichrist.
Published Thursday, July 20, 2006
http://www.openobject.org/objectsinflux/?p=8
As I was contemplating a title for this post I realised that
‘woz’ is ‘god’ backwards, or at least it’s ‘god’ transposed
onto a backwards alphabet. Check it out:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
z y x w v u t s r q p o n m l k j i h g f e d c b a
| | |
Take the letter “o” as the rotation point, flip the alphabet
backwards and then transpose the word ‘god’ onto the reversed
alphabet. You get ‘woz’.
I’m talking about Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple
Computer; you can read about Woz at Wikipedia1 ) and
although he may not be an actual god (or even the antichrist;
notwithstanding that whole $666.66 pricing issue... 2 ) he is
quite amazing. In ’86 a friend of mine at Yarrawonga High
got a ‘limited edition’ Apple IIgs signed by Woz (Apple
made at least 10,000 of these ‘limited editions’). I remember
thinking, ‘you’d have to be pretty special to get your name
on a computer.’ Woz is pretty special (and probably a bit of
a dork, but hey, in the 80’s being a dork could be truly cool,
not just faux-cool like it is now).
The reason I mention Woz is that I’ve just been messing
around with the Apple Desktop Bus3 , a system Apple used
to connect keyboards and mice to their computers. Woz
developed the ADB in the mid ’80’s (it was later replaced by
the industry standard USB, however, due to its simplicity it
was still being used internally on Apple laptops as recently
as 2005). ADB’s simplicity epitomises Woz’s approach
1/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woz, accessed July 20, 2006.
2/ See the original Apple I print ad, www.apple-history.com
/images/apple1.gif accessed 20 July 2006.
3/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Desktop_Bus accessed
20 July 2006.