Fear and/or Fun

Link to my post for graduate seminar Questioning New Media at UCB: http://cnm201.blogspot.com/2011/10/fear-andor-fun.html

Ritual Objects and Mediated Selves

Burning Man

Hope is such a fleeting emotional category; have I found a way forward, or am I deluding myself?  I already feel as though this post might be more confessional than normal, so for the 2 people reading it, I apologize (and you're welcome) for that.  I was accepted as a PhD student at Graduate Theological Union about a year ago, an exciting prospect because it allows me cross registration privileges at UC Berkeley. And while I didn't start until this August, I've been in a sort of existential crisis since that moment. For those who don't know, my background was in religious studies, and theology and culture, and yet here I stand (sit) trying to find a way to study what I'm actually interested in: new media and game theory. My major: interdisciplinary studies allows me flexibility to transverse multiple fields, and yet I haven't found a way to connect it to religion. Until now.  I think. Maybe.
I've been thinking about the concept of ritual, the ways in which we perform the meanings that inscribe/describe our lives. Sort of a phenomenology over ontology if I may. I've been caught so long in the colonial category/fallacy of theology first, praxis second, that I missed that meaning always comes with (if not after) the object, practice, or space. So until next week, when hope is in short supply, and the hoops of a doctoral program overwhelm the telos, I've decided to try to build bridges between new media and ritual studies. A couple of initial thoughts are: 1. In what ways do we ritualize our media, connecting it to our identity, a la Jason Travis's Persona series? 2. How do social media sites like Facebook and Youtube provide us with ways to mark/make rites of passage? Is timeline a significant way to collect and display defining moments in our lives, or is it an intricate performance of self in a world that devalues corporeal interaction? 3. How do alternative communities (e.g. gaming communities or Second Life) create rituals and ritual-like environments that can both intersect and transcend "real life?" I haven't figured out much, but it seems that starting with the ritual, the performance, or the phenomenon is a more helpful way to begin.  I find the image of the burning man to be particularly insightful as I have burned down my religious expertise, and yet must perform/construct it anew and re-inscribe it with meaning. To be honest, I've had enough of deconstruction for a while, it's time to do a bit of building/assembling. Adios.