Virtual Habitats and the Value of Nature #2: What is a Habitat Diorama Anyway?

Habitat dioramas are an educational model form that dates back to the early nineteenth century (Quinn 2006, 12), emerging from the prior practice of mounted taxidermy specimens presented without their habitat context (Ibid., 10).

“Habitat dioramas are natural history scenarios which typically contain mounted zoological specimens arranged in a foreground that replicates their native surroundings in the wild. Ideally, the three-dimensional foreground merges imperceptibly into a painted background landscape, creating an illusion — if only for a moment — of atmospheric space and distance.” (Wonders 1993).

The invisible interstice between the real and physical and the artificial is paramount to the creation of an immersive experience. The habitat diorama presents an 'illusionistic spectacle' (Wonders 1990) that is unique in educational models.

The feeling of immersion, of being present in the natural surrounds, is a quality that's rare, and is the strongest advantage of the habitat diorama as an educational model. Successful immersion engages the lizard brain; “[T]hat part of the brain ... where instincts and gut feelings originate; primal thoughts; subconscious or involuntary processes” (Urban Dictionary n.d.) in the learning process. It's not an educational model that exists solely to provide information, it's an educational model that provides an experience. As the purpose of habitat dioramas is generally to educate about nature for the purpose of encouraging audiences to value it for its grandeur, this is the critical element of a habitat diorama: “The diorama artist is successful if, even for an instant, the viewer loses his perceptual ability to distinguish between reality and the scene before him.” (Wonders 1990). But the habitat diorama is a creature that is disappearing from museums. It's a big commitment, as the dimensions are made to life scale, to fit lions, and tigers, and bears and the scale of the human viewer. These zoological specimens of (often endangered) species are difficult to acquire. And each of these dioramas shows only one view of the world. Once the diorama is made, it's an unchanging arrangement which occupies valuable real-estate in the museum. The perception of taxidermy as an antiquated art form is also contributing to the downfall of habitat dioramas (Turner 2013). So the diorama as an educational form is waning, at the same time that vast capabilities of digital technologies are waxing with the potential to create new experiences for audiences.

The solution then, seems to be to try and translate this virtual experience out of the physical realm; and into the digital. How can the immersive experience of an educational form incorporating physical and illusionary elements be translated into a digital environment, where depth spatial relationships can only be eluded to virtually? That's what this project will be trying to find out, through an exhaustive experimental process. It is a largely speculative project, which will be investigating the potential ways this virtual educational model may be manifested in a digital environment.

References

Quinn, S. C. 2006. Windows on Nature: The Great Habitat Dioramas of The American Museum of Natural History. New York: Abrams.

Turner, S. S. 2013. “Relocating 'Stuffed' Animals: Photographic Remediation of Natural History Taxidermy”. Humanimalia: a journal of human/animal interface studies 4(2). http://www.depauw.edu/humanimalia/issue%2008/pdfs/turner.pdf

Urban Dictionary. n.d. lizard brain.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lizard%20brain
(accessed April 21, 2013).

Wonders, K. 1990. “The Illusionary Art of Background Painting in Habitat Dioramas.”
Curator: The Museum Journal 33(2). 90-118. doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.1990.tb00981.x

Wonders, K. 1993. Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History. Stockholm: Acta Universitasis Upsaliensis.

Essay #10 Doctorow: Little Brother

This is my last essay for Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, and I have to say how much I've enjoyed Professor Rabkin's unit. I think the texts chosen really offered a good cross section of both genres (and nearly all at no cost to access), and the short essay format really forced me to write leaner, meaner analysis. The increase in availability of such free and high quality education is something I'm really excited by as someone who's made a lifelong commitment to study, and I appreciate the efforts of all involved in making this course.

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Little Brother and the Technologically Informed Electorate

Little Brother is a response to the threat of constant government surveillance augured

George Orwell's 1984. In 1984 surveillance technology was used as a tool by the government led by the dictatorial “Big Brother” to control the citizenry:

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” (Orwell 1949)

Little Brother makes a counter-argument to this; that technology can empower citizens with the ability defend their liberty from tyranny. This argument is closely woven with the theme of democracy.

Thomas Jefferson argued that a well informed electorate was the most important component of democracy (Blair 1997); and in Little Brother it's the citizens informed by technology who are ultimately able defend democracy. In Little Brother technology is not just a means of oppression, but a weapon and a shield in the hands of the well informed electorate:

“My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn't spying on me. This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.”

While the constant surveillance from a tyrannical government is still a major threat to private citizens, technology itself can empower citizens to organize the resistance, and subvert the surveillance. Winning freedom is a function of an electorate specifically informed in the technologies used against them; and Little Brother introduces specific tools for inform readers in such subversion. 1984 is a dire warning about a government controlling its citizens with technology, and Little Brother is a delineation for defending freedom, and democracy under similar circumstances.

References

Blair, P. 1997. The Evolving Role of Government in Science and Technology.

http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/EngineeringEvolving/TheEvolvingRoleofGovernmentinScienceandTechnology.aspx (accessed April 9, 2013).

Orwell, G. 1949. 1984. London: Penguin Books.

Studies in Complements #2

So it seems like the final assignment of Gender Through Comic Books will be to produce a comic on a theme related to gender. I'm working on an idea already, but it remains to be seen as to if this will pan out or not.

Gender Through Comic Books #1

It seems like I've accidentally wandered my way into another MOOC: Gender Through Comic Books, by Christina Blanch of Ball State University. In my defence, it's only six weeks long and how can anyone read that course description and pass it up?

Virtual Habitats and the Value of Nature #1: An Introduction to the Perils of a PhD

Starting this PhD is for me like getting a package in the mail, probably one filled with apple trees, and thus covered with quarantine labels, heavy duty tape, and straps; along with the presence of sundry icons across the package providing somewhat conflicting advice as to which end is up, and where I should open it. I have the certainty that something good is inside, I just fear ruining it by opening it the wrong way.

There are several things you might conclude from this prologue:

I am weak at sentence and paragraph structure, and just may be the most appalling PhD student ever have an enormous potential to improve.

I think the conventional way to do a PhD is to draft up the chapters, then start writing, and then after some tens of thousands of words; begin revising. That seems a little incongruous to my natural inclinations, so I'm going to apply the same formula to my PhD that was used for the unit I'm currently finishing through Coursera,  Fantasy and Science Fiction:The Human Mind, Our Modern World by Professor Eric Rabkin from the University of Michigan, which required one 270-320 word essay every week, though I've decided to bump the word count up by 50 words to a wordcount of 320-370, to allow me some extra room to provide evidence to my argument. Assuming this PhD takes 4 years (given that for this year at least I'll be part-time), and assuming that I write an average of 345 words a week, that's 71, 760 words. Which will allow me some left-over words with which to connect these piecemeal parts out, and all the extra words that seem to sneak in during the revision process.

Having a solid structure to this thing doubtlessly will allow me to unpack my argument with a little more direction. The working title is Virtual Habitats and the Value of Nature: Is there a value to digital habitat dioramas? And I'll be explaining a little more what it's about every week. 

Prisms of Phantasm #2

Occasionally I engage in fits of denial; like the idea that I could make a mural of fantastic creatures without the inclusion of Pegasus. Clearly my ability to resist drawing mythical equines was also just a fantasy.

Essay #9: Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness as an Examination of Culturally Established Ideas of Gender Binaries

The Left Hand of Darkness examines culturally constructed ideas of gender-linked character traits, by showing the gender neutral Gethenian society through the perception of individuals from a familiar gender binary culture. This tactic calls attention to the lens of culturally constructed ideas of (perceived) gender-linked behaviours in our culture. Gendered human characters from either side of this constructed gender binary struggle when attempting to interpret behavioural traits outside of a gendered society.

Male viewpoint character Genly Ai's persistent attributions of characteristics as either masculine and feminine demonstrates this cultural fixation of attributing characteristics in gender-linked binary. Genly perceived his 'landlady' as feminine based on the presence of qualities attributed as feminine within his (and our) own culture, but the premise that these characteristics are gender-linked is questioned when it is revealed that the 'landlady' has, if anything, experiences (fatherhood, rather than motherhood) that are more biologically masculine. This examination shows flaws in ascribing behaviours to gender; rather than the characteristics of an individual, or the behaviour they have been raised by their culture to exhibit.

Female investigator Ong Tot Oppong similarly finds that the Gethenians challenge what she knows are the accepted expectations of socio-sexual relations within her own culture.

“A man wants his virility regarded, a woman wants her femininity appreciated... On Winter they will not exist. One is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.”

The veiled sarcasm of her report hints at a deprecatory attitude towards the way people within her own society are valued and perceived based on gender, and her viewpoint provides a more direct criticism of entrenched ideas about gender than the fallacy less explicitly revealed by Genly's narrative. The Left Hand of Darkness challenges the validity of ideas entrenched in our culture's gender binary by presenting gender as a flawed lens for perceiving the value and characteristics of individuals.