User:Nadiners/ Project outline

Tentative Title

literature, literacy, illiteracy

Introduction

There is a lot of research in the occidental world that is involved with innovative technology, (which is great!) trying to make it shinier, faster, smaller, slicker, and generally to improve our lives. If we were to take this technology to sub-saharan Africa, innovation will be necessary, not in the sense of recreating already existing technologies, but by adapting them to different realities, in order to produce useful solutions for local development. But all this is oriented toward urban areas and literate communities. How can we apply this to rural zones and illiterate citizens? using basics (primitive/simplified) technology

What are you working on now?

Before even attempting to do something in the aim to ‘help’ or ‘improve’ I would like to research, inside out, what it is to be able to read, what does it mean not to read? all the possibilities of reading, reading is decoding, is reading also understanding? related to the thematic week books were talked about a lot, publishing, something is published in order to be read by a public.

How do you plan to make it?

I will first do a study of what language is, what does it mean to be literate, and then what does it mean to be illiterate? to really study illiteracy, and before going to look for communities with a large illiterate population, I will study the case of illiteracy in europe, close to me, reachable. Education for adults visible forms, icons, pictogrammes

Relation to previous practice

I took the idea of hyperlinks to its very primitive state, to get a better understanding with reference to Vannevar Bush PHYL what - PHYL (Personal Hyper Linker) is a personal reference library in the form of a mechanical machine. The user must select the data he would like to store in it, based on his interests. The data is stored on microfilm which is then inserted into a roll underneath one of the four screens and can be interchangeable. The information is linked from one screen to another in numerical order. how - Influenced from Vannevar Bush’s Memmex, one of the first ideas of accessing links with code (hyperlinks) and seeing them through screens. I built the machine from wood, plexiglass and vinyl for the screens, a bit of 3D printing for the rolling mechanism and LED lights. why - Contrary to the internet, where data gateways are open to all, this machine allows data to be input solely by the user, to be able to control and select ones content. It becomes a personal library rather than a collective one. It explores the evolution of reading printed material, taking the idea of hyperlinks back to basics.

References

• INNOVATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
• http://www.digitalmcd.com/mcd71-digitale-afrique-les-versions-francaise-et-anglaise-au-format-e-book-sont-disponibles/
• A History of Reading - Alberto Manguel
• How to talk about books you haven’t read - Pierre Bayard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X41aZlw503U
• Orality and Literacy - Walter J. Ong
• http://www.e-flux.com/journal/art-and-literacy/