REAPPRAISING THE RESIDUAL

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Reappraising the Residual

            What is reappraising the residual exactly?  It means finding the worth of materials that some may label as “old stuff”.  In order to understand this we must first understand that people involved in selling or buy “stuff”  all have a different conception of its worth.  The worth may be monetary to some, have emotional value to others, or even a political value to others.  Curation is a lot like appraisal but the value might be linked to history of a people or a nation.  It is curation that is a type of appraisal that attempts to put a value or price on museum pieces, prehistoric bones, vases, clothing and hieroglyphics.  This stuff may have been bought for a very small price, example: baseball cards 5cents a pack with bubblegum and then sold in today’s market for tens of thousands of dollars.  This makes many of us shake our heads and wonder how old pictures of baseball players could end up being valued at that much money.  Certainly baseball is part of American Culture.  Is it that Americans attempt to re capture the good old days or Americano culture that actually has driven up the price or is it more? 

Many people would like to know what makes a piece valuable.  If you decide to collect you might as well collect what will be valuable in the future but there does not seem to be a formula for what will be determined to be valuable.  One thing that certainly does contribute to the negotiations for “old stuff” is the internet.  EBay or Amazon.com is used to help people buy and sell without much formality.  With forums to sell your belongings on such as these is it any wonder that we as a culture have become retro-crazy. 

Another medium that is used to sell things is You tube.  People who wish to sell their talents, promote existing products, or just share their thoughts on the internet are making videos.  The book “Spreadable Media” relates a story about two friends who rap about Chicken McNuggets.  McDonalds picked up the piece as an advertisement changing very little.  The authors sold their advertisement as well as their talents as rap artists.

Television has a show called Antiques Road Show.  In this show people bring all of their treasures that have been around the house forever.  The person who has the treasure tells a story about it, there is an expert who gives a value based upon his experiences.  Missing from this scene is the Auction House and the collector.  The value is probably an educated guess but the show is widely watched and has had some amazing consequences.  All of a sudden people are looking at things they once considered trash as objects of value.

You Tube perpetuates hybrid audiences.  Material, nonmaterial, and digital goods can be given as gifts.  Many subscribe to the idea that digital media has started a new hybrid means of

exchange.

            Residual Culture is a concept that recognizes that culture changes at variable rates.  Even though certain aspects of our culture may no longer be an actual part of the mainstream culture we can still be influenced by things, events, places, or people from that time in our history.  Raymond Williams (1977) suggests that change in culture influences is only understood by its ebb and flow.  Williams also indicates that there are four types of cultural practices:

Emergent

Dominant

Residual

Archaic

            The digital media has altered people’s relationships with the past though collecting and recycling “stuff” from the past. It is through this stuff that people connect with their own cultural roots.  Some people are interested in the history of their old stuff because they may receive monetary gain from it but some are interested in the “stuff” because it links them to a past that is uniquely their own.  Take for example Ancestry.com. This web site is unbelievably popular. Ancestry.com is a website for people who are looking for their roots.  They use digital technology to explore their own personal history.  As they explore their own history they are also exploring the culture that they are from.  There is something inherent in our need to explore where we came from and who we are.

            Residual Economics is a term for what the value of the cultural objects that are no longer in the cultural mainstream.  Since many look at antiques and old stuff as monetarily valuable.  We have recycled superman, batman, Spiderman, and countless other Marvel Comic Heroes.  The interesting thing about the recycling of these heroes we have used movies, videos, and video games to represent them to our culture.  These retro-heroes are as popular if not more popular when they were first created and put in print.

            Finally, WWE Classics on demand were found their niche in fans who wanted to know where their favorite wrestlers came from and were also going.  Fans in areas that did not have actual access to early wrestling matches fought by their favorite wrestler began trading their own media.  The promoters may have had control over their own areas as far as the matches went they could not control what the fans had acquired on their own.  Which brings up the argument about intellectual property and if the wrestling promoters should have some control over media and media rights.  Television itself has preserved our past but it has also brought many legal issues as to who owns what, what can be seen, and who it can be seen by.  Ironically, the modern media is an important part of preserving past and our ability to remember that past.

 

WIKINOMICS

            What is Wikinomics? Wikinomics is a term that describes the effects of extensive collaboration and user-participation on the market place and corporate world.  As we Know Wikipedia is becoming a huge success within the internet industry throughout the world. Several countries are using, commenting on the ways to professionalize and to interpret information on the web, and to share important data about research, ideas, broadcasting videos, and other useful resources. 

 Wikipedia is a database allowing professionals, writers, historians, and other researchers to lay out particular material information about a certain project or research that they have found and then presenting it to the World Wide Web in order to share their ideas with the world.  They are sharing ideas and research about a various economic topics and problems that concern us all.  First some of our finest minds have defined and then wrote their own idea of what they got out of the research that they decided to focus on.  Wikipedia is a good source to use, especially doing different kinds of research. Finding the ideas and knitting together what other people post or write about it.   As in the video, Wikipedia has over billions of interoperations each year within the web itself. Wikipedia is like a huge mind web which allows the people of the world to write or post ideas to get the idea across.  So, Wikinomics and Wikipedia is like a gigantic dictionary or book in a Westernized kind of way and changing the way we do research. 

            Jim Whales is the founder and co- founder of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a business but isn’t a running business. He motivates people cross the world to bring within his business how to make Wikipedia better and stronger in success.  We know that Wikipedia has made dramatic changes without the years and throughout generations.  Wikipedia’s data base is not only is changing and succeeding all around the world, but it is designed and modernized to fix within a culture in a particular society. For instance, Wikipedia has the ability to have multiple languages. The internet and World Wide Web have brought changes and found ways to make things easier and maintain a balance.  Like Wikipedia, the internet gives a shelf full of ways to pick any way that can help us learn new concepts and succeed in a particular area.  The Wikipedia format Allows us to extend our knowledge, expand our thoughts, and bring about different ideas through technologies that have made Wikipedia a success.

            Wikipedia has branched out into various areas such as Wikinomics.  It is amazing that just a few years ago academia was shunning Wikipedia as being without references and faulty in its research base.  As the years have progressed there has been a change in the writings that appear on the topics under the titles.  There is information from many writers and it is submitted with citations.  In the sub divisions of Wikipedia such as Wikinomics there is the same type of evolution going on in all of the articles.  In the past in was unheard of for a serious research book to have the opinions and research of many writers on one piece.  Wikinomics as well as the other Wiki sources are living documents that are constantly changing to keep up with our changing world.  This is innovation and change at its finest.

            In addition to this idea within the web and Wikipedia itself, Wikipedia as everyone is aware that it has its drawbacks, and dis-advantages as well as advantages.  Many young adults take advantage of Wikipedia regarding the credit given to the sources it has used.  This of course is plagiarism whether it is Wikinomics or the Harvard Review.  Many, think that the people who add to Wikipedia steal others ideas and writings.  This may have been the case once but not now.  If you look at the citing’s in Wikipedia you will see that the citing are many and accurate. If there was stealing of ideas without a citing this would surely causes problems with in the business section of Wikipedia and would not reflect what the purpose of Wikipedia is really for.

It has happened in the past but has this particular problem been stopped?  Wikipedia has not only succeeded through the years in tightening up its citing procedures but it has been able to link the information to where the information originated from.  In other words Wikipedia has linked information from the original database.  Not everything is going to be 100% accurate but the organization has been getting better interpreting and presenting correct, accurate, information in the articles. http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Wikinomics+&view=detail&mid=24135EA4F3B7FD301B9B24135EA4F3B7FD301B9B&first=0&FORM=NVPFVR

PUBLIC SPACES

PUBLIC SPACES



With the advent of cyberspace all of the components that make up culture have been affected.  Space is no longer physical space but the spaces we inhabit while connected to space.  We can buy a house in Florida while relaxing in California.  If necessary we can participate in global politics or create a push toward global restructuring.  An individual can relocate to the United States from India and still keep in touch with their family in India.  Why is this important?  It allows people to travel within parallel universes.  They can participate in their new culture while still observing the customs of their own. 

Never before has immigrants been allowed to participate in two or even three cultures at the same time.  How will this affect the United States?  It will be interesting to find out.  Prior to the internet many of our newest citizens lived together in neighborhoods that reflected their past cultures.  Eventually however as the children of immigrants attended American schools they became more Americanized. For example: many of Italian, German, Irish, Mexican descent spoke their native languages in their homes,  as they became more Americanized the mother tongue gave way to English.  The first and second generation immigrants crossed the lines of ethnicity and married outside of their ethnic group.  Although there are still neighborhoods that keep the traditions of first generation nationality there are fewer and fewer of these subcultures in the United States.  It is why the U.S. is considered the melting pot.

As we evolve into cyberculture first generation immigrants can remain connected.  It is yet to be seen if there is less or more of the melting pot result that is presently being seen in the U.S.  Although Nayar did not actually comment on the assimilation process and how it has affected the U.S. without cyberspace it stands to reason that as the cyber culture becomes more advances the subcultural dynamics will change.  No longer are people restricted by travel and time.  We can be in two places at once and participate in two cultures at once.

Many business men still are required to travel across the ocean and across the country however, less often and with less expense.  Financial arrangements, international deals, the sharing of new technologies can be done in cyberspace without physical restrictions.  With the click of a button meetings can be held while physically the participants are thousands of miles apart.  This has changed radically the business culture.

The availability of global participation in all areas of our lives has changed our lives long term in ways we have not even discovered yet.  Presently according to Nayar the cyberspaces are primarily American with the language predominately English.  As countries become more technologically advanced in the opinion of this observer there will be other languages and cultures that will mix with and transform cyber culture.  Not only English, but Chinese and Russian are now only a click away how long before these languages are spoken as often in cyberspace as a part of a cyberculture.  Global cities are already linked by finance, data, and ideas.  It is only a matter of time until they are linked by language.

Global restructuring is part of public spaces.  Unfortunately it is not equal or democratic.  Many continents such as inner Africa have large areas that do not reap the benefits of technological advances, public spaces, or cyberspace.  Those that hold the Technological advantage can easily prey upon those without these advantages.  However, because of cyberspace the crimes against third world countries and their indigenous populations seldom remain a secret.  Children and women who are forced to work for low wages, horrible conditions, and long hours cannot remain a secret sin for long in the world of the world wide net.  Human rights activists and organizations do not need offices in every town, in every country to stop the abuses of the poor around the world.

Cyberspace has allowed us an entire range of tools with which to obtain information in places that we are physically not present.  Webcams, electronic tracking, digital traces are technologies of surveillance.  Private is no longer private but by the use of these tools the babysitter cannot abuse children, thieves cannot longer steal without being caught, and employees who steal from their employees are more often caught.

Religion has also been changed by the use of public spaces.  At any time of the night or day and regardless of the religion you may belong to you can access a service or spiritual guidance on the internet.  For the most part this is a comforting though however, cults reach out and recruit members for the good of their pockets and not the spiritual growth of their human disciples.  It is probably a good thing that Charles Manson or Jim Jones did not have the use of the Web.

Finally, the sharing of public spaces has changed the face of crime.  A criminal can rob a bank without a gun or violence and a lot more effectively.  “Identity theft” is the new mode of crime.  Criminals do not steal a material item but passwords, numbers, accounts, and identities that can be used to possess the material objects that they deem are important for them to possess. Ponzi Schemes are possible to pull off because of Cyberspaces.

Without the restrictions of physical barriers the world is rapidly changing and yet many things have not changed.  The strong still prey on the weak, children are still abused and exploited, and thieves still operate to take the property of others even though it may not be material property.  Religion and faith is still important to many people and in many cases culture specific.  On the other side of things it is easier to catch the perpetrator that preys on the innocent and catch those who take the intangible property of others.  It will be interesting to see if a world of public spaces that do not have a physical nature assists the evolution of humanity in a good way or a detrimental way.