My research group is organizing a two-day visit (June 12 – 13 2007) to the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands, by sociologist and psychologist Kenneth Gergen. Gergen is most widely known for his book “Saturated Self: dilemmas of identity in contemporary life” (originally published in 1991, second edition 2000). He is also known for his idea of “absent presence”. The first day of his visit, Tuesday June 12, he will give a public lecture called: Playland – Transformations in Technology, Identity and Culture Kenneth Gergen will speak about the influence of modern communication technologies on human identities. He will specifically focus […] Read More
Another outdoors advertisement, shot already a few months ago in Amsterdam. The ad says “Who do I want to be today?”. Options are: kroegtijger (don’t know how to translate this, binge drinker or bar fly is a bit too negative), fashionista, paparazza, night butterfly, supermodel. All very much consumer identities. All identities that are mediatized. All ‘global’ identities, that is, recognizable in many different cultural contexts. And all identities in which the mobile phone can be an aid in the pretense to be one of these, to play a role, as if… The ad plays upon the idea of wearable […] Read More
A week or two ago (just before the migration of this blog the a new server) I walked past an outdoors advertisement in Amsterdam, near where I live. It is an ad for the Dutch Open Air Museum in Arnhem. It says “Vrij als vroeger – Even terug naar de jaren ’60” (something like “Free as once before – briefly back to the ’60s“). (click to enlarge) A brief look at their website tells me it’s an exhibition about leisure time in the 60s. What made me take a snapshot of this was that the picture shows a mobile phone […] Read More
Hehe, finally got it working. What an immense hassle to migrate bijt.org to a new host without bandwidth restraints… I’ll try and post something right away…
Source – via Textually.org. A study by Nielsen Media Research suggests that the type of phone you wear says something about your personality: What your mobile phone says about you: Nokia Family-minded Middle aged managers Balance seekers Health conscious Motorola Fashion conscious Under 24 Fun seekers Individualistic Sony Ericsson Ambitious young men Professionals Success driven Individualistic LG Favourite of mums Stay-at-home parents Success driven Harmony seekers Samsung Young women Career focused Success driven Fun seekers Whatever your opinion about such research (what do you mean LG is both for “stay at home parents” and “success driven”?), most telling are the […] Read More
Below some notes I made today at the Symposium Playing the Urban. Symposium Playing the Urban @Balie 31 maart 2007 http://www.debalie.nl/artikel.jsp?podiumid=media&articleid=102445 PROGRAM 13-14h Mobile Learning Game Kit Speaker: Jan Simons (Associate Professor New Media Studies, University of Amsterdam) 14-15h PlastiCity: A Game for Urban Planning Speakers: Mathias Fuchs (Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader in Creative Technology, University of Salford) and Steve Manthorp (Special Project Manager, Bradford) 15h30-16u30 Logo Parc (Jan van Eyck Academy) Speakers: Logo Parc (Daniël van der Velden, Katja Gretzinger, Matthijs van Leeuwen, Matteo Poli, Gon Zifroni) This symposium was organized by fellow TKCers from Maastricht […] Read More
Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf has an article about environmental problems that arise because of people putting mobile phones and other gadgets like iPods in the coffin of their bereaved. Head of the Dutch gravediggers association Pauline Harmsen is quoted saying: “Surviving dependants often think those items really belong to the deceased. But they don’t think about the materials in the devices which are bad for the environment”. What will our great-great grandchildren think about those strange ‘ritual items’ found scattered everywhere in the earth, and dated with great precision to a definite period in the beginning of the third Millennium? […] Read More
This is the poster presentation I gave a while ago at the conference Virtual Ethnography in Contemporary Social Science, organized by The Virtual Knowledge Studio. I forgot to put it online earlier… It’s about the problems that may occur when doing and writing ethnography about the mobile phone. 060925_mobile_phone_ethnography.pdf (2.5 MB)
Yes, it’s our last day. Yesterday we arrived in Abuja, after having stayed a few days in Jos for the second time. We are again in Daniel’s place, Esther’s cousin. His internet connection was broken 2 weeks ago because overzealous road workers dug a trench in his street and cut through the telephony cables. Esther and I decided to do it the African way. We jumped into the dust pit with gaffer tape and a leatherman and tried to fix the telephone line by tying all threads of the same color together. And it worked…! (written proof here).
Here is mr. Dominic busy talking through his handset. Business in Nigeria has changed a lot with the advent of the mobile phone. It has become much easier to arrange logistics and deal with customers. It comes at a price however. First, costs are very high for most people. Mr. Dominic spends between 10.00 – 15.000 nairas a month on mobile phone use (approx. 60 – 95 euros). One of his colleagues we spoke to – running a retail shop with many different customers – even claimed to pay up to 30.000 naira a month! And another cost is that […] Read More
After visiting Lagos, we followed a Peak Milk transport by truck. Our driver was mr. Bello. He himself was of partly Fulani descent. When he understood that we were interested in \Peak Milk AND Fulani milk, he started to tell stories about milk and pointed out every Fulani herd we passed! The whole trip to Jos lasted 2 days. The first day was not so quick due to engine difficulties. At the fall of night we had to split up and go ahead in the security car that followed us. This became a hallucinogenic 4 hour nightly speed-drive to Abuja, […] Read More
kablog-j2me 2.0.8 for Nokia6233 This is an older pic shot in Jos. I was out on Ahmadu Bello way talking to some people selling all kinds of addon items for mobile phones. Joe here was very fond of his very small handset. Before this one he owned 2 earlier models.
kablog-j2me 2.0.8 for Nokia6233 We were shown around by the proud Italian captain of the new port in Lagos, owned by Grimaldi.
kablog-j2me 2.0.8 for Nokia6233 Just a shot of a shot inside the WAMCO warehouse. We were comparing the quality of our photocams.
kablog-j2me 2.0.8 for Nokia6233
kablog-j2me 2.0.8 for Nokia6233
We have now seen the milk factory and the packaging process, went to the market were Peak Milk products are being sold and talked to the people there, went to Apappa Harbor where the ships with milk powder arrive & filmed pretty much all we need at this stage. In two days we will be in a truck that will take us to the north again. Hopefully we will be able to get a nice GPS track out of that too.
I was very uncomfortable with this way of transportation. This is a not-so-cool way to move around in this city. In my view it only draws more attention and creates more distance. At one point, a busdriver that didn’t move aside quickly enough was threathened by the armed guy right on the streets…. Luckily Esther was able to persuade these men to turn off their sirens the 2nd day.
Tuesday, Esther and I arrived in Lagos by air from Abuja. We were in the same plane as LL Cool J and his entourage… The arrival at the airport went smoothly, we were picked up by people from WAMCO company (producer of Peak Milk and Three Crowns Dairy products). Our car was accompanied by a security car with 3 people, one armed, and blasting sirens, assigned to us by WAMCO, who had arranged all.
Just a dump of some of the most interesting pics from the last few days in Shonong, a rural area south of Jos where we have stayed for a few days. Sorry for the grungy quality, I have done it the easy way because uploading each image in its original quality takes too long from here. Hilltop in Bachit where we made a stop to call to NWO for the Co-Ops launchs. THis was the best place for reception. Esther pointing at some maps that hung from the district chiefs house whom we visited. Esther, Sadik Balewa and Ab at […] Read More