This reading was very interesting and informative. I truly learned a lot from the reading. For starters, I learned the concepts behind the sixth sense people often experience in certain situations or surroundings. On page 7, Jenny Edbauer states “what we normally take as ‘sites’ are not only comprised in a situs or fixed location. Reynolds explains that these ‘sites’ are made up of affective encounters, experiences, and moods that cohere around material spaces. This is why sites are not just seen, but (perhaps even more so) they are felt.” I can definitely understand what Edbauer is explaining here. I, myself, can think of numerous times when I’ve had a feeling of fear or discomfort due to my surroundings. All of a sudden just because of a feeling you get, your senses will heighten, and you’ll begin to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. I notice this tends to happen a lot when it’s late at night, and I’m somewhere alone.
I also learned how the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” came about. I always thought this slogan had something to do with the stereotype that people in
When Edbauer talked about Situs, it reminded me a lot of Massumi's discussion of being/becoming. We tend to conceive of physical locations primarily as "being". We think of them in their fixed state, how they are now. Yet, as Edbauer (and Massumi) remind us, this completely discounts how they came to be, what makes them what they are today, and the inevitable reality that they will indeed continue to morph and change.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe your sense of "fear or discomfort" is attached to a "place" that is more constituted by your perceptions than by the external spatial layout--such that you can find yourself in this "place" even in different "places".
I think its interesting to ask whether the situation you find yourself in is rhetorical. Is there an exigence and an audience capable of resolving this exigence, at least partly, through discourse? For me, this is another case where its going to come down to your conception of exigence. Is feeling fear/discomfort an imperfection? I'd say so. Is it urgent? It would be for me. Can you resolve it through discourse? I don't know. Sometimes, I find that I can "talk myself down" from moods like these, so, for me, this would be rhetorical. Of course, since it's "all in your head", Bitzer wouldn't lend it that title.
Your comments about how S.A. and ATX are different got me thinking about the idea that the two cities sort-of co-constitute eachother through contrast (I guess you could say this with any two things that are near and radically different). Neither exists in a vacuum. By virtue of Austin being here, San Antonio seems more restrained, corporate, conservative, etc. And Austin, surrounded by cities such as San Antonio stands out as a hub for liberals, hippies, weirdness, etc. Neither would seem so defined without being compared to the other. Hence, cities, like rhetorical situations, don't exist in a vacuum but are in constant exchange with one another.
I learned a lot from Edbauer too. The Keep Austin Weird campaign is such a perfect example of the evolution that takes place when rhetoric is being distributed or moving through an ecology. I didn't know exactly where the campaign came from, yet I had a sense of its meaning and so I guess I just attributed my own meaning to it. We pick up the virus and make it our own.
ReplyDeleteEdbauer was more a reinforcer to my current thoughts on rhetoric more than anything else. Rhetoric is in fact a response, but responses can be made to anything, not just problems or communication; our environment itself elicits physical responses from our minds and bodies as well. Rhetoric is in a way the interaction of all things in existence - to put it bluntly, we're effectively majoring in chaos theory and learning how to influence it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm surprised you haven't seen the "Keep San Antonio Lame" bumper stickers before. As a fellow San Antonian, I completely understand your awe with Austin's wildly different culture.
I also originally thought the "Keep Austin Weird" was referring to the independent, hipster-like nature of many Austinites. I don't remember when I learned otherwise, but I think the original meaning I assigned to the slogan stuck; I still think of the eccentricities of Austin when I see the message.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't ever thought about how it's evolved. Before my blog took off in a totally different direction, I had intended to write about the many interesting permutations of the slogan I found online. For example, the website of one chiropractor in Austin can be found at www.KeepAustinAdjusted.com. And just this evening, one of my housemates who is a student at the School of Information told me about the debate she and her group mates had over what to call their upcoming archive event. She wanted to draw from Alice and Wonderland and call the event "Curioiuser and Curiouser: __(something about archives)" but the girl who chairs the board insisted it should be called "Keep Archives Weird".